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57A Defense of Stiffer Penalties for Hate CrimesHypatia 21 (2): 62-80. 2006.After defining a hate crime as an offense in which the criminal selects the victim at least in part because of an animus toward members of the group to which the victim belongs, this essay surveys the standard justifications for state punishment en route to defending the permissibility of imposing stiffer penalties for hate crimes. It also argues that many standard instances of rape and domestic battery are hate crimes and may be punished as such.
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52Cosmopolitanism, Occupancy and Political Self‐DeterminationJournal of Applied Philosophy 36 (3): 375-381. 2018.The brand of cosmopolitanism that Cécile Fabre develops in her excellent book, Cosmopolitan Peace, leaves room for qualifying groups to exercise political self‐determination. Important questions thus emerge regarding who is entitled to have a say in the group's self‐determination, questions that take on a heightened practical urgency in the wake of wars that cause massive migration. In this article, I call into question Fabre's contention that the descendants of unjust occupants necessarily acqu…Read more
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50The Space between Justice and LegitimacyJournal of Political Philosophy 31 (1): 3-23. 2021.Journal of Political Philosophy, EarlyView.
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46In this book, Christopher Heath Wellman offers original theories of political legitimacy and our obligation to obey the law, and then, building upon these accounts, defends a number of distinctive positions concerning the rights and responsibilities individual citizens, separatist groups, and political states have regarding one another
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43On the Ethics of Vaccine Nationalism: The Case for the Fair Priority for Residents FrameworkEthics and International Affairs 35 (4): 543-562. 2021.COVID-19 vaccines are likely to be scarce for years to come. Many countries, from India to the U.K., have demonstrated vaccine nationalism. What are the ethical limits to this vaccine nationalism? Neither extreme nationalism nor extreme cosmopolitanism is ethically justifiable. Instead, we propose the fair priority for residents framework, in which governments can retain COVID-19 vaccine doses for their residents only to the extent that they are needed to maintain a noncrisis level of mortality …Read more
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40Do Legitimate States Have a Right to Do Wrong?Ethics and International Affairs 35 (4): 515-525. 2021.This essay critically assesses Anna Stilz's argument in Territorial Sovereignty: A Philosophical Exploration that legitimate states have a right to do wrong. I concede that individuals enjoy a claim against external interference when they commit suberogatory acts, but I deny that the right to do wrong extends to acts that would violate the rights of others. If this is correct, then one must do more than merely invoke an individual's right to do wrong if one hopes to vindicate a legitimate state'…Read more
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33Clarifying Forfeiture Theory in Response to Dempsey and LangCriminal Law and Philosophy 14 (2): 215-222. 2020.This paper clarifies and defends my account of the rights forfeiture theory of punishment in response to analyses by Michelle Madden Dempsey and Gerald Lang.
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29The Space between Justice and LegitimacyJournal of Political Philosophy 31 (1): 3-23. 2021.Journal of Political Philosophy, EarlyView.
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26Tadros on Non-Responsible ThreatsMind 132 (528): 959-964. 2023.One of the many interesting features of Victor Tadros’s excellent book, To Do, To Die, To Reason Why, is his change of heart on the vexing question of whether p.
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23A Theory of SecessionCambridge University Press. 2005.First published in 2005, A Theory of Secession: The Case for Political Self-Determination offers an unapologetic defense of the right to secede. Christopher Heath Wellman argues that any group has a moral right to secede as long as its political divorce will leave it and the remainder state in a position to perform the requisite political functions. He explains that there is nothing contradictory about valuing legitimate states, while permitting their division. Once political states are recogniz…Read more
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21Rights Forfeiture and PunishmentOxford University Press. 2016.In Rights Forfeiture and Punishment, Christopher Heath Wellman argues that those who seek to defend the moral permissibility of punishment should shift their focus from general justifying aims to moral side constraints. On Wellman's view, punishment is permissible just in case the wrongdoer has forfeited her right against punishment.
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15Liberalism, Samaritanism, and Political LegitimacyPhilosophy and Public Affairs 25 (3): 211-237. 1996.
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12Nationalism and SecessionIn R. G. Frey & Christopher Heath Wellman (eds.), A Companion to Applied Ethics, Blackwell. 2005.This chapter contains sections titled: What is a Nation? Nations and Personal Identity Nations and Associative Obligations Nations and State‐breaking Conclusion.
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6JusticeIn Robert L. Simon (ed.), The Blackwell Guide to Social and Political Philosophy, Blackwell. 2002.The prelims comprise: Utilitarianism Rawls Libertarianism Post‐Rawlsian Egalitarianism The Bounds of Justice Beyond Justice as Distribution Conclusion Acknowledgments References.
Areas of Interest
Philosophy of Law |
Social and Political Philosophy |