Many authors argue that refugees should be enfranchised independently of citizenship. The enfranchisement of refugees is often seen as crucial for affirming their agency in the politics of asylum. However, most arguments in the literature do not explain why precisely it matters that they exercise their agency in the realm of democratic decision-making, i.e. why it matters that refugees participate in collectively wielding the public power to which they are subjected, rather than passively enjoy protection against the excessive and intrusive (...) exercise of this power. This leaves it unclear what value refugee enfranchisement realises precisely, and what function or role it is meant to play within the overall provision of asylum. My goal is to propose a plausible explanation of the significance of democratic inclusion from the viewpoint of refugees' agency. I argue that refugee enfranchisement affirms refugees' agency by advancing their interest in acting as makers of justice within the political context in which they find themselves. (shrink)

Are we being manipulated online? If so, is being manipulated by online technologies and algorithmic systems notably different from human forms of manipulation? And what is under threat exactly when people are manipulated online? This volume provides philosophical and conceptual depth to debates in digital ethics about online manipulation. The contributions explore the ramifications of our increasingly consequential interactions with online technologies such as online recommender systems, social media, user-friendly design, micro-targeting, default-settings, gamification, and real-time profiling. The authors in this (...) volume address four broad and interconnected themes: • What is the conceptual nature of online manipulation? And how, methodologically, should the concept be defined? • Does online manipulation threaten autonomy, freedom, and meaning in life, and if so, how? • What are the epistemic, affective, and political harms and risks associated with online manipulation? • What are legal and regulatory perspectives on online manipulation? The Philosophy of Online Manipulation brings these various considerations together to offer philosophically robust answers to critical questions concerning our online interactions with one another and with autonomous systems. It will be of interest to researchers and advanced students working in moral philosophy, digital ethics, philosophy of technology, and the ethics of manipulation. (shrink)

Should artificial intelligences ever be included as co-authors of democratic decisions? According to the conventional view in democratic theory, the answer depends on the relationship between the political unit and the entity that is either affected or subjected to its decisions. The relational conditions for inclusion as stipulated by the all-affected and all-subjected principles determine the spatial extension of democratic inclusion. Thus, AI qualifies for democratic inclusion if and only if AI is either affected or subjected to decisions by the (...) political unit in relevant ways. This paper argues that the conventional view is too simple; that it neglects democratic reasons to recognize only agents and/or moral patients as participants in decision-making. The claim defended is that AAP and ASP implicitly affirm requirements for agency and patiency. In ASP, the entity included must be an agent understood either in terms of legal status, capacity to comply with the law or ability to recognize legitimate authority. In AAP, the entity included must be a patient, understood either in terms of capacity for sentience or consciousness. Thus, the idea here is to explore the potential democratic inclusion of artificial intelligences by an updated account of the relevant conditions of agency and patiency that are implicit in democratic theory. Although conceivable that AI is or will be either affected or subjected in relevant ways to decisions made by political units, it is far less clear that AI will ever be agents or patients in the sense required for democratic inclusion. (shrink)

This research uses a normative approach to examine the relationship between basic income and migration. The decisive variable is the effect of labour automation, which increases economic insecurities globally, leaving some nation states in a position to cope with this and others not. The insecurities will increase migratory pressures on one hand but also justify the introduction of basic income on a nation state level on the other. The normative guideline is the republican conception of freedom as non-domination. This is (...) used to justify a basic income, analyse how labour automation creates dominating structures and how borders dominate migrants seeking to move to countries which introduce a basic income. The result is that nation states that introduce a basic income to counter internal domination through labour automation, also have to look outside of their nation state. The imposition of borders in order to keep a basic income sustainable as well as labour automation itself, establish a form of domination over less developed countries and thus demand international regulation. (shrink)

Mere inability, which refers to what persons are naturally unable to do, is traditionally thought to be distinct from unfreedom, which is a social type of constraint. The advent of biomedical enhancement, however, challenges the idea that there is a clear division between mere inability and unfreedom. This is because bioenhancement makes it possible for some people’s mere inabilities to become matters of unfreedom. In this paper, I discuss several ways that this might occur: first, bioenhancement can exacerbate social pressures (...) to enhance one’s abilities; second, people may face discrimination for not enhancing; third, the new abilities made possible due to bioenhancement may be accompanied by new inabilities for the enhanced and unenhanced; and finally, shifting values around abilities and inabilities due to bioenhancement may reinforce a pre-existing ableism about human abilities. As such, we must give careful consideration to these potential unfreedom-generating outcomes when it comes to our moral evaluations of bioenhancement. (shrink)

The democratic boundary problem raises the question of who has democratic participation rights in a given polity and why. One possible solution to this problem is the all-affected principle, according to which a polity ought to enfranchise all persons whose interests are affected by the polity’s decisions in a morally significant way. While AAP offers a plausible principle of democratic enfranchisement, its supporters have so far not paid sufficient attention to economic participation rights. I argue that if one commits oneself (...) to AAP, one must also commit oneself to the view that political participation rights are not necessarily the only, and not necessarily the best, way to protect morally weighty interests. I also argue that economic participation rights raise important worries about democratic accountability, which is why their exercise must be constrained by a number of moral duties. (shrink)