ABSTRACT
We approach the intersection of ethics and public policy from the perspective of methodology broadly construed. We assume that policy-makers necessarily rely on knowledge claims, that such claims are sustained by political-economic inquiry, and that such inquiry unavoidably involves models, mechanisms, and metrics. We show how, in the hands of Thomas Schelling, Elinor Ostrom, and Amartya Sen, such inquiry encourages democratic rather than technocratic conceptions of policy-making and sustains a pragmatist ethics of possibility that places a premium on the active engagement of democratic citizens in policy-making processes.
