The policy science of discursive democracy sketched in the preceding chapter is a material force for emancipation that also helps to reconcile aspirations to political democracy and collective problemsolving rationality. This chapter attempts to demonstrate that such a policy science, in conjunction with the discursive institutions introduced earlier, enables a degree of confidence in social problem solving that is unwarranted under more established conceptions of public policy and policy analysis. Specifically, we shall argue that communicative rationality in discourse about public policy releases policy analysis and design from some otherwise well-merited inhibitions. This release in turn allows more ambitious attempts to resolve or ameliorate social problems. To the extent this argument holds, there is less excuse for complacency in this world of severe social problems. Our case proceeds through an encounter with some prominent critics of overambitious public policy.

Certainly, there has been no shortage of cautions against excessive ambition in consciously pursued public policy. And contemporary perceptions of widespread (if not wholesale) failure in public policy add force to these warnings. Our contention is that the critics here have missed the target. Based on a correction of their aim, we will suggest there is little reason to eschew ambition in policy design, provided only that one attends closely to the degree of communicative rationality in policy formation. This is not to say that ambition should be pursued for its own sake or that it is always appropriate, merely that fear of ambition should not act as a constraint.

Warnings against Excessive Ambition

A first warning against excess would have policy designers bridle their ambitions due to the inadequacy of weak social science theory. If effective policy design requires a theoretical base, then the more ambitious the design, the greater the demands on social science theory. The trouble is that social science knowledge is dispersed, incomplete, and frequently contradictory. Policy based on such theories is clearly a risky business.

In this idiom, the more prominent critics of overambitious policy include Popper (1966, 1972a) and von Hayek (1944). Von Hayek (1978) argues that “scientistic” movement from theoretical abstraction to practical application inevitably loses sight of the weakness of the theory on which any design is based.

Both Popper and von Hayek warn against Utopian planners informed by comprehensive, highly abstract theories.