Rawlsian liberals face the challenge of providing reasons to oppose stigma that do not appeal to a rejection of controversial stigmatic attitudes, but rather to political values that are undermined by stigma. One prominent strategy (the Self-Respect Strategy) appeals to the threat stigma poses to self-respect. Another strategy (the Hierarchy Strategy) appeals to the dependence of stigmas on social hierarchies, which are taken to be intrinsically problematic. I argue that the Self-Respect Strategy needs further resources in order to answer important (...) questions about which stigmas are most morally and politically urgent. The Hierarchy Strategy confronts the obstacle, for the purposes of political justification, of sustaining a highly contentious interpretation of the value of equality. In my view, Rawlsian liberals should jettison this underlying normative concern with hierarchy when making the case for opposing stigmas, and instead use considerations of hierarchy to identify some of the most pronounced threats that stigma poses to self-respect. In this way, considerations of hierarchy can help supply the explanatory resources that the Self-Respect Strategy needs. (shrink)

Relational egalitarians sometimes argue that a degree of distributive equality is necessary for social equality to obtain among members of society. In this paper, we consider how such arguments fare when extended to the intergenerational case. In particular, we examine whether relational reasons for distributive equality apply between non-overlapping generations. We claim that they do not. We begin by arguing that the most common reasons relational egalitarians offer in favour of distributive equality between contemporaries do not give us reasons to (...) object to distributive inequality between non-overlapping generations. This argument by itself however will not fully suffice to show that there are no relational reasons to care about intergenerational distributive equality, given the nature of relational equality and its requirements in the intergenerational case are likely to be qualitatively different than in the contemporary case. Therefore, we also make the positive argument that for the intergenerational case to satisfy the requirements demanded by the ideal of relational equality it suffices that future persons’ interests are meaningfully incorporated and protected in the decision-making of preceding generations, and there is no basis for a concern with distributive equality. While some have argued that the one-way and asymmetrical causal influence between non-overlapping generations means concerns of social equality are inapplicable in the intergenerational case, we argue that the ongoing nature of this influence makes concerns of social equality appropriate. If successful, the upshot of the argument is that it can be coherent to maintain a commitment to relational equality between non-overlapping generations, all while remaining agnostic about distributive equality between them. (shrink)

I explore the idea that the state should love its citizens. It should not be indifferent towards them. Nor should it merely respect them. It should love them. I begin by looking at the bases of this idea. First, it can be grounded by a concern with state subordination. The state has enormous power over its citizens. This threatens them with subordination. Love ameliorates this threat. Second, it can be grounded by the state’s lack of moral status. We all have (...) reason to love everyone. But we beings with moral status have an excuse for not loving everyone: we have our own lives to lead. The state has no such excuse. So, the state should love everyone. I then explore the nature of the loving state. I argue that the loving state is a liberal state. It won’t interfere in its citizens’ personal spheres. It is a democratic state. It will adopt its citizens’ ends as its own. It is a welfare state. It will be devoted to its citizens’ well-being. And it is an egalitarian state. It will treat all its citizens equally. This constitutes a powerful third argument, an abductive argument, for the ideal of the loving state. (shrink)

Political liberals typically hold that reasonable citizens should not form political associations (e.g. political parties) with unreasonable citizens. This is because unreasonable citizens are unlikely to conform to the duty of civility—the duty to be able, and willing, to use public reasons in their public political deliberations. Here I argue that a general prohibition on political associations with the unreasonable can undermine the fair value of their political liberties. This is because unreasonable citizens can grow up in epistemic environments that (...) make it difficult to be reasonable, and so to direct citizens to not associate with them can deprive citizens from certain social backgrounds the equal opportunity for political influence. I propose instead that political liberals should distinguish between unreasonable citizens who are disposed to support de re publicly justifiable laws and policies and unreasonable citizens who support illegitimate laws and policies. Reasonable citizens may form political associations with the former group, but not the latter group. (shrink)

Social egalitarianism holds that justice requires that people relate to one another as equals. To explain the content of this requirement, social egalitarians often appeal to the moral equality of persons. This leads to two very different interpretations of social egalitarianism. The first involves the specification of a conception of the moral equality of persons that is distinctive of the social egalitarian view. Social (or relational) egalitarianism can then claim that for people to relate as equals is for the relations (...) between them to conform to this conception of their moral equality. I will argue against this type of view. Instead, I will argue that social egalitarianism should propose a distinctive conception of social equality as a purely sociological phenomenon. I will show how this conception allows us to formulate the types of normative claims social egalitarianism should make. On this picture, social egalitarianism, instead of identifying social hierarchy as a distinctive kind of wrong, makes standard normative claims about a distinctive kind of social phenomenon. (shrink)

Anti‐discrimination laws draw a distinction between two kinds of discrimination by non‐state actors. Intimate choices are protected even if they are morally wrong. For example, even if it is morally wrong to discriminate on the basis of race in deciding whom to date, marry or befriend, anti‐discrimination laws permit these acts. By contrast, commercial decisions are commonly regulated. I argue that the reasons for regulating commercial decisions also extend to an intermediate case, commercial facilitators of marriage choices. In the context (...) of the caste system, I argue that commercial facilitators should be banned from allowing customers to filter by caste. The argument is based on two considerations. First, this could mitigate the harmful effects of such discriminatory marriages choices in the (re)production of the oppressive caste system. Second, even if the ban fails in changing behaviour, it serves as an expressive goal of communicating the state's opposition to the caste system. (shrink)

In this paper, I argue that on an equality-based theory of democracy's value, randomly selecting legislators is more democratic than electing them. In sections 1 and 2, I describe how a legislature composed of randomly selected legislators might operate and what an equality-based theory of democracy's value consists in. In section 3, I evaluate arguments made in support of election-based democracy by democratic theorists and demonstrate why these arguments fail on their own terms. In section 4, I argue that when (...) compared to electing legislators, randomly selecting legislators better answers to four democratic ideals embedded in equality-based theories of democracy's value. (shrink)

One prominent criticism of luck egalitarianism is that it requires either shameful revelations or otherwise problematic declarations by the state toward those who have had bad brute luck. Relational egalitarianism, by contrast, is portrayed as an alternative that requires no such revelations or declarations. I argue that this is false. Relational equality requires the state to draft anti-discrimination laws for both state and private action. The ideal of relational egalitarianism requires these laws to be asymmetric, that is to allow affirmative (...) action for disadvantaged groups while prohibiting affirmative action for advantaged groups. Hence, the state needs to make a public declaration on which groups are privileged and which are underprivileged; and individuals need to reveal whether they belong to groups officially declared underprivileged. These declarations are no more problematic in this case than in the case of luck egalitarianism. (shrink)

I develop an egalitarian account of what's objectionable about coercion. The account is rooted in the idea that certain relationships, like those of master to slave or lord to peasant, are relationships of subordination or domination. These relationships are morally objectionable. Such relationships are in part constituted by asymmetries of power. A master subordinates a slave because the master has more power over the slave than vice versa. Coercion is objectionable, I argue, because it creates such asymmetries of power and (...) so creates relationships of subordination. This account, moreover, illuminates what's wrong with blackmail, exploitation, withholding aid, and compulsion. (shrink)

In recent years, a distinction between two concepts of equality has been much discussed: 'distributive’ equality involves people having equal amounts of a good such as welfare or resources, and ‘social’ or ‘relational’ equality involves the absence of social hierarchy and the presence of equal social relations. This contrast is commonly thought to have important implications for our understanding of the relationship between equality and justice. But the nature and significance of the distinction is far from clear. I examine several (...) accounts of this issue and argue none are entirely satisfactory. In turn, I offer an alternative proposal. Relational equality, on my account, involves a concern with each person having an equal 'civic status'. I characterize this concern and show it has distinctive and normatively significant positional and temporal aspects. (shrink)

Affirmative action continues to divide. My aim in this paper is to present participants in the debate with a new distinction, namely one between negative and positive affirmative action. Whereas positive affirmative action has to do with certain goods, such as a place at a prestigious university or a job at a prestigious company, negative affirmative action has to do with certain bads, such as a firing or a sentence. I then argue that some of the most prominent arguments in (...) favor of affirmative action speak at least as much in favor of negative as positive affirmative action. At the same time, at least one of the most prominent arguments put forward against affirmative action speak less against negative affirmative action. Thus, the paper should redraw the battle lines in the affirmative action debate. (shrink)

According to relational egalitarianism, justice requires equal relations. In this paper, I ask the question: can equal relations be unjust according to relational egalitarianism? I argue that while on some conceptions of relational egalitarianism, equal relations cannot be unjust, there are conceptions in which equal relations can be unjust. Surprisingly, whether equal relations can be unjust cuts across the distinction between responsibility-sensitive and non-responsibility-sensitive conceptions of relational egalitarianism. I then show what follows if one accepts a conception in which equal (...) relations can be unjust, including why it provides a reason to grant some people less political power than others. (shrink)

What justifies political power? Most philosophers argue that consent or democracy are important, in other words, it matters how power is exercised. But this book argues that outcomes primarily matter to justifying power.

As part of recent epistemic challenges to democracy, some have endorsed the implementation of epistemic constraints on voting, institutional mechanisms that bar incompetent voters from participating in public decision-making procedures. This proposal is often considered incompatible with a commitment to political equality. In this paper, I aim to dispute the strength of this latter claim by offering a theoretical justification for epistemic constraints on voting that does not rest on antiegalitarian commitments. Call this the civic accountability justification for epistemic constraints (...) on voting. On this view, voters stand to one another in a normative relation of reciprocal accountability that requires them to uphold an epistemically responsible conduct. Modest epistemic constraints on voting are justifiable because they secure that participation in voting is conforming to this normative requirement. Thanks to its distinctive features, the civic accountability justification can overcome two problems that egalitarians commonly associate with the idea of epistemic constraints on voting: the disrespect problem and the hierarchy problem. (shrink)

Construed as a theory of justice, relational egalitarianism says that justice requires that people relate as equals. Construed as a theory of what makes democracy valuable, it says that democracy is a necessary, or constituent, part of the value of relating as equals. Typically, relational egalitarians want their theory to provide both an account of what justice requires and an account of what makes democracy valuable. We argue that relational egalitarians with this dual ambition face the justice-democracy dilemma: Understanding social (...) relations in such a way that renders relational egalitarianism plausible as an answer to what makes democracy valuable comes at the price of understanding social relations in a way that makes it less plausible as a theory of justice, and vice versa. We also argue that there is no easy way out of the dilemma and that relational egalitarians, who want relational equality to provide both accounts mentioned, may simply have to set their ambitions lower on behalf of relational equality. (shrink)

Does the democratic provenance of the law ground a pro tanto duty to obey the law? According to the social-egalitarian argument, it does, because individuals have a pro tanto duty to uphold relations of social equality, and because, by obeying a democratically made law, they uphold relations of social equality. In this paper, I argue, however, that even if we grant the premisses of the argument, the conclusion still does not follow.

This review critically assesses Niko Kolodny’s theory of social hierarchy and its importance as articulated in _The Pecking Order_ ( 2023 ). After summarizing Kolodny’s argument, I raise two critical challenges. First, I ask whether Kolodny leaves us without adequate account of why social hierarchies are, in themselves, objectionable. Second, I query whether Kolodny’s defense of representative democracy is decisive, and suggest that egalitarians should be open to alternative ways of mitigating the threat of hierarchy posed by political rule.

In 1970, Stewart advocated disenfranchising everyone reaching retirement age or age 70, whichever was earlier. The question of whether senior citizens should be disenfranchised has recently come to the fore due to votes on issues such as Brexit and climate change. Indeed, there is a growing literature which argues that we should increase the voting power of non-senior citizens relative to senior citizens, for reasons having to do with intergenerational justice. Thus, it seems that there are reasons of justice to (...) disenfranchise senior citizens, or at least to grant them a lower voting weight than non-senior citizens. In this paper, we investigate whether there are democratic reasons to do so. To answer this question, we turn to the boundary problem in democratic theory, i.e., the question of who should be included in democratic decision-making. Two prominent solutions, and a more recent one, are particularly relevant: the all-affected principle, the all-subjected principle, and the relational egalitarian principle. When it comes to the all-affected principle and the all-subjected principle, we argue that there is reason to grant most senior citizens a lower voting weight than most non-senior citizens in most decisions. Whether that is the case on the relational egalitarian principle depends on how people relate to each other in society. Indeed, it is sometimes in accordance with the relational egalitarian view to grant senior citizens a greater voting weight than non-senior citizens. (shrink)

Chater & Loewenstein argue that i-frame research has been coopted by private interests opposed to system-level reform, leading to ineffective interventions. They recommend that behavioural scientists refocus on system-level interventions. We suggest that the influence of private interests on research is problematic for wider normative and epistemic reasons. A system-level intervention to shield research from private influence is needed.

According to the relational egalitarian theory of justice, justice requires that people relate as equals. To relate as equals, many relational egalitarians argue, people must (i) regard each other as equals, and (ii) treat each other as equals. In this paper, we argue that, under conditions of background injustice, such relational egalitarians should endorse affirmative action in the ways in which (dis)esteem is attributed to people as part of the regard-requirement for relating as equals.

According to a dominant view of stigma, a person is stigmatized within a community if sufficiently many people within that community hold a bad view of her. I call this the 'Bad View Model'. In this paper, I argue against the Bad View Model on the grounds that such beliefs are neither necessary nor sufficient for stigma, and that the account cannot explain the distinctive phenomenology of stigma, including certain vulnerabilities to shame. I then develop an alternative that explains these (...) features of stigma, which I call the 'Shaming Model'. On this view, a person is stigmatized within a community if she is shamed by members of that community, and this is explained by their belief that she has deviated from some social norm and/or standard. (shrink)

Democracy is the form of government in which citizens have an equal say in political decision-making. But what does this mean precisely? Having an equal say is often defined either in terms of equal power to influence political decision-making or in terms of appropriate consideration, i.e., as a matter of attributing appropriate deliberative weight to citizens’ judgement in political decision-making. In this paper I argue that both accounts are incomplete. I offer an alternative view according to which having an equal (...) say is having a say as an equal. That is, having an equal say is to be defined in terms of citizens’ occupying a role of political decision-makers, i.e., the political office of the democratic co-ruler of the polity, such that no citizen is a secondary or auxiliary decision-maker; they rule together as equals. This view aligns with the traditional understanding of democracy as rule by the people while providing a coherent conceptual framework for specifying what it means for democratic citizens to have an equal say which incorporates the strengths of alternative accounts and overcomes some of their challenges. (shrink)

This article explains how social norms can help to distinguish and understand a range of different kinds of social inequality and social hierarchy. My aim is to show how the literature on social norms can provide crucial resources to relational egalitarianism, which has made social equality and inequality into a central topic of contemporary normative political theorizing. The hope is that a more discriminating and detailed picture of different kinds of social inequality will help relational egalitarians move beyond a discussion (...) of the justice or injustice of social equality as a single general category. (shrink)

This chapter examines two ways in which liberal thinkers have appealed to claims about disagreement in order to defend a principle of free speech. One argument, from Mill, says that free speech is a necessary condition for healthy disagreement, and that healthy disagreement is conducive to human flourishing. The other argument says that in a community of people who disagree about questions of value, free speech is a necessary condition of legitimate democratic government. We argue that both of these arguments, (...) in their standard guises, are premised upon contestable views about the realpolitik of disagreement in a liberal society. (shrink)

The Canadian Department of Citizenship and Immigration has recently proposed to make in-person citizenship ceremonies optional. These ceremonies are oaths of allegiances: naturalizing citizens swear loyalty to King Charles and obedience to the laws of Canada. The Department of Citizenship and Immigration proposes to allow naturalizing citizens to take these oaths by checking a box online rather than by taking part in an in-person ceremony. In this commentary, I argue that Canada should go much further. It should stop forcing naturalizing (...) immigrants to swear oaths of allegiance altogether. Such oaths create an unjust inequality between naturalized and natural-born citizens: they mean the former have much weightier political obligations than the latter. (shrink)

According to relational egalitarianism, justice requires equal relations. The theory applies to those who stand in the relevant social relations. In this paper, I distinguish four different accounts of what it means to be socially related and argue that in all of them, self-relations—how a person relates to themselves—fall within the scope of relational egalitarianism. I also point to how this constrains what a person is allowed to do to themselves.

This dissertation identifies and responds to a problem for liberal relational egalitarians. There is a prima facie worry about the compatibility of liberalism and relational egalitarianism, concerning the requirements of equality in informal social life. Liberalism at least involves a commitment to leaving individuals substantial discretion to pursue their own conceptions of the good. Relational equality is best understood as a kind of deliberative practice about social institutions and practices. Patterns of otherwise innocuous social choices (e.g., where to live, whom (...) to befriend or marry) can create emergent, severe differentials in power, status, and influence, and when they do they can threaten relational equality. If relational equality required individuals to subordinate personal choices to egalitarian considerations, it would run into conflict with liberal commitments. In response, I defend the value of accepting an imperfect realization of relational equality. What I call fair relational equality demands that members of society treat some informal social norms and practices as part of the basic structure of society, in need of justification. Three practices are required to meet that demand. First, the relational-egalitarian society must develop institutional strategies to preempt or mitigate tendencies toward emergent inequality as they are identified. Second, members of society must engage in broad social deliberation about the norms and expectations of informal social interaction. Third, they must be willing to reform social practices where doing so does not impinge on important personal projects and values. (shrink)

Relational egalitarianism is a theory of justice according to which people must relate as equals. In this article, we develop relational sufficientarianism – a view of justice according to which people must relate as sufficients. We distinguish between three versions of this ideal, one that is incompatible with relational egalitarianism and two that are not. Building on this, we argue that relational theorists have good reason to support a pluralist view that is both egalitarian and sufficientarian.

Relational egalitarianism says that moral equals should relate as equals. We explore how moral unequals should relate.

Despite being increasingly available to us all, retirement pensions remain unequally distributed: between rich and poor, young and old, men and women, and possibly different generations. As this topic receives little attention in moral and political philosophy, the articles in this thesis aim to deliver an original account of justice in retirement pensions along liberal egalitarian lines. The first part defends retirement pensions as a distribution of free time. It shows that including free time in the list of goods that (...) liberal egalitarians prioritise is plausible and avoids problems that would otherwise arise with other candidates, most notably leisure. Retirement as free time is an essential feature of liberal egalitarian societies by (re)distributing the means to pursue any life project, and especially valuable for the poor who work and contribute the longest. The second part makes a case for 'libertirement', a proposal to increase the freedom to enjoy free time across life, as a matter of justice between those who live long and those who die early. Specifically, I propose adding reverse pensions and sabbaticals on top of old-age retirement. Besides showing the importance of longevity for age-group justice, I also draw implications for distributing unconditional basic income and income taxes across life, which I suggest may offer alternative paths to libertirement. Finally, the third part discusses the cases of pension inequality between genders and generations, pushing us to refine our account further. I conclude that there is often a mismatch between liberal egalitarian justice and the design of retirement schemes. The solution is often but not always to reform these systems. Sometimes, we have reasons to revise our very own principles of justice. (shrink)

It is fairly uncontroversial that when you encounter disagreement with some view of yours, you are often epistemically required to become at least somewhat less confident in that view. This includes political disagreements, where your level of confidence might in various ways affect your voting and other political behavior. But suppose that your opponents don’t comply with the epistemic norms governing disagreement – that is, they never reduce their confidence in their views in response to disagreement. If you always reduce (...) your confidence, but your opponents never reduce theirs – and everyone participates in the political process accordingly – then it seems like the deliberative process will be unfairly skewed in favor of your opponents. In this paper, I do two things. First, I try to explain how this can be so, even though the process by stipulation represents everyone’s beliefs equally. Second, I defend the view that in such cases, you should remedy the unfairness by voting out of accord with your beliefs. By introducing a distinct state that I call a “personal take,” which you can vote on the basis of in such a case, I explain how doing this need not be problematically insincere, nor incoherent from the inside. The discussion has a number of independent upshots for both democratic theory and the epistemology of disagreement. (shrink)

Credentialism refers to the practice of hiring or promoting applicants on the basis of their educational qualifications. In this paper, we argue that this can amount to wrongful discrimination against the less qualified. A standard way to defend credentialism appeals to the fact that it minimizes the costs of production. We argue that this argument has unacceptable implications in some cases involving disability- and gender-based discrimination. We claim that, once we appropriately revise this argument, credentialism is revealed to be similarly (...) wrongfully discriminatory. We then consider two objections and draw some preliminary lessons for policymaking. (shrink)

Why pursue economic growth? For poor countries this is an easy question to answer, but it is more difficult for rich ones. Some of the world's greatest philosophers and economists – such as John Stuart Mill, John Maynard Keynes, and John Rawls – thought that, once a certain material standard of well-being has been achieved, economic growth should stop. I argue the opposite in this article. We always have reason to pursue economic growth. My argument is indirect. I shall not (...) argue that economic growthitselfis always better. Rather, I shall argue thatstoppinggrowth requires morally objectionable actions. Economic growth tends to occur naturally if certain underlying conditions are in place. We have moral reasons to insist on these conditions independent their effect on growth, however. Halting growth requires that we alter these conditions, but we ought not do this. (shrink)

Polarization often happens asymmetrically. One political actor radicalizes, and the results reverberate through the political system. This is how the deep divisions in contemporary American politics arose: the Republican Party radicalized. Republican officeholders began to use extreme legislative tactics. Republican voters became animated by contempt for their political rivals and by the defense of their own social superiority. The party as a whole launched a wide-ranging campaign of voter suppression and its members endorsed violence in the face of electoral defeat. (...) This paper is about how such asymmetric polarization affects everyone else’s obligations. My core claim is that two kinds of relationship – civic friendship and non-subordination – underpin critical democratic norms. Republican misbehavior has severed cross-partisan civic friendships. Their authoritarianism forfeits their claim to non-subordination. The former means that non-Republicans need not justify policy on public grounds. The latter undercuts Republicans’ claim to enjoy minority vetoes when out of power and it gives their rivals reason to disobey the laws that Republicans make when they are in power. More generally, when one political actor contravenes the proper norms of democratic politics, their opposition is not bound by those norms. (shrink)

A common argument against lockdowns is that they restrict freedom. On this view, lockdowns might be effective in protecting public health, but their impact on freedom is purely negative. This article challenges that view. It argues that while lockdowns restrict freedom, so too do viruses. Since viruses restrict freedom and lockdowns protect us from viruses, lockdowns can protect us from the harmful effects that viruses have on freedom. The problem we face is not necessarily freedom versus public health. Sometimes it (...) is freedom itself—or its value or distribution—that provides reason for lockdowns. (shrink)

Self-employment merits protection and promotion, we often hear, because it confers independence from a boss. But what, if anything, is wrong with having a boss? On one of the two views that this chapter inspects, being under the power of a boss is objectionable as such, no matter how suitably checked this power may be, for it undermines workers’ agency. On a second view, which republican theorists favor, what is objectionable is subjection not to the power of a boss as (...) such but to their arbitrary power. The first view is unconvincing, I argue, as it entails (implausibly) that being under the power of others in realms like the family or the state is likewise objectionable as such. And although the second view yields compelling reasons for self-employment, it only does so when employers’ power is not suitably checked. When it is, such reasons are more easily outweighed by competing considerations, like those stemming from the further forms of dependence—on suppliers and purchasers—that self-employment may prompt. (shrink)

Policy-makers often rely on scientists to inform their decisions. When advising policy-makers, what should scientists say? One view says that scientists ought to say what they have a high credence in. Another view says that scientists ought to say what they expect to lead to good policy outcomes. We explore a third view: scientists ought to say what they expect to make the policy-makers’ credences accurate.

Politics, Philosophy & Economics, Volume 21, Issue 2, Page 122-164, May 2022. I argue that the consensus view that one must never level down to equality gives rise to a dilemma. This dilemma is best understood by examining two parallel cases of leveling down: one drawn from the economic domain, the other from the political. In the economic case, both egalitarians and non-egalitarians have resisted the idea of leveling down wages to equality. With no incentives for some people to work (...) hard social productivity will likely decline, further lowering people's wages and thus leaving everybody all-things-considered worse off as a result—hence “never level down.” On the other hand, however, the argument against leveling down does not appear to pass muster in the political sphere: denying political equality in the form of “one person, one vote”, for example, by giving a higher share of voting power to people with, say, more education seems straightforwardly objectionable, even if such a voting scheme would improve the outcomes of all people, including those who are ultimately left with fewer votes. Thus, a fundamental tension arises: we can either endorse the widely-affirmed “never-level-down” thesis, which says that sacrificing people's well-being exclusively for the sake of promoting equality can never be the right thing to do, or we can endorse the principle of “one person, one vote.” But we cannot do both. I defend this dilemma against a view I call the compatibility view: roughly, that because OPOV is strictly necessary to advance some weighty, non-egalitarian interest people have, accepting OPOV as a principle of justice is compatible with one's rejection of leveling down. (shrink)

Egalitarians often claim that well-off states’ immigration restrictions create or reinforce objectionable inequality. Standard defenses of this claim appeal to the distributive consequences of exclusion. This article offers a relational egalitarian defense of more open borders. On this view, well-off states’ immigration restrictions are problematic because they accord the citizens of well-off states a troubling form of asymmetric power over the disadvantaged. This creates an objectionably unequal relationship between affluent states’ citizens and disadvantaged immigrants. I show that this argument offers (...) a compelling diagnosis of a central problem with border control, defend the argument against objections, and explore its implications. (shrink)

I explore the idea that the state should love its citizens. It should not be indifferent towards them. Nor should it merely respect them. It should love them. We begin by looking at the bases of this idea. First, it can be grounded by a concern with state subordination. The state has enormous power over its citizens. This threatens them with subordination. Love ameliorates this threat. Second, it can be grounded by the state's lack of moral status. We all have (...) reason to love everyone. But we beings with moral status have an excuse for not loving everyone: we have our own lives to lead. The state has no such excuse. So, the state should love everyone. We then explore the nature of the loving state. I argue that the loving state is a liberal state. It won't interfere in its citizens' personal spheres. It is a democratic state. It will adopt its citizens' ends as its own. It is a welfare state. It will be devoted to its citizens' well-being. And it is an egalitarian state. It will treat all its citizens equally. This constitutes a powerful third argument, an abductive argument, for the ideal of the loving state. (shrink)

Journal of Political Philosophy, Volume 30, Issue 2, Page 209-229, June 2022.

Using automated systems to avoid the need for human discretion in government contexts – a scenario we call ‘rule by automation’ – can help us achieve the ideal of a free and equal society. Drawing on relational theories of freedom and equality, we explain how rule by automation is a more complete realization of the rule of law and why thinkers in these traditions have strong reasons to support it. Relational theories are based on the absence of human domination and (...) hierarchy, which automation helps us achieve. Nevertheless, there is another understanding of relational theories where what matters is the presence of valuable relationships with those in power. Exploring this further might help us see when and why we should accept human discretion. (shrink)

In ‘Are Citizenship Tests Necessarily Illiberal?’, Michael Blake argues that difficult citizenship tests are not necessarily illiberal, so long as they test for the right things. In this paper, I argue that Blake’s attempt to square citizenship tests with liberalism fails. Blake underestimates the burdens citizenship tests impose on immigrants, ignoring in particular the egalitarian claims immigrants have on equal social membership. Moreover, Blake’s positive justification of citizenship tests – that they help justify immigrants’ coercive voting power – both neglects (...) the fact that such tests are coercively imposed on immigrants and that the citizenship test Blake envisions does little to help ensure immigrants’ votes are legitimate. Citizenship tests thus aren’t, even in principle, a way of protecting citizens from unjustified coercive power. They are, even under favourable circumstances, an illiberal way of obstructing immigrants’ quest for social equality. (shrink)

Political theorists have recently sought to replace the liberal, contractual theory of the firm with a political view that models the authority relation of employee to firm, and its appropriate regulation, on that of subject to state. This view is liable to serious difficulties, however, given existing discontinuities between corporate and civil authority as to their coerciveness, entry and exit conditions, scope, legal standing, and efficiency constraints. I here inspect these, and argue that, albeit in some cases significant, such discontinuities (...) fail to undermine the firm/state analogy, either because they are not significant enough to do so or because the particular trait on which they hinge is not decisive for how authority, in the state and in the firm, should be regulated to be legitimate. A pro tanto requirement exists, I thus argue, that corporate authority be held to regulatory norms comparable to those legitimate states abide by, including civil liberties, rule-of-law constraints, and accountability to subjects. (shrink)

Journal of Political Philosophy, Volume 30, Issue 2, Page 143-165, June 2022.

When are inequalities in political power undemocratic, and why? While some writers condemn any inequalities in political power as a deviation from the ideal of democracy, this view is vulnerable to the simple objection that representative democracies concentrate political power in the hands of elected officials rather than distributing it equally among citizens, but they are no less democratic for it. Building on recent literature that interprets democracy as part of a broader vision of social equality, I argue that concentrations (...) of political power are incompatible with democracy, and with a commitment to social equality more generally, when they consist in some having greater arbitrary power to influence decisions according to their idiosyncratic preferences. A novel account of the relationship between power and social status clarifies the role of social equality in the justification of democracy, including a representative democracy in which public officials have more political power than ordinary citizens. (shrink)

According to relational egalitarians, equality is not primarily about the distribution of some good but about people relating to one another as equals. However, compared with other theorists in political philosophy – including other egalitarians – relational egalitarians have said relatively little on what role personal responsibility should play in their theories. For example, is equality compatible with responsibility? Should economic distributions be responsibility-sensitive? This article fills this gap. I develop a relational egalitarian framework for personal responsibility and show that (...) relational equality commits us to responsibility. I develop two sets of arguments. First, I draw on relational theories of moral responsibility – particularly Strawsonian views – to show that valuable egalitarian relationships require responsibility. Second, I show why relational equality sometimes requires that economic distributions be sensitive to responsibility and choice. I also defend a seemingly paradoxical result: being committed to responsibility, relational egalitarianism not only justifies some distributive inequalities but some relational inequalities too. Overall, relational egalitarianism gives a nuanced and coherent answer as to why and how responsibility matters from within egalitarianism. That it does should be an important argument in its favour. (shrink)

Under which conditions are social relationships hierarchical, and under which conditions are they not? This article has three main aims. First, I will explain what this question amounts to by providing a more detailed description of the general phenomenon of social hierarchy. Second, I will provide an account of what social hierarchy is. Third, I will provide some considerations in favour of this account by discussing how it improves upon three alternative ways of thinking about social hierarchy that are sometimes (...) explicitly endorsed and sometimes suggested or presupposed in writings in philosophy and elsewhere. (shrink)