The principle of national self-determination has usually been justified by extending to national groups an entitlement that individuals are regarded as having, namely, to the conditions necessary for their self development. In order to extend the concept of self-determination to nations in this way, an argument that it is important for nations to exist within their own political communities must be given. In this essay, I describe and criticize one type of argument for such a principle of national self-determination – (...) what I will call the communitarian argument.Contemporary communitarians (such as Michael Walzer and David Miller) usually contend that determining who rightfully has membership in a political community must precede the allocation of rights and responsibilities between members. Community is understood to mean a national community; membership in communities therefore results from the ascription of national identities to individuals and to the consequent sorting out of loyalties that follows from this ascription. A right of self-determination for nations is required, on this view, in order to ensure that political communities are legitimately formed in accordance with national identities. (shrink)

The concept of a society is central to several areas of philosophy, including social and political philosophy, philosophy of social science and moral philosophy. Yet little attention has been paid to the concept and we do not have an adequate philosophical account of it. It is a concept that is difficult to explain systematically, and it is subject to distortion or simple-minded attacks whenever it plays a major role in a philosophical theory. Methodological individualists have raised metaphysical or ontological concerns (...) about the idea that there are such things as societies, and other philosophers have found the concept of a society to be unacceptably vague. For these reasons, I believe it worthwhile to devote this essay to an attempt to explain the concept. (shrink)

The Problem Economic efficiency is naturally thought to be a virtue of social policies and decisions, and cost-benefit analysis is commonly regarded as a technique for measuring economic efficiency. It is not surprising, then, that CB analysis is so widely used in social policy analysis. However, there is a great deal of controversy about CB analysis, including controversy about its underlying philosophical rationale. The rationales that have been proposed fall into three basic, though not mutually exclusive categories. There are moralist (...) views to the effect that an acceptable CB analysis would provide, or contribute to, an ethical appraisal of proposed policies or projects. There are rationalist views to the effect that an acceptable CB analysis would contribute to the selection of social policies and projects that are “socially rational.” Finally, there are so-called management science views to the effect that the purpose of CB analysis is to promote the achievement of objectives held by the policy maker, whatever they may be. Different positions are available within each of these categories. But there is also the possibility that CB analysis lacks any viable rationale. I will examine some of the major rationales for CB analysis in this paper, and I will suggest that the last view is close to the truth. (shrink)

Article 25 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights reads as follows: “Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and of his family, including food, clothing, housing and medical care and necessary social services.” I shall refer to the right postulated here as “the right to an adequate standard of living” or “The Right.”.

A recent resurgence of interest within analytical political philosophy in the status of ethnic and national minorities coincides with the re-emergence of national identity as a primary organizing principle of political conflict, and with an increasing attentiveness to identity and recognition as organizing principles of political struggle. The recent theoretical literature within political philosophy has focused very much on recognizing the importance of national identity, and allowing attention to national sentiment to inform the design of social institutions.In this paper I (...) shall state the case for a version of the position which Will Kymlicka has dubbed ‘benign neglect’ toward cultural identities. Benign neglect is the position that the state should, as far as possible, be neutral among the cultural sentiments of its citizens. The position is, I think, implicit in the theoretical work of many contemporary liberals, and also in much socialist theory and some socialist practice. But it is rarely defended explicitly. Liberal theory is generally developed on the unrealistic assumptions that the society to be regulated is closed and coincides with the membership of a single nation. (shrink)

An account of the ontological nature of collectives would be useful for several reasons. A successful theory would help to show us a route through the thicket of views known as “methodological individualism”. It would have a bearing on the plausibility of legal positivism. It would be relevant to the question whether collectives are capable of acting. The debate about the ontology of collectives is therefore important for such fields as the theory of action, social and political philosophy, the philosophy (...) of law and the philosophy of social science. I hope to contribute to the debate by proposing an account of collectives, and by showing its theoretical soundness and utility. In its essentials, my proposal is that collectives are “mereological sums” of “stages” of persons linked by a “unity relation”. The influence on this account of some theories of personal identity will perhaps be obvious. But the motivation is different, for it lies at least as much in the ability of the theory to help us deal with the issues already mentioned as in problems concerning the identity of collectives over time. I acknowledge that my proposal is not commonsensical; however, I believe that no account could be both commonsensical and adequate. I will begin by introducing some constraints on a theory of collectives. (shrink)