Document Type

Article

Publication Date

2018

DOI

https://doi.org/10.1086/698135

Abstract

This essay identifies the systems fallacy: the mistaken belief that systems-analytic decision-making techniques, such as cost-benefit or public policy analysis, are neutral and objective, when in fact they normatively shape political outcomes. The systems fallacy is the mistaken belief that there could be a nonnormative or scientific way to analyze and implement public policy that would not affect political values. That pretense is mistaken because the very act of conceptualizing and defining a metaphorical system, and the accompanying choice-of-scope decisions, constitute inherently normative decisions that are value laden and political in nature. The ambition of decision theorists to render policy implementation neutral and objective by means of scientific methods was laudable, but there is no way to extract the politics from the method. The minute we are inattentive to this insight and delegate policy making to cost-benefit experts and policy professionals, we move one step closer to the systems fallacy.

Disciplines

Criminal Law | Criminal Procedure | Law | Other Public Affairs, Public Policy and Public Administration | Public Affairs, Public Policy and Public Administration | Social and Behavioral Sciences

Creative Commons License

Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License

Comments

© 2018 by The University of Chicago.

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