It is often claimed that liberalism is falsely and perniciously universalist. I take this charge seriously, exploring three positions: the communitarians’, Rorty’s, and that of “comprehensive” liberalism. After explaining why universalism is thought impossible, I examine the communitarian view that value is determined within communities and argue that it results in a form of relativism that is unacceptable. I next discuss Richard Rorty’s liberal acceptance of “conventionalism” and explain how, despite his rejection of universalism, Rorty remains a liberal. I then (...) present a defense of universalism, based in part on arguments that parallel Thomas Nagel’s arguments in defense of a “view from nowhere” and Jean Hampton’s objectivist arguments against Rawls’s moves to a “merely political” theory. That defense requires that we can distance ourselves from our ends to make moral judgments shorn of all partialities. (shrink)

Abstract:The purpose of this paper is to suggest that at least one strain of what has come to be called “stakeholder theory” has roots that are deeply libertarian. We begin by explicating both “stakeholder theory” and “libertarian arguments.” We show how there are libertarian arguments for both instrumental and normative stakeholder theory, and we construct a version of capitalism, called “stakeholder capitalism,” that builds on these libertarian ideas. We argue throughout that strong notions of “freedom” and “voluntary action” are the (...) best possible underpinnings for stakeholder theory, and in doing so, seek to return “stakeholder theory” to its managerial and libertarian roots found in Freeman (1984). (shrink)

In der gegebenen globalen Governance-Struktur stellen souveräne Einzelstaaten die zentralen kollektiven Akteure dar, die Verantwortung für einen zeitnahen und eff ektiven Klimaschutz übernehmen müssen. Dieser Aufsatz vertritt die These, dass die Diff erenzierung der Einzelstaaten zumutbaren Verantwortung die Bedingungen berücksichtigen sollte, aufgrund derer sie als kollektivverantwortungsfähige Akteure verstanden werden können. Dies gilt sowohl mit Blick auf ihre historische Verantwortung für die Verursachung des Klimawandels als auch im Hinblick auf die Zukunft. Dabei ist für zeitnahen und eff ektiven Klimaschutz von zentraler (...) Bedeutung, dass die Verantwortungsfähigkeit aller Mitgliedsstaaten der UNFCCC erhalten bleibt, damit sie als kollektive Akteure ihren diff erenzierten Beitrag leisten können. (shrink)

The predominant influences on health are social or upstream factors. Poverty, inadequate education, insecure and toxic environments, and inferior opportunities for jobs and positions are inequitable disadvantages that adversely affect health across the globe. Many causal pathways are yet to be understood. However, elimination of these social inequalities is a moral imperative of the first order. Some physicians by word and deed argue that medical doctors should oppose the “structural violence” of social inequalities that greatly shorten lives and wreak so (...) much suffering. (shrink)

Traditional philosophy has been under attack from several quarters in recent years. The traditional philosopher views philosophy as an armchair discipline relying, for the most part, on reason and reflection. Some philosophers doubt the legitimacy of this type of inquiry. Their arguments usually occur along two dimensions. Some argue that the primary data source for the armchair philosopher--intuition--does not provide evidence for philosophical theories. Others argue that conceptual analysis, which is the preferred method of inquiry for armchair philosophers, can't yield (...) the results the philosopher is looking for, since concepts like 'knowledge' or 'free-will' vary from culture to culture or even between persons within a culture. Finally, some philosophers argue that we should abandon the armchair program because philosophy should be an empirical enterprise continuous with the sciences. I argue that attempts to undermine intuition fail and that one can justify the evidential status of intuition in a non-question begging way. I then argue that attacks on the belief in shared concepts do not succeed because they often conflate the nature of scientific objects with those of interest to the philosopher. However, if concepts do vary from culture to culture, I show that the philosopher need not abandon the armchair. She can still do conceptual analysis but it will be only the entry point into the philosophical dialogue. I apply this approach to epistemology arguing that the central epistemic questions ought to be the existential and the normative. This approach helps to vindicate epistemic internalism. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to critically inquire into some of the interpretations of what appears to me to be the core of Hobbes's political philosophy: his concept of political obligation. And in so doing I will provide a new way of reading the problem of obedience in Hobbes, one that does not dismiss the limits of political obligation and the theological context that surrounds it.

In this article I introduce the notion of crucial evidence and I use it to shed light on an ongoing scholarly controversy in Hobbes studies, namely whether Hobbes holds a prudential or a deontological theory of contractual obligation. Even though there is important evidence for both readings, I argue that there is crucial evidence for interpreting Hobbes’s account in a deontological fashion.