Philip Pettit

‘By political thcory," ]0hn Plamcnatz wrote, "I d0 not mean explanations of how governments function; I mean systematic thinking about the purposes of govcrnmcnt."l Political theory is a normative disciplinc, designed t0 let us evaluate rather than explain; in this it resembles moral or ethical theory. What distinguishes it among normative disciplines is that it is designed to facilitate in particular the evaluation of government or, if that is something more general, the statc.2 We are to identify the purposes of govcrnmcnt—morc strictly, the proper purposes of govcmmcnt—s0 that we can decide on the best political arrangements for society. I work with Plamcnatz’s definition in this book. The readings 0{Tcrcd here are all in one way or another relevant to the normative analysis of the state. I stress this point at the outset as readers interested in explanatory political thcory—thc sort of theory that ideally informs empirical research on the statc—may otherwise bc disappointed with what I provide. If such readers know at the beginning what they are getting, than they will have no reason later to complain. Indeed they may even bc pleasantly surprised, when they discover that normative political theory, as the essays in this volume represent it—pa.rticula.rly..

I want to sound a warning note and suggest some changes that are needed in the practice of ethical review. It is easy to assume that with a policy as high-minded as the policy of reviewing research on human beings, the only difficulties will be the obstacles put in its way by recalcitrant and unreformed paries: by the special-interest groups affected. But this is not always true of high-minded policies and it is not true, in particular, of the policy of reviewing research. Ethical review is endangering valuable research on human beings and, moreover, it is endangering the very ethic that is needed to govern that research. And this is not anyone's fault, least of all the fault of any special-interest groups. The problem is that the process of ethical review has been driven by an institutional dynamic that is not in anyone's control and this dynamic is now driving us, willy nilly, on to some very stony ground. My argument is developed in four sections. In the next section, section two, I look at a model of policy-making which identifies a reactive, institutional dynamic that lies at the origin of certain policy intitiatives. In the third section I argue that this model fits the appearance and development of the ethical review of human research, showing how the process of review has been motored by a dynamic of step-by-step reaction to chilling tales of abuse. In the fourth section I look at the predictions of the future development of ethical review that the extrapolation of that model yields. And then in the fifth and..

This innovative approach to freedom starts from an account of what we mean by describing someone, in a psychological vein, as a free subject. Pettit develops an argument as to what it is that makes someone free in that basic sense; and then goes on to derive the implications of the approach for issues of freedom in political theory. Freedom in the subject is equated with the person's being fit to be held responsible and to be authorized as a partner in interaction. This book is unique among contemporary approaches - although it is true to the spirit of classical writers like Hobbes and Kant - in seeking a theory that applies to psychological issues of free agency and free will as well as to political issues in the theory of the free state and the free constitution. The driving thesis is that it is only by connecting up the different issues of freedom, psychological and political, that we can fully appreciate the nature of the questions involved, and the requirements for their resolution. The book does not not seek a comprehensive reach just for its own sake, but rather for the sake of the illumination it provides._ _ _A Theory of Freedom_ is a ground-breaking volume which will be of wide interest to scholars and students in political philosophy and political science

The question with which I shall be concerned in this paper is whether global response-dependence entails the truth of a certain noumenal form of realism: for short, a certain noumenalism. I accept that it does, at least under a plausible assumption, endorsing an argument presented by Michael Smith and Daniel Stoljar. But I try to show that, while the connection with noumenalism is undeniable, it is neither distinctive of a belief in global response-dependence nor particularly disturbing for those of us who embrace that belief.

This essay emerges from consideration of a question in the epistemology of ethics or morality. This is not the common claim-centered question as to how moral claims are confirmed and whether their mode of confirmation gives us grounds to be confident about the prospects for ethical discourse. Instead, I am concerned with the less frequently posed concept-centered question of where in human experience moral terms or concepts are grounded — that is, where in experience the moral becomes salient to us. This question was central to moral epistemology in the form it took among thinkers such as Locke, Hume, and Kant, and it remains of the first importance today

The desire for esteem, and the associated desire for good reputation, serve an important role in ordinary social life in disciplining interactions and supporting the operation of social norms. The fact that many Internet relations are conducted under separate dedicated e-identities may encourage the view that Internet relations are not susceptible to these esteem-related incentives. We argue that this view is mistaken. Certainly, pseudonyms allow individuals to moderate the effects of disesteem-either by changing the pseudonym to avoid the negative reputation, or by partitioning various audiences according to different audience values. However, there is every reason to believe that a good e-reputation is an object of desire for real agents. Further, although integrating one’s reputation under a single identity has some esteem-enhancing features, those features are not necessarily decisive. We explore in the paper what some of the countervailing considerations might be, by appeal to various analogies with the Internet case.

In 'The Humean Theory of Motivation' Michael Smith attempts two tasks: he offers an account of the debate about motivation between Humeans and anti-Humeans and he provides arguments that are designed to show that the Humeans win. While the paper is of great virtue in clarifying the debate, I believe that it falls short of both its goals. It does not highlight the really central issue between Humeans and anti-Humeans and it does not provide arguments which would settle that issue in favour of the Humean side.

In a now famous thought experiment, Frank jackson asked us t0 imagine an omniscient scientist, Mary, who is coniincd in a black-and-white room and then released into the world 0f color . Assuming that she is omniscicnt in respect of all physical facts—roughiy, all the facts available to physics and all the facts that they in turn Hx or determine-physicalism would suggest that there is no new fact Mary can discover after emancipation; physicalism holds that all facts are physical in the relevant sense . Yet we cannot help but feel that coming out of that room would be an occasion of dramatic enlightenment and, in particular, an occasion for learning facts to do with how red or yellow or blue 100ks or, as it is usually said, with what it is like t0 sec red or yellow or blue. Many in the black-and—whit

Philosophy can serve two roles in relation to moral thinking: first, to provide a meta-ethical commentary on the nature of moral thought, as the methodology or the philosophy of science provides a commentary on the nature of scientific thought; and second, to build on the common presumptions deployed in people's moral thinking about moral issues, looking for a substantive moral theory that they might support. The present essay addresses the nature of this second role; illustrates it with substantive theories that equate moral obligations respectively with requirements of nature, self-interest, benevolence, reason and justifiability; and outlines a novel competitor in which the focus is shifted to requirements of co-reasoning and respect

Hobbes made a distinctive contribution to the discussion of freedom on two fronts. He persuaded later, if not immediate, successors that it is only the exercise of a power of interference that reduces people’s freedom, not its (unexercised) existence - not even its existence in an arbitrary, unchecked form. Equally, he persuaded them that the exercise of a power of interference always reduces freedom in the same way, whether it occurs in a republican democracy, purportedly on a ‘non-arbitrary’ basis, or under a dictatorial, arbitrary regime. But the basis on which Hobbes maintained those two propositions was very different from any that successors would have found plausible. This article explores the idiosyncratic principles that led Hobbes to develop his influential point of view. Key Words: freedom • Hobbes • liberalism • libertarianism • liberty.

In Hobbes, freedom of choice requires nonfrustration: the option you prefer must be accessible. In Berlin, it requires noninterference: every option, preferred or unpreferred, must be accessible—every door must be open. But Berlin’s argument against Hobbes suggests a parallel argument that freedom requires something stronger still: that each option be accessible and that no one have the power to block access; the doors should be open, and there should be no powerful doorkeepers. This is freedom as nondomination. The claim is that freedom as noninterference is an unstable alternative between freedom as nonfrustration and freedom as nondomination.