Political realism criticises the putative abstraction, foundationalism and neglect of the agonistic dimension of political practice in the work of John Rawls. This paper argues that had Rawls not fully specified the implementation of his theory of justice in one particular form of political economy then he would be vulnerable to a realist critique. But he did present such an implementation: a property-owning democracy. An appreciation of Rawls s specificationist method undercuts the realist critique of his conception of justice as (...) fairness. (shrink)

This article argues that a state-centered theory of global justice exhibits an epistemic problem of perspective, and that this worry exhibits a gendered character. Within a liberal domestic theory of justice, the public/private distinction has been repeatedly shown to be bad for women because it creates a domain for injustice that becomes invisible to public policy and the law. This article argues that state-centered theories of global justice create an analogous space that is cut off from questions of global justice. (...) The article therefore suggests that this way of framing questions of global justice is problematic, and is problematic for women in particular. Just as the public/private distinction in liberal domestic justice leaves cases of injustice outside the vision of the law, the hard distinction between the domestic (state) sphere and the international realm of justice leaves cases of injustice invisible to international law. For the question of global justice, the privileging of sovereignty and non-intervention compromises the ability of the theory to achieve its purported goal of universal justice. (shrink)

This article argues that a state-centered theory of global justice exhibits an epistemic problem of perspective, and that this worry exhibits a gendered character. Within a liberal domestic theory of justice, the public/private distinction has been repeatedly shown to be bad for women because it creates a domain for injustice that becomes invisible to public policy and the law. This article argues that state-centered theories of global justice create an analogous space that is cut off from questions of global justice. (...) The article therefore suggests that this way of framing questions of global justice is problematic, and is problematic for women in particular. Just as the public/private distinction in liberal domestic justice leaves cases of injustice outside the vision of the law, the hard distinction between the domestic sphere and the international realm of justice leaves cases of injustice invisible to international law. For the question of global justice, the privileging of sovereignty and non-intervention compromises the ability of the theory to achieve its purported goal of universal justice. (shrink)

“Ideal theorists” in contemporary liberal political theory argue that we can only arrive at a conception of what our most important political values require by reference to an imagined ideal state of affairs and that we must therefore, to some extent, engage in utopian thinking. Critical theorists, from Marx and the Frankfurt School, have traditionally been highly skeptical towards using idealizations in this way. This skepticism is mirrored by contemporary authors, such as Charles Mills. I argue that most of their (...) critical arguments make a principled case only against ahistorical, decontextualized projects of utopian idealization, but not against ideal theorizing as such. Critical theories do not need to reject ideal theorizing. On the contrary: The method of immanent critique that is specific to critical theory allows for a conception of an ideal state of affairs that emerges from its diagnosis of social contradictions. I conclude that critical theories can (and should) incorporate some aspects of ideal theorizing and its utopian reference to a better society. (shrink)

Claims about what justice “requires” and the “requirements” of justice are pervasive in political philosophy. However, there is a highly significant ambiguity in such claims that appears to have gone unnoticed. Such claims may pick out either one of two categorically distinct and noncoextensive kinds of requirement that we call 1) requirements-as-necessary-conditions for justice and 2) requirements-as-demands of justice. This is an especially compelling instance of an ambiguity that John Broome has famously observed in the context of claims about other (...) requirements (notably the requirements of rationality and morality). But it appears to have been overlooked by political philosophers in the case of claims about the requirements of justice. The ambiguity is highly significant inasmuch as failing to notice it is liable to distort our normative thinking about politics and make us vulnerable to certain kinds of normatively consequential errors: both mistakenly drawing inferences about what justice demands of us from claims that certain states or societies are not just; and mistakenly drawing inferences about what states or societies are or would be just from claims that justice does not demand of states or societies that they do certain things. Paying greater attention to the distinction between these two different kinds of requirements and the ways in which they come apart is helpful, not merely in avoiding these distortions and errors, but also in resolving, or at least clarifying, a number of other notoriously murky meta-normative debates, especially various important debates about realism and idealism in political philosophy. (shrink)

European Journal of Philosophy, Volume 30, Issue 2, Page 530-545, June 2022.

Much of the discussion on cosmopolitanism and nationalism has focused on their different normative views. The purpose of this article is to shift the attention away from the normative debate to the metatheoretical argument about how we determine moral and political principles independently of each other. I argue that the discussion among proponents of cosmopolitanism and contextualist models boils down to latent methodological and metatheoretical assumptions about what selection of facts are considered politically relevant. In the article, I explore what (...) I call ‘the indeterminacy failure’ of moral cosmopolitanism, that is, the view according to which moral principles fail to determine what political-institutional level might be preferable; and the ‘indeterminacy failure’ of liberal nationalism, that is, the view according to which national identity fails to determine moral principles. In opposition to dichotomist cosmopolitan models and alternative contextualist approaches, I promote a ‘split-level’ model that is set to avoid the difficulties in the other approaches. The split-level corrects the indeterminacy failures of cosmopolitanism and contextualism by distinguishing clearly between the level of moral theorising and the level of political theorising. (shrink)

This article explores the relevance of the work of Cambridge historian of political thought István Hont to contemporary political theory. Specifically, it suggests that Hont’s work can be of great help to the recent realist revival in political theory, in particular via its lending support to the account favoured by Bernard Williams, which has been a major source for recent realist work. The article seeks to make explicit the main political theoretic implications of Hont’s historically-focused work, which in their original (...) formulations are not always easy to discern, as well as itself being a positive contribution to realist theorizing, moving beyond a merely negative critique of dominant moralist positions. (shrink)

One of the main challenges faced by realists in political philosophy is that of offering an account of authority that is genuinely normative and yet does not consist of a moralistic application of general, abstract ethical principles to the practice of politics. Political moralists typically start by devising a conception of justice based on their pre-political moral commitments; authority would then be legitimate only if political power is exercised in accordance with justice. As an alternative to that dominant approach I (...) put forward the idea that upturning the relationship between justice and legitimacy affords a normative notion of authority that does not depend on a pre-political account of morality, and thus avoids some serious problems faced by mainstream theories of justice. I then argue that the appropriate purpose of justice is simply to specify the implementation of an independently grounded conception of legitimacy, which in turn rests on a context- and practice-sensitive understanding of the purpose of political power. (shrink)

Could the notion of compromise help us overcoming – or at least negotiating – the frequent tension, in normative political theory, between the realistic desideratum of peaceful coexistence and the idealistic desideratum of justice? That is to say, an analysis of compromise may help us moving beyond the contrast between two widespread contrasting attitudes in contemporary political philosophy: ‘fiat iustitia, pereat mundus’ on the one side, ‘salus populi suprema lex’ on the other side. More specifically, compromise may provide the backbone (...) of a conception of legitimacy that mediates between idealistic (or moralistic) and realistic (or pragmatic) desiderata of political theory, i.e. between the aspiration to peace and the aspiration to justice. In other words, this paper considers whether an account of compromise could feature in a viable realistic conception of political legitimacy, in much the same way in which consensus features in more idealistic conceptions of legitimacy (a move that may be attributed to some realist theorists, especially Bernard Williams). My conclusions, however, are largely sceptical: I argue that grounding legitimacy in any kind of normatively salient agreement does require the trappings of idealistic political philosophy, for better or – in my view – worse. (shrink)

Political realism is characterised by fidelity to the facts of politics and a refusal to derive political judgments from pre- political moral commitments. Even when they are not taken to make normative theorising impossible or futile, those characteristics are often thought to engender a conservative slant, or at least a tendency to prefer incremental reformism to radicalism. I resist those claims by distinguishing between three variants of realism—ordorealism, contextual realism, and radical realism—and contrasting them with both non-ideal theory and utopianism. (...) I then develop a version of radical realism as a form of debunking and vindicatory genealogy. Even though this new approach eschews both feasibility constraints (unlike non-ideal theory) and prescriptions about the ideal society (unlike utopianism), I show how it has more radical potential than morality-driven (and hence often ideological) political theory, and how it supports both open-ended, radical social critique and concrete forms of prefigurative political action. (shrink)

Should the EU be a federal union or an intergovernmental forum? Recently, demoicrats have been arguing that there exists a third alternative. The EU should be conceived as a demoicracy, namely a ‘Union of peoples who govern together, but not as one’. The demoi of Europe recognise that they affect one another’s democratic health, and hence establish a union to guarantee their freedom qua demoi – which most demoicrats cash out as non-domination. This is more than intergovernmentalism, because the demoi (...) govern together on these matters. However, if the union aims at protecting the freedom of the different European demoi, it cannot do so by replacing them with a ‘superdemos’, as federalists want. This paper argues that demoicracy does possess distinctive normative features; it claims, however, that an institutional choice between intergovernmentalism and federalism is necessary. Depending on how we interpret what the non-domination of demoi requires, demoicracy will either ground a specific way of practicing intergovernmentalism or a specific form of federalism. It cannot, however, ground an institutional model which is genuinely alternative to both. (shrink)

In Why Not Socialism?, GA Cohen defines socialism as the combined application of two moral principles: the egalitarian principle and the principle of community. The desirability of a social order organized around these two principles is illustrated by the ‘camping trip’ example. After describing the fundamental features of the camping trip scenario at reasonable length, Cohen argues that the desirability of such a social model is nearly self-explanatory, concluding therefore that the most significant challenges to socialism lie in its feasibility. (...) This article argues that the desirability of the camping trip model as an appropriate ideal for society is less obvious than Cohen acknowledges. To argue my point, I shall compare the camping trip with another social practice that is equally small sized and characterized by strong emotional ties among its members, but in which the conditions of what I shall call ‘goal-monism’ and discontinuity in time do not hold, namely, the family. (shrink)

How should automated vehicles react in emergency circumstances? Most research projects and scientific literature deal with this question from a moral perspective. In particular, it is customary to treat emergencies involving AVs as instances of moral dilemmas and to use the trolley problem as a framework to address such alleged dilemmas. Some critics have pointed out some shortcomings of this strategy and have urged to focus on mundane traffic situations instead of trolley cases involving AVs. Besides, these authors rightly point (...) out the political nature of the most interesting debates involving AVs. However, in our view, they do not offer an adequate account of the distinction between ethics and politics and still see their proposals as contributions to the ethics of AVs. We argue that many of the interesting questions about how AVs should behave, both in emergency and other situations, are of political, and not moral, nature. This view is based on a conception of politics and political normativity that we have developed elsewhere and that we call “political minimalism.” Additionally, we show that this proposed perspective has significant consequences for the design, management, and regulation of transport systems. (shrink)

:The main point of contention between “naturalistic” and “political” theories of human rights concerns the need to invoke the notion of moral human rights in justifying the system of human rights included in the international practice. Political theories argue that we should bypass the question of the justification of moral human rights and start with the question of which norms and principles should be adopted to regulate the practice. Naturalistic theories, by contrast, claim that a convincing answer to the latter (...) question will have to presuppose some answer to the former. An adequate justification of the system of human rights included in the international practice, according to naturalistic approaches, will ultimately have to rely on some appeal to moral human rights. I call this view the “Priority of the Moral over the Political.” In this essay, I argue that the Priority of the Moral is harder to dismiss than political theories of human rights suggest, and that before we can assess the plausibility of these theories, they need to say more in defense of their claim that they can do without this view. I then consider the two main objections that seem to have motivated many philosophers to abandon the naturalistic approach to the justification of human rights in favor of the political one. I conclude by suggesting that a variant of naturalistic justification, the basic-needs account, has the resources to address these objections. (shrink)

The question whether distributive justice is at bottom practice-dependent or practice-independent has received much attention in recent years. I argue that the problem of intergenerational justice resolves this dispute in favor of practice-independence. Many believe that we owe more to our descendants than leaving them a world in which they can merely lead minimally decent lives. This thought is particularly convincing given the fact that it is us who determine to a significant extent what this future world will look like. (...) However, no practices that would trigger distributive obligations exist between distant generations. Thus, if we have to leave more than a minimum for future generations, we cannot conceive of distributive justice in terms of the justification of ongoing social interactions. Rather we have to think of the entire concept as an idea based on persons’ legitimate interests and capacity for well-being, and which abstracts from participation in particular practices. (shrink)

Proponents of practice-dependent egalitarianism argue that egalitarian duties and entitlements only apply among participants in morally relevant practices. In this paper, I argue that these views are implausible because they allow for objectionable treatment of non-participants. I show that it is impossible, on the basis of practice-internal considerations alone, to determine the extent to which the pursuit of practices can permissibly limit the opportunities of non-participants. There are opportunities beyond the current holdings of practices to which no one has a (...) privileged claim (such as unowned natural resources), and the distribution of which is a matter of justice. A just distribution of such unowned distributive goods, though, requires a practice-independent distributive baseline. I further show that such a baseline can only be egalitarian because all alternative baselines face serious objections. From this I conclude that any plausible theory of distributive justice must accept some form of equal practice-independent distributive entitlements. (shrink)

The current philosophical debate on just international trade has moved away from purely idealistic theorizing into the direction of non-ideal theory. At the same time most philosophical thought on just trade is still rather idealistic and the main argument of the paper is that some philosophical reasoning about international trade justice should be more realistic. The paper develops in three steps. In a first step I will give a short overview over normative questions that arise with respect to international trade. (...) I will then highlight a proposal brought forward by Leif Wenar, because he is aware of the realist challenge and tries to counter it. In a second step I will discuss why it is important to integrate a realist perspective into philosophical considerations of international trade justice. Trade agreements are embedded in political contexts that influence the normative perspective one should take on trade justice. This leads to the third part of the article, where I will explore how a realist approach can go along with more idealistic perspectives, which leads to a weakly realist perspective on trade justice. (shrink)

This article argues that populism, cosmopolitanism, and calls for global justice should be understood not as theoretical positions but as appeals to different segments of democratic electorates with the aim of assembling winning political coalitions. This view is called democratic realism: it considers political competition in democracies from a perspective that is realist in the sense that it focuses not first on the content of competing political claims but on the relationships among different components of the coalitions they work to (...) mobilise in the pursuit of power. It is argued that Laclau’s populist theory offers a sort of realist critique of other populists, but that his view neglects the crucial dynamics of political coalition-building. When the relation of populism to global justice is rethought from this democratic realist angle, one can better understand the sorts of challenges each faces, and also where and how they come into conflict. (shrink)

An increasingly popular approach to global justice claims we should be ‘integrationist,’ where integrationism represents an attempt to unify our theorising between different domains of global politics. These political theorists have argued that we cannot identify plausible principles in one domain, such as climate justice, which are not sensitive to general moral concerns. This paper argues we ought to reject the concept of integrationism. It shows that integrationism is either trivial, or it obscures relevant disagreement by ignoring the distinctive methodological (...) and substantive commitments held by its opponents. The paper then argues that the relevant disagreement is actually about the role of practices for political philosophy and, as such, should be framed in terms of the distinction between practice-dependent and practice-independent theory. Finally, I provide my own account of that distinction, identifying a practice-dependent claim that those concerned about the narrowness of prominent accounts of global justice should target. (shrink)

The essay provides a reconstruction of Rawls's The Law of Peoples that makes sense of three main discontinuities between Rawls's domestic theory of justice and his international outlook, namely the absence in the latter of: a) individualism, b) egalitarianism, and c) structural justice. The essay argues that while we can make sense of such differences without charging Rawls's account of blatant inconsistency, we can nonetheless criticize such an outlook from an internal perspective. There is a middle way between claiming that (...) no significant differences are present between A Theory of Justice and The Law of Peoples and, on the other hand, that the differences between the two are so large as to make them totally incompatible. Furthermore, to argue in favour of Rawls's consistency does not, as many seem to have thought, entail agreeing with his overall conclusion for justice in international relations. The final part of the essay illustrates this point by analyzing the case of trade. (shrink)

In this essay I critically engage with Mathias Risse and Gabriel Wollner’s book On Trade Justice: A Philosophical Plea for a New Global Deal. I sketch their general view of the concept of exploitation and of trade exploitation more specifically. I then suggest that, contra Risse and Wollner, exploitation belongs to non-ideal theory. In addition, I argue that Risse and Wollner have not shown that the WTO is exploitative, and argue that their account of fair wages suffers from a number (...) of weaknesses both on the cost and contribution sides. (shrink)

This article considers two prominent, competing approaches to defining the scope of business responsibility for human rights. The first approach advocates extension of business responsibility beyond the boundaries of the enterprise to encompass broader ' spheres of influence'. The second approach advocates a business ' responsibility to respect* human rights (but not a ' positive* duty to protect, promote or fulfil rights).Building on a critical evaluation of these competing accounts of business responsibility, this article outlines a modified account, referred to (...) as a framework of ' spheres of responsibility*. On such an account, business responsibility for human rights outcomes is conceptualised not only in relation to direct ' harms' imposed by business, but also in relation to corporate influence over broader relationships and institutions that shape and constrain the substantive realisation of human rights. (shrink)

This article considers two prominent, competing approaches to defining the scope of business responsibility for human rights. The first approach advocates extension of business responsibility beyond the boundaries of the enterprise to encompass broader ‘spheres of influence’. The second approach advocates a business ‘responsibility to respect’ human rights. Building on a critical evaluation of these competing accounts of business responsibility, this article outlines a modified account, referred to as a framework of ‘spheres of responsibility’. On such an account, business responsibility (...) for human rights outcomes is conceptualised not only in relation to direct ‘harms’ imposed by business, but also in relation to corporate influence over broader relationships and institutions that shape and constrain the substantive realisation of human rights. (shrink)

Many political theorists of multiculturalism describe their theories as “contextualist.” But it is unclear what “contextualism” means and what difference it makes for political theory. I use a specific prominent example of a multiculturalist discussion, namely Tariq Modood’s argument about “moderate secularism,” as a test case and distinguish between different senses of contextualism. I discuss whether the claim that political theory is contextual in each sense is novel and interesting, and whether contextualism is a distinct feature of political theory of (...) multiculturalism. I argue that the forms of contextualism which concern the scope and methodology of political theory are sensible, but not novel or distinctive of multiculturalism. I then discuss the more controversial forms of contextualism, which I call political and theoretical contextualism. Finally, I apply the distinctions to Modood’s argument. I argue that it is not a form of theoretical contextualism and that theoretical contextualism would in fact undermine arguments for multiculturalist policies of accommodation. (shrink)

The right to religious liberty as for instance set out in the European Convention of Human Rights protects acts of religious observance. Such protection can clash with other considerations, including laws aimed at protecting other state interests. Religious freedom therefore requires an account of when the right should lead to exemptions from other laws and when the right can legitimately be limited. Alan Patten has proposed a Fair Opportunity view of the normative logic of religious liberty. But Patten’s view faces (...) several problems. The normative work in his view is mainly done by added accounts of reasonable claims and of justifiability. So, the Fair Opportunity view in itself does not provide a normative criterion. Defenses of the Fair Opportunity view must therefore turn on the theoretical preferability of its structural features. But the Fair Opportunity view has the wrong form to capture the right to freedom of religion. The form of the right to freedom of religion is due to how its point is to address how states limit the liberty of citizens. Given a practice dependent approach, which assigns importance to the point and purpose of the right to freedom of religion, Patten’s theory is thus problematic. (shrink)

Existing conceptualizations of the demos fail to treat issues of composition and performativity consistently. Recent literature suggests that both aspects are required in a satisfactory account of the demos. An analysis of this literature suggests several desiderata that such an account must meet. I approach the definition of demos with a conceptual framework derived from Margaret Gilbert’s plural subject theory of social groups. I propose an account of demos as a plural subject, constituted by joint commitment. This account offers an (...) improved and consistent understanding of normativity, composition, agency, and cohesion of demos. -/- . (shrink)

Housing has become a political problem in the vast majority of cities around the world, highlighting obvious injustices. The article pursues the question to what extent the existing human right to housing can be of any interest here. The practice-based approach of Charles Beitz can help against the background of some systematic supplements. A ‘negative’ approach that distinguishes forms of injustice is an important prerequisite for a substantial use of human rights. The negative approach makes it possible to uncover injustices (...) and shows the obstacles that stand in the way of a practice-based conception of human rights. The practice-based conception is, at the same time, necessary for the social analysis of the obstacles, in order to analyse human rights as well as to be able to justify human rights themselves. The current commodification of housing it is argued impedes the exercise of a practice-based conception of human rights in the way that Charles Beitz has suggested. (shrink)

Housing has become a political problem in the vast majority of cities around the world, highlighting obvious injustices. The article pursues the question to what extent the existing human right to housing can be of any interest here. The practice-based approach of Charles Beitz can help against the background of some systematic supplements. A ‘negative’ approach that distinguishes forms of injustice is an important prerequisite for a substantial use of human rights. The negative approach makes it possible to uncover injustices (...) and shows the obstacles that stand in the way of a practice-based conception of human rights. The practice-based conception is, at the same time, necessary for the social analysis of the obstacles, in order to analyse human rights as well as to be able to justify human rights themselves. The current commodification of housing it is argued impedes the exercise of a practice-based conception of human rights in the way that Charles Beitz has suggested. (shrink)

Spoofing—placing orders on financial exchanges intending to withdraw them prior to execution—is widely legally prohibited. I argue instead on two main grounds that spoofing should be permitted and legalised. The first is that spoofing as a form of bluffing remains within the market practice of making legally binding offers—as opposed to lying or betraying trust—and primarily concerns the spoofer’s personal information. As a form of bluffing spoofing helps prevent financial speculators, in particular high-frequency algorithmic traders, from easily profiting by other (...) market actors reliably revealing their underlying preferences through their market activity. The second is that at the systemic level permitting spoofing would benefit non-speculative actors who place orders to hedge economic risk and whose activities provide the raison d’être for financial exchanges, differentiating them from simple forums for gambling. I also address potential concerns that legalised spoofing would drive speculators out of financial markets entirely and, therefore, undermine market liquidity. This work contributes to the wider debate in business ethics regarding bluffing by illustrating the acceptability of bluffs which do not betray counterparty trust or reliance on testimony by remaining within the framework of market practices. (shrink)

This article integrates empirical and normative discussions about why global economic inequalities matter in critically examining an approach known as derivative global egalitarianism (DGE). DGE is a burgeoning perspective that opposes excessive global economic inequality not based on the intrinsic value of equality but inequality's negative repercussions on other values. The article aims to advance the research agenda by identifying and critically evaluating four primary varieties of DGE arguments from related but distinct literatures, which span a number of disciplines, including (...) economics, international relations, and political philosophy. Overall, DGE offers a number of persuasive arguments as to why current levels of global inequality are of concern, but aspects of DGE beg further philosophical and empirical examination. By situating DGE within the wider theoretical and empirical contexts, this article provides resources for its critical assessment and theoretical development. (shrink)

This paper develops a domination-based practice-dependent approach to justice, according to which it is practices of systemic domination which can be said to ground demands from justice. The domination-based approach developed overcomes the two most important objections levelled to alternative practice-dependent approaches. First, it eschews conservative implications and hence is immune to the status quo objection. Second, it is immune to the redundancy objection, which doubts whether empirical facts and practices can really play an irreducible role in grounding justice. In (...) theorising dominating practices in terms of practices of social power, a domination-based approach makes justice dependent on factual information in three ways: First, the principle of non-domination is indeterminate and can only be spelled out by taking into view particular contexts of domination. Second, the principle of non-domination is conditional on the existence of practices of social power. Third, social power possesses a structural ontology – to know whether A has social power over B we need to turn to social rules distributing agents' higher order status of normative authority towards each other. This explains in what way practices of social power – and of domination – are both factual and normative practices and hence how such practices are non-redundant in grounding justice. (shrink)

In this paper, I seek to undermine G.A. Cohen ’s polemical use of a metaethical claim he makes in his article, ‘ Facts and Principles’, by arguing that that use requires an unsustainable equivocation between epistemic and logical grounding. I begin by distinguishing three theses that Cohen has offered during the course of his critique of Rawls and contractualism more generally, the foundationalism about grounding thesis, the justice as non-regulative thesis, and the justice as all-encompassing thesis, and briefly argue that (...) they are analytically independent of each other. I then offer an outline of the foundationalism about grounding thesis, characterising it, as Cohen does, as a demand of logic. That thesis claims that whenever a normative principle is dependent on a fact, it is so dependent in virtue of some other principle. I then argue that although this is true as a matter of logic, it, as Cohen admits, cannot be true of actual justifications, since logic cannot tell us anything about the truth as opposed to the validity of arguments. Facts about a justification cannot then be decisive for whether or not a given argument violates the foundationalism about grounding thesis. As long as, independently of actual justifications, theorists can point to plausible logically grounding principles, as I argue contractualists can, Cohen ’s thesis lacks critical bite. (shrink)

In Andrea Sangiovanni’s words, practice-dependent theorists hold that “[t]he content, scope, and justification of a conception of [a given value] depends on the structure and form of the practices that the conception is intended to govern”. They have tended to present this as methodologically innovative, but here I point to the similarities between the methodological commitments of contemporary practice-dependent theorists and others, particularly P. F. Strawson in his Freedom and Resentment and Bernard Williams in general. I suggest that by looking (...) at what Strawson and Williams did, we can add to the reasons for adopting one form or another of practice-dependence. The internal complexity of the practices we hope our principles will govern may require it. However, this defence of practice-dependence also puts pressure on self-identified practice-dependence theorists, suggesting that they need to do more work to justify the interpretations of the practices their theories rely on. (shrink)

This review essay discusses two recent attempts to reform the framework in which issues of international and global justice are discussed: Iris Marion Young's ?social connection' model and the practice-dependent approach, here exemplified by Ayelet Banai, Miriam Ronzoni and Christian Schemmel's edited collection. I argue that while Young's model may fit some issues of international or global justice, it misconceives the problems that many of them pose. Indeed, its difficulties point precisely in the direction of practice dependence as it is (...) presented by Banai et al. I go on to discuss what seem to be the strengths of that method, and particularly Banai et al.'s defence of it against the common claim that it is biased towards the status quo. I also discuss Andrea Sangiovanni and Kate MacDonald's contributions to the collection. (shrink)

It is commonly claimed, in the global justice literature, that global injustices are best characterised in terms of the violation or unfulfilment of human rights. I suggest that global justice theorists are overconfident on this point. For decolonising peoples, contemporary global injustice is likely to be characterised in terms drawn from local histories of injustice and the constellations of thick ethical concepts they contain. To make the point I describe how the Māori of New Zealand, who do not reject human (...) rights, typically make no reference to human rights in political argument. I argue that the Māori are reasonable to consider human rights talk to be ‘one thought too many’, and the considerations that make this so typically apply in other postcolonial contexts of political activity. (shrink)

Journal of International Political Theory, Ahead of Print.

European Journal of Philosophy, Volume 29, Issue 3, Page 575-580, September 2021.

This paper addresses Richard Vernon's approach to reconciling cosmopolitan political morality with particularized political obligations in his work, Cosmopolitan Regard. It situates his approach in his critical treatment of competing transactional theories of obligation, particularly reciprocity for benefits received, and presents his justification of particularized political obligations towards fellow members of persons' own state, based on complicity in unique systems of risk exposure. The paper also presents a critical treatment of his theory, and goes on to outline an alternate conception (...) of legitimacy without obligation as promising in addressing the identified concerns and as applicable to structures of governance beyond the state. (shrink)

:In this essay, I critically engage with a methodological approach in contemporary political theory — unconstrained utopianism — which holds that we can only determine how we should live by first giving an account of the principles that would govern society if people were perfectly morally motivated. I provide reasons for being skeptical of this claim. To begin with I query the robustness of the principles unconstrained utopianism purportedly delivers. While the method can be understood as offering existence proofs, because (...) we can devise other situations in which morally flawless decision making would unearth alternative sets of principles, I argue that such proofs tell us surprisingly little about how we should live in general. Drawing on this point, I contend that normative models that wish away certain phenomena that are uncontroversially central to any account of politics cannot plausibly claim to tell us how we should live in political society. I conclude by offering a more positive sketch of why avoiding this brand of utopianism might not represent a problematic capitulation to the morally nonideal and suggest that theorizing in light of certain constraints may be a precondition of good normative theorizing itself. (shrink)

In recent years, a number of realist thinkers have charged much contemporary political theory with being idealistic and moralistic. While the basic features of the realist counter-movement are reasonably well understood, realism is still considered a critical, primarily negative creed which fails to offer a positive, alternative way of thinking normatively about politics. Aiming to counteract this general perception, in this article I draw on Bernard Williams’s claims about how to construct a politically coherent conception of liberty from the non-political (...) value of freedom. I do this because Williams’s argument provides an illuminating example of the distinctive nature of realist political thinking and its attractions. I argue that Williams’s account of realist political thinking challenges the orthodox moralist claim that normative political arguments must be guided by an ideal ethical theory. I then spell out the repercussions Williams’s claims about the significance of political opposition and non-mor... (shrink)

I examine the main anticosmopolitan Rawslian argument, the ‘basic structure argument.’ It holds that distributive justice only applies to existing basic structures, there are only state basic structures, so distributive justice only applies among compatriots. Proponents of the argument face three challenges: 1) they must explain what type of basic structure relation makes distributive justice relevant only among compatriots, 2) they must explain why distributive justice (as opposed to allocative or retributive) is the relevant regulative concept for basic structures, and (...) 3) they must put forth a plausible concept of distributive justice. I show that Rawlsians support what I will call the ‘division of labor thesis’ to answer the first two challenges. Briefly, the division of labor thesis holds that distributive justice only becomes relevant where members of a division of labor jointly produce some socioeconomic product. To meet the third challenge, Rawlsians seem to accept what Elizabeth Anderson calls the ‘modern systemic concept of distributive justice’ – the idea that distributive justice organizes entire economic systems with respect to their distributive consequences or the relationships they maintain. I argue that if Rawlsians accept the systemic concept, they should reject the anticosmopolitan basic structure argument. (shrink)