Implementation within conceptual engineering: Lessons from normative ethics

Successful conceptual engineering involves improving the concepts used by a population. This involves both proposing and implementing conceptual improvements. The process of implementation is widely recognised as a particular challenge in conceptual engineering. What strategies can the conceptual engineer employ to overcome the challenge of implementation? This article identifies an unrecognised resource in the search for possible implementation strategies for the conceptual engineer. The article reflects on how approaches to moral development discussed in normative ethics could be productively co-opted by conceptual engineers. The result of this reflection is a broadened understanding of the kinds of strategy that conceptual engineers might productively explore. The article considers strategies organised around four themes: habituation, cultivation of environment, practice and community. These are inspired respectively by ideas about moral development from four ethical traditions: Aristotelian virtue ethics, Confucian ethics, care ethics and Afro-communitarian ethics.