The uses to which educational effectiveness research (EER) is put by policymakers cannot be blamed on the field, but it is apparent that it has become aligned with the utilitarianism of Western government policy and transnational bodies like the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). This alignment was not consciously adopted -- it is more the case that in the absence of its own asserted philosophy, EER simply defaulted to that world view -- but as the field shifts to a "dynamic" model and meta-syntheses, the need to reconsider the current paradigm becomes urgent. This paper attempts to reclaim the field philosophically for the academics who work in it and for the policymakers who rely on its science. It is beyond the scope of the paper to present a full comprehensive philosophy, but it describes, as a first step towards one, a new manifesto based on John Rawls's work on justice as fairness.