A central question in debates about climate justice concerns how the global emissions sink should be shared among the global population over time. This paper considers how global egalitarians should answer that question. In particular, it defends emissions egalitarianism from a view known as ‘integrationism’, according to which shares of the emissions sink should follow from a more general egalitarian theory of distributive justice. First, I show that emissions egalitarianism can draw on a source of functional support not adequately acknowledged (...) in the integrationist critique: it can express an underlying account of the structure of historical responsibility for climate change I call the Fair Share View. Second, I claim that integrationism is also in tension with other principles of responsibility for climate change, and that its scepticism about historical responsibility has not been appreciated. Finally, I provide an alternative to integrationism. My central claim is that integrationism posits too direct a relation between a theory of equality of wellbeing and practical questions about claims to the emissions sink. Egalitarians should appeal to a species of derivative principle I call ‘applied principles of global justice’, and emissions egalitarianism could plausibly be endorsed on these grounds. (shrink)

This paper proposes an original account, based on the capabilities approach, that explains which kinds of attachment to natural resources are sufficiently morally weighty to give rise to special resource rights. The paper provides a critique of current attachment theories, which fail to provide a clear way to differentiate between what is a preference and what is a legitimate attachment, and thereby justify overreaching resource rights. It then examines Armstrong’s welfarist account of natural resources justice, and argues that the capabilities (...) approach can be used to specify the relevant dimensions of well-being, as elements of human flourishing. A capabilities-based account is appealing because it is more limited in scope than existing attachment theories, and able to make finer distinctions regarding the scope and content of individuals’ rights claims. Attachment claims are legitimate when the valuable basic capabilities held by individuals depend on their relationship to specific natural resources. By using capabilities as a mediating concept, we can detect more precisely when attachment claims are normatively significant and can ground special resource rights. (shrink)

This article begins by distinguishing between two approaches to egalitarian trade justice – the explicative approach and the applicative approach – and notes that the former has been used to defend conclusions that are less strongly egalitarian than those defended by advocates of the latter. The article then engages with the primary explicative account of trade egalitarianism – that offered by Aaron James – and argues that its egalitarian conclusions are unduly minimalistic. The aim of the article is not to (...) criticize the explicative approach, but rather to show that the arguments and commitments of its best-known defender – James – either fail to rule out, or in fact positively support, more robustly egalitarian conclusions. (shrink)

Journal of Social Philosophy, EarlyView.

Proponents of practice-dependent egalitarianism argue that egalitarian duties and entitlements only apply among participants in morally relevant practices. In this paper, I argue that these views are implausible because they allow for objectionable treatment of non-participants. I show that it is impossible, on the basis of practice-internal considerations alone, to determine the extent to which the pursuit of practices can permissibly limit the opportunities of non-participants. There are opportunities beyond the current holdings of practices to which no one has a (...) privileged claim (such as unowned natural resources), and the distribution of which is a matter of justice. A just distribution of such unowned distributive goods, though, requires a practice-independent distributive baseline. I further show that such a baseline can only be egalitarian because all alternative baselines face serious objections. From this I conclude that any plausible theory of distributive justice must accept some form of equal practice-independent distributive entitlements. (shrink)