Aims of the project

The main aim of the UBIEXP research project is to adopt a philosophical perspective in relation to the practice of basic income pilots and their role in the current UBI policy debate. Philosophical questions have been usually relegated to the background, mostly due to perhaps a too strict distinction between principled and pragmatic perspectives on the merits and problems of the universal basic income.
A key objective is to first outline philosophical considerations as they emerge from reviewing discussion of UBI experiments in advocacy networks, policy forums and scholarly literature.

A second objective is to relate the philosophical issues identified to ongoing philosophical debates in academic philosophy, notably in the fields of social and political philosophy, social epistemology, and philosophy of science. The main purpose here is to properly embed the philosophical discussion of UBI experimentation within the relevant philosophical literature.

​A final objective then is to bring these insights back into the UBI policy debate and reflexively offer critical guidelines concerning the appropriate role of pilots and experiments in relation to advancing the UBI policy agenda.

In what follows we outline more specifically several core considerations that guide our initial exploration of issues of philosophical concern in the UBI experimental debate.

1. A first consideration relates to the sort of questions UBI experiments are supposed to answer.

Experimental design lends itself to answering a variety of social research questions. Some of these focus on the differential impact of UBI on the objective and subjective wellbeing of members of treatment and control groups; already the distinction between objective and subjective wellbeing raises important philosophical questions. A second series of research questions focus on behavioural issues, that is, the extent to which introducing a UBI alters recipients' behaviour compared to the control group. Here again philosophical issues emerge in terms of how to characterise intentional action and individuals' responsiveness to externally-induced policy changes. A third set of research questions pertains to how experimental interventions may affect individuals' value systems: building on recent insights in experimental ethics we want to analyse the extent to which changes in moral dispositions ? e.g., perceptions of or attitudes towards fairness or deservingness are affected by introducing a UBI. An important aspect here is the normative framing of UBI and its potential to trigger the so-called Knobe effect amongst recipients. A key objective here is to examine systematically which sorts of questions a UBI experiment could reliably answer and which should be avoided or ideally tested with a different methodology.

2. A second philosophical consideration pertains to research ethics.

Social experiments pose a host of research ethics questions, some related to practical aspects of running an experiment: should participation be voluntary or compulsory? is it legitimate to withhold a treatment we regard as clearly beneficial from part of the population for research purposes? is it ethical to offer a temporary intervention which participants may be accustomed to only to withdraw the intervention when the experiment ends? Other questions focus on the acceptability or desirability of using large-scale social experiments compared to alternative methodologies, notably natural experiments and laboratory experiments.

While each methodology has its particular advantages and drawbacks, the UBI debate so far has failed to offer a comprehensive analysis of the comparative benefits of each method.

3. Philosophical considerations also arise when thinking about the social epistemology of UBI experiments, in particular under conditions of epistemic uncertainty and disagreement when it comes to major policy interventions.

What is the purpose of UBI experiments in answering questions about UBI policy? What is the disagreement about ? facts or norms? and why think about experiments in resolving such disagreement? The growing literature in social epistemology and social philosophy about democratic experimentalism may serve as a useful background to exploring this issue.

4. What is the epistemological status of the results of UBI experiments ? i.e., to what extent do they count as evidence, and if so as evidence of what exactly?

This question relates to ongoing debates in the philosophy of social sciences, including the role of mechanisms in exploring social causality. One feature of UBI experiments is that unfortunately it often offers statistical correlations but fails to provide insight in the underlying causal mechanisms. Is evidence of statistical correlation without even a sense of what might be driving the finding even worth considering in the policy debate? These questions touch on a growing philosophical debate about the role of evidence in so-called evidence-based policy making (spearheaded by Nancy Cartwright and others). Those interested in advocating for UBI experiments need to have a better understanding of the philosophical challenges inherent to the broader system of collective decision-making and public policy.

5. A final set of considerations pertain to relating UBI experiments back into political theory accounts specifically.

One important aspect of this discussion is to analyze systematically the sorts of claims political theories make when they advocate for (or object to) UBI: are these purely conceptual claims or perhaps empirical claims in conceptual disguise? When embracing empirical claims, do theories distinguish adequately between claims that are conditional, subject to robust empirical verification,  as opposed to claims that are pitched at a level of generality (e.g., human nature).
Relatedly, how do theories respond to claims that appear to be refuted by experiments? The extent to which empirical data can be directly linked to values and principles, perhaps even directly fed into competing political theories, is also worth exploring in considerable detail. Some theories depend on a chain of intermediate arguments,  often itself unexamined,  to link empirical data to a normative statement, while others allow for a more direct association.

6. There are at least two ways the latter aspect of the project can inform the philosophical debate about UBI, and this brings us to an even more general level of philosophical analysis.

On the one hand, some theories may require empirical data to confirm their conditional propositions while others operate at the pure conceptual or principled level. We need to examine systematically the validity of adopting one perspective over another, as well as the limits each approach entails. There may be important asymmetries at work as well: for instance, a more principled theory is able to lodge a valid objection against UBI,  e.g., rooted in an account of human nature and reciprocity,  but be unsuitable to offer a robust defense; by contrast, more pragmatic theories may be able to offer an intuitively appealing account in favour of UBI yet be vulnerable to certain key principled objections. On the other hand, we could adopt a very different perspective on the relation between empirical evidence and theories of justification: perhaps the easy way by which empirical data can be integrated into a specific political theory of UBI may be regarded as a feature that allows for assessing the validity of justificatory accounts themselves.
Many philosophers, and certainly most involved in the policy process, would have a hard time accepting the validity of a theory that has no room for empirical evidence or simply does not know how to robustly integrate such findings into its conceptual or normative framework.

While these questions are here outlined separately just for expository purposes, in reality we propose to adopt an integrated approach to each of  these issues. The proposed project is explicitly geared at exploring the synergies and connections that arise from looking at universal basic income experimentation from a variety of perspectives. While we aim to involve experts in the distinct fields of political philosophy, philosophy of science, social epistemology, research ethics and
so on, we are proceeding on the basis that our project requires philosophical investigation to cross these disciplinary boundaries.

The proposed workshops and meetings of this project are explicitly designed to facilitate such collaborative and boundary-crossing research. In addition, while the project focuses on drawing out the philosophical aspects of UBI experimentation, a productive exchange with policy scholars and social scientists, including issue experts and representatives of several of the ongoing experiments, will ensure our analysis remains grounded in the current policy realities. This also opens up a channel to subsequently feed our results back into the policy process.