-/- This essay discusses the relation between ideal theory and two forms of political moralism identified by Bernard Williams, structural and enactment views. It argues that ideal theory, at least in the sense Rawls used that term, only makes sense for structural forms of moralism. These theories see their task as describing the constraints that properly apply to political agents and institutions. As a result, they are primarily concerned with norms that govern action. In contrast, many critiques of ideal theory (...) are structured and motivated by their commitment to an enactment model of political theorizing. This instead sees political agents and institutions as instruments for producing or promoting better states of affairs. Enactment models treat the evaluations that rank different states of affairs as justificatorily basic, rather than norms governing action on which structural models focus. This reveals an important feature of debates about ideal theory. Whether ideal theory is capable of appropriately guiding action will depend on what the criteria for appropriately guiding action are, about which different theorists have importantly different views. For example, some popular strategies for defending ideal theory fail, while it may be much less clear that some alternatives to ideal theory can provide action guidance than their advocates claim. (shrink)

This paper examines the distinction drawn by Amartya Sen between transcendental and comparative theories of justice, and its application to Rawls' doctrine. It then puts forward three arguments. First, it is argued that Sen offers a limited portrayal of Rawls' doctrine. This is the result of a rhetorical strategy that depicts Rawlsian doctrine as more “transcendental” than it really is. Although Sen deploys numerous quotations in support of his interpretation, it is possible to offer a less transcendental interpretation of Rawls. (...) Second, the dichotomy between transcendental and comparative approaches to questions of justice is partly misleading, insofar as any plausible moral doctrine has both transcendental and comparative elements. Transcendental elements are necessary to avoid the confusion between the general acceptance of a norm, value or principle and its justification. A comparative view highlights the conditions of application of the doctrine to the real world, taking into account the possibility of moral dilemmas, evaluative disagreements and limited resources, while proposing possible provisos and caveats to the risk of the doctrine being self‐defeating. Third, although the transcendental approach is useful, it is argued that in elaborating this dichotomy Sen overlooks the merits of the third way between comparative and transcendental doctrines, what he calls “conglomerate theory,” and also the possibility that his doctrine (the capability approach) might be considered as an example of such a theory. The paper concludes with the argument that conglomerate theory does not aim to produce complete moral orderings, but rather a comparative approach with transcendental elements, as a form of weak transcendentalism. (shrink)

The relevance of justice for the current debate on long-term care is explored on the basis of demographic and economic data, especially in the U.S. and Germany. There is a justice question concerning the quality and availability of long-term care for different groups within society. Mapping the justice debate by discussing the two main opponents, John Rawls and Robert Nozick, the article identifies fundamental assumptions in both theories. An exploration of the biblical concept of the “option for the poor” and (...) its influence on a new “ecumenical social teaching from below” leads to the conclusion that a Christian ethical account of long-term care will argue for a system that guarantees decent care to every citizen. The German model of Soziale Pflegeversicherung is presented as one possible option for putting this ethical guideline into political practice. In a final reflection, the role of religious affiliation for long-term care is discussed by looking at empirical data and by naming seven dimensions of faith-driven long-term care. (shrink)

Is there any reason to discriminate among the rival claims self-proclaimed conservatives make for being truly conservative? This article argues that at least some of these claims can legitimately be dismissed by an independent third. Drawing on and critically interrogating the theories of conservatism provided by Huntington, Oakeshott, as well as Brennan and Hamlin, this article argues that many characterizations of conservatism mistake contingent circumstances explaining why people historically were or conceivably might be reluctant to promote social change for a (...) fully-formed conservative ideology. Not least, risk- and uncertainty-centred accounts, which have gained in popularity as of recently, constitute no viable basis for plausible claims to being truly conservative. Rather than specifying what it takes to be a true conservative, these accounts provide a formalized description of one kind of contingent circumstances that may lead a principled non-conservative to adopt conservative political attitudes. (shrink)

John Rawls’ “reflective equilibrium” ranges amongst the most popular conceptions in contemporary ethics when it comes to the basic methodological question of how to justify and trade off different normative positions and attitudes. Even where Rawls’ specific contractualist account is not adhered to, “reflective equilibrium” is readily adopted as the guiding idea of coherentist approaches, seeking moral justification not in a purely deductive or inductive manner, but in some balancing procedure that will eventually procure a stable adjustment of relevant doctrines (...) and standpoints. However, it appears that the widespread use of this idea has led to some considerable deviations from its meaning within Rawls’ original framework and to a critical loss of conceptual cogency as an ethico-hermeneutical tool. This contribution identifies three kinds of “balancing” constellations that are frequently, but inadequately brought forth under the heading of Rawlsian “reflective equilibrium”: (a) balancing theoretical accounts against intuitive convictions; (b) balancing general principles against particular judgements; (c) balancing opposite ethical conceptions or divergent moral statements, respectively. It is argued that each of these applications departs from Rawls’ original construction of “reflective equilibrium” and also deprives the idea of its reliability in clarifying and weighing moral stances. (shrink)

This article examines the method of reflective equilibrium (RE) and its role in philosophical inquiry. It begins with an overview of RE before discussing some of the subtleties involved in its interpretation, including challenges to the standard assumption that RE is a form of coherentism. It then evaluates some of the main objections to RE, in particular, the criticism that this method generates unreasonable beliefs. It concludes by considering how RE relates to recent debates about the role of intuitions in (...) philosophy. (shrink)

This essay defends the controversial and indeed counterintuitive claim that there is a good argument to be made from a Lockean perspective for government action to guarantee access to health care. The essay maintains that this argument is in some regards more robust than the well-known argument in defense of universal health care spelled out by Norman Daniels, which this essay also examines in some detail. Locke's view that government should protect people's lives, property, and freedom–where freedom is understood as (...) independence and self-determination–justifies government action to ensure access to health care, because (roughly), just as individuals cannot protect themselves from crime and foreign invasion, so individuals are unable to provide for their own health care. Defense from disease is as important as defense from crime, and–although this is arguable–government action to guarantee access to health care does not itself undermine freedom. (shrink)

Liberalism generally holds that legitimate political power is limited and is to be impartially exercised, only for the public good. Liberals accordingly assign political priority to maintaining certain basic liberties and equality of opportunities; they advocate an essential role for markets in economic activity, and they recognize government's crucial role in correcting market breakdowns and providing public goods. Classical liberalism and what I call “the high liberal tradition” are two main branches of liberalism. Classical liberalism evolved from the works of (...) Adam Smith and the classical utilitarian economists; its major 20th century representatives include Friedrich Hayek and Milton Friedman. The high liberal tradition developed from John Stuart Mill's works, and its major philosophical representatives in the 20th century are John Dewey and, later, John Rawls. This paper discusses the main distinguishing features of the classical and the high liberal traditions and their respective positions regarding capitalism as an economic and social system. Classical liberals, unlike high liberals, regard economic liberties and rights of private property in productive resources to be nearly as important as basic liberties. They conceive of equality of opportunity in more formal terms, and regard capitalist markets and the price system as essential not only to the allocation of production resources, but also as the fundamental criterion for the just distribution of income, wealth, and economic powers. High liberals, by contrast, regard the economic liberties as subordinate to the exercise of personal and civic liberties. They are prepared to regulate and restrict economic liberties to achieve greater equality of opportunities, reduce inequalities of economic powers, and promote a broader conception of the public good. And while high liberals endorse markets and the price system as essential to allocation of productive resources, they do not regard markets as the fundamental criterion for assessing just distributions of income, wealth, and economic powers and positions of responsibility. The paper concludes with some reflections upon the essential role that dissimilar conceptions of persons and society play in grounding the different positions on economic justice that classical and high liberals advocate. (shrink)

One source of controversy surrounding John Rawls's later work — a source of both criticism and praise — has been the impression that he abandoned the philosophical project of figuring out what is truly just, in favour of the political project of working out a feasible consensus for people from a particular political tradition. One aspect of this controversy is the question of whether Rawls could advance his theory as being worthy of endorsement on the basis of good reasons without (...) also claiming it to be true. In preferring to claim reasonableness rather than truth, Rawls's main concern seems to have been to distinguish the ‘whole truth’ as represented by a particular comprehensive religious or philosophical doctrine, from the truth about politics given that reasonable people will inevitably disagree about the whole truth. (shrink)

Suppose that one is at least a minimal realist about a given domain, in that one thinks that that domain contains truths that are not in any interesting sense of our own making. Given such an understanding, what can be said for and against the method of reflective equilibrium as a procedure for investigating the domain? One fact that lends this question some interest is that many philosophers do combine commitments to minimal realism and a reflective equilibrium methodology. Here, for (...) example, is David Lewis on philosophy: Our “intuitions” are simply opinions: our philosophical theories are the same. Some are commonsensical, some are sophisticated; some are particular; some general; some are more firmly held, some less. But they are all opinions, and a reasonable goal for a philosopher is to bring them into equilibrium. Our common task it to find out what equilibria there are that can withstand examination, but it remains for each of us to come to rest at one or another of them… Once the menu of well-worked out theories is before us, philosophy is a matter of opinion. Is that to say that there is no truth to be had? Or that the truth is of our own making, and different ones of us can make it differently? Not at all! If you say flatly that there is no god, and I say that there are countless gods but none of them are our worldmates, then it may be that neither of us is making any mistake of method. We may each be bringing our opinions to equilibrium in the most careful possible way, taking account of all the arguments, distinctions, and counterexamples. But one of us, at least, is making a mistake of fact. Which one is wrong depends on what there is (1983: x-xi). In addition to philosophy in general, the method of reflective equilibrium has also been endorsed as the appropriate procedure for investigating various other subject.. (shrink)

Contemporary political philosophy often operates on a ‘two-tiered’ theoretical treatment of global politics, on which domestic political systems and the principles governing their internal...

Richard Arneson argues that Fair Equality of Opportunity should be rejected, since it is not only too weak and too strong, but also problematically meritocratic. The paper aims to defend FEO, and argues that it is not too weak, since, pace Arneson, it does apply to the problem of stunted ambition. The argument from meritocracy is shown to be based on a conflation of different senses of meritocracy. Finally, it is shown that FEO, correctly interpreted, gives intuitive answers to the (...) examples put forward to bolster the too strong charge. It is concluded that Arneson’s refutation of FEO fails. (shrink)

Scholars have long posited justice as a core value of public relations. However, that value has been criticized as being improbably idealistic. Philosopher David Hume locates the origins of justice within the need for property and the reliable exchange of resources. Hume thus embeds the origins of justice within a staple of public relations theory: resource dependency theory. Additionally, Hume believes a respect for justice to be the foundation of a positive reputation. This grounding of the quest for justice in (...) resource dependency and reputation helps establish a realistic basis for accepting justice as a core value of public relations. (shrink)

How to accommodate the possibility of lucky true beliefs in necessary (or armchair) truths within contemporary modal epistemology? According to safety accounts luck consists in the modal proximity of a false belief, but a belief in a true mathematical proposition could not easily be false because a proposition believed could never be false. According to Miščević modal stability of a true belief under small changes in the world is not enough, stability under small changes in the cognizer should also (and (...) primarily) be considered. I argue for a more traditional modal reliabilism based on the critical question: how easy is it for a belief to be false, given the way it was formed? A belief (a priori or a posteriori) is then agent-lucky when based on a specific method which might easily lead to a false belief in the target proposition. Miščević suggests a unifying approach in terms of virtue epistemology. It seems to me that this approach, if successful, will undermine the project that he started with: formulate an anti-luck condition in the frame of a modal theory of luck. (shrink)

The crucial problem in the philosophy of psychiatry is to determine under which conditions certain behaviors, mental states, and personality traits should be regarded as symptoms of mental illnesses. Participants in the debate can be placed on a continuum of positions. On the one side of the continuum, there are naturalists who maintain that the concept of mental illness can be explained by relying on the conceptual apparatus of the natural sciences, such as biology and neuroscience. On the other side (...) of the continuum, there are normativists who maintain that the appropriate characterization of the concept of mental illness cannot avoid reference to epistemic, moral and other social values. Although, this article is primarily an introduction to the debate, we stress the importance of the normativist positions. (shrink)

It is common in political theory and practice to challenge normatively ambitious proposals by saying that their fulfillment is not feasible. But there has been insufficient conceptual exploration of what feasibility is, and very little substantive inquiry into why and how it matters for thinking about social justice. This paper provides one of the first systematic treatments of these issues, and proposes a dynamic approach to the relation between justice and feasibility that illuminates the importance of political imagination and dynamic (...) duties to expand agents’ power to fulfill ambitious principles of justice. (shrink)

Nobody has offered such a comprehensive philosophical approach to trade. Nonetheless, James's approach does not succeed. First, we explore James's constructivist method, which does less work than he suggests. The second topic is James's take on the different ‘grounds’ of justice. We explore the shortcomings of approaches that focus exclusively on trade. Our third topic is why James thinks trade is such a ground. The fourth topic is how James argues for his proposed ‘structural equity.’ This proposal remains under-argued. Our (...) fifth topic is to explore why structural equity would generate several specific principles. Finally, we discuss James's notion of autarky. Autarky sets the benchmark for James's ideas about how to divide gains of trade. We doubt that it can do so. (shrink)

Para quienes tengan interés en la filosofía moral y política contemporánea la obra de John Rawls es sin discusión una parada necesaria. De hecho, la tesis de Robert Nozick según la cual resulta imposible hacer filosofía moral y política sin considerar el marco ofrecido por Rawls, aunque parezca extrema, resulta bastante acertada. En gran medida el impacto de la obra de Rawls radica en su interés por ofrecer una teoría sustantiva de la justicia, teoría que hundiendo sus raíces en la (...) tradición de la filosofía sea capaz de orientarnos al momento de abordar las discusiones contemporáneas sobre justicia social. -/- En los trabajos que componen este libro el lector podrá encontrar una discusión actualizada sobre aquellos elementos que definen la base moral y política que Rawls presentó como fundamento de su teoría de la justicia. Al mismo tiempo, estos ensayos intentan construir un puente entre la justicia como equidad y otras tradiciones de la filosofía moral y política contemporánea. Para lograr este último fin, varios de los trabajos que aquí se presentan consideran las ideas de reconocimiento y autorrespeto como claves de interpretación de la obra de Rawls. (shrink)

La tesis central de este trabajo es que la tradicional tensión entre substancia y procedimiento socava las estabilidad de la justificación de la concepción liberal más extendida de la legitimidad (la Democracia Deliberativa). Dicha concepciones enfrentan problemas serios a la hora de articular de manera consistente dos dimensiones que parecen ir naturalmente asociadas a la idea de legitimidad: la dimensión procedimental, vinculada a la equidad del procedimiento, y la dimensión epistémica, asociada a la corrección de los resultados. En este trabajo (...) sostengo que a) esa tensión surge de la adopción de una concepción epistemológica social de tipo "veritativo-consecuencialista; b) es posible manejar dicha tensión mediante el remplazo de la epistemología subyacente por una concepción epistemológica social de tipo procedimentalista de orientación pragmatista y c) dicha operación orienta el diseño institucional en una dirección experimentalista. (shrink)

This paper aims to provide autonomy-based reasons in favour of limitarianism. Limitarianism affirms it is of primary moral importance that no one gets too much. The paper challenges the standard assumption that having more material resources always increases autonomy. It expounds five mechanisms through which having too much material wealth might undermine autonomy. If these hypotheses are true, a theory of justice guided by a concern for autonomy will support a limitarian distribution of wealth. Finally, the paper discusses two issues (...) autonomy-based limitarianism would raise. First, insofar as coercion invades autonomy, do autonomy-based reasons legitimate coercive measures to secure a limitarian distribution of wealth? Second, is a limitarian ethos consistent with the incentive to produce enough wealth to secure distributive justice? (shrink)

This paper presents a review of the main trends of contemporary political philosophy in China. First, it provides a general picture of the presence of contemporary western political philosophy in China. It shows how the different political positions (New Left, liberalist, conservative) relate to the different stances adopted before Western authors, and focuses in particular on the reception of Carl Schmitt and Leo Strauss in China’s academic and cultural circles. Second, it provides an account of what might be contemporary Chinese (...) political philosophers’ unique contributions to political theory. It pays particular attention to two Chinese scholars, Gan Yang and Zhao Tingyang. While both of them specialize in western philosophy, they neither echo western political philosophy nor repeat traditional Chinese political thought, but, rather, commit themselves to a transformation of Chinese tradition thought, in order to figure out some original and debatable theories. By focusing on analyzing these philosophers’ ideas and influences, the author hopes to answer two distinct but interrelated questions: how and why are they are so fashionable or popular, and whose thought might retain some pertinence in the context and issues of Chinese political tradition and the existing political practices. (shrink)

O artigo discorre sobre a relação entre o direito contratual e os princípios da teoria da justiça de Rawls, com especial atenção para o princípio da diferença. Parte-se da premissa de que as atitudes dos cidadãos se sujeitam à influência das instituições. Todo o restante sendo igual, portanto, o princípio da diferença requer instituições que fomentem um etos social o mais igualitário possível. Conclui-se daí que o papel do direito contratual em uma sociedade ideal rawlsiana pode não ser o de (...) promover a eficiência, mas colaborar para um etos social menos propenso à desigualdade. Afirma-se que o direito contratual pode cumprir esse desiderato de duas maneiras: descritivamente, ao abrir mão da presunção de que os contratantes atuam unicamente para maximizar a própria utilidade, e valorativamente, ao enaltecer comportamentos moderadamente altruístas. (shrink)

People currently regard justice as the main principle of institutions and society, while in ancient Greek people took it as the virtue of citizens. This article analyzes Aristotle’s virtue of justice in his method of virtue ethics, discussing the nature of virtue, how justice is the virtue of citizens, what kind of virtue the justice of citizens is, and the prospect of the virtue of justice against a background of institutional justice. Since virtue can be said to be a specific (...) individual character, Aristotle also defines the virtue of justice as the character of justice, with which citizens act justly and desire to do what is just. The virtue of justice is also an individual ethical virtue, differing from others for it is at the same time a social ethic. We can call the virtue of justice a “non-individual individual ethical virtue.” It has been explained as between pure altruism and egoism, which is a wrong explanation. John Rawls regards justice as the first virtue of social institutions, challenging Aristotle’s virtue of justice, an assertion which also needs further deliberation. (shrink)

Conservative thinkers such as Francis Fukuyama have produced a battery of objections to the transhumanist project of fundamentally enhancing human capacities. This article examines one of these objections, namely that by allowing some to greatly extend their capacities, we will undermine the fundamental moral equality of human beings. I argue that this objection is groundless: once we understand the basis for human equality, it is clear that anyone who now has sufficient capacities to count as a person from the moral (...) point of view will continue to count as one even if others are fundamentally enhanced; and it is mistaken to think that a creature which had even far greater capacities than an unenhanced human being should count as more than an equal from the moral point of view. (shrink)

We share Nelson and Meyer's (2005) frustration with the dearth of meaningful debate evidenced in the President's Council on Bioethics's (PCB's) Report, Human Cloning and Human Dignity. But we disag...

ABSTRACT:I here advance a critical research agenda for the political perspective of corporate social responsibility (Political CSR). I argue that whilst the ‘Political’ CSR literature is notable for both its conceptual novelty and practical importance, its development has been hamstrung by four ambiguities, conflations and/or oversights. More positively, I argue that ‘Political’ CSR should be conceived as one potentialformof globalization, and not as aconsequenceof ‘globalization’; that contemporary Western MNCs should be presumed to engage in CSR for instrumental reasons; that ‘Political’ (...) CSR should be associated with a corresponding ‘political’ model of corporate governance; and that both a ‘Rawlsian’ and ‘Habermasian’ perspective of Political CSR are different from ‘Political’ CSR. In concluding, I use these four critiques to identify a number of areas within which increasingly robust and sophisticated positive and normative theories of Political CSR are required. (shrink)

The subject of this article is the Rawlsian right to personal property. Adequate discussion of this right has long been absent from the literature, and the recent rise in interest in other areas of Rawlsian thought on property makes the issue particularly pertinent. The right to personal property as proposed by orthodox Rawlsians – in this article, the position is represented by Rawls himself – is best understood, I claim, either as a right to be able to privately own housing (...) and personal items or as a right to actually own these things. I argue, however, that the resources of a Rawlsian theory cannot justify a basic right to property which is as extensive as this. Instead, what can be justified is a more limited set of rights, comparable with the rights we have over objects that we rent. Rawlsian justice, then, has a more radical implications in terms of basic property rights than has previously been thought. (shrink)

Abraham Singer argues that Rawlsian theories of justice cannot apply to corporate governance and business ethics. On Singer’s view, Rawls regards business corporations as voluntary associations outside of the basic structure, which is the only site where justice applies. In this comment, we show the importance of Rawlsian theory to central questions of corporate governance. The corporation should be considered part of the basic structure, because it is part of society’s system of productive social cooperation. Rawls' proposal for a property-owning (...) democracy also raises crucial corporate governance issues concerning the proper owners of the firm, and the separation of ownership and control. (shrink)

In Free Market Fairness, John Tomasi argues that a wider range of private economic freedoms should be included amongst the high liberal set of basic rights than is normally thought. The topic of this paper is not primarily Tomasi’s own views, but a view that has emerged in the critical literature responding to Tomasi, consideration of which has so far been neglected. This view holds that whilst the specific private economic freedoms Tomasi proposes should be rejected, certain ‘weak’ private economic (...) freedoms should be included amongst the high liberal basic rights. In the paper, I critically assess (and reject) one version of this position, which claims that Rawlsian high liberals ought to accept a weak basic right to privately own productive property. (shrink)

This article adapts John Rawls’s writings, arguing that past injustice can change what we ought to publicly affirm as the standard of justice today. My approach differs from forward-looking approaches based on alleviating prospective disadvantage and backward-looking historical entitlement approaches. In different contexts, Rawls’s own concern for the ‘social bases of self-respect’ and equal citizenship may require public endorsement of different principles or specifications of the standard of justice. Rawls’s difference principle focuses on the least advantaged socioeconomic group. I argue (...) that a historicized difference principle considers the relative standing of racial, gender, and other historically stigmatized groups; provides their members assurance by weakening incentives to manipulate justice to another group’s advantage; and may result in policies resembling reparations, though justified by forward-looking considerations of self-respect and public assurance. I then examine how disrespectful justifications were historically used to forcibly include indigenous peoples as citizens. While Rawls thinks providing citizens one package of basic liberties signals respect, indigenous self-government could better support self-respect. I invoke Rawlsian international justice, which calls for mutual respect between peoples. Indigenous peoples’ status should reflect their past and persisting peoplehood, providing assurance by weakening incentives to unjustly transform international into domestic contexts. (shrink)

This article illuminates the relationship between John Rawls' and Michael Walzer's accounts of non-domestic justice by tracing its connection to their domestic relationship. More precisely, it places the celebrated positional shifts that characterize the latter within the context of the fundamental justificatory tension between their projects which endures: reason vs trust; and then juxtaposes this justificatory tension and their non-domestic political prescriptions. Such contextualization is important to the clarification of the pair's non-domestic relationship since it enables the observation that despite (...) this enduring justificatory tension these political prescriptions are remarkably similar. (shrink)

The article propounds a justification of public health interventionism grounded on personal health as an intermediate human end in the ethical domain, on an interpretation of Aristotle. This goes beyond the position taken by some liberals that health should be understood as a prudential good alone. A second, but independent, argument is advanced in the domain of the political, namely, that population health can be justified as a political value in its own right as a primary social good, following an (...) interpretation of John Rawls’s evolved understanding of such goods in his later works. The article sets the scene for these positions by highlighting how liberal theories focusing on freedom as non-interference, or making the harm principle the basis of legitimate public health interventions, undercut the capacity of the state to actively promote population health. The article points to theoretical resources on legitimacy and liberty—the ‘salient coordinator account’ of authority and freedom as non-domination—that may help avoid this risk. The role of reflective equilibrium incorporating incompletely theorized mid-level principles is emphasized to ensure that interventions are soundly justified. The application of these principles would ensure that interventions do not exceed the proper moral/political boundaries limiting the role of government. (shrink)

Feminists have long been aware of the pathology and the dangers of what are now termed “adaptive preferences.” Adaptive preferences are preferences formed in unconscious response to oppression. Thinkers from each wave of feminism continue to confront the problem of women's internalization of their own oppression, that is, the problem of women forming their preferences within the confining and deforming space that patriarchy provides. All preferences are, in fact, formed in response to a limited set of options, but not all (...) preferences are unconscious, pathological responses to oppression. Feminist theory therefore requires a method for distinguishing all preferences from adaptive or deformed preferences. Social contract theory provides such a tool. Social contract theory models autonomous preference-acquisition and retention at both the external level of causation and the internal level of justification. In doing so, social contract theory exposes preferences that do not meet those standards, acting as both a conceptual test that identifies adaptive preferences and as a practical tool for personal and social clarification. A social contract approach helps persons and societies to identify and to confront preferences rooted in unconscious response to oppression. (shrink)

Journal of Social Philosophy, EarlyView.

Monarchy is liberalism’s little secret. Given the number of articles and books appearing every year dealing with liberal democracy as the hallmark of contemporary Western societies, it is astonishing that monarchy is rarely ever mentioned despite the fact that monarchy, and not a republic, is the constitutional form of quite a number of Western liberal states. I argue that considering the political reality of the established monarchies in Europe leads into a dilemma: either contemporary liberalism is not the kind of (...) theory it claims to be or it has to reconsider its central tenets. In conclusion, I show that the dilemma cannot be solved or avoided but needs to be embraced by conceiving liberalism not as a applied moral theory but as a political theory that leaves room for various symbolic self-understandings and acknowledges the crooked timber of historical realities. (shrink)

In this essay I discuss a powerful challenge to high-liberalism: the challenge presented by neoclassical liberals that the high-liberal assumptions and values imply that the full range of economic liberties are basic rights. If the claim is true, then the high-liberal road from ideals of democracy and democratic citizenship to left-liberal institutions is blocked. Indeed, in that case the high-liberal is committed to an institutional scheme more along the lines of laissez-faire capitalism than property-owning democracy. To present and discuss this (...) challenge, I let John Rawls represent the high-liberal argument that only a narrow range of economic liberties are basic rights and John Tomasi represent the neoclassical liberal argument that the full range of economic liberties are basic rights. I show that Rawls’s argument is inadequate, but also that Tomasi’s argument fails. I thus conclude that high-liberalism is in a precarious situation, but is not yet undone by the neoclassical liberal challenge. (shrink)

Human beings are the cause of many current environmental problems. This poses the question of how to respond to these problems at the national and international level. However, many people ask themselves whether they should personally contribute to solving these problems and how they could (best) do so. This is the focus of this Special Issue on Individual Environmental Responsibility. The introduction proposes a way to structure this complex debate by distinguishing three broad clusters of arguments. The first cluster tackles (...) the kind of ethical theory we need to properly address different aspects of individual responsibility. The second cluster asks what individuals should do from an ethical point of view. The third cluster investigates the role of contextual factors and the limits of demandingness in individual obligations. This introduction presents the papers of the Special Issue and the interrelations between them using those clusters of arguments as reference. (shrink)

One of the central elements of John Rawls’ argument in support of his two principles of justice is the intuitive normative ideal of citizens as free and equal. But taken in isolation, the claim that citizens are to be treated as free and equal is extremely indeterminate, and has virtually no clear implications for policy. In order to remedy this, the two principles of justice, together with the stipulation that citizens have basic interests in developing their moral capacities and pursuing (...) their conceptions of the good life, are meant to provide a more precise interpretation of what is involved in treating citizens as free and equal. Rawls’ critics, however, have argued that satisfying the two principles of justice is not the most appropriate or plausible way to respect the status of citizens as free and equal. In relation to this debate, the present paper has two aims. The first is to examine Rawls’ account of the type of freedom that a just society must guarantee equally to its citizens. I will argue that those who think of Rawls as a theorist of freedom as non-interference are mistaken, because his notion of liberty resembles in important respects the republican notion of freedom as non-domination. Second, I will consider the extent to which Rawls’ principles of justice successfully protect the freedom as non-domination of all citizens so as to effectively treat them as free and equal. (shrink)

When are we morally obligated as a society to help the homeless, and is coercive interference justified when help is not asked for, even refused? To answer this question, we propose a comprehensive taxonomy of different types of homelessness and argue that different levels of autonomy allow for interventions with varying degrees of pressure to accept help. There are only two categories, however, where paternalism proper is allowed, be it heavily qualified. The first case is the homeless person with severely (...) diminished autonomy as a result of mental illness, and the second case is the homeless person who runs a risk of serious and imminent harm to self. In the first case, namely, that of soft paternalism, we argue that coercive intervention in the case of a refusal to accept help should be focused on the provision of housing that meets basic needs—needs that we outline in the article. In the case of imminent and severe harm to self, the case of hard paternalism, we argue that forced intervention can only be allowed if it is temporary and local, namely focused on getting someone out of harm’s way. (shrink)

Political liberalism holds that political decisions should be made on the basis of public considerations, and not on the basis of comprehensive religious, moral, or philosophical views. An important objection to this view is that it presupposes doubt, hesitation, or skepticism about the truth of comprehensive doctrines on the side of reasonable citizens. Proponents of political liberalism, such as John Rawls and Jonathan Quong, successfully defend political liberalism against several objections of this kind. In this paper, I argue that recent (...) developments in the epistemology of disagreement require us to revisit these skeptical concerns. I will argue that the correct understanding of political liberalism’s epistemic commitments, in combination with a conciliatory view about peer disagreement, lead to a new skeptical problem for political liberalism. All reasonable citizens who also hold a set of religious, moral, or philosophical beliefs, I will argue, suffer from a breakdown of epistemic rationality. I will show that existing answers to skeptical objections fail to resolve this problem. (shrink)

One major way of arguing for the moral attractiveness of luck egalitarianism is indirect; it consists in showing that the view follows from competing views on distributive justice which one actually endorses. Kasper Lippert-Rasmussen (KLR) claims that luck egalitarianism is indirectly supported in this way by Rawls’s intuitive argument for the difference principle. That argument begins by asserting that the impact of social and natural contingencies on distributive shares is unjust. After clarifying the notion of indirect support, I argue against (...) KLR’s claim. Whether the argument goes on to support luck egalitarianism is a matter of interpretation which can only be decided by looking closer at what Rawls has to say about the difference principle than KLR’s own treatment of the argument allows. In its most plausible reading, the intuitive argument veers away from luck egalitarianism in favor of a non-egalitarian view of the difference principle as a principle of compensating advantage. On this view, inequality due to bad luck is not in any respect unjust when the least advantaged cannot be made better off under alternative arrangements. In conclusion I explain why there are good reasons of fairness to understand the difference principle in this way. (shrink)

J S Mill used the term ‘dead dogma’ to describe a belief that has gone unquestioned for so long and to such a degree that people have little idea why they accept it or why they continue to believe it. When wives and children were considered chattel, it made sense for the head of a household to have a ‘sovereignal right’ to do as he wished with his property. Now that women and children are considered to have the full complement (...) of human rights and slavery has been abolished, it is no longer acceptable for someone to have a ‘right’ to completely control the life of another human being. Revealingly, parental rights tend to be invoked only when parents want to do something that is arguably not in their child9s best interest. Infant male circumcision is a case in point. Instead of parental _rights_, I claim that parents have an _obligation_ to protect their children9s rights as well as to preserve the future options of those children so far as possible. In this essay, it is argued that the notion that parents have a right to make decisions concerning their children9s bodies and minds—_irrespective of the child9s best interests_—is a dead dogma. The ramifications of this argument for the circumcision debate are then spelled out and discussed. (shrink)

I drive a wedge between public deliberation and public justification, concepts tightly associated in public reason liberalism. Properly understood, the ideal of public justification imposes no restraint on citizen deliberation but requires that those who have a substantial impact on the use of coercive power, political officials, advance proposals each person has sufficient reason to accept. I formulate this idea as the Principle of Convergent Restraint and apply it to legislators to illustrate the general reorientation I propose for the public (...) reason project. (shrink)