The ethics of immigration is currently marked by a division between realists and idealists. The idealists generally focus on formulating morally ideal immigration policies. The realists, however, tend to dismiss these ideals as far-fetched and infeasible. In contrast to the idealists, the realists seek to resolve pressing practical issues relating to immigration, principally by advancing what they consider to be actionable policy recommendations. In this article, I take issue with this conception of realism. I begin by surveying the way in (...) which it exemplifies what certain political theorists have recently called ‘problem-solving’ realism – a species of realism which they reject as incoherent. These theorists demonstrate that what counts as a ‘feasible’ solution is far harder to establish than most problem-solving realists would have us believe. Applying this general critique to the specific domain of immigration ethics turns out to radically undermine the notion of realism that prevails in this sphere of applied ethics. I conclude that we should therefore revise our conception of what constitutes a genuinely realist approach to the problem of immigration. (shrink)

The article develops a general theory of the goals of free moral commitment. The theoretical hook is the discussion of the strict efficiency striving as demanded by the movement and theory of effective altruism. A detailed example shows prima facie counterintuitive consequences of this efficiency striving, the analysis of which reveals various problems such as: merely point-like but not structural commitment; radical universalism; violation of established moral standards and institutions. The article takes these problems as an occasion to develop a (...) general theory of moral investment with moral guidelines and planning instruments of its implementation such as: efficiency; preservation of existing moral standards and obligations, especially also towards those close to one; rooted universalism with adequate consideration of all beneficiaries of one's moral concern through allocation of separate budgets; real efficiency also through inclusion of strategic and organic investments. (shrink)

This chapter describes a philosophical approach to theorizing justice, mapping out some main strands of the tradition leading up to contemporary political philosophy. We first briefly discuss what distinguishes a philosophical approach to justice from other possible approaches to justice, by explaining the normative focus of philosophical theories of justice – that is, a focus on questions not about how things actually are, but about how things ought to be. Next, we explain what sorts of methods philosophers use to justify (...) theories of justice. Following this, in the longest section, we highlight major questions about justice that have drawn the attention of philosophers, and indicate how competing conceptions of justice have arisen from differing answers to these questions. The goal here is not to answer but to elucidate some of the larger questions about justice, as well as to establish a framework for understanding and distinguishing different kinds of claims about justice and some of the relations between them. (shrink)

This chapter describes how philosophical theorizing about justice can be connected with empirical research in the social sciences. We begin by drawing on some received distinctions between ideal and non-ideal approaches to theorizing justice along several different dimensions, showing how non-ideal approaches are needed to address normative aspects of real-world problems and to provide practical guidance. We argue that there are advantages to a transitional approach to justice focusing on manifest injustices, including the fact that it enables us to set (...) aside some reasonable disagreements about justice. The ‘bottom-up’ approach we advocate, for which we borrow Wolff’s term ‘real-world political philosophy’, is an empirically-informed normative analysis that attends to specific, identifiable injustices, and thus is partial, though not isolationist. We illustrate our approach by considering how different models of the nature of disability suggest different kinds of remedy for injustices faced by persons living with disabilities. We reflect on the nature and significance of vulnerabilities, and we assess the role of public opinion in normative theorizing, suggesting a particular significance for the opinions and experiences of marginalized groups. We finally reflect on the relevance of European legal and institutional frameworks for theorizing justice in Europe. (shrink)

The international investment regime has come under increasing scrutiny, with several developing countries withdrawing from bilateral investment treaties in recent years. A central worry raised by c...

Supporters of open borders sometimes argue that the state has no pro tanto right to restrict immigration, because such a right would also entail a right to exclude existing citizens for whatever reasons justify excluding immigrants. These arguments can be defeated by suggesting that people have a right to stay put. I present a new form of the exclusion argument against closed borders which escapes this “right to stay put” reply. I do this by describing a kind of exclusion that (...) has not been discussed in depth, which I call “territorial exclusion.” Territorial exclusion is the process according to which the group that wishes to exclude current citizens secedes from the territory in which those citizens reside. I argue that the wrongness of territorial exclusion explains why there is no pro tanto right for a state to exclude immigrants, because otherwise there would be a pro tanto right for the state to kick people out by seceding from the territory they inhabit. Because kicking people out like this is typically wrong, borders cannot be closed. (shrink)

Paternalistic behaviour directed towards a person’s informed and competent decisions is often thought to be morally impermissible. This view is supported by what we can call the Anti-Paternalism Principle. While APP might seem plausible when employed to show the wrongness of paternalism by the state, there are some cases of paternalistic behaviour between private, informed, and competent individuals where APP seems mistaken. This raises a difficulty for supporters of APP. Either they need to reject APP to accommodate our intuitions in (...) these cases, or provide grounds for thinking that paternalistic behaviour between certain private individuals is different in a morally relevant sense. In this paper, I explore several possible morally relevant differences, and find all of them unsatisfactory as grounds for maintaining the plausibility of APP. (shrink)

The central part of this article deals with the morality of secession. We present the three main "pure" theories about the morality of secession and suggest the greatest justifying power of an "impure" or mixed theory. At the same time, however, we advocate the need for a proper understanding of the question of the morality of secession. More specifically, we suggest that the best way to raise it is by introducing the notion of "reasonableness" into the question itself.

This paper first considers and rebuts George Orwell's case against international sport. He argues both from general principles and specific examples that international sporting contests lead to org...

Can a liberal state exclude illiberal immigrants in order to preserve its liberal status? Hrishikesh Joshi has argued that liberalism cannot require a commitment to open borders because this would entail that liberalism is committed to its own demise in circumstances in which many illiberal immigrants aim to immigrate into a liberal society. I argue that liberalism is committed to its own demise in certain circumstances, but that this is not as bad as it may appear. Liberalism’s commitment to its (...) own demise is merely a reflection of the fact that it must take into account the rights of outsiders, not just the rights of existing citizens, and of the fact that circumstances of injustice can sometimes leave liberal societies with no correct choice. (shrink)

Reference to the state is ubiquitous in debates about global justice. Some authors see the state as central to the justification of principles of justice, and thereby reject their extension to the international realm. Others emphasize its role in the implementation of those principles. This chapter scrutinizes the variety of ways in which the state figures in the global-justice debate. Our discussion suggests that, although the state should have a prominent role in theorizing about global justice, contrary to what is (...) commonly thought, acknowledging this role does not lead to anti-cosmopolitan conclusions, but to the defense of an “intermediate” position about global justice. From a justificatory perspective, we argue, the state remains a key locus for the application of egalitarian principles of justice, but is not the only one. From the perspective of implementation, we suggest that state institutions are increasingly fragile in a heavily interdependent world, and need to be supplemented—though not supplanted—with supranational authorities. (shrink)

The debate about justice in immigration seems somehow stagnated given that it seems justice requires both further exclusion and more porous borders. In the face of this, I propose to take a step back and to realize that the general problem of borders—to determine what kind of borders liberal democracies ought to have—gives rise to two particular problems: first, to justify exclusive control over the administration of borders (the problem of legitimacy of borders) and, second, to specify how this control (...) ought to be exercised (the problem of justice of borders). The literature has explored the second but ignored the first. Therefore, I propose a different approach to the ethics of immigration by focusing on concerns of legitimacy in a three-step framework: first, identifying the kind of authority or power that immigration controls exercise; second, redefining borders as international and domestic institutions that issue that kind of power; and finally, considering supranational institutions that redistribute the right to exclude among legitimate borders. (shrink)

This article explores the possibility of a notion of left-wing populism that is conceptually opposed to the identitarian logic of embodiment that characterises right-populist interpellations of ‘th...

Most philosophers writing on the ethics of war endorse “reductivist individualism,” a view that holds both that killing in war is subject to the very same principles of ordinary morality ; and that morality concerns individuals and their rights, and does not treat collectives as having any special status. I argue that this commitment to individualism poses problems for this view in the case of national defense. More specifically, I argue that the main strategies for defending individualist approaches to national (...) defense either fail by their own lights or yield deeply counterintuitive implications. I then offer the foundations for a collectivist approach. I argue that such an approach must do justice to the collective goods that properly constituted states make possible and protect through certain acts of defensive war; and that any such picture of national defense must make room for some form of national partiality. (shrink)

The best arguments for a nation-state’s right to exclude unwanted outsiders actually condemn nation-level regimes of restriction. Two argumentative steps lead to this conclusion. The first points out that the best arguments for exclusion generalize: if they show that nation-states have the right to exclude, they perform the same service for a great many towns, cities, subnational states, and provinces. The second step constructs a dilemma. The right to exclude is important enough to justify the suffering of would-be immigrants, or (...) it is not. If it is, the right to exclude is very important indeed–would-be immigrants often suffer grievously. But nation-level regimes would then be a serious moral problem: they would deprive a great many municipalities of a right that matters a great deal. Turning to the dilemma’s second horn, if the right to exclude is not important enough to justify the suffering of would-be immigrants, nation-level regimes are straightforwardly immoral. Either way, we arrive at this paper’s central thesis: the best arguments for a nation-states right to exclude actually condemn nation-level regimes of exclusion. (shrink)

In this article, I argue that the fact of reasonable pluralism (FRP) – a famous Rawlsian assumption about the intellectual demographics of liberal democracies – is not as self-evident as is sometimes thought. The problem with the FRP is that in Political Liberalism Rawls is treating the freedoms and burdens story as being sufficient – in itself – to explain the demographics of reasonable pluralism. The inadequacy of the freedoms and burdens story is an indication that the FRP is empirically (...) underdetermined as a way of glossing the belief demographics of liberal democracies. And it is a reason to wonder whether pluralism is as permanent as Rawls thinks. But worldview disagreements are not necessarily so incorrigible. In response to the FRP, it can be asserted that there is nothing that is inherent in the idea of a liberal democracy to preclude the choice by the citizens of a common worldview. (shrink)

We start by surveying the different issues that fall under the umbrella of ‘multiculturalism’. We then sketch the trajectory of British multiculturalism since 1945, and examine its broader legal and philosophical contexts. This narrative highlights the empirical and theoretical connections between multiculturalism and decolonisation, and that the conceptualisation of multiculturalism in political theory is more wide-ranging than in law or policy. This helps foreground neglected aspects of British multiculturalism in policy and law, and suggests we should widen the philosophical scope (...) of multiculturalism even further. We then summarise the papers and draw out the connections between them. We argue that a deeper understanding of contemporary British multiculturalism inexorably leads us back to fundamental philosophical and practical questions regarding the structure and purpose of the British polity, and conclude that this indicates the need for greater polycentricity in governance. (shrink)

A review essay of David Miller's book: Justice for Earthlings: Essays in Political Philosophy, New York: Cambridge University Press, 2013. The essay situates this work among Miller's other works and critically engages with his arguments and theory of migration.

Existing accounts of public-goods distribution rely on the existence of solidarity for providing non-universal public goods, such as the humanities or national parks. There are three fundamental problems with these accounts: they ignore instances of social fragmentation; they treat preferences for public goods as morally benign, and they assume that these preferences are the only relevant moral consideration. However, not all citizens unanimously require public goods such as the humanities or national parks. Public-goods distribution that is based only on citizens’ (...) preferences, therefore, means that non-universal public good are at a constant risk of under-provision, and has negative implications for human flourishing. The paper, therefore, develops a complementary justification for the distribution of public goods, that decouples the distribution of public goods from ad hoc preferences, and grounds the distributive justification in the intrinsic value of these goods. There are three reasons to include intrinsic-value considerations in public-goods distribution: responding to crowding-out effects; promoting shared heritage and cross-fertilization. Finally, the intrinsic-value justification may indirectly promote solidarity. Thus, the intrinsic-value and the solidarity justifications need not be mutually exclusive, rather they can be mutually reinforcing. (shrink)

Three key contributions of Iris Young to democratic political theory, and three challenges that have arisen in response to Young's theory, are examined here in relation to education. First, Young has argued that oppression and domination, not distributive inequality, ought to guide discussions about justice. Second, eliminating oppression requires establishing a politics that welcomes difference by dismantling and reforming structures, processes, concepts and categories that sustain difference‐blind, impartial, neutral, universal politics and policies. The infatuation with merit and standardized tests, both (...) of which are central to measuring educational achievement, are chief amongst the targets in need of reform. Third, a politics of difference requires restructuring the division of labour and decision‐making so as to include disadvantaged social groups but allow them to contribute without foregoing their particularities. The challenges that have arisen in response to Young's theory are first, that difference is merely another way of getting at inequality of resources or opportunities, and if it is not, then, second, a politics of difference values difference for the sake of difference rather than for the sake of alleviating social disadvantage. Third, in theory and in practice a politics that focuses on difference putatively jeopardizes a politics whose aim is to improve the redistribution of resources. (shrink)

Most bioethicists who address questions to which global justice matters have not considered the significance of the disputes over the correct theory of global justice. Consequently, the significance of the differences between theories of global justice for bioethics has been obscured. In this paper, I consider when and how these differences are important. I argue that certain bioethical problems can be resolved without addressing disagreements about global justice. People with very different views about global justice can converge on the existence (...) of a duty to aid the very badly off — those in absolute poverty — wherever they may be. However, despite agreement on extreme cases, there should be disagreement over the extent of international obligations to those who are only relatively poor. Consequently, different theories of justice will diverge in their implications for a number of important problems in contemporary bioethics. I close by sketching in more detail two contemporary bioethical issues —concerning pharmaceutical patents and the health worker brain drain —and show how responses to them might be developed by cosmopolitan and statist liberals. (shrink)

Opponents of cosmopolitanism often dismiss the position on the grounds that cosmopolitan proposals are completely unrealistic and that they fly in the face of our human nature. We have deep psychological needs that are satisfied by national identification and so all cosmopolitan projects are doomed, or so it is argued. In this essay we examine the psychological grounds claimed to support the importance of nationalism to our wellbeing. We argue that the alleged human needs that nationalism is said to satisfy (...) are: (i) either more complex than initially one might think or (ii) do not necessarily provide very strong grounds for the theses advocated by nationalists or (iii) can be well met in alternate ways than through national identification. Moreover, commitment to cosmopolitanism is not antithetical to meeting these needs: rather, more cosmopolitan worldviews can do quite well in meeting the needs of interest. Moreover, we argue that since nationalism is a fluid and socially constructed phenomenon, quite open to the influence of other factors, the current evidence suggests that central aspects of cosmopolitanism are quite feasible and realistic. (shrink)

I argue that there are strong consequentialist grounds for thinking that hate speech should be legally protected. The protection of hate speech allows those who are hateful to make their beliefs public, thereby exposing prejudices that might otherwise be suppressed to evaluation by other members of society. This greater transparency about prejudices has two social benefits. First, it facilitates social trust by making it easier to discover who holds beliefs that should exclude them from positions of authority, responsibility, and influence. (...) Second, it facilitates efforts to combat hatred by revealing which prejudiced members of society must be persuaded or discredited by those seeking to promote tolerance. (shrink)

While there need be no conflict in theory between addressing global inequality (inequalities between people worldwide) and addressing domestic inequality (inequalities between people within a political community), there may be instances in which the feasible mechanism for reducing global inequality risks aggravating domestic inequality. The burgeoning literature on global justice has tended to overlook this type of scenario, and theorists espousing global egalitarianism have consequently not engaged with cases that are important for evaluating and clarifying the content of their theories. (...) This chapter explores potential tensions between promoting global and domestic inequality. We introduce a class of second-best scenarios that global justice theorists have neglected to demonstrate the importance of such scenarios as an aid to constructing and evaluating ideals of global justice. (shrink)

In this paper, we examine the extent to which the concept of emergence can be applied to questions about the nature and moral justification of territorial borders. Although the term is used with many different senses in philosophy, the concept of “weak emergence”—advocated by, for example, Sawyer (2002, 2005) and Bedau (1997)—is especially applicable, since it forces a distinction between prediction and explanation that connects with several issues in the dis-cussion of territory. In particular, we argue, weak emergentism about borders (...) allows us to distinguish between (a) using a theory of territory to say where a border should be drawn, and (b) looking at an existing border and saying whether or not it is justified (Miller, 2012; Nine, 2012; Stilz, 2011). Many authors conflate these two factors, or identify them by claiming that having one without the other is in some sense incoherent. But on our account—given the concept of emergence—one might unproblematically be able to have (b) without (a); at the very least, the distinction between these two issues is much more significant than has often been recognised, and more importantly gives us some reason to prefer “statist” as opposed to “cultural” theories of territorial borders. We conclude with some further reflections on related matters concerning, firstly, the apparent causal powers of borders, and secondly, the different ways in which borders are physically implemented (e.g., land vs. water). (shrink)

Theorists concerned about the distributive effects of skilled emigration (brain drain) often argue that its harmful effects can be justly mitigated by restricting emigration from sending countries or by limiting immigration opportunities to receiving countries. I raise moral and practical concerns against restricting the movement of skilled migrants and contend that conceptualizing the moral issue in these terms leads theorists to neglect the moral salience of institutions that determine the distributive effects of migration. Using an analogy to skilled migration in (...) a domestic context, I argue for locating brain drain in a more holistic, institutional context that includes the reform of global institutions and of policies affecting migration. (shrink)

This review essay on John Rawls’s The Law of Peoples focuses on two of its more contentious claims. The first is that international economic justice is secured by a principle of assistance and that a principle of distributive justice will in fact have “unacceptable” results. The other is that certain non-liberal societies, or peoples, fall within the limits of international toleration. The essay evaluates and critiques these claims from a liberal cosmopolitan perspective.

The doctrine of permanent sovereignty over natural resources is a hugely consequential one in the contemporary world, appearing to grant nation-states both jurisdiction-type rights and rights of ownership over the resources to be found in their territories. But the normative justification for that doctrine is far from clear. This article elucidates the best arguments that might be made for permanent sovereignty, including claims from national improvement of or attachment to resources, as well as functionalist claims linking resource rights to key (...) state functions. But it also shows that these defences are insufficient to justify permanent sovereignty and that in many cases they actually count against it as a practice. They turn out to be compatible, furthermore, with the dispersal of resource rights away from the nation-state which global justice appears to demand. (shrink)

A good deal of political theory over the last fifteen years or so has been shaped by the realization that one cannot, and ought not, consider the distribution of resources within a country in isolation from the distribution of resources between countries. Thus, thinkers such as Charles Beitz and Thomas Pogge advocate extensive global distributive policies; others, such as Charles Jones and David Miller, explicitly reject the view that egalitarian principles of justice should apply globally and claim that national communities (...) have only duties to help other countries be viable economically and meet the basic needs of their members. In the global justice debate, pretty much all parties acknowledge that we have obligations of distributive justice to for-eigners. The question is how strong those obligations are, and in particular whether national boundaries can make any difference to the distribution of resources between members of different countries. (shrink)

Allen Buchanan proposes a methodological framework with which theorists may evaluate different theories of secession, including the National Self-Determination theory. An important claim he makes is, because the right to secede is inherently institutional, any adequate theory of secession must include, as an integral part, an analysis of institutional morality. Because the National Self-Determination theory blatantly lacks such an analysis, Buchanan concludes that this theory is inherently flawed. In this paper, I consider Buchanan’s framework and the responses from supporters of (...) national self-determination theory. I try to clarify the confusion shared by both parties. I conclude that, although Buchanan’s theory of institutional morality is sound, his critiques of the national self-determination theory fails. (shrink)

A number of philosophers argue that the moral value of national identity is sufficient to justify at least a prima facie right of a national community to create its own independent, sovereign state. In the literature, this argument is commonly referred to as the identity argument. In this paper, I consider whether the identity argument successfully proves that a national group is entitled to a state of its own. To do so, I first explain three important steps in the argument (...) and then consider whether they lead to the desired conclusion. My examination reveals that the identity argument relies on the Optimal Protection Principle; however, this principle does not apply to the case of a national community. As a result, the identity argument fails to justify even a prima facie right of a national community to establish its own state. (shrink)

This article offers a critical analysis of David Miller’s proposal that liberal immigration policies should be conceptualized in terms of a quasi-contract between receiving nations and immigrant groups, designed to ensure both that cultural diversity does not undermine trust among citizens and that immigrants are treated fairly. This proposal fails to address sufficiently two related concerns. Firstly, an open-ended, quasi-contractual requirement for cultural integration leaves immigrant groups exposed to arbitrary critique as insufficiently integrated and unworthy of trust as citizens. Secondly, (...) the focus on national culture instead of citizenship obfuscates the close link between political membership and political trustworthiness. An examination of two models of interpersonal trust, affective and cognitive,shows that there is no room for the mid-way position associated with a quasi-contract. The effect of grounding political trust in a shared national culture instead of democratic institutions is to normalize the domination of immigrants and citizens alike. (shrink)

In this article we defend a moral conception of cosmopolitanism and its relevance for moral education. Our moral conception of cosmopolitanism presumes that persons possess an inherent dignity in the Kantian sense and therefore they should be recognised as ends‐in‐themselves. We argue that cosmopolitan ideals can inspire moral educators to awaken and cultivate in their pupils an orientation and inclination to struggle against injustice. Moral cosmopolitanism, in other words, should more explicitly inform the work that moral educators do. Real‐world constraints (...) on moral action and the need to prioritise one’s sometimes conflicting responsibilities will often qualify cosmopolitan justice as supererogatory. This fact does not absolve persons from aspiring to see themselves as having the moral obligation to help others in need, while recognising that their factual obligations are more modest in being bound by what they are actually able to do. (shrink)

Practically almost all the basic matters that make up the political and social agenda of this decade are related to two basic categories: citizenship and multiculturalism. The way in which the connection between these two basic pillars is managed constitutes the principal factor in the social, political and cultural transformation of our epoch. This work has two aims: on one hand, and in relation to the general subject of this monograph it is argued that the question of immigration is part (...) of a wider dynamic of discussions on the basic foundations of our modern era, resulting from the double process of State-building and Nation-building; on the other hand it underlines that the first victim of this process of contextual change is precisly the product of this double historical movement: the traditional notion of citizenship, which has difficulties in finding resources to administer the new phenomena tied to multiculturalism. In this framework, we propose the basic question: in what sense does multiculturalism pose problems to the tradition of citizenship? We start from the following situation: what happens when the traditional notion of citizenship is used in multicultural contexts? I structure my argumentation in five sections. In the first section, I set out the conceptual framework within which present-day arguments are situated, composed of three basic elements: the State, the Nation and Citizenship. In the second section, we enter into the discussion on the traditional concept of citizenship, focusing on its normative and empirical basis from a comparative perspective. In the third section, we are concerned with the concept of multiculturalism. In the fourth section I deal with what I have called the contexts of multiculturalism., that is, the different dimensions that call into question the indivisible (and sacred) character of the State, the Nation and Citizenship. We introduce, in succesion, the pluralism of cultural identities, the pluralism of national identities, immigration, the political construction of the European Union and, finally globalisation. In the fifth and last section we draw up a final balance giving a historical sense to our arguments. (shrink)

In an interdependent world of overlapping political memberships and identities, states and democratic citizens face difficult choices in responding to large-scale migration and the related question of who ought to have access to citizenship. In an influential attempt to provide a normative framework for a more just global order, The Law of Peoples , John Rawls is curiously silent regarding what his framework would mean for the politics of migration. In this piece, I consider the complications Rawls’s inattention to these (...) issues creates for his broader vision of global justice. Yet I also attempt to show how these aspects of Rawls’s theory emerge from an underlying tension which confronts all liberal democratic conceptions of justice, both in theory and in practice. In my conclusion, I sketch an alternative rooted in the insights of agonistic pluralism, which “breaks” the Rawlsian silence and actively theorizes the democratic legitimation of political borders. (shrink)

This paper examines the rhetorical dimension of arguments about global justice. It draws on postcolonial theory, an approach that has explored the relationship between knowledge and power. The global justice literature has elaborated critiques of global inequality and advanced arguments about how to overcome the legacies of domination. These concerns are also shared by critics of colonialism, yet there are also epistemological differences that separate the two scholarly communities. Despite these differences, I argue that bringing the two literatures into conversation (...) generates important benefits. Postcolonial theory draws attention to the way that abstract concepts can function as metaphors that have the unintended consequence of reinforcing power relations. Normative theory will be more effective at promoting global justice if it pays more attention to the politics of representation. (shrink)

Over the past decade, New Atheists have campaigned against the influence of religion in public life and favored a more enlightened understanding of the world ? one based on the methods and theories of the natural sciences. Although the leaders of this movement refuse to give religion, even moderate religion, any place in determining moral conduct, they offer few alternatives. Most define moral responsibility by referring to facts about human biology or natural moral intuitions, yet without adequately defending this or (...) exploring the possibilities of non-naturalistic secular moralities. This essay argues that New Atheists' moral theories tend to be weak because of their naturalist assumptions. Its leading proponents seem to be unwilling to acknowledge that moral philosophy can play a role in developing secular moral precepts because philosophy fails to meet their strong criteria of scientific validity. This position is misguided not only because it has led New Atheists to defend weak moral theories but also because the methods of inquiry used in moral philosophy make it distinct from faith for many of the same reasons that the New Atheists think that science is distinct from faith. (shrink)

Which standards should we employ to evaluate the global order? Should they be standards of justice or standards of legitimacy? In this article, I argue that liberal political theorists need not face this dilemma, because liberal justice and legitimacy are not distinct values. Rather, they indicate what the same value, i.e. equal respect for persons, demands of institutions under different sets of circumstances. I suggest that under real-world circumstances – characterized by conflicts and disagreements – equal respect demands basic-rights protection (...) and democratic participation, which I here call ‘political justice’. I conclude the article by considering three possible configurations of the global order – the ‘democratic world-state’, ‘independent democratic states’, and ‘mixed’ models – and argue that a commitment to political justice speaks in favour of the latter. (shrink)

Many of the foremost defenders of distributive egalitarianism hold that its scope should be limited to co-citizens. But this bracketing of distributive equality exclusively to citizens turns out to be very difficult to defend. Pressure is placed on it, for instance, when we recognize its vulnerability to ?extension arguments? which attempt to cast the net of egalitarian concern more widely. The paper rehearses those arguments and also examines some ? ultimately unsuccessful ? responses which ?citizenship egalitarians? might make. If it (...) does turn out that citizenship egalitarianism cannot be defended, then two options are open to its adherents: to modify that position substantially in order to embrace at least some global egalitarian components, or to argue for a reorganization of citizenship regimes in such a way that citizenship might properly track the subjects of egalitarian justice. Both are radical options. Finally, the paper then briefly considers one way in which an attenuated form of citizenship egalitarianism might still be defended. (shrink)

In this article, I develop a new account of the liberal view that principles of justice are meant to justify state coercion, and consider its implications for the question of global socioeconomic justice. Although contemporary proponents of this view deny that principles of socioeconomic justice apply globally, on my newly developed account this conclusion is mistaken. I distinguish between two types of coercion, systemic and interactional, and argue that a plausible theory of global justice should contain principles justifying both. The (...) justification of interactional coercion requires principles regulating interstate interference; that of systemic coercion requires principles of global socioeconomic justice. I argue that the proposed view not only helps us make progress in the debate on global justice, but also offers an independently compelling and systematic account of the function and conditions of applicability of justice. -/-. (shrink)

This paper explores the question of whether there can be a right to secede from a liberal state by examining the concept of a liberal state and the different forms of liberalism that may be appealed to in order to justify secession. It argues that where the foundations of the state’s legitimacy are conceived in terms of a non-derivative right to self-determination, then secession from a liberal state may be a justified form of action for different types of groups including (...) ‘illiberal’ ones. If, however, a broader definition of political legitimacy is adopted – one that is predicated upon the liberal notions of individual moral autonomy and equality – then the right to independent statehood will generally not include a right to secede from a state that already upholds these principles. Consequently, liberal theorists of secession are forced to choose between particularizing a right of independent statehood to groups trapped in illiberal states, or acknowledging that the right to secede includes a right to establish an ‘illiberal’ state that bestows upon its citizens unequal rights and entitlements other than a right of exit. (shrink)