An introduction to the special issue of the Erasmus Journal for Philosophy and Economics: "On the Very Idea of a Just Wage".

There are two opposing views concerning intuitive cases of wage exploitation. The first denies that they are cases of exploitation at all. It is based on the nonworseness claim: there is nothing wrong with a discretionary mutually beneficial employment relationship. The second is the reasonable view: some employment relationships can be exploitative even if employers have no duty towards their employees. This article argues that the reasonable view does not completely defeat defences of wage exploitation, because these do not rely (...) solely on the nonworseness claim. They also rely on the idea, popularised by Alan Wertheimer, that exploitation is a form of disequilibrium price occurring in defective markets. The article then proceeds to criticise Wertheimer’s account through neoclassical, new institutional, and Austrian economics. It concludes that considerations for economic efficiency are irrelevant to assessing intuitions regarding exploitation. (shrink)

Since its earliest incarnations, just war theory has included the requirement that war must be initiated and waged by a legitimate authority. However, while recent years have witnessed a remarkable resurgence in interest in just war theory, the authority criterion is largely absent from contemporary discussions. In this paper I aim to show that this is an oversight worth rectifying, by arguing that the authority criterion plays a much more important role within just war theorising than is (...) commonly supposed. As standardly understood, the authority criterion provides a necessary condition for the justification of the resort to war, but has no bearing on the question of permissible conduct in war. In opposition, I argue for an alternative interpretation of the criterion, which attributes to it a fundamental role in assessing this latter question. With this revised interpretation in place, I then demonstrate its advantages by applying it to the practical issue of armed conflicts that are initiated and fought by non-traditional belligerents. While several theorists have recognised that this common feature of modern armed conflict poses a challenge to mainstream just war theory in general—and to the authority criterion in particular—I argue that existing discussions frequently misconstrue the nature of the challenge, since they assume the standard interpretation of the authority requirement and its role within the theory. I then show that the revised interpretation provides a clearer account of both the challenge posed by non-traditional belligerency and the kind of response that it requires. (shrink)

I argue that the criterion of just cause is not independent of proportionality and other valid jus ad bellum criteria. One cannot know whether there is a just cause without knowing whether the other (valid) criteria (apart from ‘right intention’) are satisfied. The advantage of this account is that it is applicable to all wars, even to wars where nobody will be killed or where the enemy has not committed a rights violation but can be justifiably warred against (...) anyway. This account also avoids the inefficiency of having proportionality considerations come up at two different points: in a separate criterion of just cause and in the criterion of proportionality proper. ‘Right intention’, the subjective element of the justification of a war, on the other hand, is not to be subsumed under the criterion of just cause: there can be a just cause without anybody knowing it. Conversely, however, the subjective element requires that those responsible for waging the war do know that the justifying objective conditions are fulfilled. This is in one sense more demanding than traditional just war theory; in another sense, however, it is less demanding: nobody needs to intend to fight for a ‘just aim’. (shrink)

War is almost always conducted with various restrictions in the form of rules, rituals, and taboos. Many of the norms that regulate warfare can be found in the tradition of just war. This tradition seeks to provide a middle ground between an unrealistic (at least for politicians) pacifism that does not even allow war in self-defence and a too realistic realism that claims there is no place for ethics in war. The tradition of just war does not have (...) the force of law; it provides, above all, a vocabulary to discuss war in moral terms. At the same time, the tradition does have an impact: it forms the basis of humanitarian law and the Geneva Conventions. Just like with laws, it is recognised here that imperfect adherence to these principles does not necessarily diminish their validity. Most proponents of the tradition believe that the principles of just war, even though some date back centuries, are sufficiently general to be applicable to contemporary conflicts, such as the Russo-Ukrainian War. If we apply the norms of the just war tradition to the current situation in Ukraine, we see that Russia is waging an unjust war in an unjust manner. (shrink)

Vitoria and Suárez defend the categorical immunity of the innocent not to be intentionally killed. But they allow for inflicting collective punishment on the innocent and the noninnocent alike during and after a just war. So they allow for deliberately harming them. Inflicting harm on the innocent can often result in their death. Hence, holding both claims seems incoherent. First, the objections against using the term “innocent” are explained. Second, their views on just war are explored. And third, (...) by appealing to Aquinas' double-effect reasoning, it is shown how they try to avoid the above-mentioned incoherence. Still, their appeal might be insufficient to palliate the tension between the above-mentioned claims. If just wars are possible, the deliberate harming of the innocent is reasonably unavoidable for defeating and punishing those who wage them. Hence, defenders of just wars, whether from a religious or a secular perspective, must live with such a tension. (shrink)

I argue that, if drones make waging war easier, the reason why they do so may not be the one commonly assumed within the philosophical debate – namely the promised reduction in casualties on either side – but a more complicated one which has little to do with concern for one’s own soldiers or, for that matter, the enemy; and a lot more to do with the political intricacies of international relations and domestic politics; I use the example of the (...) Obama Administration’s drone policies to illustrate this argument. My point is meant to have wider methodological significance: philosophy can make an important contribution to this and related applied debates; but it is not by artificially – and optimistically – simplifying realities on the ground that philosophers can be of help. (shrink)

Many just war theorists (call them traditionalists) claim that just as people have a right to personal self-defense, so nations have a right to national-defense against an aggressive military invasion. David Rodin claims that the traditionalist is unable to justify most defensive wars against aggression. For most aggressive states only commit conditional aggression in that they threaten to kill or maim the citizens of the nation they are invading only if those citizens resist the occupation. Most wars, then, (...) claimed to be justified by the traditionalist fail to meet the proportionality criterion. Thus, a just war, for Rodin, is best conceived of as a punitive war of law enforcement, not as a war of national-defense. I argue that Rodin does not have a case against the traditionalist. If national-defense is a disproportionate response to conditional aggression, then punitive war is a disproportionate response as well. Furthermore, the belief that punitive war is a proportionate response to conditional aggression underscores the traditionalist’s view that self-determination, cultural identity and the like are of sufficient value to defend by means of lethal force. I end the paper by very briefly sketching an account, different from that of Rodin’s, of how individual nations can be justified in waging wars of law enforcement. (shrink)

The just war-criterion of legitimate authority – as it is traditionally framed – restricts the right to wage war to state actors. However, agents engaged in violent conflicts are often sub-state or non-state actors. Former liberation movements and their leaders have in the past become internationally recognized as legitimate political forces and legitimate leaders. But what makes it appropriate to consider particular violent non-state actors to legitimate violent agents and others not? This article will examine four criteria, including ‘popular (...) support and representation of a people’; ‘monopoly of violence and effective control over a people’; ‘compliance with international legal and just war standards’; and ‘predisposition to strive for a lasting peace’. It will be shown that out of these four criteria only the first can be defended. Furthermore, it will be illustrated that non-state violent agents may perfectly well satisfy this criterion. In contrast, state actors may clearly fail in this regard. But, it will also become obvious that in exceptional circumstances violent agents do not require explicit approval from the people on whose behalf they act. Finally, the article will argue that – in principle – individuals should be entitled to employ violence for political objectives. (shrink)

Many business transactions and employment contracts are wrongfully exploitative despite being consensual and beneficial to both parties, compared with a nontransaction baseline. This form of exploitation can present governments with a dilemma. Legally permitting exploitation may send the message that the public condones it. In some economic conditions, coercively enforced antiexploitation law may harm the people it is intended to help. Under these conditions, a way out of the dilemma is to enact laws with provisions that lack coercive enforcement. Noncoercive (...) law would convey the state’s condemnation of wrongful exploitation without risking the harmful effects of coercively enforced law. It would also give firms and their agents a way of explaining nonexploitative pricing decisions to investors, and it may help give precise content to the moral duty to set prices and wages fairly. Governments should thus consider noncoercive law a viable component of their responses to exploitation. (shrink)

*North American Society for Social Philosophy (NASSP) Book Award 2019.* -/- *International Studies Association (ISA) - International Ethics Section Book Award 2021.* -/- Although military mores have relied primarily on just war theory, the ethic of cooperation in warfare (ECW)—between enemies even as they are trying to kill each other—is as central to the practice of warfare and to conceptualization of its morality. Neither game theory nor unilateral moral duties (God-given or otherwise) can explain the explicit language of cooperation (...) in developing and enforcing principles of military ethics and the law of armed conflict. -/- The ethic of cooperation is borne of various motivations: reciprocity, self-preservation, and efficiency, to be sure, but also a sense of warrior honor and concern with human rights. This shared morality can persist despite making it more difficult for one side or the other to win and, unfortunately, its well-meaning motivations often lead to unintended tragic consequences. -/- This book explores three manifestations of this significant yet overlooked ethic of cooperation in warfare: (1) for a “fair fight,” (2) to protect classes of individuals (e.g., non-combatants or prisoners of war), and (3) to end the war quickly. Such cooperation can take unexpected forms, from ad hoc decisions on the battlefield to institutionalization in international law, and is the source of some critical tensions in one of the most significant developments in warfare in recent years: namely, how to handle terrorism or other forms of warfare that lie outside the purview of international law. -/- Each type of ECW raises questions internal to that ethic, such as inconsistencies in the concept of “parity” across different weapons bans, contradictions within the warrior ethic that heavily influence—and therefore confuse—notions of the “fair fight,” the disconnect between what protections a person receives and his responsibility for the war (e.g., political leaders), or the limited decisiveness of outcomes generated by very short wars. -/- Their simultaneous application also generates significant tensions and raises questions about the proper relationship of ECW to the immediate goal of war itself, which is to win, and thus yield either a political settlement or a justicial decision. For example, the ECWs for a “fair fight” and to protect classes of individuals can make it harder to win the war, but even more concerning is that they can also kill more people, which in the latter case contravenes its very purpose. -/- Human history is in some ways the story of trying to concurrently wage and tame war, and the architecture of warfare itself is informed by the ECW, in particular: (a) the political nature of war, (b) the abdication from jus ad bellum judgments in order to concentrate on justice within war (jus in bello), and (c) the ways in which modern nation-states collude to define “legitimacy” in war. -/- The combination of these three features leave questions of justicial right and responsibility for war disturbingly unresolved, it also generates new challenges in a geopolitical context in which cooperative and non-cooperative (e.g. contemporary terrorism) forms of warfare clash. (shrink)

I argue that the lives of domestic and enemy civilians should not receive equal weight in our proportionality calculations. Rather, the lives of enemy civilians ought to be “partially discounted” relative to the lives of domestic civilians. We ought to partially discount the lives of enemy civilians for the following reason (or so I argue). When our military wages a just war, we as civilians vest our right to self-defense in our military. This permits our military to weigh (...) our lives more heavily. Before arguing for this view I first explain why recent accounts attempting to show the opposite – that enemy civilians ought to be weighed more heavily – are mistaken. (shrink)

According to “epistemic-based contingent pacifism” a) there are virtually no wars which we know to be just, and b) it is morally impermissible to wage a war unless we know that the war is just. Thus it follows that there is no war which we are morally permitted to wage. The first claim (a) seems to follow from widespread disagreement among just war theorists over which wars, historically, have been just. I will argue, however, that a (...) source of our inability to confidently distinguish just from unjust wars lies in how we evaluate “morally heterogeneous” wars—i.e., wars with just and unjust aims. Specifically, the practice of reaching a univocal evaluation of a morally heterogeneous war as a whole by aggregating the evaluations of that war’s just and unjust aims is wrongheaded, because it undermines the action-guiding character of jus ad bellum. We ought instead to adopt what I call the “disaggregate approach” to jus ad bellum, according to which we evaluate the various aims of a war individually, without aggregating them into an evaluation of the war as a whole. Adopting this approach will eliminate a source of our disagreement over which wars have been just, and will ipso fact eliminate a basis for epistemic-based contingent pacifism. (shrink)

In 1937 Joan Robinson proposed that “when capitalism is rightly understood, the rate of interest will be set at zero and the major evils of capitalism will disappear”. A permanent zero rate would abolish capitalist profit except in limited cases, leaving nearly all output to be claimed by labour as wages. It would allow capital to be allocated on the basis of prospective social benefit rather than short-term profitability and a collateral basis that favours the wealthy. It would remove (...) some of the economic pressure to use resources unsustainably. So why not do this? I argue that the few available philosophical arguments for positive interest rates are unsatisfactory. Those who want a just and sustainable form of capitalism should target net zero for the interest rate. (shrink)

For a long time, economic growth has been seen as the most promising source of funds to use toward reducing economic inequality, as well as a necessity if we are aiming at achieving full employment. But one of the most troubling aspects of the recent exponential rise in economic inequality is that this rise has occurred despite continued economic growth. Increases in national income have gone almost exclusively to the super-rich, while real wages for almost everybody else have stagnated (...) or even declined. And while the unemployment rate dropped significantly before the coronavirus pandemic hit, good, permanent, high-wage jobs with benefits had by then often been replaced by temporary, part-time, low-wage jobs without benefits, leaving even the employed feeling economically insecure. And now, of course, unemployment is again skyrocketing, and it is unclear how long it might take to come down. As a result, we have now arrived at a point of reckoning: can we continue to believe that liberal capitalism is the most promising combination of economic and political ideologies for securing a prosperous and just future? If not, what might replace it? Is the problem capitalism, or is it liberalism? Are we up against economic forces that we cannot influence or control, or is it our political will and the liberal values we endorse that are being tested? This paper looks at all these questions, and suggests how we might think about the prospects for a liberal future. (shrink)

Because the poorest people tend to die from easily preventable diseases, addressing poverty is a relatively cheap way to save lives. War, by contrast, is extremely expensive. This article argues that, since states that wage war could alleviate poverty instead, poverty can render war unjust. Two just war theory conditions prove relevant: proportionality and last resort. Proportionality requires that war does not yield excessive costs in relation to the benefits. Standardly, just war theorists count only the direct costs: (...) the death and destruction wrought by war. This article argues that it can sometimes be appropriate to add the opportunity costs of a failure to alleviate poverty. Last resort is the condition that there must be no better alternative means of achieving the same just end for which the war is waged. This article argues that there are some cases in which alleviating poverty may constitute a better alternative. These are cases in which the most fitting description of the just end for war is sufficiently general that poverty alleviation offers a means to pursue it. The idea that poverty can sometimes render war unjust has, to date, been largely overlooked. It is, nevertheless, an idea with profound implications since, once taken seriously, war becomes much harder to justify. Wars that, in every other respect, seem just may prove disproportionate or unnecessary given the alternative of alleviating poverty. (shrink)

Common sense suggests that if a war is unjust, then there is a strong moral reason not to contribute to it. I argue that this presumption is mistaken. It can be permissible to contribute to an unjust war because, in general, whether it is permissible to perform an act often depends on the alternatives available to the actor. The relevant alternatives available to a government waging a war differ systematically from the relevant alternatives available to individuals in a position to (...) contribute to the war. Hence the conditions determining whether it is permissible for a government to wage a war often differ from the conditions determining whether it is permissible for others to promote that war. This difference is manifest most often in unjust wars with putatively humanitarian aims—an increasingly common type of war. (shrink)

Despite a recent explosion of interest in the ethics of armed conflict, the traditional just war criterion that war be waged by a “legitimate authority” has received less attention than other components of the theory. Moreover, of those theorists who have addressed the criterion, many are deeply skeptical about its moral significance. This article aims to add some clarity and precision to the authority criterion and to debates surrounding it, and to suggest that this skepticism may be too quick. (...) First, it provides an analysis of the authority criterion, and argues there are (at least) two distinct moral claims associated with the criterion, requiring separate evaluation. Second, it outlines an increasingly influential “reductivist” approach to just war theory, and explains how it grounds powerful objections to the authority criterion. Third, and in response, it sketches the most promising strategies for providing a (qualified) defense of authority, and the further questions and complications they raise. Importantly, these strategies aim to rehabilitate the authority criterion from within a broadly reductivist view. (shrink)

Exploitation and Economic Justice in the Liberal Capitalist State offers the first new, liberal theory of economic justice to appear in more than 30 years. The theory presented is designed to offer an alternative to the most popular liberal egalitarian theories of today and aims to be acceptable to both right and left libertarians too.

A collection of articles on the the principles of social justice from an Australian Catholic perspective. Contents: Forward (Archbishop Philip Wilson), Introduction (James Franklin), The right to life (James Franklin), The right to serve and worship God in public and private (John Sharpe), The right to religious formation (Richard Rymarz), The right to personal liberty under just law (Michael Casey), The right to equal protection of just law regardless of sex, nationality, colour or creed (Sam Gregg), The right (...) to freedom of expression (Damian Grace), The right to choose and freely maintain a state of life, married or single, lay or religious (Marita Winters), The right to education (Anthony Cleary), The right to petition government for the redress of grievances (Paul Russell), The right to a nationality (Andrew Hamilton), The right to have access to the means of livelihood, by migration when necessary (Brenda Hubber), The right of association and peaceful assembly (Michael Hogan), The right to work and choose one's occupation (Ian Blandthorn), The right to personal ownership, use and disposal of property subject to the right of others (Brian Coman), The right to a living wage (Garrick Small), The right to collective bargaining (Keith Harvey), The right to associate by industries and professions to obtain economic justice (Henrik Jurisevic), The right to assistance from society, if necessary from the State, in distress of persons and family (Catherine Althaus), Afterword (James Franklin). (shrink)

This chapter considers how the adoption of autonomous weapons systems (AWS) may affect jus ad bellum principles of warfare. In particular, it focuses on the use of AWS in non-international armed conflicts (NIAC). Given the proliferation of NIAC, the development and use of AWS will most likely be attuned to this specific theater of war. As warfare waged by modernized liberal democracies (those most likely to develop and employ AWS at present) increasingly moves toward a model of individualized warfare, how, (...) if at all, will the principles by which we measure the justness of the commencement of such hostilities be affected by the introduction of AWS, and how will such hostilities stack up to current legal agreements surrounding their more traditional engagement? This chapter claims that such considerations give us reason to question the moral and legal necessity of ad bellum proper authority. (shrink)

The destruction wrought by even just wars lends undeniable appeal to radical pacifism, according to which all wars are unjust. Yet radical pacifism is fundamentally flawed. In the past decade, a moderate and more defensible form of pacifism has emerged. According to what has been called ‘contingent pacifism’, it is very unlikely that it is morally permissible to wage any given war. This chapter develops the doctrine of contingent pacifism by distinguishing and developing various versions of it, and by (...) assessing the merits and drawbacks of each. According to ‘proportionality-based’ contingent pacifism, almost all wars with just causes are unjust ‘tout court’ because the in bello harms such wars impose on the innocent are too great relative to the relevant evils averted by achieving the war’s aims. After arguing against this view, the chapter introduces a novel, more defensible form of contingent pacifism, called ‘epistemic-based’ contingent pacifism, according to which the prevalence of mistaken judgements regarding the justness of wars, combined with the devastating harmfulness of unjust wars, requires imposing prohibitions against waging war, where the strength of the prohibition varies according to whether the government has a history of mistakes or deception regarding the justness of wars. (shrink)

The existence of child labor in developing countries like Bangladesh is undoubtedly a serious problem in the era of sustainable development. Undoubtedly to abolish child labor from all level is not so easy. The current study was intended to assess the livelihoods pattern and causes of being involved as child labor in Jhenaidah city-Bangladesh and to find out the ways in which child labor can be diminished gradually. This study was exploratory in nature where convenience sampling was adapted, seventy-five children (...) aged less than 18 years were interviewed with an interview schedule. The extent and prevalence of child labour in a country are being considered as a significant indicator of how far-off that country stays away from the overall sustainable development. The results of this study demonstrate that the majority (17/22.67%) children engaged in performing work in shops or hotels. The X2 (p<0.5) results elucidate that there exists gender difference in child abuse and harassment. The rate of physical and mental abuse and torture was higher in male children, in contrast, the prevalence of sexual harassment and abuse by slung was significantly higher in female children. The working hours as an average above 7 hours or more, and per day wage of children in Jhenaidah found just above 1.4$ (120 BDT). The principal component analysis indicates that lack of parental employment facilities which has directly related to poverty found as the foremost reasons for a child to make involvement as labour before completing age 18, this result is not only applicable for Jhenaidah but also possibly applicable for all developing countries. Besides, father’s education and death of mother were the important indicators of being child laborer. The ways of eliminating child labour are not so easy task because the problem has been indissolubly embedded in our society for long. Hence, it requires moral, political will and commitment from all people in the society for ending and eradicating child labour. Alongside all these, international organizations must make sure their robust participation in enhancing this process. (shrink)

The relevance of this research has been caused by the return of “war” as a central subject of thought to the attention of European thinkers. The complexity of this subject requires special attention to the methodological aspects of its cognition. The purpose of our research is to find effective epistemological means for transferring the immediate experience of war into the sphere of rational thinking and knowledge because this article focuses on the analysis of the specifics of thinking about war in (...) one’s own country. The results of the study show that thinking about the war “from the inside of war” differs from the “external view” as it is built on personally experienced feelings. This article argues that the immediate experience of war is not an obstacle for the process of cognition but, on the contrary, is a prerequisite for having a close view of the factual reality of war. Also, this research argues that for the thinker of a country waging a just defensive war, a true interpretation of the reality of war is an effective means of countering the enemy. This article proposes the use of Heinrich Rickert’s theory of the ordering of the chaos of sensations through concept formation and the further systematization of the formed concepts. This is because this theory is one of the means of transferring the experience of war into the sphere of rational thinking. Furthermore, this article demonstrates the application of this theory when dealing with the feeling of encountering evil. The concept of three modes of evil (factual, active, and passive) is proposed, and its applicability for characterizing Russia’s military actions against Ukraine is demonstrated. In addition, the idea of collective and personal responsibility of the citizens of the Russian Federation for the war their state unleashed against Ukraine was elaborated through the means of philosophy. In particular, the applicability of Karl Jaspers’ theory regarding the political, moral, and metaphysical guilt of the aggressor nation is shown in relation to the people of contemporary Russia. Throughout this review, two types of toleration of war by Russian citizens are distinguished. Also, three conclusions were drawn from the obtained results. First, thinking about war in one’s country make one capable of taking into consideration data that researchers “outside the war” do not have. Secondly, the main methodological difficulty of thinking about the war in one’s own country is the search for a reliable means of transferring the sensations from experience into a rational and clearly articulated system of concepts. Thirdly, using the methodological tools of H. Rickert and K. Jaspers, one can effectively start to research complex aspects of this war such as the essence of the actions committed by the invaders and the question of their guilt. (shrink)

This paper aims at providing an epistemic defense of democracy based on John Dewey’s idea that democracies do not only find problems and provide solutions to them but they also articulate problems....

Minimum wages are usually assumed to be inefficient as they prevent the full exploitation of mutual gains from trade. Yet advocates of wage regulation policies have repeatedly claimed that this loss in market efficiency can be justified by the pursuit of ethical goals. Policy makers, it is argued, should not focus on efficiency alone. Rather, they should try to find an adequate balance between efficiency and equity targets. This idea is based on a two-worlds-paradigm that sees ethics and economics (...) as two inherently conflicting ways of thinking. We, however, believe that this view of the relationship between ethics and economics is fundamentally flawed and blurs our understanding of how an ethically responsible regulation of the labour market should be conducted. In drawing on an economic-ethical approach that resolves the antinomy between efficiency and equity, we show that ethics and economics are, in fact, two sides of the same coin and that minimum wage legislation can only be ethically responsible, if it is at the same time economically efficient. In other words, we can have our cake and eat it too. On the basis of our approach, we develop two simple game theoretical models for different types of labour markets and derive policy implications from an economic-ethical viewpoint. We suggest that under the assumption of perfectly competitive labour markets a tax-funded wage subsidy is preferable over minimum wages, as it makes everyone better off. If, however, employers have monopsony power in the wage setting process, the minimum wage is justifiable under certain conditions. (shrink)

In this article, I present a two-pronged argument for the immorality of contemporary, asymmetric drone warfare, based on my new interpretations of the just war principles of “proportionality” and “moral equivalence of combatants” (MEC). The justification for these new interpretations is that drone warfare continues to this day, having survived despite arguments against it that are based on traditional interpretations of just war theory (including one from Michael Walzer). On the basis of my argument, I echo Harry Van (...) der Linden’s call for “an international treaty banning all weaponized UAV [uninhabited aerial vehicles].”. (shrink)

Over the past five years the authors have been working in Detroit with grassroots coalitions resisting emergency management. In this essay, we explore how community groups in Detroit and Flint have advanced common struggles for clean, safe, affordable water as a human right, offering an account of activism that has directly confronted neoliberalism across the state. We analyze how solidarity has been forged through community organizing, interventions into mainstream media portrayals of the water crises, and the articulation of counternarratives that (...) center the experiences, needs, and collective power of those most directly affected. While our rootedness in Detroit leads us to focus primarily on the experiences of activists based there rather than in Flint, we insist throughout that the experiences, resistance, and aspirations of these communities are best understood as interconnected and mutually empowering. (shrink)

Fanatics judge a lottery with a tiny probability of arbitrarily high value as better than the certainty of some modest value, and they are prone to getting swindled. You need only make the lie “big enough” to get one over on them. I put forward an elegant solution to the fanatic’s problem. When coming to a fully rational decision, agents may ignore outlandish possibilities.

May lethal autonomous weapons systems—‘killer robots ’—be used in war? The majority of writers argue against their use, and those who have argued in favour have done so on a consequentialist basis. We defend the moral permissibility of killer robots, but on the basis of the non-aggregative structure of right assumed by Just War theory. This is necessary because the most important argument against killer robots, the responsibility trilemma proposed by Rob Sparrow, makes the same assumptions. We show that (...) the crucial moral question is not one of responsibility. Rather, it is whether the technology can satisfy the requirements of fairness in the re-distribution of risk. Not only is this possible in principle, but some killer robots will actually satisfy these requirements. An implication of our argument is that there is a public responsibility to regulate killer robots ’ design and manufacture. (shrink)

Suppose for reductio that I know a proposition of the form <p and I don’t know p>. Then by the factivity of knowledge and the distribution of knowledge over conjunction, I both know and do not know p ; which is impossible. Propositions of the form <p and I don’t know p> are therefore unknowable. Their particular kind of unknowability has been widely discussed and applied to such issues as the realism debate. It hasn’t been much applied to theories of (...) the nature of knowledge. That is what I’m going to do here. (shrink)

the purity of functionalism with mind may clash with a the need for .

Despite recent growth in surveillance capabilities there has been little discussion regarding the ethics of surveillance. Much of the research that has been carried out has tended to lack a coherent structure or fails to address key concerns. I argue that the just war tradition should be used as an ethical framework which is applicable to surveillance, providing the questions which should be asked of any surveillance operation. In this manner, when considering whether to employ surveillance, one should take (...) into account the reason for the surveillance, the authority of the surveillant, whether or not there has been a declaration of intent, whether surveillance is an act of last resort, what is the likelihood of success of the operation and whether surveillance is a proportionate response. Once underway, the methods of surveillance should be proportionate to the occasion and seek to target appropriate people while limiting surveillance of those deemed inappropriate. By drawing on the just war tradition, ethical questions regarding surveillance can draw on a long and considered discourse while gaining a framework which, I argue, raises all the key concerns and misses none. (shrink)

The notion that business organizations are akin to Aristotelian political communities has been a central feature of research into virtue ethics in business. In this article, I begin by outlining this “community thesis” and go on to argue that psychological research into the “just world fallacy” presents it with a significant challenge. The just world fallacy undermines our ability to implement an Aristotelian conception of justice, to each as he or she is due, and imperils the relational equality (...) required for shared participation in communities. In the final section, I offer a description of what Aristotelian community might look like within organizations, and some suggestions about how it may be possible to resist the challenge posed by the just world fallacy. (shrink)

Contemporary just war theory is divided into two broad camps: revisionists and traditionalists. Traditionalists seek to provide moral foundations for something close to current international law, and in particular the laws of armed conflict. Although they propose improvements, they do so cautiously. Revisionists argue that international law is at best a pragmatic fiction—it lacks deeper moral foundations. In this article, I present the contemporary history of analytical just war theory, from the origins of contemporary traditionalist just war (...) theory in Michael Walzer's work to the revisionist critique of Walzer and the subsequent revival of traditionalism. I discuss central questions of methodology, as well as consider the morality of resorting to war and the morality of conduct in war. I show that although the revisionists exposed philosophical shortcomings in Walzer's arguments, their radical conclusions should prompt us not to reject the broad contemporary consensus, but instead to seek better arguments to underpin it. (shrink)

With an eye on the future of global ethics, I argue that social-media technologies are not morally neutral tools but are, for all intents and purposes, a kind of agent. They nudge us to do things that are bad for us. Moreover, I argue that we have a duty to quit using social-media platforms, not just on account of possible duties to preserve our own well-being but because users are akin to test subjects on whom developers are testing new (...) nudges, and we ought to deprive them of their test subjects. (shrink)

The article provides an account of the unlikely revival of the medieval Just War Theory, due in large part to the efforts of Michael Walzer. Its purpose is to address the question: What is a just war theorist? By exploring contrasts between scholarly activity and forms of international activism, the paper argues that just war theorists appear to be just war criminals, both on the count of aiding and abetting aggression and on the count of inciting (...) troops to commit war crimes. (shrink)

Income inequality in democratic societies with market economies is sizable and growing. One reason for this growth can be traced to unequal forms of compensation that employers pay workers. Democratic societies have tackled this problem by enforcing a wage standard that all workers are paid regardless of education, skills, or contribution. This raises a novel question: Should there be equal pay for all workers? To answer it, we need to investigate some factors that are relevant to the unequal conditions of (...) power and authority in which wage offers are made. By clarifying these, we can determine whether wage inequality is morally permissible. If not, then a case might be made to pay all workers the same regardless of education, skills, or contribution. Even if it is permissible, another question worth considering is whether there are limits to how much inequality is acceptable. The argument here proceeds along the following lines. First, I summarize the economic and non-economic factors that determine the value of wages in labor markets. Second, I examine a particular problem that concerns whether the conditions of wage labor are coercive because they restrict alternatives or otherwise include threats to the welfare of workers. If there is coercion, we have good reasons to establish a standard that improve these conditions. Finally, I claim that establishing this standard requires increasing the value of low-wage work. Doing so will not only expand alternatives that are available to these workers, it will also diminish the potential threat to their welfare. (shrink)

I argue that, according to Just War Theory, those who work as administrative personnel in the private military industry can be permissibly harmed while at work by enemy combatants. That is, for better or worse, a Just War theorist should consider all those who work as administrative personnel in the private military industry either: (i) individuals who may be permissibly restrained with lethal force while at work, or (ii) individuals who may be harmed by permissible attacks against their (...) workplace. In doing so, I also provide some critical analysis of the relevant Just War concepts. (shrink)

Against the standard view that the Republic’s division of goods distinguishes between intrinsic and instrumental value, a growing number of scholars have correctly argued that goods possess value δι᾽ αὑτό in virtue of some of their causal effects. However, these scholars have not yet given a convincing and principled account of what it means to be valuable διὰ τὰ γιγνόμενα ἀπ’ αὐτοῦ such that some effects can contribute to the value a good has δι᾽ αὑτό. In this paper I offer (...) such an account. (shrink)

Plato’s Clitophon presents a confrontation between two alternative views of justice, one conventional and the other philosophical – and of Clitophon’s inability to move from the one to the other due to his confusion over the relationship between knowledge and virtue and his misconception of the path from ignorance to knowledge, which probably results from his ambition. The nature of this confusion is such that Clitophon can only overcome it by abandoning his submissive stance toward the authority of Socrates, which (...) fact, combined with the character of his appeal to Socrates for an answer to his difficulties makes any authentic verbal response from Socrates unlikely to help and to risk harm. Silence from Socrates at the conclusion of the dialogue would therefore exemplify the principle that it is not for the just to harm anyone. (shrink)

In this article I respond to the obligation to institute the policy of decoupled crop subsidies as is provided in Pilchman’s article “Money for Nothing: Are decoupled Crop Subsidies Just?” With growing problems of poor nutrition in the United States there have been two different but related phenomenon that have appeared. First, the obesity epidemic that has ravaged the nation and left an increasing number of people very unhealthy; and second, the phenomenon of food deserts where individuals are unable (...) to access fresh fruits and vegetables. A possible solution to this problem, as has been proposed by some, is to institute a decoupled crop subsidy that would increase the production of fruits and vegetables in the United States. In this paper I explore the possible unintended consequences of this policy and how it may violate liberal international conceptions of justice. I conclude that there must be further empirical research before anyone can call decoupled crop subsidies an obligation to justice. (shrink)

The increasing application of artificial intelligence (AI) to healthcare raises both hope and ethical concerns. Some advanced machine learning methods provide accurate clinical predictions at the expense of a significant lack of explainability. Alex John London has defended that accuracy is a more important value than explainability in AI medicine. In this article, we locate the trade-off between accurate performance and explainable algorithms in the context of distributive justice. We acknowledge that accuracy is cardinal from outcome-oriented justice because it helps (...) to maximize patients’ benefits and optimizes limited resources. However, we claim that the opaqueness of the algorithmic black box and its absence of explainability threatens core commitments of procedural fairness such as accountability, avoidance of bias, and transparency. To illustrate this, we discuss liver transplantation as a case of critical medical resources in which the lack of explainability in AI-based allocation algorithms is procedurally unfair. Finally, we provide a number of ethical recommendations for when considering the use of unexplainable algorithms in the distribution of health-related resources. (shrink)

I defend the thesis that legal standards of proof are reducible to thresholds of probability. Many have rejected this thesis because it seems to entail that defendants can be found liable solely on the basis of statistical evidence. I argue that this inference is invalid. I do so by developing a view, called Legal Causalism, that combines Thomson's (1986) causal analysis of evidence with recent work in formal theories of causal inference. On this view, legal standards of proof can be (...) reduced to probabilities, but deriving these probabilities involves more than just statistics. (shrink)

What one is ultimately interested in with regard to ‘just cause’ is whether a specific war, actual or potential, is justified. I call this ‘the applied question’. Answering this question requires knowing the empirical facts on the ground. However, an answer to the applied question regarding a specific war requires a prior answer to some more general questions, both descriptive and normative. These questions are: What kind of thing is a ‘just cause’ for war (an aim, an injury (...) or wrong suffered, or something different altogether)? I call this ‘the formal question’. Then there is what I call the ‘the general substantive question’. Depending on the previous answer to the formal question, the general substantive question can be formulated as: ‘Which causes are just?’ or as ‘Under what conditions is there a just cause?’ A final question, which has recently elicited increased interest, is what I call ‘the question of timing’: does the ‘just cause’ criterion only apply to the initiation of a war or also to the continuation of a war, that is, can a war that had a just cause at the beginning lose it at some point in its course (and vice versa)? I argue that a just cause is a state of affairs. Moreover, the criterion of just cause is not independent of proportionality and other valid jus ad bellum criteria. One cannot know whether there is a just cause without knowing whether the other (valid) criteria (apart from ‘right intention’) are satisfied; and this account has certain theoretical and practical advantages. As regards the general substantive question, I argue that all kinds of aims can, in principle, be legitimately pursued by means of war, even aims that might sound dubious at first, like vengeance or the search for glory. Thus, the pursuit of such aims does not make the war disproportionate or deprive it of just cause. As regards the question of timing, I argue that the criteria of jus ad bellum apply throughout the war, not only at the point of its initiation. While starting a war at t1 might be justified, continuing it at time t2 might be unjustified (and vice versa), and this insight does not require an addition to jus ad bellum but is already contained in it. (shrink)

The paper focuses on the issue of truth-telling in non-fictional narratives of (in)justice. Based on examples of rape narratives, domestic abuse narratives, human trafficking narratives and asylum seeker narratives, I examine the various difficulties in telling the truth in such stories, particularly those related to various culturally conditioned ideas of how the world works, which at the same time form the basis of, among other things, legal discourse and officials’ decision-making processes. I will also demonstrate that such culturally conditioned ideas, (...) which are the basis of official discourse, can be considered within the category of both the social imaginary of the just world in the Taylorian sense of the term, and the social master narrative, which in the case of stories of (in)justice is often based on the just world hypothesis. (shrink)

Regulatory enforcement is a multifaceted phenomenon that revolves around the concept of discretion of Street-Level Bureaucrats (SLBs). Discretion can be defined as the ability to freely decide how to deliver services to the clients/public. Regulations are enforced by the decisions made by bureaucrats when they interact with clients. By combining street-level bureaucracy and responsive regulation theories, this study is set to examine how different factors shape the discretion of street-level bureaucrats. This study is built on available literature pertaining to SLBs (...) and policy implementation to provide a comprehensive understanding of regulation enforcement in Malaysia. SLBs are the Labor Inspectors responsible for the enforcement of minimum wage in Malaysia. The study’s main contribution is examining how personal characteristics, internal organizational factors, and a multidimensional enforcement style shape the discretion of bureaucrats in Malaysia. The study’s main finding highlights that Labor Inspectors in Malaysia demonstrate a range of enforcement style dimensions when enforcing the minimum wage. The novelty of this thesis highlights two primary constructs; willingness to implement and client meaningfulness, and their importance in shaping policy implementation and its effect on street-level bureaucrats' behavior. These constructs are also likely contributing to the imperfect enforcement of the minimum wage policy. Furthermore, this study demonstrates that enforcement style consists of three dimensions; legal, facilitation, and accommodation. Finally, this study's empirical finding highlights that street-level bureaucrats' discretion is influenced by various factors that ultimately define the enforcement process. (shrink)

Hubert Dreyfus has argued that cases of absorbed bodily coping show that there is no room for self-awareness in flow experiences of experts. In this paper, I argue against Dreyfus’ maxim of vanishing self-awareness by suggesting that awareness of agency is present in expert bodily action. First, I discuss the phenomenon of absorbed bodily coping by discussing flow experiences involved in expert bodily action: merging into the flow; immersion in the flow; emergence out of flow. I argue against the claim (...) that flow experience does not involve an awareness of agency for each of these features, while conceding that fluent agency does not involve self-awareness in the thetic sense. I challenge the assumption that the awareness of fluent agency must be understood in terms of a thetic awareness of agency. Instead, I develop an Anscombean account of the awareness of fluent agency in terms of the phenomenal character of knowing one’s aims. I respond to the challenge that if an Anscombean account of the awareness of agency is to succeed, then agents must be able to answer Anscombean questions. I consider the objection that awareness of agency is not a form of self-awareness by outlining an account of self-awareness as self-synthesis that is distinct from self-perception and self-ascription, but which makes room for self-awareness in expert bodily action. (shrink)