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)

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)

Standard accounts of democratic disenfranchisement either start from a presumption of universal inclusion and justify electoral exclusions as deviations from the norm, or attempt to draw a demarcation line between justifiable inclusion and exclusion relying on membership in the political community. Even when successfully employed, each strategy only provides a partial view of disenfranchisement, which is usually targeted at just one or two groups of agents. In this article, I develop a generally applicable account of disenfranchisement, grounded in a respect-based (...) understanding of the relational value of democracy. This account simultaneously provides the normative basis for widespread enfranchisement under equal terms and for justified electoral exclusions. (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)

Demokratien geraten zunehmend unter Druck. Dabei wird die Bedeutung von Demokratie selbst zum Gegenstand der Auseinandersetzung. Diese Auseinandersetzungen nimmt der vorliegende Band zum Anlass, die Bedeutung von Demokratie grundsätzlich zu untersuchen. Mit dem Begriff der Konstituenzien sind dabei jene wesentlichen Bedingungen gemeint, die Demokratie ausmachen. Die meisten dieser Bedingungen sind normativ. Was Demokratie ist, wird auch und gerade dadurch bestimmt, was Demokratie sein sollte. Damit geht es um jene Normen, deren Verwirklichung politische Praktiken zu demokratischen Praktiken macht. Sind diese Normen (...) nur eingeschränkt verwirklicht, mindert sich der demokratische Gehalt von Politik. Inwieweit ist dann nun aber eigentlich der Fall? Und was können wir dagegen tun? Antworten auf diese Fragen geben einschlägige Vertreterinnen und Vertreter aus Philosophie, Politik- und Rechtswissenschaft. (shrink)

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)

Within democratic theory, electoral competition is typically associated with minimalist and realist views of democracy. In contrast, this article argues for a reinterpretation of electoral competition as an important element of an egalitarian theory of democracy. Current relational egalitarian theories, in focusing on the equalization of individual power-over, present electoral institutions as in tension with equality. Against this view, the article contends that electoral competition can foster equality by incentivizing the equalization of cooperative power. The article develops the normative category (...) of equal opportunity to access cooperative power and shows how it can generate an egalitarian defense of electoral competition. Yet this ideal is not an affirmation of the status quo. Rather, it points to the need to reform electoral systems to make them more competitive and so more likely to foster cooperative power, as well as reforms to provide direct support to associations like unions that equalize cooperative power. (shrink)

For political realists, legitimacy is a central requirement for the desirability of political institutions. Their detractors contend that it is either descriptive, and thus devoid of critical potential, or it relies on some moralist value that realists reject. We defend a functionalist reading of realist legitimacy: descriptive legitimacy, that is, the capacity of a political institution to generate beliefs in its right to rule as opposed to commanding through coercion alone, is desirable in virtue of its functional role. First, descriptive (...) legitimacy plays an evaluative role: Institutions can fail to convince citizens that they have a right to rule and can be ranked by how well they do so. Second, descriptive legitimacy plays a normative role, because if an institution fails to convince subjects of its right to rule, this gives them a reason not to comply with its directives, even if it satisfies philosophers’ standards for possessing such right. (shrink)

Social or relational egalitarians try to defend democracy non-instrumentally as a constitutive element of a society where no one stands as inferior or superior to anyone else. However, they face an instrumentalist challenge from within: Why not uphold a non-democratic regime if it outperforms democracy in protecting or promoting egalitarian social relations, for example, by stably producing substantive political decisions that guard against social hierarchies? This article explores the best response to this challenge from the social egalitarian non-instrumentalist standpoint. It (...) argues that the instrumentalist challenge can be accommodated without abandoning the essential non-instrumentalist commitment to democracy; while a nondemocratic regime may be justified under less-than-ideal circumstances as a contingently effective means to realize more social equality, democracy can nevertheless be viewed as a necessary condition for the realization of full social equality. (shrink)

Political liberals hold that the exercise of state power is legitimate only if it can be publicly justified—justified on the basis of public reasons. Many find this requirement too demanding and propose instead that there are just pro tanto reasons for laws and policies to be publicly justified. Here I argue that this alternative proposal fails to recognize that there are also distinct pro tanto reasons to have institutional requirements that laws and policies are publicly justified. This suggests an intermediate (...) position between political liberals and their critics, which holds that states have reasons to adopt the kinds of institutions that political liberals favor—institutions that require public justification—but whether they should do so will depend on the costs and benefits of those institutions. This allows for a more practical approach to public justification by focusing on its application in particular political contexts. (shrink)

In this paper I argue that the political and economic domains are analogous for distributive purposes. The upshot of this conclusion is that because we normally think that an unequal distribution of votes is objectionable even if these inequalities are strictly necessary to improve the lives of less informed voters, so we should conclude that an unequal distribution of resources might be similarly objectionable even if strictly necessary to make the worse off better off. Leveling down economic resources is therefore (...) sometimes morally permissible. I consider and reject three types of objections to this view. (shrink)

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.

Contemporary political philosophers often take for granted that for political purposes all humans are to be considered of equal worth. The difficulty, as Bernard Williams observed, is to find an interpretation of this claim that does not collapse into absurdity or triviality. I show that the principal attempts to solve this problem all beg the question against an Aristotelian proponent of natural hierarchy. I then explore existing proposals for dissolving the problem of basic equality, whether by denying the need for (...) justification altogether or by reframing justification in either ostensive or coherentist fashion, showing that each fails to account for our sense that basic equality is objectively true. In response, I outline a Hegelian approach that treats the commitment to basic equality as a social fact that constrains philosophical reasoning in contemporary liberal democracies. By itself that might suggest complacent conservatism or cultural relativism, but I argue that practices and institutions that reflect and foster a commitment to basic equality have a distinct value in permitting reciprocal recognition and thereby enabling us to make a distinct class of normative claims on one another. This Hegelian resolution of the problem is dialectically superior to its rivals and therefore warrants further development. (shrink)

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.

It is widely believed that immigrants, after some time, acquire a claim to naturalize and become citizens of their new state. What explains this claim? Although existing answers (may) succeed in justifying some of immigrants' rights claims, they cannot justify the claim that immigrants are owed the opportunity to naturalize because these theories lack a sufficiently rich account of the purpose of citizenship. To fill this gap, I offer a novel egalitarian account of citizenship. Citizenship, on this account, partially protects (...) immigrants against social hierarchy by realizing social equality in a publicly accessible manner. This explains claims to naturalize. (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)

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 growth itself is always better. Rather, I shall argue that stopping growth 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)

This paper expounds and defends a relational egalitarian account of the moral wrongfulness of vote markets according to which such markets are incompatible with our relating to one another as equals qua people with views on what we should collectively decide. Two features of this account are especially interesting. First, it shows why vote markets are objectionable even in cases where standard objections to them, such as the complaint that they result in inequality in opportunity for political influence across rich (...) and poor people, are inapplicable. Second, it specifies the sense in which, politically speaking, we should relate as equals, and in doing provides a richer version of recent relational egalitarian accounts of the ideal of democracy. (shrink)

How important is it for managers to have the “nice” virtues of modesty, civility, and humility? While recent scholarship has tended to focus on the organizational consequences of leaders having or lacking these traits, I want to address the prior, deeper question of whether and how these traits are intrinsically morally important. I argue that certain aspects of modesty, civility, and humility have intrinsic importance as the virtues of relational equality – the attitudes and dispositions by which we relate as (...) moral equals. I provide a novel account of the normative grounds of the virtues of relational equality and develop a corresponding framework for how these virtues can be enacted by managers. The virtues are grounded in the value of opposing objectionable forms of social hierarchy, which requires social norms that grant all persons the same personal authority over their lives and interactions. I show how this view of virtue contrasts with prevailing Aristotelian, Personalist, and Smithian views in business ethics. I then explain how, for managers, sustaining and enacting the virtues of relational equality involves a distinctive cluster of role-specific traits: respect for employees’ equal personal authority, a commitment to express such respect, and a disposition to give equal weight and deference to employees’ relevant interests. (shrink)

I propose a theory of popular power, according to which a political order manifests popular power to the extent it robustly maintains an egalitarian basic structure. There are two parts to the theory. First, the power of a political order lies in the basic structure's robust self-maintenance. Second, the popularity of the political order’s power lies in the equality of relations between the society's members. I will argue that this theory avoids the perverse consequences of some existing radical democratic theories (...) of popular power which focus on mass expression, either in plebiscites or in social movements, as popular power's canonical instances. In particular, my theory does not valourise momentary expression over durable effect, and it offers a ready framework for conceptualising the sometimes-oligarchic substructure of the supposedly canonical instances of popular power. I will show that this theory has strong precedents within a certain republican tradition of political philosophy. (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)

In recent years the view that the non-instrumental value of democracy is a relational value, particularly relational equality, gained prominence. In this paper I challenge this relational egalitarian version of non-instrumentalism about democracy’s value by arguing that it is unable to establish a strong enough commitment to democracy. I offer an alternative view according to which democracy is non-instrumentally valuable for it establishes relationships of mutual service among citizens by enlisting them in the collective project of ruling the polity justly (...) together which is a self-standing source of value for them. Relating in the mode of mutual service is not a species of relating as equals; it is a distinct relational value. Democracy is uniquely suited to realize this relational value, for it renders citizens co-authors of the fundamental rules of the system of social cooperation under which they live, and only as co-authors of these rules are they able to mutually serve each other in a way that is appropriate within their relationship as citizens of the same polity. For this reason, a strong commitment to democracy can be based on the relational value of mutual service, which therefore better fits the theoretical purposes of non-instrumentalism than relational equality. (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)

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)

Politics, Philosophy & Economics, Volume 21, Issue 1, Page 55-74, February 2022. Many find that the objectionable nature of paternalism has something to do with belief. However, since it is commonly held that beliefs are directly governed by epistemic as opposed to moral norms, how could it be objectionable to hold paternalistic beliefs about others if they are supported by the evidence? Drawing on central elements of relational egalitarianism, this paper attempts to bridge this gap. In a first step, it (...) argues that holding paternalistic beliefs about others implies a failure to regard them as equals in terms of their moral agency. In a second step, it shows that the fact that we should regard others as equals in this sense raises the threshold for sufficiency of evidence for paternalistic beliefs to be epistemically justified. That is, moral reasons of relational equality encroach on the epistemic. However, these reasons are not decisive. In cases where others are about to jeopardize critical goods such as their lives, mobility or future autonomy, relational equality sometimes calls for paternalistic action and, by extension, the formation of beliefs that render such action rational. The upshot is that in order to meet demands of relational equality we have a pro tanto reason to not hold paternalistic beliefs about others. (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)

In this essay, I make the interpretive claim that we cannot properly understand the Federalist without appreciating the extent to which the papers mount a sustained rejection of extra-constitutional democracy—practices in which people aim to assert authority over the terms of common life in ways that are not sanctioned by existing laws. I survey such practices, which were common in America before and after the Revolution. I argue that there is continuity between Publius’s justification for rejecting extra-constitutional democracy and his (...) justification for his preferred system against constitutional alternatives. Adequate analysis and evaluation of the Federalist’s arguments about faction, representation, and institutional design require attention to the double duty the arguments play against constitutional and extra-constitutional opposition. This interpretive argument supports several analytic and evaluative conclusions. First, we must distinguish a new form of “non-hierarchical dualist” constitutionalism, according to which irregular democratic activity need not be limited to extraordinary “constitutional moments” or revolutions. Second, the politically egalitarian character of procedures depends not on the procedures alone, but how the maintenance of such procedures limits other forms of democratic practice. Third, the argument suggests a novel defense of “uncivil” disobedient politics: one grounded not in contributions to democratic deliberation, but in the entitlements of citizens to direct assertions of authority over common life. (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)

Voters have many motivations. Some vote on the issues. They vote for a candidate because they share that candidate's policy positions. Some vote on performance. They vote for a candidate because they think that candidate will produce the best outcomes in office. Some vote on group identities. They vote for a candidate because that candidate is connected to their social group. This paper is about these motivations. I address three questions. First, which of these motivations, were it widespread, would be (...) best for intrinsic democratic values? Second, how do the motivations of actual American voters affect the value of American democracy? Third, what motivations should individual American voters have? I argue that widespread issue voting would be best, followed by performance voting, followed by group voting. I argue that American voters do not much contribute to the value of American democracy. Their behavior makes it hard to achieve many democratic values. Finally, I argue that, were America an ideal democracy, American voters would have reason to vote on the issues. But, in their non-ideal democracy, American voters merely have reason to avoid voting on privileged group identities. (shrink)

Unlike natural-born citizens, many immigrants have agreed to undertake political obligations. Many have sworn oaths of allegiance. Many, when they entered their adopted country, promised to obey the law. This paper is about these agreements. First, it’s about their validity. Do they actually confer political obligations? Second, it’s about their justifiability. Is it permissible to get immigrants to undertake such political obligations? Our answers are ‘usually yes’ and ‘probably not’ respectively. We first argue that these agreements give immigrants political obligations. (...) We then argue that getting immigrants to undertake such obligations is morally wrong. This is because it makes immigrants’ political obligations more burdensome than those of natural-born citizens. We conclude that the practice of getting immigrants to undertake such obligations should be abolished. (shrink)

The democratization of science entails the public having greater influence over science and that influence being shared more equally among members of the public. This chapter will present a thumbnail sketch of the arguments for the democratization of science based on the importance of collectively shaping science’s impact on society, the instrumental benefits of public participation in science, and the need to ensure that the use of science in politics does not undermine collective self-government. It will then outline worries about (...) citizen competence, the abuse of democratic ideals and the limits posed by the nation-state. (shrink)

This paper identifies a challenge for liberal relational egalitarians—namely, how to respond to the prospect of emergent inequalities of power, status, and influence arising unintentionally through the free exercise of fundamental individual liberties over time. I argue that these emergent social inequalities can be produced through patterns of nonmalicious choices, that they can in fact impede the full realization of relational equality, and that it is possible they cannot be eliminated entirely without abandoning fundamental liberal commitments to leave individuals substantial (...) discretion in their personal lives. In such cases, I argue that liberal egalitarians should accept fair relational equality—a demanding but nevertheless imperfect form of relational equality. (shrink)