Philip Pettit

In common-sense morality, certain special obligations loom large. These are duties which are laid upon agents, be they individuals or groups, in virtue of their distinctive identities, relationships or histories: because of who they are, how they are linked to others or what they have done in the past. The particularistic basis of these obligations means that no one but the agent in question is engaged by such a duty. It is that agent's alone.These special obligations include duties towards oneself, towards one's dependants and towards those to whom one has made certain commitments. In each case they prescribe partisan treatment. The beneficiary is to enjoy a benefit which may not be especially important in the global scheme of things, and which may even be obtained at the cost of others’ being deprived of benefits that are equally or more important in some cosmic sense.

Taken as a model for how groups should make collective judgments and decisions, the ideal of deliberative democracy is inherently ambiguous. Consider the idealised case where it is agreed on all sides that a certain conclusion should be endorsed if and only if certain premises are admitted. Does deliberative democracy recommend that members of the group debate the premises and then individually vote, in the light of that debate, on whether or not to support the conclusion? Or does it recommend that members individually vote on the premises, and then let their commitment to the conclusion be settled by whether or not the group endorses the required premises? Deliberative-democratic theory has not addressed this issue, and this is a problem. The discursive dilemma of my title--a generalisation of the doctrinal paradox from analytical jurisprudence--shows that the procedures distinguished can come apart. Thus deliberative democrats must make up their minds on where they stand in relation to the issue; they cannot sit on the fence. This paper is an attempt to address the issue and look at the grounds on which it may be resolved.

The economic explanation of individual behaviour, even behaviour outside the traditional province of the market, projects a distinctively economic image on the minds of the agents involved. It suggests that, in regard to motivation and rationality, they conform to the profile of homo economicus. But this suggestion, by many lights, flies in the face of common sense; it conflicts with our ordinary assumptions about how we each feel and think in most situations, certainly most non-market situations, and about how that feeling and thought manifests itself in action. What, then, to conclude? That common sense is deeply in error on these matters? That, on the contrary, economics is in error—at least about non-market behaviour—and common sense sound? Or that some form of reconciliation is available between the two perspectives? This paper is an attempt to defend a conciliationist position.

In order to vindicate rational-choice theory as a mode of explaining social patterns in general - social patterns beyond the narrow range of economic behaviour - we have to recognize the legitimacy of explaining the resilience of certain patterns of behaviour: that is, explaining, not necessarily why they emerged or have been sustained, but why they are robust and reliable. And once we allow the legitimacy of explaining resilience, then we can see how functionalist theory may also serve us well in social science; we lose the basis - the empty black box argumenton which the rational-choice critique of the theory has mostly been grounded

Group agents have been represented as expressive fictions by those who treat ascriptions of agency to groups as metaphorical; as pragmatic fictions by those who think that the agency ascribed to groups belongs in the first place to a distinct individual or set of individuals; and as theoretical fictions by those who think that postulating group agents serves no indispensable role in our theory of the social world. This paper identifies, criticizes and rejects each of these views, defending a strong realist position

The basic income proposal provides everyone in a society, as an unconditional right, with access to a certain level of income. Introducing such a right is bound to raise questions of institutional feasibility. Would it lead too many people to opt out of the workforce, for example? And even if it did not, could a constitution that allowed some members of the society to do this – at whatever relative cost – prove acceptable in a society of mutually reciprocal, equally positioned members? I assume in this short essay, however, that none of these problems is insurmountable. I concentrate on the question of how far republicanism makes room for justifying something like a right to basic income, assuming that there are no problems of this kind with introducing and establishing such a right. Any satisfactory argument for a basic income should satisfy two desiderata. First is that of adequacy: the argument should establish a right to an intuitively..

We have two ways of talking about liberty or freedom, one in the singular, the other in the plural. We concern ourselves in the singular mode with how far someone is free to do or not to do certain things, or with how far someone is a free person or not a free person. But, equally, we concern ourselves with the plural question as to how far the person enjoys the liberties that we take to be important or basic. What are those plural liberties, however? What does it take for something to count as a basic liberty? e usual approach to this question is to give a list of some presumptive basic liberties — say, those of thought, speech, and association — and then to add a gestural ‘and so on’. My aim in this paper is to do a little better in elaborating a conception of the sorts of liberties at which the ‘and so on’ gestures. I argue that the basic liberties can be usefully identifi ed as the liberties required for living the life of a free person or citizen and I spell out that requirement in three constraints, which I describe as feasible extension, personal signifi cance and equal co-enjoyment. ere are many candidate sets of basic liberties that might be proposed for protection, whether in general or for a particular society. e claim that I defend is that in order to count as a set of basic liberties, the types of choice protected under any proposal should be capable of being equally enjoyed at the same time by everyone (equal co-enj oyment), should be important in the life of normal human beings (personal signifi cance), and should not be unnecessarily restricted: they should be as extensive as the other constraints allow (feasible extension). e aim of the paper being quite limited, I abstract from many important issues. I do not provide an argument for why it is important that some set of basic liberties be protected, nor do I rate the importance of such protection against other social goals. I say nothing on how far it should be a requirement of democracy that certain sorts of liberties are entrenched—whether constitutionally or otherwise—and how far democratic process should be allowed to vary the specifi - cation and protection of basic liberties..

The long republican tradition is characterized by a conception of freedom as non‐domination, which offers an alternative, both to the negative view of freedom as non‐interference and to the positive view of freedom as self‐mastery. The first part of the book traces the rise and decline of the conception, displays its many attractions and makes a case for why it should still be regarded as a central political ideal. The second part of the book looks at the sorts of political and civil institutions that would be required in a society in which freedom as non‐domination is systematically fostered. It outlines the causes and policies, the constitutional and democratic forms, and the regulatory controls that a republican state ought to endorse. And it argues for a vision of the state's relation to civil society in which there is no pretence of doing without widespread civility and trust; the argument is that the state ought, at once, to foster and build on such extra‐political foundations.

À quoi servent les explications du comportement humain qui nous présentent comme des êtres rationnels animés par des motifs égoïstes, si, en réalité, nous agissons la plupart du temps conformément à des motifs qui ne le sont pas? À quoi servent les explications fonctionnalistes des institutions humaines qui les présentent comme ayant été retenues au cours de l'histoire de nos sociétés en raison de leurs avantages adaptatifs, si, en réalité, il n'existe aucune histoire documentée des mécanismes de sélection de ces institutions? Pourquoi les sciences sociales continuent-elles de parler de groupes sociaux dotés d'une personnalité et d'intentions propres, dont l'existence transcende celle des individus qui les composent, alors qu'elles nous disent en même temps que les individus sont les seuls êtres réellement existants? C'est à ces questions et à quelques autres que Philip Pettit, l'un des représentants les plus en vue de la philosophie analytique contemporaine, propose des réponses fortes et originales. Il montre comment il est possible de donner un sens raisonnable aux principales méthodes d'explication en sciences sociales : fonctionnalisme, théorie de l'agent rationnel, explications structurelles. Il justifie une métaphysique sociale holiste qui admet l'existence de groupes sociaux mais respecte néanmoins l'individualisme. On comprend mieux alors comment la philosophie des sciences sociales peut contribuer de façon incisive aux progrès de la recherche dans ces disciplines.