Although ethical and justice arguments operate in two distinct levels—justice being a more specific concept—they can easily be conflated. A robust justification of ecological justice requires starting at the roots of justice, rather than merely giving, for example, an argument for why certain non-human beings have moral standing of some kind. Thus, I propose that a theory of ecological justice can benefit from a four-step justification for the inclusion of non-human beings into the community of justice, starting with Hume’s circumstances (...) of justice. I will further argue that the resulting theory of ecological justice should be biocentric—meaning that all living beings should be included into the community of justice, as they constitute a ‘community of fate’. (shrink)

In their strife for designing a moral system where everyone is given equal consideration, cosmopolitan theorists have merely tolerated partiality as a necessary evil (insofar it means that we give priority to our kin opposite the distant needy). As a result, the cosmopolitan ideal has long departed from our moral psychologies and our social realities. Here I put forward partial cosmopolitanism as an alternative to save that obstacle. Instead of demanding impartial universal action, it requires from us that we are (...) equally responsive in all the relationships we stand in. That goes from the local to the cosmopolitan sphere, since I defend that we are related with strangers as co-members of the global community. Thus, partiality not only is accommodated by cosmopolitanism, but actually supports it: only by having meaningful personal relationships we become able to care for distant strangers. (shrink)

This article takes a new idea, ‘normative behaviourism’, and applies it to global political theory, in order to address at least one of the problems we might have in mind when accusing that subject of being too ‘unrealistic’. The core of this idea is that political principles can be justified, not just by patterns in our thinking, and in particular our intuitions and considered judgements, but also by patterns in our behaviour, and in particular acts of insurrection and crime. The (...) problem addressed is ‘cultural relativism’, understood here not as a meta-ethical doctrine, but as the apparent ‘fact’ that people around the world have culturally varying intuitions and judgements of a kind that lead them to affirm different political principles. This is a problem because it seems to follow (1) that global agreement on any substantial set of political principles is impossible, and (2) that any political theory in denial of this ‘fact’ would be, for that reason, deeply unrealistic. The solution argued for here is that, if domestic political principles (i.e. principles intended to regulate a single state) could be justified by normative behaviourism, and in reference to culturally invariant behaviour, then an international system supportive of such principles is justifiable by extension. (shrink)

This article offers broad lessons for ways to rethink the tangled relation among religion, modernity, and the secular. After characterizing what I mean by theories of secularization and how these theories have dominated our accounts of British romanticism, I consider two poems – one by Coleridge, the other by Wordsworth – that disrupt the view that British Romanticism replaces God with nature and discipline with unencumbered freedom. I conclude by suggesting that when we disclose the language and ways of religion (...) and practice in British Romanticism, we make more apparent its political and environmental dimensions. (shrink)

This article compares the ‘enfranchisement lottery’, a novel method for allocating the right to vote, with universal suffrage. The comparison is conducted exclusively on the basis of the expected consequences of the two systems. Each scheme seems to have a relative advantage. On the one hand, the enfranchisement lottery would create a better informed electorate and thus improve the quality of electoral outcomes. On the other hand, universal suffrage is more likely to ensure that elections are seen to be fair, (...) which is important for political stability. This article concludes that, on balance, universal suffrage is prima facie superior to the enfranchisement lottery. Yet the analysis shows that the instrumental case for the ‘one person, one vote’ principle is less conclusive than democratic theorists usually suppose. (shrink)

In a 2013 article, David Gauthier noted upon the twenty-fifth anniversary of the publication of Morals by Agreement that his contractarian approach to morality had found a niche among ‘some of those who remain unpersuaded by either Kantianism or utilitarianism’. In this article I will focus on Pareto optimization and I will argue that the Gauthier contract, even in spite of the article’s revisions, is still less useful for consultation purposes than Gauthier is assuming. To highlight the conceptual distance that (...) I think separates the Gauthier contract from real-world circumstances—a separation that is greater than Gauthier supposes—I will focus on the problem of ‘civic defection’. The point is not for us to repudiate as such the deliverances of the Gauthier model, but simply to use caution in our deployment of the model, and, in order to access the full extent of the model’s offerings, to resist the temptation to deploy it in the service of purposes which it is not capable of accomplishing. (shrink)

This book offers an original account of a distinctly republican theory of social and global justice. The book starts by exploring the nature and value of Hegelian recognition theory. It shows the importance of that theory for grounding a normative account of free and autonomous agency. It is this normative account of free agency which provides the groundwork for a republican conception of social and global justice, based on the core-ideas of freedom as non-domination and autonomy as non-alienation. As the (...) author argues, republicans should endorse a sufficientarian account of social justice, which focuses on the nature of social relationships and their effects on people's ability to act freely and realize their fundamental interests. On the global level, the book argues for the cosmopolitan extension of the republican principles of non-domination and non-alienation within a multi-level democratic system. In so doing, the book addresses a major gap in the existing literature, presenting an original theory of justice, which combines Hegelian recognition theory and republican ideas of freedom, and applying this hybrid theory to the global domain. Fabian Schuppert creates a grand synthesis uniting neo-republican insights on freedom with Hegelian recognition theory. The result is an account of agency that arises from the idea of non-domination whose aim it is to safeguard individual freedom. When combined with Hegelian recognition theory a social focus also emerges. This amalgam comments on many of the major disputes concerning global justice from a cosmopolitan perspective. Because of the broad scope and the many contemporary discussions engaged this book will be of keen interest to scholars as well as a welcome addition to the classroom. (shrink)

Expectations play an important role in how people plan their lives and pursue their projects. People living in highly industrialized countries share a way of life that comes with high levels of emissions. Their expectations to be able to continue their projects imply their holding expectations to similarly high future levels of personal emissions. We argue that the frustration or undermining of these expectations would cause them significant harm. Further, the article investigates under what conditions people can be thought to (...) hold legitimate expectations, in particular about permissible levels of future emissions. We distinguish differing theories of understanding these conditions, namely authority-based and justice-based theories, that each allows us to systematically distinguish between legitimate and illegitimate expectations. Furthermore, with respect to individuals’ future permissible emissions we give several reasons for holding that such theories cannot identify a particular expectation to a specific level of personal emissions as the only legitimate one. Finally, we argue that the set of legitimate expectations that people hold with respect to a just and effective solution to climate change has normative significance in at least two ways: the differing but equally legitimate expectations ought to be taken into account when justifying what could count as such a solution and when determining the just way of arriving at and implementing such a solution. (shrink)

Unlike his theory of justice as fairness, John Rawls’s political liberalism has generally been spared from critiques regarding what is due to the disabled. This paper demonstrates that, due to the account of the basic ideas of society and persons provided by Rawls, political liberalism requires that the interests of numerous individuals with disabilities should be put aside when the most fundamental issues of justice are settled. The aim is to accommodate within public reason the due concern for the disabled (...) while upholding political liberalism. To achieve this aim, a revision of the basic ideas of persons and society is proposed. The idea of persons should be regarded as more fundamental than that of social cooperation, and persons should be defined in terms of minimal moral powers. (shrink)

Over the years, consequentialism has been subjected to numerous serious objections. Its adherents, however, have been remarkably successful in fending them off. As I argue in this paper, the reason why the case against consequentialism has not been more successful lies, at least partly, in the methodological approach that critics have commonly used. Their arguments have usually proceeded in two steps. First, a definition of consequentialism is given. Then, objections are put forward based on that definition. This procedure runs into (...) one of two problems. Substantive criticisms of consequentialism can only be formulated, if the posited definition is sufficiently concrete and narrow. In that case, however, consequentialists can defend themselves using a strategy that I call “interpretive divergence”. They can simply point out that the critic's definition does not accord with their understanding of consequentialism to which criticisms do not apply. If, on the other hand, an all-encompassing definition is used, it is so abstract that it is doubtful whether any substantive criticisms can be formulated. To escape this dilemma, I sketch a methodological approach which drops the assumption that consequentialism should be defined. It assumes, rather, that the term “consequentialism” should be interpreted as a Wittgensteinian family resemblance term. (shrink)

In this article, I argue that G. A. Cohen’s defense of the feminist slogan, “The personal is political”, his argument against Rawls’s restriction of principles of justice to the basic structure of society, depends for its intelligibility on the ability to distinguish—with reasonable but perhaps not perfect precision—between those situations in which what Nancy Rosenblum has called “the logic of congruence” is validly invoked and those in which it is not. More importantly, I suggest that the philosophical shape of Cohen’s (...) critique makes it difficult for him to supply the required criterion, and that the methodological “intuitionism” he claims to be committed to is at odds with his larger argument against Rawls concerning the subject of justice. (shrink)

In many countries worldwide, especially in Sub-Saharan Africa, a shortage of physicians limits the provision of lifesaving interventions. One existing strategy to increase the number of physicians in areas of critical shortage is conditioning medical school scholarships on a precommitment to work in medically underserved areas later. Current practice is usually to demand only one year of service for each year of funded studies. We show the effectiveness of scholarships conditional on such precommitment for increasing physician supplies in underserved areas. (...) Then we defend these scholarships against ethical worries that they constitute slavery contracts; rely on involuntary, biased, or unauthorized early consent by a young signatory; put excessive strains on signed commitments; give rise to domination; and raise suspicion of slavery contracts. Importantly, we find that scholarships involving far longer commitment than current practice allows would also withstand these worries. Policymakers should consider introducing conditional scholarships, including long-term versions, as a means to increasing the supply of physicians to medically underserved areas. (shrink)

Educational neutrality states that decisions about school curricula and instruction should be made independently of particular comprehensive doctrines. Many political philosophers of education reject this view in favor of some non-neutral alternative. Contrary to what one might expect, some prominent liberal neutralists have also rejected this view in parts of their work. This paper has two purposes. The first part of the paper concerns the relationship between liberal neutrality and educational neutrality. I examine arguments by Rawls and Nagel and argue (...) that some of the same arguments they use to justify liberal neutrality also justify educational neutrality; thus, if we accept these arguments for liberal neutrality, we should also accept educational neutrality. The second part of the paper defends educational neutrality against objections that it is impossible and objections that it is undesirable. (shrink)

How should we deal with social diversity if we conceive it as cultural diversity? Appeals to cultural relativism and to the collective good of diversity provide inadequate answers. Taking cultural diversity seriously requires that we respond to it fairly or justly and that, in turn, requires an approach that is impartial (or neutral) amongst cultures. Claims of impartiality are often thought peculiarly implausible when applied to cultural diversity, but an impartialist approach is in fact peculiarly appropriate to that form of (...) diversity. The issue is not whether we can be impartial, but whether we are ready to accept the implications of describing a diversity as ?cultural? and, if we are, what form our impartiality should take. Attempts to avoid claims of impartiality by dealing with diversity through deliberative processes are misguided since those processes must embody commitments to impartiality if their outcomes are to be just. (shrink)

Harsanyi defends utilitarianism by means of an axiomatic proof and by what he calls the 'equiprobability model'. Both justifications of utilitarianism aim to show that utilitarian ethics can be derived from Bayesian rationality and some weak moral constraints on the reasoning of rational agents. I argue that, from the perspective of Bayesian agents, one of these constraints, the impersonality constraint, is not weak at all if its meaning is made precise, and that generally, it even contradicts individual rational agency. Without (...) the impersonality constraint, Harsanyi's two justifications of utilitarianism on the grounds of Bayesian rationality fail. As an alternative, I develop a contractarian framework that is compatible with individual rational agency and Harsanyi's central assumptions, and that allows the derivation of moral conclusions on the grounds of Bayesian rationality. The developed framework offers a novel justification of contractarian ethics and may best be described as a combined version of Harsanyi's equiprobability model and Rawls's original position. (shrink)

Stakeholder theorists distinguish between normative stakeholders, those who gain moral standing by making contributions to the firm, and derivative stakeholders, those who can constrain the corporate association even though they make no contribution. The board of directors has the legal authority to distinguish among these stakeholder groups and to distribute rights and obligations among these stakeholder groups. To be sure, this stakeholder formulation appropriately seizes on the firm’s voluntary, associative character. Yet, the firm’s constituents contribute assets and incur risks to (...) participate in market, economic activities. And, as such, the firm’s “stakeholders” must share an imperfect language to assist in making two key economic decisions: (1) who are the legitimate and who are the derivative stakeholders; and (2) who should sit on the board? Still, stakeholder theorists have good reason to be skeptical of neoclassical economics. Its assumptions that all act opportunistically and that all can calculate rationally and fully hardly correspond to studies on the managerial experience of corporate coordination. However, advances in behavioral law and economics now provide a cogent economic logic that readily fits into a stakeholder mode. In brief, we argue that (1) the firm’s economic purpose designates legitimacy to core stakeholders, to those who add value, assume unique risk, and can incur harm; (2) the board serves as the principal who coordinates these core stakeholders to sustain competitive advantage and new wealth creation; and (3) state incorporation law, Delaware in particular, reinforces the board’s function. These, in turn, supply selection criteria for board membership. We aim to synchronize concepts from behavioral law and economics with stakeholder theory. (shrink)

Utilitarianism is the strand of moral philosophy that holds that judgment of whether an act is morally right or wrong, hence whether it ought to be done or not, is primarily based upon the foreseen consequences of the act in question. It has a bad reputation in military ethics because it would supposedly make military expedience override all other concerns. Given that the utilitarian credo of the greatest happiness for the greatest number is in fact agent-neutral, meaning that the consequences (...) to everyone should weigh equally, this critique of utilitarianism is not entirely fair. By focusing on some anomalies in both the principle of double effect and in our tendency to give priority to the interests of those who are near and dear to us, this article argues that there is something to be said for a military ethic that attaches less weight to intentions, and more to the consequences. (shrink)

Jiirgen Habermas is a radical democrat. The source of that self-designation is that his conception of democracy-what he calls "discursive democracy"-is founded on the ideal of "a self-organizing community of free and equal citizens," co- ordinating their collective affairs through their common reason. The author discusses three large challenges to this radical-democratic ideal of collective self-regulation: 1) What is the role of private autonomy in a radical-democratic view? 2) What role does reason play in collective self-regulation? 3) What relevance might (...) a radical- democratic outlook have for contemporary democracies? The author addresses these questions by considering Habermas' answers, and then presenting alternative responses to them. The alternatives are also radical-democratic in inspiration, but they draw on a richer set of normative-political ideas than Habermas wants to rely on, and are more ambitious in their hopes for democratic practice. (shrink)

Biomedical research is so important that there is a positive moral obligation to pursue it and to participate in itScience is under attack. In Europe, America, and Australasia in particular, scientists are objects of suspicion and are on the defensive.i“Frankenstein science”5–8 is a phrase never far from the lips of those who take exception to some aspect of science or indeed some supposed abuse by scientists. We should not, however, forget the powerful obligation there is to undertake, support, and participate (...) in scientific research, particularly biomedical research, and the powerful moral imperative that underpins these obligations. Now it is more imperative than ever to articulate and explain these obligations and to do so is the subject and the object of this paper.Let me present the question in its starkest form: is there a moral obligation to undertake, support and even to participate in serious scientific research? If there is, does that obligation require not only that beneficial research be undertaken but also that “we”, as individuals and “we” as societies be willing to support and even participate in research where necessary?Thus far the overwhelming answer given to this question has been “no”, and research has almost universally been treated with suspicion and even hostility by the vast majority of all those concerned with the ethics and regulation of research. The so called “precautionary approach”9 sums up this attitude, requiring dangers to be considered more likely and more serious than benefits, and assuming that no sane person would or should participate in research unless they had a pressing personal reason for so doing, or unless they were motivated by a totally impersonal altruism. International agreements and protocols—for example, the Declaration of Helsinki10 and the CIOMS Guidelines11—have been directed principally at …. (shrink)

The two leading traditions of theorizing about democratic legitimacy are liberalism and deliberative democracy. Liberals typically claim that legitimacy consists in the consent of the governed, while deliberative democrats typically claim that legitimacy consists in the soundness of political procedures. Despite this difference, both traditions see the need for legitimacy as arising from the coercive enforcement of law and regard legitimacy as necessary for law to have normative authority. While I endorse the broad aims of these two traditions, I believe (...) they both misunderstand the nature of legitimacy. In this essay I argue that the legitimacy of a law is neither necessary nor sufficient for its normative authority, and I argue further that the need for legitimacy in law arises regardless of whether the law is coercively enforced. I thus articulate a new understanding of the legitimacy and authority of law. (shrink)

This article provides a critical introduction to contractualism as a moral or ethical theory, that is, as a theory of the rightness and wrongness of individual conduct – focusing specifically on the influential 'Kantian' version of contractualism due to T. M. Scanlon. I begin by elucidating the key features of Scanlon's contractualism: justifiability to others; reasonable rejectability; the individualist restriction; and mutual recognition. I then turn to discuss both its appeal and the main objections that have been raised to it (...) – objections concerning our duties to the cognitively limited and impaired, aggregation, demandingness, normativity and explanatory adequacy. I conclude by mentioning some contractualist alternatives to Scanlon's theory. (shrink)

The veil of ignorance has been used often as a tool for recommending what justice requires with respect to the distribution of wealth. We complete Harsanyi's model of the veil of ignorance by appending information permitting objective comparisons among persons. In order to do so, we introduce the concept of objective empathy. We show that the veil-of-ignorance conception of John Harsanyi, so completed, and Ronald Dworkin's, when modelled formally, recommend wealth allocations in conflict with the prominently espoused view that priority (...) should be given to the less able in wealth allocation. We finally argue that the veil of ignorance should be rejected as a tool for discovering what justice requires. (shrink)

For well over a decade, much of liberal political theory has accepted the founding premise of Rawls's political liberalism, according to which the fact of reasonable pluralism renders comprehensive versions of liberalism incoherent. However, the founding premise presumes that all comprehensive doctrines are moral doctrines. In this essay, the author builds upon recent work by Allen Buchanan and develops a comprehensive version of liberalism based in a partially comprehensive social epistemic doctrine. The author then argues that this version of liberalism (...) is sufficiently accommodating of the fact of reasonable pluralism. The conclusion is that the founding premise of political liberalism admits of a counterexample; there is a version of comprehensive liberalism that is sufficiently pluralistic. (shrink)

I argue that contemporary liberal theory cannot give a general justification for the institution or practice of punishment, i.e., a justification that would hold across a broad range of reasonably realistic conditions. I examine the general justifications offered by three prominent contemporary liberal theorists and show how their justifications fail in light of the possibility of an alternative to punishment. I argue that, because of their common commitments regarding the nature of justification, these theorists have decisive reasons to reject punishment (...) in favor of a non-punitive alternative. I demonstrate the possibility of this alternative by means of a careful examination of the nature of punishment, isolating one essential characteristic—the aim to impose suffering—and showing how this characteristic need not guide enforcement. There is logical space for a forceful and coercive, yet non-punitive method of enforcement. This fact poses difficulties for many classical and contemporary justifications of punishment, but it poses particularly crippling problems for general liberal justifications. (shrink)

For over two decades, international environmental equity - the fair and just sharing of the burdens associated with environmental changes - has been the subject of much debate by philosophers, activists and diplomats concerned about climate change. It has been manifested in many international environmental agreements, notably the Framework Convention on Climate Change and the Kyoto Protocol. The question arises as to whether it is being put into practice in this context. Are the requirements of international environmental equity merely words (...) and principles in international instruments, or are they having a practical effect on the policies of state governments? This article aims to start answering these questions. It examines whether the European Union (EU) and its member states are sharing the burdens of climate change. The article introduces equity in the context of the climate change agreements and looks at some normative and practical considerations. It suggests that Europe has been a leader on international equity in the climate change negotiations over the last decade, and it points to what European states and the EU have done to take on some of the burdens of climate change. Europe's actions are briefly assessed from practical and normative perspectives. Europe is doing more than any other part of the world to address climate change and to share the burdens associated with it. Nevertheless, Europe is not doing as much to address this problem as it can and should do. Both practical and normative imperatives demand more urgent action by Europe to implement climate equity. (shrink)

In this paper I analyze the tension between realism and antirealism at the basis of Kantian constructivism. This tension generates a conflictive account of the source of the validity of social norms. On the one hand, the claim to moral objectivity characteristic of Kantian moral theories makes the validity of norms depend on realist assumptions concerning the existence of shared fundamental interests among all rational human beings. I illustrate this claim through a comparison of the approaches of Rawls, Habermas and (...) Scanlon. On the other hand, however, objections to moral realism motivate many Kantian constructivists to endorse the antirealist claim that reasonable agreement is the source of the validity of social norms. After analyzing the difficulties in the latter strategy, I try to show how a balance between the realist and antirealist elements of Kantian constructivism can be reached by drawing a sharper distinction between the justice and the legitimacy of social norms. (shrink)

Many liberals have argued that a cosmopolitan perspective on global justice follows from the basic liberal principles of justice. Yet, increasingly, it is also said that intrinsic to liberalism is a doctrine of nationalism. This raises a potential problem for the liberal defense of cosmopolitan justice as it is commonly believed that nationalism and cosmopolitanism are conflicting ideals. If this is correct, there appears to be a serious tension within liberal philosophy itself, between its cosmopolitan aspiration on the one hand, (...) and its nationalist agenda on the other. I argue, however, that this alleged conflict between liberal nationalism and cosmopolitan liberalism disappears once we get clear on the scope and goals of cosmopolitan justice and the parameters of liberal nationalism. Liberal nationalism and cosmopolitan global justice, properly understood, are mutually compatible ideals. (shrink)

Approaches to global ethics have drawn on a number of diverse theoretical traditions, such as Kantianism and utilitarianism. While emerging frameworks contribute to a growing awareness of and interest in ethics within a global society, the values that they prioritize are not adequate for realizing a just, equitable and fair system of global governance. This article considers the possibilities of an alternative ethic - a feminist ethic of care - and explores how it can bear on present circumstances, including global (...) inequity and injustice. This care ethic has been put forward as a viable normative approach to politics and policy. Little attention, however, has been paid to the potential of a care ethic within the globalization and ethics debate. This article illustrates how the values and corresponding principles of care, grounded in relationships and responsibilities, are essential to responding adequately to the current challenges of globalization. By examining the relevance of care in this context, the article seeks to broaden dominant ethical worldviews and contribute to the articulation of normative tools for examining globalization while at the same time avoiding the trappings of conventional universality - the abstract and a priori thinking typically associated with conceptions of global ethics. (shrink)

Liberal nationalists have been trying to argue that a suitably sanitized version of nationalism - namely, one that respects and embodies liberal values - is not only morally defensible, but also of great moral value, especially on grounds liberals should find very appealing. Although there are plausible aspects to the idea and some compelling arguments are offered in defense of this position, one area still proves to be a point of considerable vulnerability for this project and that is the issue (...) of what, according to the liberal nationalists, we owe both members of our nation, our co-nationals, and what we owe those who are not members of our nation. It is here that we see the project still has some distance to go if a version of liberal nationalism is, indeed, to be morally defensible. In this paper I examine leading liberal nationalist accounts of our obligations to co-nationals and non-nationals. I argue that liberal nationalists have not yet given us an adequate account of our obligations to non-nationals for a number of reasons. For instance, on the issue of the priority we may give co-nationals' interests over non-nationals', the theorists' view show significant tension, they seem to be confused about what their positions entail, the views are unhelpful, ad hoc, or the positions are quite unclear. Liberal nationalists also have a misleading impression that their positions better capture the relation between personal identity and duty, but this turns out to be false. Other defects with their specific projects are highlighted. I go on to offer a more promising method for determining our obligations to non-nationals. Rather than this alternative precluding any scope for nationalism, it actually makes clearer to us how there might be some defensible space for nationalism once our obligations to put in place appropriate institutions and sets of rules have been fulfilled. (shrink)

Aumann’s theorem states that no individual should agree to disagree under a range of assumptions. Political liberalism appears to presuppose these assumptions with the idealized conditions of public reason. We argue Aumann’s theorem demonstrates they nevertheless cannot be simultaneously held with what is arguably political liberalism’s most central tenet. That is, the tenet of reasonable pluralism, which implies we can rationally agree to disagree over conceptions of the good. We finish by elaborating a way of relaxing one of the theorem’s (...) axioms that arguably lends itself to a coherent account of political liberalism, namely the condition of indexical independence. (shrink)

How do we determine whether individuals accept the actual consistency of a political argument instead of just its rhetorical good looks? This article answers this question by proposing an interpretation of political argument within the constraints of political liberalism. It utilises modern developments in the philosophy of logic and language to reclaim ‘meaningless nonsense’ from use as a partisan war cry and to build up political argument as something more than a power struggle between competing conceptions of the good. Standard (...) solutions for ‘clarifying’ meaning through descriptive definition encounter difficulties with the biases of status quo idioms (long noted by theorists like William Connolly and Quentin Skinner), as well as partisan translations and circularity. Collectively called linguistic gerrymandering, these difficulties threaten political liberalism’s underlying coherency. The proposed interpretation of political argument overcomes this with a new brand of conceptual analysis that can falsifiably determine whether rhetoric has hijacked political argument. (shrink)

Just as different sciences deal with different facts—say, physics versus biology—so we may ask a similar question about normative theories. Is normative political theory concerned with the same normative facts as moral theory or different ones? By developing an analogy with the sciences, we argue that the normative facts of political theory belong to a higher— more coarse-grained—level than those of moral theory. The latter are multiply realizable by the former: competing facts at the moral level can underpin the same (...) facts at the political one. Consequently, some questions that moral theories answer are indeterminate at the political level. This proposal offers a novel interpretation of John Rawls’s idea that, in public reasoning, we should abstract away from comprehensive moral doctrines. We contrast our distinction between facts at different levels with the distinction between admissible and inadmissible evidence and discuss some implications for the practice of political theory. (shrink)

Quotas, including youth quotas for representative institutions, are usually evaluated from within the social justice discourse. That discourse relies on several questionable assumptions, seven of which I critically address and radically revise in this contribution from a libertarian perspective. Temporal justice then takes on an entirely different form. It becomes a theory in which responsibilities are clear and cannot be shifted onto the shoulders of the weak and innocent. I shall only briefly sketch some outlines and general implications of such (...) a theory, arguing that it offers too little guidance for our imperfect world. While that implies more tolerance for quotas, I nevertheless propose an alternative more suited to a representative, deliberative democracy: veto rights. (shrink)

Sustainable Development Goals, which serve as the primary feature of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, and Nationally Determined Contributions, which serve as a vital instrumental of the UNFCCC’s Paris Agreement, have clear synergies. Both are focused, in part, on responding to challenges presented to human well-being. There are good practical reasons to integrate development efforts with a comprehensive response to climate change. However, at least in their current form, these two policy instruments are ill-suited to this task. Where SDGs (...) are focused on supporting considerations of human flourishing to which policy needs to respond, NDCs, in their current form, are dependent on the determinations of the nations that generate them. I conclude that the best means of integrating these two policy initiatives require moving past the subjective foundations of NDCs. (shrink)

This paper examines whether or not children’s continued electoral exclusion is morally defensible. Ultimately; there is a deep tension between the egalitarian presuppositions of democracy and our apparent unwillingness to grant children voting rights. Unless a plausible distinction can be found; then; between adults and children that also tracks the underlying reasons for endorsing democracy in the first place; the continued political disenfranchisement of our youngest citizens is shown for what it is: social injustice. e paper begins by exploring some (...) of the conceptual difficulties that childhood creates in relation to democracy. It then assesses the implications of two very different approaches to democracy for children’s voting rights: proceduralism and a child’s supposed right to an open future. (shrink)

This paper intends to explain the problem of structural injustice. The Rawlsian theory of justice is problematic due to the reality of positional differences. The assumptions of Rawls are put into question. Oppression, according to Iris Marion Young, is social in character. Fair opportunity is not enough. To elaborate this critique, this study presents the exclusion of individuals with handicap, the problem of global justice, and the situation of women in patriarchal cultures. Some social rules and the behavior of people (...) discriminate the powerless. For instance, particular standards in society promote the high sense of respectability for professionals but not the respect for the equal dignity of persons. Procedures, laws, and policies manifest the prejudice against others. Beyond Rawls, the pursuit of justice and democratic inclusion, it is argued, requires overcoming unjust structures. (shrink)

In Beyond Neutrality, George Sher criticises the idea that state neutrality between competing conceptions of the good helps protect society from oppression. While he is correct that some governments are non-neutral without being oppressive, I argue that those governments may be neutral at the core of their foundations. The possibility of non-neutrality leading to oppression is further explored; some conceptions of the good would favour oppression while others would not. While it is possible that a non-neutral state may avoid oppression, (...) it is argued that the risks are so great that it is better to bet on government being neutral, thereby minimizing the possibility of oppression. (shrink)

Those who wish to abolish or restrict the use of non-human animals in so-called factory farming and/or experimentation often argue that these animal use practices are incommensurate with animals’ moral status. If sound, these arguments would establish that, as a matter of ethics or justice, we should voluntarily abstain from the immoral animal use practices in question. But these arguments can’t and shouldn’t be taken to establish a related conclusion: that the moral status of animals justifies political intervention to disallow (...) or significantly diminish factory farming and animal experimentation. In this paper, we set out to do two things: First, we argue that while the arguments mentioned above may establish the moral impermissibility or injustice of the practices they condemn, they are not sufficient to justify political interventions or social policies to abolish or restrict such practices. It is one thing to argue that some moral imperative or imperative of justice exists, and quite another thing to call for the use of political power to induce compliance with that imperative. Our second task is to assess the prospects for developing an argument that is sufficient to justify political interventions to restrict or abolish the use of non-human animals in factory farming or experimentation. Beyond establishing the immorality or injustice of animal consumption or experimentation, one must show that the interventions in question constitute legitimate use of political power. Would prohibiting or discouraging animal use be legitimate? We attempt to answer this question within the context of fundamental liberal constraints on the legitimate use of coercive political power. (shrink)

This paper is concerned with the moral concept of harm in the context of the Warsaw International Mechanism for Loss and Damage. This paper delineates between two concepts of wrongful harm: interactional versus architectural. It then examines these options with an eye toward developing a satisfactory normative approach for policy. While the interactional view of wrongful harm supports powerful arguments about moral responsibility, it has some clear limitations. This paper makes a case for the architectural view by underlining that it (...) is not only compatible with the features of the Paris Agreement but also supports a distinctive conception of justice. (shrink)

Recent health legislation in Norway significantly increases access to specialist care within a legally binding time frame. The paper describes the contents of the new legislation and introduces some of the challenges with proliferations of rights to health care. The paper describes some of the challenges associated with the proliferation of legal rights to health care. It explains the benefits of assessing the new law in the light of a rights framework. It then analyses the problematic aspects of establishing additional (...) priority rules as solutions to rights conflicts. It then defends adequacy criteria for acceptable priority rules when such rules are unavoidable. It finally defends our proposed method and explores concrete applications. (shrink)

This article assesses the quality of Integrative Social Contracts Theory (ISCT) as a social contract argument. For this purpose, it embarks on a comparative analysis of the use of the social contract model as a theory of political authority and as a theory of social justice. Building on this comparison, it then develops four criteria for any future contractarian theory of business ethics (CBE). To apply the social contract model properly to the domain of business ethics, it should be: (1) (...) self-disciplined, i.e., not aspire results beyond what the contract model can realistically establish; (2) argumentative, i.e., it should seek to provide principles that are demonstrative results of the contractarian method; (3) task-directed, i.e., it should be clear what the social contract thought-experiment is intended to model; and (4) domain-specific, i.e., the contractarian choice situation should be tailored to the defining problems of business ethics. (shrink)

This article provides an ethical evaluation of the CIA's use of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles to target so-called terror suspects and insurgents. It utilises Christian informed deontological and virtue-ethical criteria to assess this practise. These criteria include just intent, charity, proportionality, moral consistency, truthfulness, mercy, courage and prudence. The article concludes that the UAV target programme is morally problematic. The United States’ ‘kill not capture’ policy as exemplified in the use of ‘signature’ strikes defies the virtues at stake. By using UAV's (...) as tools for preventive warfare, utilising armed UAV's that are weapons of war outside areas of armed conflict and disregarding the principles of transparency, last resort and proportionality, the United States is employing UAV's in a morally illegitimate and imprudent way, and is setting precedents that might have dire consequences for global peace and the security of future generations. (shrink)

Kant limits cosmopolitan right to a universal right of hospitality, condemning European imperial practices towards indigenous peoples, while allowing a right to visit foreign countries for the purpose of offering to engage in commerce. I argue that attempts by contemporary theorists such as Jeremy Waldron to expand and update Kant’s juridical category of cosmopolitan right would blunt or erase Kant’s own anti-colonial doctrine. Waldron’s use of Kant’s category of cosmopolitan right to criticize contemporary identity politics relies on premises that upset (...) Kant’s balanced right to hospitality. An over-extensive right to visit can invoke “Kantian” principles that Kant himself could not have consistently held, without weakening his condemnation of European settlement. I construct an alternative spirit of cosmopolitan right more favorable to the contemporary claims of indigenous peoples. Kant’s analysis suggests there are circumstances when indigenous peoples may choose whether to engage in extensive cultural interaction, and reasonably refuse the risks of subjecting their claims to debate in democratic politics in a unitary public. Cosmopolitan right accorded respect to peoples; any “domestic” adaptation of cosmopolitan right should respect indigenous peoples as peoples, absent a serious public explanation by a democratic state for why it has now become appropriate to treat indigenous peoples merely as individual citizens. (shrink)