: Care theorists have made significant gains over the past twenty-five years in establishing caring as a viable moral and political concept. Nonetheless, the concept of caring remains underdeveloped as a basis for a moral and political philosophy, and there is no fully developed account of our moral obligation to care. This article advances thinking about caring by developing a definition of caring and a theory of obligation to care sufficient to ground a general moral and political philosophy.

Care theorists have made significant gains over the past twenty-five years in establishing caring as a viable moral and political concept. Nonetheless, the concept of caring remains underdeveloped as a basis for a moral and political philosophy, and there is no fully developed account of our moral obligation to care. This article advances thinking about caring by developing a definition of caring and a theory of obligation to care sufficient to ground a general moral and political philosophy.

This essay defends a new account of wrongful benefiting based on the principle of fair play. In particular, I argue that certain structurally-conferred group-based benefits or privileges can ground obligations on the part of innocent beneficiaries to relinquish specific gains for purposes of redistribution regardless of whether their receipt is sourced in wrongdoing or involves the imposition of harm upon relevant others. I call this approach to fair play reasoning externalist insofar as it turns on a novel conception of free-riding (...) that eschews necessary appeal to beneficiaries’ mental states or volition. After presenting an empirical example to help illustrate the sort of benefiting at issue and distinguishing my account from arguments rooted in the notion of structural injustice, I defend it via what I call the extension argument, respond to two salient objections, and close by suggesting its potential political utility in the American context specifically. (shrink)

This paper contends that the requirement of content independence poses a pressing challenge to natural-duty theories of political obligation, for it is unclear why subjects of a state should not discharge the background natural duty in proper ways other than obeying the law. To demonstrate the force of this challenge, I examine and refute three argumentative strategies to achieve content independence represented in recent notable natural-duty theories: by appealing to the epistemic advantages of the state in discharging a natural duty, (...) by claiming that one’s denial of state authority necessarily poses an unjust threat to other people, and by invoking the consideration of fairness to preempt one’s discretion in discharging a natural duty. My criticisms, I believe, provide sufficient reasons for natural-duty theorists to take the requirement of content independence much more seriously. (shrink)

This paper offers a non-reductivist account of the requirement of legitimate authority in warfare. I first advance a distinction between private and public wars. A war is private where individuals defend their private rights with their private means. A war is public where it either aims to defend public rights or relies on public means. I argue that RLA applies to public war but not private war. A public war waged by a belligerent without legitimate authority involves a form of (...) illegitimate domination of the people. Contra the conventional wisdom that RLA is only an ad bellum principle, I show that RLA is also a vital in bello principle. Relying on the Kantian non-voluntarist account of political authority, I argue that only legitimate states have the right to wage public wars. However, I also contend that RLA is not an absolute requirement, even regarding the justice of public war. Under extremely unfavorable conditions, this requirement may be overridden by weighty considerations in favor of resorting to public war without legitimate authority. In sum, my account of RLA protects ordinary people from illegitimate coercion involved in guerrilla warfare in general yet generates proper permission for responsible, aspiring state founders to secure social justice by coercive means under extraordinary situations. (shrink)

Many business ethicists assume that if a type of conduct is illegal, then it is also unethical. This article scrutinizes that assumption, using the rideshare company Uber’s illegal operation in the city of Philadelphia as a case study. I argue that Uber’s unlawful conduct was permissible. I also argue that this position is not an extreme one: it is consistent with a variety of theoretical commitments in the analytic philosophical tradition regarding political obligation. I conclude by showing why business ethicists (...) would have a better rejoinder to the “dominant view” of business ethics associated with Milton Friedman if they dispensed with the assumption that illegal implies unethical. (shrink)

Christopher Wellman and some allied scholars argue that a ‘samaritan theory’ can justify state coercion. They also suppose that states may provide robust, social egalitarian welfare provisions for a variety of reasons that would arise within samaritan states. However, the most promising reasons—samaritanism itself, natural socialism, relational equality, and anti-crime paternalism—cannot support robust provision without discarding the strong presumption favoring individual liberty which must motivate the samaritan theory. Consequently, a samaritan state cannot be a robust social welfare state.

My paper ‘Hobbes and the Motivations of Social Contract Theory’ was published in this journal in 1994. In this contribution I explain the background that led me to write that paper at an early stage of my career, relating the explanation to my education as a student at UCL, and, briefly, at Harvard and contrasting the methodological approaches I experienced in the two departments. The Hobbes paper itself offers a type of ‘rational reconstruction’ of Hobbes, drawing on the logic of (...) different social contract arguments, and while there is much in the paper I still agree with, it assumes an approach to Philosophy that I would not adopt now. (shrink)

Just institutions have claims on us. There are two reasons for thinking that such claims are warranted. First, one may believe that we are under a natural duty of justice to support and further just institutions. If one believes that it matters whether institutions are just, one also has a reason, almost as a matter of consistency, to support and further just institutions. Second, one may believe that by enjoying the benefits brought about by cooperation through just institutions, one incurs (...) an obligation to support these institutions. Those who accept and enjoy the benefits brought about by cooperation through a just scheme are under an obligation of fairness to reciprocate. But what happens to these reasons to support and comply with an institution if the scheme of cooperation is less than fully just? There is hardly a real-world institution, policy, or scheme of social cooperation that would qualify as fully just. However, questions about obligations of fairness and duties of justice under conditions of injustice have hitherto suffered relative neglect. I shall outline an overall framework for thinking about these questions by asking what the victims of injustice owe to moderately unjust institutions. (shrink)

In this article, I examine A. John Simmons’s philosophical anarchism, and specifically, the problems that result from the combination of its three foundational principles: the strong correlativity of legitimacy rights and political obligations; the strict distinction between justified existence and legitimate authority; and the doctrine of personal consent, more precisely, its supporting assumptions about the natural freedom of individuals and the non-natural states into which individuals are born. As I argue, these assumptions, when combined with the strong correlativity and strict (...) distinction theses, undermine Simmons’s claim, which is central to his philosophical anarchism, that a state may be justified in enforcing the law, even if illegitimate or unjustified in existing. (shrink)

Abstract:The term stakeholder is a powerful one. This is due, to a significant degree, to its conceptual breadth. The term means different things to different people and hence evokes praise or scorn from a wide variety of scholars and practitioners. Such breadth of interpretation, though one of stakeholder theory’s greatest strengths, is also one of its most prominent theoretical liabilities. The goal of the current paper is like that of a controlled burn that clears away some of the underbrush of (...) misinterpretation in the hope of denying easy fuel to the critical conflagration that would raze the theory. We aim to narrow its technical meaning for greater facility of use in management and organizational studies. By elaborating a number of common misinterpretations – critical and friendly – of the theory, we hope to render a stronger and more convincing theory as a starting place for future research. (shrink)

Prominent Kantian scholars, such as Korsgaard and Waldron, claim that the very existence of juridical-political institutions is sufficient to render laws authoritative. Critics argue that this view is unpersuasive as it requires subjects to obey grossly unjust laws. Here, I identify two problems facing scholars who reject the absolutist view of political authority proffered by Korsgaard and Waldron. First, when there is reasonable disagreement regarding a law’s legitimacy the Principle of Right generates contradictory obligations as it commands both disobedience and (...) compliance. In clarifying this problem, I argue that individuals must disobey illegitimate laws where this requirement is co-extensive with the duty to leave the state of nature. However, disobedience amounts to domination when individuals are subjected to private judgments regarding the conditions of freedom. The Principle of Right cannot overcome this impasse as it does not offer reasons in favor of compliance that are distinct from those reasons legitimating the law. To address this issue, I supplement Kant’s account with Joseph Raz’s ‘service conception’ of authority to show that compliance can be rendered compatible with the Principle of Right. A second problem emerges when laws are blatantly illegitimate such that obedience cannot be justified. In these cases, the Principle of Right cannot guide legislative reform in an intuitively appealing way as it fails to address considerations of proportionality. Though this latter problem is not resolved here, identifying it helps to further clarify the relationship between Kant’s moral and political principles. (shrink)

‘Contingent Valuation ’ is a method often used to make decisions about environmental issues. It is used to elicit citizens’ preferences at the location of a specific facility, new road and the like. I argue that even if we could elicit a truly informed and ‘free’ choice, the method would remain flawed, as 1) all ‘local’ activity also has far-reaching environmental consequences; 2) majority decisions may support chices that adversely affect minorities; 3) even with full information, consenting to harms like (...) significant alterations of our normal functioning or health, or genetic mutations, may not be morally acceptable. (shrink)

From a left-libertarian perspective, it seems almost impossible for states to acquire political authority. For that reason, left-libertarians like Peter Vallentyne understandably hope that states without political authority could nonetheless implement left-libertarian justice. Vallentyne has argued that one can indeed assess a state’s justness without assessing its political authority. Against Vallentyne, I try to show that states without political authority have to be judged unjust even if they successfully promote justice. The reason is that institutions can be unjust independently from (...) what they achieve or do: they can be ‘intrinsically unjust’. Institutions, I argue, are intrinsically unjust when they have legal liberties and powers without having the corresponding moral liberties and powers. States without political authority are intrinsically unjust in that sense. Hence the issues of a state’s justness and a state’s political authority cannot be dealt with separately. This is a problem not only for left-libertarians but for ‘philosophical anarchism’ more generally. (shrink)

Philosophical anarchists claim that all states lack political authority and are illegitimate, but that some states are nevertheless morally justified and should not be abolished. I argue that philosophical anarchism is either incoherent or collapses into either statism or political anarchism.

The nature of the special obligation that a child has towards her parent(s) is widely discussed in Confucianism. It has also received considerable discussion by analytic commentators. This essay compares and contrasts the accounts of filial obligation found in the two philosophical traditions. The analytic writers mentioned above have explored filial obligations by relating them to other special obligations, such as obligations of debt, friendship, or gratitude. I examine these accounts and try to uncover the implicit assumptions therein about the (...) scope and nature of such filial obligations. I then similarly examine Confucian filial obligations (CFOs) by relating them to these other special obligations of debt, gratitude, and so on. My findings are used to highlight crucial differences in the scope and conception of filial obligations in these two traditions. (shrink)

This article addresses the problem of ‘the legitimacy of the people’, that is, what constitutes the legitimate demarcation of the political units within which democracy is practiced? It is commonplace among philosophers to argue that this problem cannot be solved by appeal to democratic procedure because every attempt to do so results in an infinite regress. Based on a social contract theoretical analysis of the problem, this view is rejected. Although contract theorists have ignored the problem of the legitimacy of (...) the people, this article nevertheless argues for one specific, and currently dominant, type of contract view – ‘contractarianism’ – that it contains the conceptual tools to solve it. In a contractarian view, the people are understood as a cooperative venture for mutual advantage and accordingly consist of only those individuals for whom it is mutually beneficial to bind themselves to one another. It is argued that contractarianism offers a procedurally democratic solution to the problem of the legitimacy of the people that does not cause an infinite regress. Furthermore, this article refutes a classic criticism of contractarianism’s account of moral standing. Finally, the article demonstrates contractarianism’s practical implications for one specific articulation of the problem of the legitimacy of the people, namely, immigration. (shrink)

Suppose you intend now to φ at some future time t. However, when t has come you do not φ. Something has gone wrong. This failing is not just a causal but also a normative failing. This raises the question how to characterize this failing. I discuss three alternative views. On the first view, the fact that you do not execute your intention to φ is blameworthy only if the balance of reasons pointed to φ-ing. The fact that you intended (...) to φ does not add to the reasons for φ-ing at t. On the second view, the fact that you do not execute your intention to φ is blameworthy because you violate a requirement of rationality. Both these views have in common that they deny that intending to φ at t creates a reason to φ at t. The third alternative, the one I defend, claims that you often create reasons to φ by intending to φ. (shrink)

David Estlund and Massimo Renzo argue that, given the right background conditions, combatants are obligated to obey orders to fight in unjust wars, a thesis they put forward even as they recognize that this involves committing serious moral wrongs. Their views, then, fall between traditionalism and revisionism in the theory of just war. We argue that both Estlund and Renzo fail to adequately distinguish between binding and nonbinding serious morally wrong orders, that their views are incompatible with their assumed fact‐relative (...) understanding of morality, and that they fail to establish that combatants are obligated to obey orders to fight in unjust wars. We conclude that just as untenable as these two middle‐ground positions is the traditionalist view. (shrink)

Combatants who attempt to obey the laws of war often have to take considerable risks in order to effectively discriminate between legitimate and illegitimate targets. Sometimes this task is made even more complicated by systemic factors which influence their ability to discriminate effectively without unduly risking their lives or the mission. If they fail to do so, civilians often pay the price. In this paper, I argue that to the extent that non-combatants benefit from the attempt to fight justly, and (...) to the extent that wars in which combatants attempt to fight justly can be understood as a system of social cooperation which produces both burdens and benefits, non-combatants have a responsibility to shoulder their fair share of these burdens. Thus, if combatants (and by extension enemy non-combatants) are disproportionately burdened in a conflict, non-combatants ought to take on some costs, for instance in order to reduce the strain imposed on combatants by systemic factors such as the availability and distribution of resources. (shrink)

Combatants who attempt to obey the laws of war often have to take considerable risks in order to effectively discriminate between legitimate and illegitimate targets. Sometimes this task is made even more complicated by systemic factors which influence their ability to discriminate effectively without unduly risking their lives or the mission. If they fail to do so, civilians often pay the price. In this paper, I argue that to the extent that non-combatants benefit from the attempt to fight justly, and (...) to the extent that wars in which combatants attempt to fight justly can be understood as a system of social cooperation which produces both burdens and benefits, non-combatants have a responsibility to shoulder their fair share of these burdens. Thus, if combatants (and by extension enemy non-combatants) are disproportionately burdened in a conflict, non-combatants ought to take on some costs, for instance in order to reduce the strain imposed on combatants by systemic factors such as the availability and distribution of resources. (shrink)

ABSTRACT The traditional view holds that political philosophy should aim at the truth. By contrast, Avner de Shalit argues that political philosophers should do something different. According to him, they should work in direct consultation with “the people” in order to think through their theories about political institutions. This article defends the traditional aim of truth-seeking and shows the mistakes in De Shalit’s alternative approach.

This article aims to provide some insight into the nature and content of the theory of associative political obligation. It does this by first locating the view in the wider debate on political obligation, analyzing the view in terms of four central elements that are shared by many of its versions, and then discussing important criticisms that have been made of each of these, as well as some rejoinders by defenders of the theory.

The aim of this paper is to clarify what kind of normativity characterizes a convention. First, we argue that conventions have normative consequences because they always involve a form of trust and reliance. We contend that it is by reference to a moral principle impinging on these aspects (i.e. the principle of Reliability) that interpersonal obligations and rights originate from conventional regularities. Second, we argue that the system of mutual expectations presupposed by conventions is a source of agreements. Agreements stemming (...) from conventions are “tacit” in the sense that they are implicated by what agents do (or forbear from doing) and without that any communication between them is necessary. To justify this conclusion, we assume that: (1) there is a salient interpretation, in some contexts, of everyone’s silence as confirmatory of the others’ expectations (an epistemic assumption), and (2) the participating agents share a value of not being motivated by hostile attitudes (a motivational assumption). By clarifying the relation between conventions and agreements, the peculiar normativity of conventions is analyzed. (shrink)

Constitutions enshrine the fundamental values of a people and they build a framework for a state’s public policy. With regard to generational change, their endurance gives rise to two interlinked concerns: the sovereignty concern and the forgone welfare concern. If constitutions are intergenerational contracts, how (in)flexible should they be? This article discusses perpetual constitutions, sunset constitutions, constitutional reform commissions and constitutional conventions, both historically and analytically. It arrives at the conclusion that very rigid constitutions are incompatible with the principle of (...) intergenerational justice. Recurring constitutional reform commissions in fixed time intervals would give each generation of citizens a say without leaning too much to the side of flexibility. (shrink)

Normative questions concerning political authority and political obligation are widely seen as central questions of political philosophy. Current global transformations require an innovative response from normative political thinking about these two topics. In light of a concrete example of the supranational forms of authority and obligation that have been and are emerging beyond the national state and beyond the traditional domains of international law, I lay out what has become the standard approach to authority and obligation and indicate why this (...) approach is inadequate in contemporary circumstances. I sketch an alternative approach and suggest how the most promising exemplar of this kind, Habermas’ discourse theory of law and politics, can better deal with the example. Having thus made plausible the advantages of the discourse theory of the alternative approach, I end with an ‘internal’ critique of Habermas’ own recent writings on the global political order. (shrink)

The principle of fairness is a moral principle which states that individuals are under an obligation to contribute towards beneficial cooperative projects. It has been appealed to in arguing that citizens are obligated to pay for public goods that their government supplies. Yet the principle has faced a number of powerful objections, most notably those of Robert Nozick. In responding to some of these objections, proponents of the principle have placed a number of conditions on its application. However, by doing (...) so, they have reduced the number of public goods that the principle can explain obligations to contribute towards, and consequently limited its relevance to questions of political obligation. I argue here that a more permissive version of the principle, with fewer conditions on its application, will perform equally well in responding to Nozick's objections. This opens up the possibility of a theory of political obligation that relies more heavily on the principle of fairness than has previously been thought possible. (shrink)

Governments around the world collect huge amounts of personal data from their citizens for counterterrorist purposes. While mining this data has arguably increased the security of populations, the practices through which these data are currently collected in many countries have been criticised for violating individuals’ rights to privacy. Yet it is not clear what a permissible data collection regime would look like and thus also how we could reform existing regimes to make them morally acceptable. This article explores a number (...) of ways in which we might justify a data collection regime to those affected in spite of the setbacks to their privacy. In contrast to existing justifications, I argue that individuals can be asked to surrender their personal data as a requirement of reciprocity in a cooperative system in which they gain security from others doing likewise. Relying on this justification, though, has significant implications for how we should reform existing data collection regimes. In particular, more stringent limits will need to be placed on the forms which these regimes can legitimately take. (shrink)

When, in spite of our good intentions, we fail to meet our obligations to others, it is important that we have the correct theoretical description of what has happened so that mutual understanding and the right sort of social repair can occur. Consider an agent who promises to help pick a friend up from the airport. She takes the freeway, forgetting that it is under construction. After a long wait, the friend takes an expensive taxi ride home. Most theorists and (...) non-theorists react to such cases by either judging the agent's action as a violation of her obligation to help or as having satisfied the only obligation she really had, namely to try to help. However, as I show, there are serious difficulties that arise from categorizing this agent's action as satisfying or violating her obligation – difficulties that are avoided if we instead add “mere moral failures” to the basic categories for moral evaluation. An agent merely fails when she neither satisfies nor violates her obligation. She is responsible fo.. (shrink)

The article examines whether realist theory should adopt a philosophical anarchist position concerning political obligation. The conclusions are mixed. Drawing on a distinction between strong and weak theories of political obligation (in the terminology of the paper, strong theories are committed to morality-based theorizing while weak theories depart from it), the article argues that philosophical anarchism and realist theory are natural allies against strong theories of political obligation but they must part company when it comes to weak theories because it (...) is exactly their departure from morality-based theorizing that can make weak theories especially appealing to realists. In addition, two further objections can be raised against philosophical anarchism on realist grounds: first, philosophical anarchists are drawn to undesirably sweeping conclusions about the non-existence of legitimate political authority or the extreme scarcity of genuine political relations by their Kantian or Lockean background assumptions and, second, Simmons seems to have an implicit weak theory of political obligation which could be, ironically, much more appealing to realists than his overall Lockean anarchism or his sweeping criticism of weak theories. All in all, can a realist be an anarchist? Probably, but definitely not on philosophical anarchist grounds. (shrink)

The paper is organized around two major, but closely interconnected goals. First, the paper’s principal aim is to offer a normative theory of political obligations that is based on certain insights of philosophical anarchism, theories of associative obligations and political realism. Second, the paper aims to offer a normative theoretical framework to examine political obligations in contemporary non-democratic contexts that does not vindicate non-democratic regimes and that does not exclude political obligations from the terrain of moral normativity. The theory of (...) political obligations this paper proposes can be briefly summarized as follows: political obligations are duties of compliance with the political authority claims of those who exercise political power. Their primary ground is membership. The mere fact of membership has moral weight in its own right and it is also inseparably embedded into a rich context of moral reasons for action that includes general reasons; ad hoc reasons; regime-specific reasons applying to every subject; and regime-specific offices that attribute specific responsibilities to individuals and groups. This rich context of typical moral reasons plays an important role in deciding what needs to be done, all things considered, with respect to the political authority claims. This account attempts to describe compliance in terms of genuine political obligations and also claims to be a plausible and general account. It does not claim to be a theoretically coherent moral justification for political obligations, however, just a theoretically coherent account of the varied sources and limitations of political obligations. (shrink)

A very common but untested assumption is that potential children would consent to be exposed to the harms of existence in order to experience its benefits. And so, would-be parents might appeal to the following view: Procreation is all-things-considered permissible, as it is morally acceptable for one to knowingly harm an unconsenting patient if one has good reasons for assuming her hypothetical consent—and procreators can indeed reasonably rely on some notion of hypothetical consent. I argue that this view is in (...) error. My argument appeals to a consent-based version of anti-natalism advanced by Seana Valentine Shiffrin. Anti-natalism is the view that it is always wrong to bring people into existence. While, like Shiffrin, I stop short of advocating a thoroughgoing anti-natalism, I nevertheless argue that procreators cannot appeal to hypothetical consent to justify exposing children to the harms of existence. I end by suggesting a more promising route by which this justification might be achieved. (shrink)

In this paper, I explain the demands of filial obligations from act and rule consequentialism. More specifically, I defend a rule-consequentialist explanation of filial obligations, and identify a few factors in relation to the determination of filial demands; they include the costs of internalization of filial obligations, and the proportions of the young and the old generations in a population pyramid. I believe that in a society with an aging population, we may accept a strong view of filial obligation. Towards (...) the end of the paper, I explain that rule-consequentialism is compatible with certain special views of filial obligations, such as the gratitude theory and the special goods theory; these theories represent ways in which adult children and their parents may obtain special goods from engaging in the relationship. (shrink)

Theories of political authority divide naturally into those that locate the source of states' authority in the history of states' interactions with their subjects and those that locate it in structural (or functional) features of states (such as the justice of their basic institutions). This paper argues that purely structuralist theories of political authority (such as those defended by Kant, Rawls, and contemporary “democratic Kantians”) must fail because of their inability to solve the boundary problem—namely, the problem of locating the (...) boundaries between different states' domains of authority in the natural or intuitive places. (shrink)

Equality of Opportunity is widely thought of as the normative ideal most relevant to the design of educational institutions. One widely discussed interpretation of this ideal is Rawls' principle of Fair Equality of Opportunity. In this paper I argue that theories, like Rawls, that give priority to the achievement of individual autonomy, are committed to giving that same priority to a principle of sufficient opportunity. Thus, the Rawlsian's primary focus when designing educational institutions should be on sufficiency and not equality. (...) The paper then argues this commitment has at least three attractive implications. Firstly, it enables defenders of Fair Equality of Opportunity to overcome Richard Arneson's powerful objections. Secondly, it suggests a revised version of the principle of Fair Equality of Opportunity that is more plausible. Thirdly, it has attractive practical implications for educational provision. (shrink)

This paper considers contractarianism as a method of justification. The analysis accepts the key tenets of contractarianism: expected utility maximization, unanimity as the criteria of acceptance, and social-scientific uncertainty of modelled agents. In addition to these three features, however, the analysis introduces a fourth feature: a criteria of rational belief formation, viz. Bayesian belief updating. Using a formal model, this paper identifies a decisive objection to contractarian justification. Insofar as contractarian projects approximate the Agreement Model, therefore, they fail to justify (...) their conclusions. Insofar as they fail to approximate the Agreement Model, they must explain which modelling assumption they reject. (shrink)

In this article I investigate the nature and extent of filial obligations. The question what (adult) children owe their parents is not only philosophically interesting, but also of increasing relevance in ageing societies. Its answer matters to elderly people and their adult children, and is relevant to social policy issues in various ways. I present the strongest arguments for and against three models of filial obligations: the ‘past parental sacrifices’ model, the ‘special relationship’ model, and the conventionalist model. There is (...) something to be said—and after consideration of objections something remains to be said—for all three models. In other words: filial obligations have more than one source, and an adequate model of filial obligations should reflect this. On its own, each of the above models is one-sided. They also fail to show the connections between the question of filial obligations and various other issues, such as issues of gender justice, the extent of institutionalization of eldercare, and social conventions regarding filial responsibility. Therefore, I integrate what I think we should keep from the aforementioned models into a contextual, pluralist model, which places filial obligations in a broader social and cultural context and relates them to issues of social justice. The model also highlights the difference between general and specific filial obligations, and the factors that determine their nature and extent, thus enabling a deeper and more comprehensive understanding of filial obligations. (shrink)

The discussion of propositional gratitude stands in need of a secure theoretical underpinning. Its place in the gratitude literature, alongside the more familiar targeted gratitude that we direct towards benefactors, now seems assured, but its adoption has been uncritical in many cases. In this paper, I argue that existing accounts of gratitude fail to give us good reason to incorporate propositional gratitude into our theories. I discuss Sean McAleer’s paper ‘Propositional Gratitude’ in some detail, and argue that the connection he (...) draws between propositional gratitude and humility is not as close as he supposes, and cannot do all the work required of it. Then I trace the connections between propositional gratitude, targeted gratitude, and gladness, and develop and defend a definition of gratitude that integrates the propositional and the targeted components. (shrink)

Just war theory is currently dominated by two positions. According to the orthodox view, provided that jus in bello principles are respected, combatants have an equal right to fight, regardless of the justice of the cause pursued by their state. According to “revisionists” whenever combatants lack reasons to believe that the war they are ordered to fight is just, their duty is to disobey. I argue that when members of a legitimate state acting in good faith are ordered to fight, (...) they acquire a pro-tanto obligation to obey which does not depend for its validity on the justice of the cause being pursued. However, when the war is unjust, this obligation may be overridden, under certain conditions, by the obligation not to contribute to the unjustified killing of innocents. This is because the pro-tanto force of the duty to obey the law is best understood in terms of “presumptive”, rather than “exclusionary” reasons for action. This approach captures the insights of both the orthodox and the revisionist view, while avoiding the problems that afflict each of them. (shrink)

Though genuine (voluntary, deliberate) consent of the governed does not occur in modern states, political legitimacy still requires something that does what consent does. Dereification of the state (recognizing that citizens continually create their state), combined with a defensible notion of moral responsibility, entails citizens' moral responsibility for their state. This implies that we may treat citizens morally as if they consented to their state, yielding a moral equivalent of consent of the governed, and a conception of political legitimacy applicable (...) to modern states thought legitimate. It implies that legitimate states have a moral right to rule, and their citizens have a prima facie moral obligation to obey the law. (shrink)

In a morally non-ideal legal system, how can law bind its subjects? How can the fact of a norm’s legality make it the case that practical reason is bound by that norm? Moreover, in such circumstances, what is the extent and character of law’s bindingness? I defend here an answer to these questions. I present a non-ideal theory of legality’s ability to produce binding reasons for action. It is not a descriptive account of law and its claims, it is a (...) normative theory of legal reasoning for particular social circumstances. The approach is, somewhat like Raz’s influential account, instrumental in character. Yet, it denies that the morally binding legal norms are, in whole or part, exclusionary reasons for the responsible subject. Law’s instrumentality must be given an alternative characterization. (shrink)

The traditional view according to which we adults tacitly consent to a state’s lawful actions just by living within its borders—the residence theory—is now widely rejected by political philosophers. According to the critics, this theory fails because consent must be (i) intentional, (ii) informed, and (iii) voluntary, whereas one’s continued residence within a state is typically none of these things. Few people intend to remain within the state in which they find themselves, and few realize that by remaining they are (...) consenting to the state’s lawful actions. In addition, the various obstacles standing in the way of us leaving the state render our remaining involuntary. Thus, the critics conclude, few if any people can be considered to have consented through their residence. I argue that these objections fail and that the residence theory remains a viable option, at least for those who are not committed incompatibilists. (shrink)

Stakeholder theory is often unable to distinguish those individuals and groups that are stakeholders from those that are not. This problem of stakeholder identity has recently been addressed by linking stakeholder theory to a Rawlsian principle of fairness. To illustrate, the question of stakeholder status for the non-human environment is discussed. This essay criticizes a past attempt to ascribe stakeholder status to the non-human environment, which utilized a broad definition of the term "stakeholder." This paper then demonstrates how, despite the (...) denial of stakeholder status, the environment is nonetheless accounted for on a fairness-based approach through legitimate organizational stakeholders. In addition, since stakeholder theory has never claimed to be a comprehensive ethical scheme, it is argued that sound reasons might exist for managers to consider their organization's impact on the environment that are not stakeholder-related. (shrink)

Philip Pettit ,Aude Bandini | : La démocratie signifie d’abord et avant toute chose l’idée d’un contrôle populaire, et ce par l’ensemble des moyens possibles. Ces moyens donnent lieu à la légitimité. Mais ces contrôles populaires, du moins tels qu’ils sont entendus dans de nombreuses discussions, ne donnent pas lieu à la légitimité espérée. Les théories de la démocratie ne partagent pas une même conception des choses à ce sujet, ce qui donne lieu à une pluralité d’approches. Dans cet article, (...) l’auteur soutient que la réponse la plus intéressante à cette question implique une réinterprétation de la notion de contrôle populaire. | : Democracy means popular control, by almost all accounts. And by almost all accounts democracy entails legitimacy. But popular control, at least as that is understood in many discussions, does not entail legitimacy. So something has got to give. Democratic theories divide on what this is, so that the question prompts a taxonomy of approaches. The most appealing answer, so the paper suggests, involves a reinterpretation of the notion of popular control. (shrink)

The introduction of corporate mode into universities with the widespread of neoliberalism has posed threats to intellectuals’ academic creativity and political sensitivity. To respond to the threats, I argue that it is high time we talk about educating hope. Moreover, I contend that Richard Rorty and Gilles Deleuze’s theories on hope can be of great help in understanding the complexity and exquisiteness of hope—non-representational and non-metaphysical, dependent on contingent encounters, transformative and political.

The way in which consent to sexual interactions is understood in the US is undergoing a transformation. Many universities, sometimes at the behest of lawmakers, are moving to adopt ‘affirmative consent’ policies, which define consent in terms of affirmative behavior that goes beyond mere silence or lack of resistance. Although these policies are a move in the right direction, I argue that their content has not been properly understood. In particular, the circumstances in which nonverbal behavior may communicate consent are (...) more limited than might be apparent. And even though these circumstances can be abstractly identified, it is difficult to give people adequate guidance about when some of them obtain. Moreover, I argue that no matter how the allowance for nonverbal behavior is construed, affirmative consent policies unnecessarily prohibit interactions that people may have reason to engage in. I propose an alternative policy that remedies these problems with the affirmative consent policies that are currently being implemented. And I note that the justification for this alternative policy does not turn on any special features of the university setting. Instead, the account I give suggests grounds for reforming the law as well. (shrink)

This article aims to show that Locke’s discussion of tacit consent and the right to punish aliens in the Second Treatise of Government has important bearings on the moral status of undocumented immigrants. It argues that Locke conceptualized both friendly and hostile aliens, counting the former as tacit consenters to whom host states owed rights and protection. Moreover, it highlights how his approach, unlike theorists before and after him, was one that saw individuals as capable of shaping their own relationship (...) with the host. The article also examines Locke’s discussion of the federative power of the state, which includes the power to vet aliens within the country. Seen through this Lockean lens, the article argues that the vast majority of undocumented immigrants can be understood as tacit consenters or potential citizens who should be judged by how they choose to relate to the host, and not by their country of origin. While noting that the Lockean approach is not incompatible with border control, the article also shows how it puts the onus on the host to justify the power it exercises and to engage in dialogue with undocumented immigrants about what their status should be in the country. (shrink)