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403Liberal Resourcism: Problems and PossibilitiesJournal of Social Philosophy 44 (4): 348-369. 2013.
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58Contractarianism and the assumption of mutual unconcernPhilosophical Studies 56 (2). 1989.A contractarian moral theory states that an action (practice, social structure, etc.) is morally permissible if and only if it (or rules to which if conforms) would be agreed to by the members of society under certain circumstances. What people will agree to depends on what their desires are like. Most contractarian theories - for example those of Rawls (1971) and Gauthier (1986) - specify that parties to the agreement are mutually unconcerned (take no interest in each other's interests). Contra…Read more
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21Left-Libertarianism and Global JusticeIn Burton M. Leiser & Tom Campbell (eds.), Human Rights in Philosophy & Practice, Ashgate Publishing. 2001.We defend a version of left-libertarianism, and discuss some of its implications for global justice (and economic justice among nations in particular). Like the better known right-libertarianism, left-libertarianism holds that agents own themselves. Unlike right-libertarianism, left-libertarianism holds that natural resources (land, oil, air, etc.) are owned in some egalitarian sense and can be legitimately appropriated by individuals or groups only when the appropriations are compatible with th…Read more
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68Gimmicky representations of moral theoriesMetaphilosophy 19 (3-4): 253-263. 1988.The teleological/deontological distinction is generally considered to be the fundamental classificatory distinction for ethics. I have argued elsewhere (Vallentyne forthcoming (a), and Ch.2 of Vallentyne 1984) that the distinction is ill understood and not as important as is generally supposed. Some authors have advocated a moral radical thesis. Oldenquist (1966) and Piper (1982) have both argued that the purported distinction is a pseudo distinction in that any theory can be represented both as…Read more
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44In Child versus Childmaker Melinda Roberts provides an enlightening analysis and a cogent defense of a version of the person-affecting restriction in ethics. The rough idea of this restriction is that an action, state of affairs, or world, cannot be wrong, or bad, unless it would wrong, or be bad for, someone. I shall focus solely on Roberts’s core principles, and thus shall not address her interesting chapter-length discussions of wrongful life cases and of human cloning cases. The person-affec…Read more
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20Utilitarianism, Hedonism, and Desert (review)Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 60 (3): 734-737. 2000.This is a collection of ten of Fred Feldman’s previously published articles along with an introduction. The essays concern three main topics: the nature and structure of consequentialism, the nature of pleasure, and the moral relevance of desert. The introduction provides a very useful overview of how the pieces fit together and of their general significance. In addition, each article is preceded by a very crisp synopsis.
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486Infinite value and finitely additive value theoryJournal of Philosophy 94 (1): 5-26. 1997.000000001. Introduction Call a theory of the good—be it moral or prudential—aggregative just in case (1) it recognizes local (or location-relative) goodness, and (2) the goodness of states of affairs is based on some aggregation of local goodness. The locations for local goodness might be points or regions in time, space, or space-time; or they might be people, or states of nature.1 Any method of aggregation is allowed: totaling, averaging, measuring the equality of the distribution, measuring t…Read more
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67Libertarianism, Autonomy, And ChildrenPublic Affairs Quarterly 5 (4): 333-352. 1991.IBERTARIANS hold that we have such duties as: not to directly and significantly harm others or their property, to keep agreements, to refrain from lying and certain other sorts of deception, and to compensate those whom we wrong. They also hold that we have a duty not to interfere with the liberty of others as long as they are fulfilling these duties. This duty of non-interference, they have thought, has protected the privacy of the home, and hence parental autonomy, for it insures that others h…Read more
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481Paretian egalitarianism with variable population sizeIn John Roemer & Kotaro Suzumura (eds.), Intergenerational Equity and Sustainability, Palgrave Publishers. 2007.in Intergenerational Equity and Sustainability, edited by John Roemer and Kotaro Suzumura, (Palgrave Publishers Ltd., forthcoming 2007), ch.11.
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40The Origins of Left Libertarianism: An Anthology of Historical Writings (edited book)Palgrave Publishing. 2000.This book contains the historically most important discussions of the philosophical foundations of left-libertarianism. Like the more familiar right-libertarianism (such as that of Nozick), left-libertarianism holds that agents own themselves (and thus owe no service the others expect as the result of voluntary action). Unlike right-libertarianism, however, left-libertarianism holds that natural resources are owned by the members of society in some egalitarian manner, and may be appropriated onl…Read more
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Gopal Sreenivasan, The Limits of Lockean Rights in Property (review)Philosophy in Review 18 62-64. 1998.
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793Libertarian Theories of Intergenerational JusticeIn Axel Gosseries & Lukas Meyer (eds.), Justice Between Generations, Oxford University Press. 2009.Justice and Libertarianism The term ‘justice’ is commonly used in several different ways. Sometimes it designates the moral permissibility of political structures (such as legal systems). Sometimes it designates moral fairness (as opposed to efficiency or other considerations that are relevant to moral permissibility). Sometimes it designates legitimacy in the sense of it being morally impermissible for others to interfere forcibly with the act or omission (e.g., my failing to go to dinner with …Read more
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53On Economic InequalityPhilosophical Review 108 (1): 85. 1999.This is a reprint of Amartya Sen’s 1973 book on the measurement of inequality, plus an updated bibliography and index, and an annex by James Foster and Sen that summarizes and comments on the main developments since 1973. The book is superbly written and focuses on verbal discussion of the plausibility and significance of the conditions, theorems, and measures.
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29Théories Économiques de la Justice, Marc Fleurbaey. Economica, 1996, i + 250 pages.Modern Theories of Justice, Serge-Christophe Kolm. MIT Press, 1996, ix + 525 pages.Theories of Distributive Justice, John Roemer. Harvard University Press, 1996, ix + 342 pages (review)Economics and Philosophy 14 (1): 135. 1998.
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8Equal Negative Liberty and Welfare RightsInternational Journal of Applied Philosophy 25 (2): 237-241. 2011.In Are Equal Liberty and Equality Compatible?, Jan Narveson and James Sterba insightfully debate whether a right to maximum equal negative liberty requires, or at least is compatible with, a right to welfare. Narveson argues that the two rights are incompatible, whereas Sterba argues that the rights are compatible and indeed that the right to maximum equal negative liberty requires a right to welfare. I argue that Sterba is correct that the two rights are conceptually compatible and that Narveso…Read more
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2Moral Dilemmas and Comparative Conceptions of MoralitySouthern Journal of Philosophy 30 (1): 117-124. 1992.
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20Oxford Studies in Political Philosophy, Volume 1 (edited book)Oxford University Press UK. 2015.This is the inaugural volume of Oxford Studies in Political Philosophy. Since its revival in the 1970s political philosophy has been a vibrant field in philosophy, one that intersects with jurisprudence, normative economics, political theory in political science departments, and just war theory. OSPP aims to publish some of the best contemporary work in political philosophy and these closely related subfields.
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130Debate: Capabilities versus opportunities for well-beingJournal of Political Philosophy 13 (3). 2005.Amartya Sen and Martha Nussbaum have argued that justice is concerned, at least in part, with the distribution of capabilities (opportunities to function). Richard Arneson, G.A. Cohen, and John Roemer have argued that justice is concerned with something like the distribution of opportunities for well-being. I argue that, although some versions of the capability view are incompatible with some versions of the opportunity for well-being view, the most plausible version of the capability view is id…Read more
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716Libertarianism and the stateSocial Philosophy and Policy 24 (1): 187-205. 2007.Although Robert Nozick has argued that libertarianism is compatible with the justice of a minimal state—even if does not arise from mutual consent—few have been persuaded. I will outline a different way of establishing that a non-consensual libertarian state can be just. I will show that a state can—with a few important qualifications—justly enforce the rights of citizens, extract payments to cover the costs of such enforcement, redistribute resources to the poor, and invest in infrastructure to…Read more
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33Paul Kelly, Impartiality, Neutrality, and Justice:Impartiality, Neutrality, and JusticeEthics 110 (4): 843-845. 2000.
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58Self-ownershipIn Laurence Becker & Charlotte Becker (eds.), Encyclopedia of Ethics, 2nd edition, Garland Publishing. 2001.John Locke (1690), libertarians, and others have held that agents are self-owners in the sense that they have private property rights over themselves in the same way that people can have private property rights over inanimate objects. This private ownership is typically taken to include (1) control rights over (power to grant and deny permission for) the use of their persons (e.g., what things are done to them), (2) rights to transfer the rights they have to others (by sale, rental, gift, or loa…Read more
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21Libertarianism, Self-Ownership and Consensual KillingRevue Philosophique De Louvain. 2002.Under what conditions is it morally permissible to commit suicide, to assist in someone’s suicide, or to kill another person with his/her consent? Under what conditions is it morally permissible to use force to prevent such acts? I shall defend a libertarian answer to these questions. On this view, autonomous agents initially fully own themselves in the same sense that one can fully own an inanimate object such as a car. Just as full owners of cars are morally permitted, under a broad range of c…Read more
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20Responsibility and compensation rightsIn Stephen De Wijze, Matthew H. Kramer & Ian Carter (eds.), Hillel Steiner and the Anatomy of Justice: Themes and Challenges, Routledge. 2009.I address an issue that arises for rights theories that recognize rights to compensation for rightsintrusions. Do individuals who never pose any risk of harm to others have a right, against a rightsintruder, to full compensation for any resulting intrusion-harm, or is the right limited in some way by the extent to which the intruder was agent-responsible for the intrusion-harm (e.g., the extent to which the harm was a foreseeable result of her autonomous choices)? Although this general issue of …Read more
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205“Two Types of Moral Dilemmas”Erkenntnis 30 (3): 301-318. 1989.die). In recent years the problem of moral dilemmas has received the attention of a number of philosophers. Some authors1 argue that moral dilemmas are not conceptually possible (i.e., that they are incoherent, given the nature of the concepts involved) because they are ruled out by certain valid principles of deontic logic. Other authors2 insist that moral dilemmas are conceptually possible, and argue that therefore the principles of deontic logic that rule them out must be rejected. In arguing…Read more
Areas of Specialization
Normative Ethics |
Social and Political Philosophy |
Areas of Interest
Metaphysics |
Philosophy of Action |