I will study the concept of solidarity by looking at patterns of practical reasoning leading to behaviour that can be taken to exemplify solidarity. By studying which kinds of premisses are necessary for taking the motivation to display solidarity, in contrast to altruistic or moral motivation, I try to find necessary conditions for solidarity. I will argue that practical reasoning leading to solidary behaviour is a form of we-reasoning in which some of the premisses are in first person plural form (...) and attribute actions or attitudes to a collective. If this is correct, solidarity is a group concept, and intentional solidary behaviour presupposes identification with a group where others have shared goals or interests. This distinguishes solidary motivation and behaviour from altruistic or moral motivation and behaviour. (shrink)

Critics of social injustice argue that the agent of transformative social change will (or should) be a mass agent; namely, an agent that is large, complex, and geographically dispersed. Traditional theories of collective agency emphasize the presence of shared intentions and common knowledge, but mass agents are too large for such cohesion. To make sense of mass agency, I suggest a new approach. On the solidarity theory of mass agency, a mass agent is composed of (a) organizers who intend to (...) fight for social change and (b) supporters who are in solidarity with organizers. (shrink)

Reshaping our methodological research tools for adequately capturing injustice and domination has been a central aspiration of feminist philosophy and social epistemology in recent years. There has been an increasingly empirical turn in recent feminist and political theorization, engaging with case studies and the challenges arising from conducting research in solidarity with unequal partners. I argue that these challenges cannot be resolved by merely adopting a norm and stance of deference to those in the struggle for justice. To conduct philosophical (...) research in an engaged and solidaristic manner, I suggest that deference be supplemented by three methodological and normative principles: 1) epistemic humility, 2) accountability, and 3) co-producing knowledge. I situate these principles within contemporary philosophical work on solidarity, and show how they might help confront power imbalances and other methodological hazards that arise when conducting research in solidarity with others. I arrive at these principles in part by critically reflecting on my own attempt to conduct research in solidarity with women’s rights activists in Senegal. (shrink)

We argue that an unqualified use of the term solidarity in public health is not only equivocal but problematic toward the ends of public health. The term may be deployed normatively by public health advocates to strengthen the bonds among public health practitioners and refer to an ideal society in which the importance of interdependence among members ought to be acknowledged throughout the polity. We propose an important distinction between partisan solidarity and societal solidarity. Because any moralized belief in a (...) vision of a broad societal solidarity will be a contested political ideal, political reality would limit solidarity based on such a vision to partisan solidarity. An idealized vision of societal solidarity is simply not politically feasible in pluralistic, liberal, democratic societies. However, although societal solidarity is unlikely with respect to any particular policy, it might be hoped for with respect to constitutional procedures that provide boundaries for the agon of the political process. We suggest that moralizing assertions of a solidaristic ideal in a pluralistic society might be counterproductive to generating the political support necessary for public health per se and establishing legitimate public health policy. A pragmatic political approach would be for public health advocates to generate sufficient strong political support for those public health policies that are most amenable to the political and social realities of a time and place. (shrink)

The article intends to tackle two key questions: what solidarity means and why it is considered a valuable trait for a society to exhibit. In so doing, it aims to bridge the literature gap between solidarity’s nature and its normative value. In this article, an original hypothesis is explored, i.e. that solidarity ought to be understood in functionalist terms, and that we should want it accordingly because solidarity discharges the crucial function of societal cohesion.

This paper examines Nuti’s accounts of structural injustice and historical injustice in the light of a political dilemma that confronted Young’s work on structure injustice. The dilemma emerges from a paradox that can be stated simply: justly addressing structural injustice would require that those subject to structural injustice enjoy the kind of privileged position of decision-making power that their being subject to structural injustice denies them. The dilemma thus concerns how to justly address structural injustice. I argue that Nuti’s account (...) is currently unable to provide an adequate theorization of how to address this dilemma because it lacks an account of political solidarity, but also that her account provides important resources for dissolving a dispute between two competing theories of solidarity in a way that facilitates the articulation of an account of political solidarity that is adequate to addressing the political dilemma. (shrink)

Digital contact tracing is used in different countries to help contain the COVID-19 pandemic. It raises challenging empirical and ethical questions due to its complexity and widespread effects calling for a broader approach in ethical evaluation. However, existing approaches often fail to include all relevant value perspectives or lack reference to empirical data on the artifact in question. In this paper, we describe the development of an interdisciplinary framework to analyze digital contact tracing from an empirical and ethical perspective. Starting (...) with an analysis of methodological tensions in the attempt to analyze digital contact tracing, we, firstly, set out three methodological premises regarding (a) a specific view of technology, (b) a fruitful normative perspective, and (c) ways to gather empirical knowledge about the object under investigation. Secondly, we inspect consequences of these premises to develop our research methodology. In doing so, we argue for a postphenomenological perspective on technology, solidarity as an important concept to guide the ethical perspective, and an empirical approach based on qualitative social science research and the concept of affordances. We illustrate these considerations by referring to our analysis of the German Corona-Warn-App as an instance of contact tracing based on the Exposure Notification Framework by Google and Apple. We then discuss the implications of using such a framework, including considerations concerning future developments of technologies similar to or inspired by the current concepts of contact tracing. (shrink)

Around the world, millions of children are in need of parental care. In response to this global crisis, some philosophers defend a moral duty for prospective parents to adopt children rather than procreate. Challenges to the duty focus almost exclusively on parents’ desires to have biological children. However, reasons deriving primarily from one’s membership in a social group that favour procreation over adoption or oppose transracial adoptions are largely overlooked. In this dissertation, I examine whether group-based reasons could justifiably override (...) a duty to adopt for prospective parents who are members of racially oppressed groups. I ultimately argue that group-based interests cannot outweigh the needs of existing children for parental care, and thus provide further support for the duty to adopt. My thesis is divided into four chapters. In Chapter 1, I introduce a duty to adopt and argue that it is resilient against a series of proposed defeating conditions and foundational challenges. In Chapter 2, I develop three group-based reasons in favour of procreation that challenge the duty: reparative justice, racial solidarity, and cultural preservation. In Chapter 3, I argue that these reasons do not definitively support procreation over adoption and, instead, seem to favour adopting children either within or outside one’s racial group. I then identify remaining challenges to the duty that take issue with transracial adoptions and place a high value on children’s belonging in same-race families or in their communities of origin. In Chapter 4, I argue that the needs of individual children to receive timely parental care should not be compromised by groups’ interests and that children’s relationships with their communities of origin can be maintained in transracial or extra-communal adoptive placements. (shrink)

Many lament that solidarity is declining, implying there is something good about it; but what is solidarity and why should we want it? Here, we defend an original functionalist re-interpretation of solidarity. Political solidarity plays a key functional role in a polity’s persistence through time. Thus, we should want institutions that foster solidarity. This paper is divided into three parts. In the first, we draw on the philosophy of biology to pinpoint what counts as a proper function, in a way (...) that is naturalistic, objective, and selective. On this aetiological account, a sharp distinction between functional needs (e.g. the pumping of blood) and functional mechanisms (e.g. the valve that pumps blood) is drawn. In the second part of the paper, we propose that solidarity should be understood as an aetiological function of society. This new conception sheds light on the widely acknowledged, yet seldom clarified connection between two common readings of solidarity: solidarity as a set of feelings of mutual kinship (its functional need), and solidarity as a set of redistributive institutions (a key functional mechanism). The third part concludes that this new functional conception of solidarity provides normative reasons to foster solidarity. (shrink)

Constellations, Volume 28, Issue 4, Page 522-536, December 2021.

In my thesis, I consider Jean Harvey’s account of moral solidarity. Harvey claims that solidarity only occurs between people who share a personal relationship. I raise a concern regarding the limited scope of Harvey’s account of moral solidarity. I challenge the view that one cannot extend the concerns they have for a friend experiencing injustice to a stranger who is also experiencing the same injustice. In order to address this concern and defend Harvey’s account of solidarity, I offer a friendly (...) amendment to her account. By drawing on Samuel Scheffler’s account of relational egalitarianism, and in light of the relationships citizens may share with one another, I expand the types of relationships that should be considered solidarity under an account such as Harvey’s My account thus defends a more expansive view of solidarity than that of Harvey. (shrink)

This article uses what Patti Tamara Lenard refers to as the cosmopolitan problem of motivation to discuss the roles of loyalty in two philosophical accounts of global solidarity. Avery Kolers’ Kantian, deontological approach to solidarity as reason-based deference is contrasted with Richard Rorty's controversial, anti-Kantian description of solidarity as ethnocentric inclusivity generated through sentimental education. This article offers critical reflections on the work of these two influential thinkers and combines elements of their theories to contribute a limited but useful response (...) to Lenard's concerns regarding loyalty and the motivation of global solidarity. (shrink)

The concept of community of persons, which focuses on both persons and the whole, helps understand solidarity. The latter is based on the social nature of persons. Community of persons and solidarity seems to be able to move away from the individualist perspective or the individualism-collectivism dichotomy. Using autopraxeography in a pragmatic constructivism epistemological paradigm, this article aims to explore how organizations can develop solidarity in a workplace. The experience presented takes place in a bank. It shows that communities of (...) persons with employees and customers are both ethical and financially efficient. These communities build a dialogue between persons and organizations. Nevertheless, it is impossible to force solidarity because it could generate derision that is contrary to the wished goal. Finally, while this model is based on solidarity, it focuses solely on internal solidarity. (shrink)