-
14Revisiting the Liberal Case against Liberal EugenicsRes Philosophica 101 (2): 359-376. 2024.In his book The Future of Human Nature, Habermas argues against the moral and legal permissibility of any future practices of genetic human enhancement as well as against current practices such as embryonic research or preimplantation genetic diagnosis. After analyzing the core of Habermas’s argument against positive eugenics, I argue that his attempt to derive a principle of abstention under uncertainty from the principle of counterfactual consent assumes that non-interference is the proper def…Read more
-
34The return of the critique of ideologiesConstellations 30 (4): 390-394. 2023.Constellations, EarlyView.
-
27Deliberation and Voting: An Institutional Account of the Legitimacy of Democratic Decision-Making ProceduresRes Publica 1-16. forthcoming.In this essay I defend an institutional approach to democratic legitimacy against proceduralist approaches that are commonly endorsed by deliberative democrats. Although deliberative democrats defend a complex view of democratic legitimacy that aims to account for both the procedural and substantive dimensions of legitimacy, most accounts of the relationship between these dimensions currently on offer are too proceduralist to be plausible (I). By contrast, I argue that adopting an institutional …Read more
-
1Martin HeideggerIn Niall Keane & Chris Lawn (eds.), A Companion to Hermeneutics, Wiley. 2015.Martin Heidegger generalizes hermeneutics from a traditional method for interpreting authoritative texts (mainly sacred or legal texts) to a way of understanding human beings themselves. It is precisely because human beings are nothing but interpretation all the way down that the activity of interpreting a meaningful text offers the most appropriate model for understanding any human experience whatsoever. Recognizing the linguistically articulated intelligibility that Dasein shares with others b…Read more
-
6Jürgen HabermasIn Niall Keane & Chris Lawn (eds.), A Companion to Hermeneutics, Wiley. 2015.Jürgen Habermas is one of the most significant contributors to the development of hermeneutics in contemporary philosophy. His specific approach to critical theory is heavily indebted to the hermeneutic conception of language. This chapter highlights the basic features of that approach through an analysis of the main philosophical issues at the center of Habermas's sustained engagement with Gadamer's philosophical hermeneutics. The hermeneutic model of a linguistically articulated lifeworld that…Read more
-
3HermeneuticsIn Hubert L. Dreyfus & Mark A. Wrathall (eds.), A Companion to Heidegger, Blackwell. 2005.This chapter contains sections titled: Historical Background: Philosophical Continuities and Discontinuities Behind the Project of Being and Time The New Conceptual Framework: The Ontological Difference The Hermeneutic Notion of World The Priority of Understanding over Perception The Fore‐structure of Understanding Cognition as a Mode of Interpretation.
-
6Church and StateIn Graham Oppy (ed.), A Companion to Atheism and Philosophy, Wiley. 2019.The separation of church and state is generally taken to be a requirement of constitutional democracies. However, there is little agreement on the precise meaning of the ideal of separation. Some liberal conceptions of democratic legitimacy interpret the ideal of separation such that religious beliefs and reasons should be excluded from political justification. This exclusivist view raises fears that a commitment to liberal democracy is suitable only for secular citizens and religious citizens w…Read more
-
445. Communicative ActionIn Hauke Brunkhorst, Regina Kreide & Cristina Lafont (eds.), The Habermas handbook, Columbia University Press. pp. 499-503. 2018.
-
330. Communicative Rationality: Vorbereitende Bemerkungen zu einer Theorie des kommunikativen Handelns (Preparatory Remarks for a Theory of Communicative Action, 1971) (review)In Hauke Brunkhorst, Regina Kreide & Cristina Lafont (eds.), The Habermas handbook, Columbia University Press. pp. 288-305. 2018.
-
63. Human Rights, Sovereignty, and the Responsibility to ProtectIn Cristina Lafont & Penelope Deutscher (eds.), Critical Theory in Critical Times: Transforming the Global Political and Economic Order, Columbia University Press. pp. 47-73. 2017.
-
5Introduction: Critical Theory in Critical TimesIn Cristina Lafont & Penelope Deutscher (eds.), Critical Theory in Critical Times: Transforming the Global Political and Economic Order, Columbia University Press. 2017.
-
45. Hermeneutics and the Linguistic TurnIn Hauke Brunkhorst, Regina Kreide & Cristina Lafont (eds.), The Habermas handbook, Columbia University Press. pp. 49-57. 2018.
-
24A democracy, if we can keep it. Remarks on J. Habermas’ a new structural transformation of the public sphereConstellations 30 (1): 77-83. 2023.
-
17The Habermas handbook (edited book)Columbia University Press. 2018.Jürgen Habermas is one of the most influential philosophers of our time. The Habermas Handbook offers a comprehensive overview and an in-depth analysis of Habermas's work. Habermas scholars elucidate his thought, providing essential insight into his key concepts and his influence across politics, law, the social sciences, and public life.
-
7Los minipúblicos deliberativos y la concepción populista de la representación como “encarnación” del puebloLas Torres de Lucca: Revista Internacional de Filosofía Política 11 (1): 13-21. 2022.En este trabajo analizo las propuestas de insertar minipúblicos deliberativos en el proceso político para superar las numerosas “brechas” de representación que aquejan actualmente a los sistemas de partidos tradicionales. Sostengo que la noción de representación que subyace a muchas de estas propuestas tiene algunas similitudes importantes con la noción de representación como “encarnación” del pueblo propia del populismo. A partir de un análisis comparativo entre las variedades populistas y loto…Read more
-
29Getting the duty to resist right: Remarks on Candice Delmas’s book a duty to resist: When disobedience should be uncivilPhilosophy and Social Criticism 49 (3): 283-288. 2023.In her book A Duty to Resist, Candice Delmas defends the view that we are not only permitted to disobey gravely unjust laws, but we may have a duty to do so. Moreover, not only civil but also uncivil disobedience may be justified in such cases. To justify both claims she argues that the same principles that justify a duty to obey the law—such as the principle of fairness, Samaritan duty, and associative obligations—also justify a duty to disobey the law. The problem with this argumentative strat…Read more
-
75Universalization or Threat Advantage? The Difficult Dialogue between Discourse Ethics and the Theory of Rational ChoiceDialogue 44 (2): 373-382. 2005.InA Theory of Justice, Rawls claims that “to each according to his threat advantage is not a conception of justice.” Although it may indeed seem intuitively plausible that a principle based on “threat advantage” cannot count as a principle of justice, it is an altogether different matter to explain why this is so. The question is especially pressing if one bears in mind that such a principle of bargaining in fact underlies many institutionally regulated interactions. Moreover, to the extent that…Read more
-
12How demanding is human dignity? Remarks on Pablo Gilabert’s dignitarian approach to human rightsJournal of Global Ethics 16 (3): 294-304. 2020.ABSTRACT Pablo Gilabert's book Human Dignity and Human Rights offers a bold and fascinating account of the claim that human rights are grounded in human dignity. I am quite sympathetic to the dignitarian approach articulated in the book and agree with many of its argumentative goals. My critical comments are therefore lodged in the spirit of a family quarrel. I focus on three issues: the relationship between the humanistic and political perspectives on human rights (1), the suitability of the su…Read more
-
29Remarks of a young Habermasian on Jürgen Habermas’ Also a History of PhilosophyConstellations 28 (1): 25-32. 2021.
-
13Sticking to the Long Road of Participatory Democracy: Replies to my CriticsKrisis 40 (1): 144-164. 2020.This essay is part of a dossier on Cristina Lafont's book Democracy without Shortcuts.
-
476A militant defence of democracy: A few replies to my criticsPhilosophy and Social Criticism 47 (1): 69-82. 2020.In this essay, I address some questions and challenges brought about by the contributors to this special issue on my book ‘Democracy without Shortcuts’. First, I clarify different aspects of my cri...
-
338Against Anti-democratic Shortcuts: A Few Replies to CriticsJournal of Deliberative Democracy 16 (2): 96-109. 2020.In this essay, I address several questions and challenges brought about by the contributors to the special issue on my book Democracy without Shortcuts. In particular, I address some implications of my critique of deep pluralism; distinguish between three senses of ‘blind deference’: political, reflective, and informational; draw a critical parallelism between the populist conception of representation as embodiment and the conception of ‘citizen-representatives’ often ascribed to participants in…Read more
-
31Are human rights associative rights? The debate between humanist and political conceptions of human rights revisitedCritical Review of International Social and Political Philosophy 25 (1): 29-49. 2022.
-
33Defending Democratic Participation Against Shortcuts: a Few Replies to Thomas ChristianoJus Cogens 2 (2): 205-214. 2020.In this essay, I address some questions and challenges brought about by Thomas Christiano in his inspiring review of my book Democracy without Shortcuts. First, I defend the democratic credentials of the conception of self-government that I articulate in the book against conceptions of self-determination that are allegedly compatible with non-democratic government. To do so, I clarify some aspects of the notion of “blind deference” that I use in the book as a contrast concept to identify a minim…Read more
-
69Democracy without Shortcuts. A participatory conception of deliberative democracyOxford University Press. 2020.This book articulates a participatory conception of deliberative democracy that takes the democratic ideal of self-government seriously. It aims to improve citizens' democratic control and vindicate the value of citizens' participation against conceptions that threaten to undermine it. The book critically analyzes deep pluralist, epistocratic, and lottocratic conceptions of democracy. Their defenders propose various institutional ''shortcuts'' to help solve problems of democratic governance such…Read more
-
330The Priority of Public Reasons and Religious Forms of Life in Constitutional DemocraciesEuropean Journal for Philosophy of Religion 11 (4): 45-60. 2019.In this essay I address the difficult question of how citizens with conflicting religious and secular views can fulfill the democratic obligation of justifying the imposition of coercive policies to others with reasons that they can also accept. After discussing the difficulties of proposals that either exclude religious beliefs from public deliberation or include them without any restrictions, I argue instead for a policy of mutual accountability that imposes the same deliberative rights and ob…Read more
-
15A Guide to Heidegger’s Being and Time (review)Review of Metaphysics 56 (1): 181-182. 2002.This book is one of the most comprehensive and detailed commentaries on both divisions of Heidegger’s Being and Time available in English. The chapters on division 1 were originally published in 1964 under the title Heidegger’s Philosophy: A Guide to His Basic Thought. The new edition prepared by John Llewelyn includes Magda King’s commentaries on division 2 of Being and Time, which are now published for the first time posthumously. The renderings of Heidegger’s German terms have also been revis…Read more
-
16Should We Take the “Human” Out of Human Rights? Human Dignity in a Corporate WorldEthics and International Affairs 30 (2): 233-252. 2016.
University of Frankfurt (Germany)
Alumnus, 1992
Evanston, Illinois, United States of America
Areas of Specialization
Social and Political Philosophy |
European Philosophy |
Areas of Interest
Philosophy of Law |