Concepts as Public Goods

I argue that concepts are public goods: they are non-rival (my grasp and use of TABLE does not diminish yours) and (variably) non-excludable (I cannot prevent you from learning or using the concept FREEDOM). Hence, the characteristic problems and issues surrounding public goods apply to concepts. Four main consequences follow. First, concepts are liable to provision failures. Because a concept's benefits spill over to non-contributors, to those who don't bear the costs of creating and securing uptake of the concept, concepts tend toward under-provision (the free-rider problem). Concepts can also be made, to some extent, excludable, turned into 'club goods'. While this resolves the free-rider problem, it prevents public access to these goods. Second, the pattern of conceptual under-provision is predictable. The concepts least likely to be adequately provided are those whose principal beneficiaries lack social power. This provides a general explanation of two recent observations in the philosophical literature: the epistemic-injustice literature's 'hermeneutical lacunas' and the conceptual-disruption literature's 'conceptual gaps'. Both are instances of predictable conceptual underprovision. Third, once provided, like all public goods, conceptual goods distribute benefits and burdens unevenly, and sometimes unjustly. This raises issues of conceptual justice. Fourth, the concepts-as-public-goods frame reframes 'conceptual engineering' as the provision of public goods.