In several countries, governments have implemented so-called ‘COVID passport’ schemes, which restrict access to venues such as bars or sports events to those who are vaccinated against COVID-19 and/or exempt vaccinated individuals from public health measures such as curfews or quarantine requirements. These schemes have been the subject of a heated debate. Concerns about inequality have played an important role in the opposition to such schemes. This article highlights that determining how COVID passports affect equality requires a much more nuanced (...) analysis than is typically assumed. I identify a range of broadly egalitarian considerations that could be affected by the introduction of COVID passport schemes. While these schemes could undermine certain aspects of equality, I argue that they could also be used to promote equality. The magnitude and severity of these different effects, both promoting and undermining equality, depend on how precisely these schemes are framed and the local context in which they are implemented. (shrink)

Effective Altruism is a popular social movement that encourages individuals to donate to organizations that effectively address humanity’s most severe poverty. However, because Effective Altruists are committed to doing the most good in the most effective ways, they often argue that it is wrong to help those nearest to you. In this paper, I target a major subset of Effective Altruists who consider it a moral obligation to do the most good possible. Call these Obligation-Oriented Effective Altruists (OOEAs), and their (...) movement Obligation-Oriented Effective Altruism (OOEA). I argue that insofar as this variety of OOEA seems to commit us to refrain from helping the people right in front of us, there is something intuitively wrong about it. In response, I introduce an alternative model that embraces partiality: Mutual Aid. Mutual Aid is a network of community members, usually from the same geographical region, who share a commitment to offer, receive, and exchange material goods, wealth, and social support. I recommend Mutual Aid as a liberatory model, which—through empathy, solidarity, and care—mobilizes community building and provides a catalyst for community advocacy. As such, we should resist the claims of OOEAs that partially distributing our funds to people or causes we care about is morally wrong or even less than ideal. We do not have a moral obligation to use our funds “effectively;” rather, we have a broader obligation to address human suffering, and Mutual Aid is one moral alternative for discharging this duty. (shrink)

Because moral understanding involves a distinctly first-personal grasp of moral matters, there is a temptation to think of its value primarily in terms of achievements that reflect well on its possessor: the moral worth of one's action or the virtue of one's character. These explanations, I argue, do not do full justice to the importance of moral understanding in our moral lives. Of equal importance is the value of moral understanding in our relations with other moral agents. In particular, I (...) argue that an understanding of moral matters is of central importance within relations of solidarity. In addition to highlighting an overlooked aspect of moral understanding's value, this view also has important implications for what solidarity requires of those who stand in that relationship. (shrink)

While it is largely agreed upon that solidarity is a kind of unity among persons, this agreement is short-lived – for if solidarity involves unity, what kind of unity is this? That is, does solidarity coalesce around shared identity or simply fellow-feeling? Shared action or fate? Or is solidarity merely a matter of commitment to a particular cause to achieve certain ends? Below, I look to examples of Mutual Aid to reject a piece-meal model of solidarity (where solidarity is this (...) but not that) in favor of a more pluralistic account. The notion of solidarity need not be constrained, all or nothing, by a specific strain of interpretation. Instead, we should recognize that solidarity is a matter of variety and degree. (shrink)

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)