•  91
    In a narrow sense, hate speech is symbolic representation that expresses, hatred, contempt, or disregard for another person or group of persons. The use of deeply insulting racial or ethnic epithets is an example of such hate speech. In a broader sense, hate speech also includes the symbolic representation of views are deeply offensive to others. The expression of the view that women are morally inferior to (or less intelligent than) men is example of hate speech in the broader sense. The questi…Read more
  •  4
    Le Règne Social du Christianisme
    In Peter Vallentyne & Hillel Steiner (eds.), The Origins of Left Libertarianism: An Anthology of Historical Writings, Palgrave Publishing. 2000.
    François Huet (1814-1869), a French philosopher, sought to reconcile the principles of Christianity with those of socialism. He argues that each person is entitled to the wealth he/she produces and to an equal share of the wealth from natural resources and from artifacts inherited from previous generations. Unlike Colins, Huet holds that agents have the right to give and bequeath wealth that they have created, but no such right with respect to wealth they inherited or received as a gift. (This v…Read more
  •  32
    The connection between prudential and moral goodness
    Journal of Social Philosophy 24 (2): 105-128. 1993.
  •  5
  •  560
    Equality and the duties of procreators
    In David Archard & Colin Macleod (eds.), Children and Political Theory, Oxford University Press. 2002.
    I formulate and defend a theory of special procreative duties in the context of a liberal egalitarian theory of justice. I argue that (1) the only special duty that procreators owe their offspring is that of ensuring that their life prospects are non-negative (worth living), and (2) the only special duty that procreators owe others is that of ensuring that they are not disadvantaged by the procreators’ offspring (a) violating their rights or (b) adversely affecting their equality rights and duti…Read more
  •  94
    Left-libertarianism and liberty forthcoming in debates in political philosophy
    with Hillel Steiner and Michael Otsuka
    In Thomas Christiano & John Christman (eds.), Debates in Political Philosophy, Blackwell. 2009.
    I shall formulate and motivate a left-libertarian theory of justice. Like the more familiar rightlibertarianism, it holds that agents initially fully own themselves. Unlike right-libertarianism, it holds that natural resources belong to everyone in some egalitarian manner. Left-libertarianism is, I claim, a plausible version of liberal egalitarianism because it is suitably sensitive to considerations of liberty, security, and equality.
  •  61
    Hurley on Justice and Responsibility (review)
    Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 72 (2). 2006.
    In Justice, Luck, and Knowledge, Susan Hurley defends a reason-responsive account of responsibility, argues that appeals to responsibility cannot provide a justification or non-trivial specification of brute luck egalitarian theories of justice, and sketches her own cognitive-bias-neutralizing theory of justice. Throughout, Hurley is concerned with normative (as opposed to causal) responsibility, where this is understood as that which licenses (moral or prudential) praise, blame, and other react…Read more
  •  25
    Review of Dale F. Murray, Nozick, Autonomy and Compensation (review)
    Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews 2007 (12). 2007.
    In this nicely written book, Dale Murray critically discusses the moral rights posited by Robert Nozick in Anarchy, State, and Utopia. His focus is on these rights and not on Nozick's arguments about the justness of the state. He argues that Nozick's rights to compensation give rise to rights to government-financed health care and that Nozick should recognize a natural right to enough goods to ensure a reasonable chance of living a decent and meaningful life (if feasible for all). Murray also di…Read more
  •  17
    Critical Notice
    Canadian Journal of Philosophy 28 (4): 609-626. 1998.
  •  28
    Child liberationism and legitimate interference
    with Morrice Lipson
    Journal of Social Philosophy 23 (3): 5-15. 1992.
    Child liberationism holds that children are entitled to more freedom from interference than we currently acknowledge socially or legally. It holds, for example, that "the law [should] grant and guarantee to the young the freedom that it now grants to adults to make certain kinds of choices, do certain kinds of things, and accept certain kinds of responsibilities. This means in turn that the law [should] take action against anyone who interferes with young people's rights to do such things".1 Cal…Read more
  •  26
    Practical Guilt: Moral Dilemmas, Emotions, and Social Norms
    Philosophical Review 105 (4): 550. 1996.
    This book brings together and develops Patricia Greenspan’s thoughts on moral dilemmas and the role of emotions in moral judgment. Her main focus is on metaethics and moral psychology, and she discusses moral dilemmas primarily as a concrete way of introducing these issues.
  • Book Reviews (review)
    Mind 104 (415): 658-661. 1995.
  •  10
    Utilitarianism, 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.
  •  163
    Of Mice and Men: Equality and Animals
    The Journal of Ethics 9 (3-4): 403-433. 2005.
    Can material Egalitarianism (requiring, for example, the significant promotion of fortune) include animals in the domain of the equality requirement? The problem can be illustrated as follows: If equality of wellbeing is what matters, and normal mice are included in this egalitarian requirement, then normal mice have a much stronger claim to resources than almost any human. This is because normal mice have a much stronger claim to resources than almost any human. This is because their wellbeing …Read more
  •  1260
    Brute luck and responsibility
    Politics, Philosophy and Economics 7 (1): 57-80. 2008.
    The concept of agent-responsibility for an outcome (that is, of the outcome reflecting the autonomous choice of the agent) is central to both ethics and political philosophy. The concept, however, remains radically under-explored. In particular, the issue of partial responsibility for an outcome needs further development. I propose an account of partial responsibility based on partial causal contribution. Agents who choose autonomously in full knowledge of the consequences are agent-responsible,…Read more
  •  434
    The problem of unauthorized welfare
    Noûs 25 (3): 295-321. 1991.
    This problem has already been discussed by a number of authors.[i] Typically, however, authors take one of two extreme positions: they hold that all welfare should be taken at face value, or they hold that "suspect" welfare should be completely ignored. My contribution here is the following: First, I introduce the notion of unauthorized (suspect) welfare, of which welfare from meddlesome preferences, offensive tastes, expensive tastes, etc. are special cases. Second, I formulate four conditions …Read more
  •  1066
    Distributive Justice
    In Robert Goodin, Philip Pettit & Thomas Pogge (eds.), Companion to Contemporary Political Philosophy, Blackwell. 2007.
    The word “justice” is used in several different ways. First, justice is sometimes understood as moral permissibility applied to distributions of benefits and burdens (e.g., income distributions) or social structures (e.g., legal systems). In this sense, justice is distinguished by the kind of entity to which it is applied, rather than a specific kind of moral concern.
  •  38
    Motivational Ties and Doing What One Most Wats
    Journal of Philosophical Research 16 443-445. 1991.
    In his paper "Motivational Ties"[i] Al Mele addresses the question of how intentional behavior is possible in "Buridan’s ass" choice situations. This is the question of how an agent could make a choice between two or more (equally) maximally attractive options (such as choosing one, rather than another, of two effectively identical copies of a desired book). For if, as is commonly supposed, choices and intentions are based on the attractiveness of options (roughly, how strongly one is motivated …Read more
  •  5
    Oxford Studies in Political Philosophy Volume 4 (edited book)
    Oxford University Press. 2018.
    This is the fourth volume of Oxford Studies in Political Philosophy. The series aims to publish some of the best contemporary work in the vibrant field of political philosophy and its closely related subfields, including jurisprudence, normative economics, political theory in political science departments, and just war theory.
  • Éthique et mort(s) - Libertarisme, propriété de soi et homicide consensuel
    Revue Philosophique De Louvain 101 (1): 5-25. 2003.
  •  11
    Equal opportunity and the family
    with Morry Lipson
    Public Affairs Quarterly 3 (4): 27-45. 1989.
  •  192
    This book contains a collection of important recent writing on left-liberalism, a political philosophy that recognizes both strong liberty rights and strong ...
  •  93
    Where there are infinitely many possible [equiprobable] basic states of the world, a standard probability function must assign zero probability to each state—since any finite probability would sum to over one. This generates problems for any decision theory that appeals to expected utility or related notions. For it leads to the view that a situation in which one wins a million dollars if any of a thousand of the equally probable states is realized has an expected value of zero (since each such …Read more
  •  674
    Libertarianism
    Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. 2008.
    Libertarianism holds that agents initially fully own themselves and have moral powers to acquire property rights in external things under certain conditions. It is normally advocated as a theory of justice in the sense of the duties that we owe each other. So understood, it is silent about any impersonal duties (i.e., duties owed to no one) that we may have.