This paper contributes to recent discussions on ideal anarchism vs. ideal statism. I argue, contra ideal anarchists, that coercive state institutions would be justified even in a society populated by morally perfect individuals. My defense of ideal statism is novel in that it highlights the moral benefits of state coercion. Rather than the practical effects on individual compliance or the distributive outcomes that follow therefrom, coercive state institutions are justified through the moral benefits they provide. The state is morally beneficial (...) because it a) lessens the demands on the will that fall on agents under ideal anarchism, and b) counters the structural domination that follows from differences in natural endowments. By shifting the focus of the debate from feasibility to desirability, the paper exposes the flaws of ideal anarchism and provides new insights into the moral value of the state. (shrink)

The economics of happiness is an influential research programme, the aim of which is to change welfare economics radically. In this paper I set out to show that its foundations are unreliable. I shall maintain two basic theses: (a) the economics of happiness shows inconsistencies with the first person standpoint, contrary claims on the part of the economists of happiness notwithstanding, and (b) happiness is a dubious concept if it is understood as the goal of welfare policies. These two theses (...) are closely related and lead to a third thesis: (c) happiness should be replaced by autonomy as the fundamental goal of welfare economics. To defend my claims I shall show that a hedonic approach to happiness leads to an awkward trilemma. Furthermore, I shall clarify the meaning of and , along with their conceptual relationships. (shrink)

Since 1789, France has had 21 constitutional regimes. This paper explains French constitutional instability through the optic of “constitutional culture” – the norms, attitudes, and beliefs, conscious and unconscious, held by a dominant portion of the French people about the nature, scope and function of constitutional constraints. French constitutional culture has historically been torn between a desire for a strong and effective state, and an obsessive veneration of democracy. This paper argues that France’s constitutional instability between 1789 and the constitution (...) of 1958 was a series of swings between plebiscitarianism and caesarism, caused by the influences of Rousseau and Descartes. Problems remain, especially the risks of an unconstrained “hyperpresidentialism” and undue power to the street’s ability to bully the rule of law into continued rents. But the Fifth Republic has been successful because it balanced the tensions through a semi-presidential system: the plebiscitarianism of parliamentary democracy, along with the caesarism of a strong presidency. (shrink)

Michael Moehler’s Minimal Morality: A Multilevel Social Contract Theory makes important contributions to the social contract tradition, particularly in exploring how social contract theories can address challenges that arise from deep moral pluralism. Fundamentally, the work provides a multilevel account of morality, though simplified for presentation as a two-level view of morality. These two levels of morality differ significantly in their form and in their contexts of applicability. One level is that of ‘traditional morality’, involving a rich set of practices, (...) motivations and shared values common to many mainstream moral theories. For instance, John Rawls provides a version of traditional morality in the form of principles of justice grounded in a shared conception of society as a system of cooperation between free and equal citizens motivated by a sense of justice. The second level is that of ‘minimal morality’, for which the book is named. Minimal morality is grounded in purely prudential and instrumental reasoning, and thus does not rely upon any special moral commitments or motivations. This latter level of morality, Moehler argues, is particularly important for societies possessing extremely deep moral pluralism rather than the moral consensus necessary for traditional moral. (shrink)

Abstract:In providing an ethical guide for managers, the Clarkson Principles offer one part of a possible professional code, namely, that managers have a fiduciary duty—a duty of loyalty of the corporation’s stakeholders. However, the Clarkson Principles contain little advise for managers when they act politically to fashion the regulatory framework in which stakeholders negotiate. When managers participate in these arenas, I argue that they ought to assume a second fiduciary duty—a duty of loyalty to fair bargaining. Where the first duty (...) of loyalty pertains to the firm’s “constituents,” the second refers to the firm’s “constitution”—to the rules by which the firm’s stakeholders bargain and to the background conditions that distribute advantages. Together, these two fiduciary duties establish the large good—development as freedom—from which a managerial profession can mature. (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)

Most of the knowledge of an ordinary person has a very messy structure and cannot meet standard epistemological criteria for its justification. Rather, a street-level epistemology makes sense of ordinary knowledge. Street-level epistemology is a subjective account of knowledge, not a public account. It is not about what counts as knowledge in, say, physics, but deals rather, with your knowledge, my knowledge, the ordinary person's knowledge. I wish not to elaborate this view here, but to apply it to the problems (...) of representative democracy. I will briefly lay out the central implications of a street-level epistemology and then bring it to bear on democratic citizenship, especially on the problem of the citizen's holding elected officials accountable for their actions. (shrink)

The paper focuses on the “spillover thesis” which constitutes a pillar of much of contemporary participatory democratic theory; specifically, we assess the claim that workplace democratization leads to a higher degree of political participation amongst labourers. The paper analyses the thesis as formulated by Carole Pateman, including its later revisions triggered by ambiguous results of empirical studies aiming to (dis)prove it. The spillover thesis is then confronted with important methodological and theoretical critiques, the upshot being that in order to be (...) able to arrive at determinate conclusions, more carefully designed empirical studies are needed. Normatively speaking, however, blame can always be laid on the wider environment of market economy and/or representative democracy, to the effect that the spillover thesis is both difficult to disprove and radically subversive. Given the recent dominance of deliberative democratic theory which incorporates a strong participatory element, we finally discuss whether a recent innovation – namely, the concept of deliberative systems – could be fruitfully employed as a flexible umbrella-type framework for the spillover thesis and the participatory ideals related to it. (shrink)