The newly formed Philosophy, Politics, and Economics (PPE) Society is hosting its first annual conference from March 16^th to March 19^th_, 2017 in New Orleans. The conference contains a variety of panels, and we’re hosting one on policy epistemology. Policy epistemology concerns all the questions surrounding the ethics of belief and advocacy regarding public policy, especially with respect to those who formulate and implement policy. How much evidence does one require in order to justify an expansion of public health insurance? How high of an evidential bar must empirical evidence satisfy before it can justify legal restrictions, such as regulations on carbon emissions? How should we handle rational disputes about social scientific questions as they bear on public policy? For instance, how seriously should we take the fact that macroeconomic policy is the subject of enormous disputes between expert economists in formulating countercyclical policy? Does disagreement prevent government officials from implementing, say, Keynesian countercyclical economic policy?

If you would like to present at the PPE society on topics falling under the general heading of policy epistemology, I encourage you to submit an abstract of fewer than 250 words to me at kevinvallier@gmail.com before the end of the year, December 31st, 2016.