This paper revisits John Stuart Mill’s famous proposal for plural voting, according to which universal suffrage is conjoined with the possibility for some to claim and utilise multiple votes if they meet a particular set of qualifications. We observe the proposal in the light of Mill’s own historical context, but we also evaluate it with respect to the changing social and political conditions that ensued. Surely, the proposal faces criticisms in both contexts taken separately, but some of the previously prominent (...) objections retain their force, while others recede in contemporary circumstances. Accordingly, for instance, the paper recognises the force of the objection that the educated experts who are to hold multiple votes are difficult to identify with the ideal of quality decision-making and the common good in mind, but rejects dated assumptions such as that of the overwhelming strength of class bias or the predominantly class-based motivations for social grouping. Most importantly, although the paper ultimately rejects Mill’s plural voting proposal, it supports his attempt to incorporate experts into quality democratic decision-making, and investigates the practical forms of their inclusion. First, we outline the plural voting proposal in the context in which it initially arose. Second, we introduce the first objections to plural voting according to which such a mechanism undermines the educative role that Mill sets for democracy. Third, we discuss the problem of who the handlers of multiple votes – the “educated” – are supposed to be, their class background, the expertise required, and the strength of underlying class biases. Fourth, we look at the different stages of the political decision-making process, in search of possible remedies for the problems brought about by plural voting. Fifth, we assess some of the assumptions underlying Mill’s proposal in light of contemporary society. In summary, we argue for the rejection of the plural voting scheme, but we discuss alternative ways of including experts in the decision-making process. (shrink)

In “Racial Integration and the Problem of Relational Devaluation,” I argue that blacks should reject racial integration on self-protective and solidarity grounds. Integration will intensify the self-worth harms of stigmatization and phenotypic devaluation by leading blacks to more fully internalize their devaluation, and while the integrating process itself might reduce the former, it may well leave in place the latter. In this paper, I reply to the challenges to these arguments presented by Sharon Stanley, Andrew Valls, Elvira Basevich, Michael Merry, (...) and Ronald Sundstrom. (shrink)

Respect appears to generate a puzzling self-other asymmetry: Respect for others can demand that we avoid knowledge of others or ignore that knowledge in deciding how we treat others. This demand for epistemic distancing lies behind the imperatives not to violate others’ privacy or to treat them paternalistically. Self-respect, in contrast, mandates that we pursue knowledge of ourselves and that we choose and act light of that self-knowledge. Individual agents thus do not have a duty to epistemically distance themselves from (...) themselves; a fortiori, they have self-regarding duties to reduce such distance. This article elaborates this asymmetry and offers a plausible solution to it, rooted in the distinctive importance that self-knowledge (and acting in the world on the basis of that self-knowledge) has for self-respecting rational agents: Self-respecting agents have reasons to have others defer to their ‘surfaces’ or self-presentations in order to inhibit making themselves vulnerable to others in ways that undermine their self-respect by subordinating their wills to the wills of others. A measure of control over what others know about us and over what they do with that knowledge thus undergirds self-respect by enabling self-knowledge to play the role that it should play in the lives of self-respecting agents. Epistemic distancing thus operates in concert with the ways in which self-respecting agents value and pursue epistemic intimacy with themselves. (shrink)

In this article, I draw attention to the value of community in John Mbiti’s philosophy using his famous axiom by reconciling the tension between the individual and community his philosophy envisages. To do this, I offer a reconstruction of Mbiti’s communitarian axiom: “I am because we are; and since we are, therefore I am.” Mbiti is considered one of the forerunners of the communitarian debate in African philosophy. His axiom, which describes his idea of Afro-communitarianism, accounts for the importance of (...) individual and community in thinking about social existence in African thought. However, Mbiti’s argument for the direct influence of the community in the formation of the individual is taken to mean the supremacy of the community over the individual. Mbiti’s concept of community has implications for the idea of personhood in that it raises the question of individual agency. This has affected the reception of Mbiti’s contribution to the idea of community in African political thought. While Mbiti’s contributions to Afro-communitarianism transcend the discourse of personhood, I argue that maximising the potential of his idea requires reconstruction and a critical analysis of his axiom. In doing that, I demonstrate that a possible relationship exists between the “I” and “we” in his axiom that represents a harmony between the community and individual and does not suggest a primacy of either but the significance of community. This analysis will enable fair engagement with Mbiti’s conception of community. (shrink)

This article argues that blacks should reject integration on self-protective and solidarity grounds. It distinguishes two aspects of black devaluation: a ‘stigmatization’ aspect that has to do with the fact that blacks are subject to various forms of discrimination, and an aesthetic aspect (‘phenotypic devaluation’) that concerns the aesthetic devaluation of characteristically black phenotypic traits. It identifies four self-worth harms that integration may inflict, and suggests that these may outweigh the benefits of integration. Further, it argues that, while the integrating (...) process may reduce stigmatization, there is less reason to think that it can do the same for phenotypic devaluation. (shrink)

Many theories of social justice maintain that concern for the social bases of self-respect grounds demanding requirements of political and economic equality, as self-respect is supposed to be dependent on continuous just recognition by others. This paper argues that such views miss an important feature of self-respect, which accounts for much of its value: self-respect is a capacity for self-orientation that is robust under adversity. This does not mean that there are no social bases of self-respect that such theories ought (...) to incorporate. It means that they are different: they consist of the motivational and epistemic resources needed to develop and maintain such robustness. (shrink)

ABSTRACTIn ‘Freedom of the Will and the Concept of a Person,’ Harry Frankfurt argues that a successful analysis of the concept ‘human’ must reveal something that distinguishes humans from non-human...

Most agree that envy, or at least the malicious kind, should not have any role in the moral justification of distributive arrangements. This paper defends a contrary position. It argues that at...

This article discusses the self-respect argument for basic liberties, which is that self-respect is an important good, best supported by basic liberties, and that this yields a reason for the traditional liberty principle. I concentrate on versions of it that contend that self-respect is best supported by basic liberties for reasons related to the recognition that such liberties convey. I first discuss the two standard approaches loosely associated with John Rawls and Axel Honneth. Here self-respect pertains to traits and conduct (...) (Rawls) or to one’s personhood (Honneth). It is argued that these approaches fail to show why self-respect is better supported by the liberty principle than certain alternatives worth taking seriously – unless (in the case of personhood self-respect) self-respect is construed in such a narrow way that it is not a condition for autonomy or welfare in any plausible sense. I then identify a self-attitude that I call “a sense of competence”, which at least shows that the liberty principle is more important to autonomy than what we might otherwise have reasons to believe. (shrink)

John Rawls’s thesis that a certain package of basic liberties should be given lexical priority is of great interest for legal and political philosophy, but it has received relatively little defense from Rawls or his supporters. In this paper, I examine three arguments for the thesis: the first is based on the two ‘moral powers’; the second, on the social bases of self-respect; and the third, on a Kantian notion of autonomy. I argue none of these accounts successfully establishes 1) (...) the distinct claim of lexical priority, 2) for the complete package of basic liberties, on the basis of reasons that are appropriately public. In turn, I propose an alternative argument, in support of those two claims, based on the social or ‘relational’ conception of equality. (shrink)