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25Gauging the societal impacts of natural disasters using a capability approachDisasters 34 (3): 619-636. 2010.There is a widely acknowledged need for a single composite index that provides a comprehensive picture of the societal impact of disasters. A composite index combines and logically organizes important information policy-makers need to allocate resources for the recovery from natural disasters; it can also inform hazard mitigation strategies. This paper develops a Disaster Impact Index (DII) to gauge the societal impact of disasters on the basis of the changes in individuals’ capabilities. The DI…Read more
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53Political reconciliation, the rule of law, and trucesJournal of Global Ethics 13 (1): 28-39. 2017.Nir Eisikovits argues in A Theory of Truces that most contemporary conflicts wind down in a much more piecemeal fashion than our theorizing about the morality of ending wars suggests. Pauses in violence are achieved by securing agreement on narrow questions. Moreover, rather than hoping to do away with violence, theorizing would do best, he writes, to take as its starting point the fact of warfare as part of the human condition. Eisikovits aims to articulate the features of truce thinking, a fra…Read more
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1076Assessing capability instead of achieved functionings in risk analysisJournal of Risk Research 13 (2): 137-147. 2010.A capability approach has been proposed to risk analysis, where risk is conceptualized as the probability that capabilities are reduced. Capabilities refer to the genuine opportunities of individuals to achieve valuable doings and beings, such as being adequately nourished. Such doings and beings are called functionings. A current debate in risk analysis and other fields where a capability approach has been developed concerns whether capabilities or actual achieved functionings should be used. T…Read more
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23Political reconciliation and international criminal trialsIn Larry May & Zachary Hoskins (eds.), International Criminal Law and Philosophy, Cambridge University Press. 2010.I argue that international criminal trials can contribute to political reconciliation by fostering the social conditions required for law’s efficacy.
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26Reply to CriticsCriminal Law and Philosophy 10 (1): 165-177. 2016.One of the central moral challenges facing numerous political communities today is political reconciliation. In the aftermath of repression, conflict, and injustice, communities confront the task of repairing damaged relationships among citizens and between citizens and officials. In A Moral Theory of Political Reconciliation, I develop a theory of what this process entails and of its moral significance. My central claim is that political relationships are damaged when and to the extent that the…Read more
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69Determining public policy and resource allocation priorities for mitigating natural hazards: A capabilities-based approachScience and Engineering Ethics 13 (4): 489-504. 2007.This paper proposes a Capabilities -based Approach to guide hazard mitigation efforts. First, a discussion is provided of the criteria that should be met by an adequate framework for formulating public policy and allocating resources. This paper shows why a common decision-aiding tool, Cost-benefit Analysis, fails to fulfill such criteria. A Capabilities -based Approach to hazard mitigation is then presented, drawing on the framework originally developed in the context of development economics a…Read more
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83Political Reconciliation, the Rule of Law, and GenocideThe European Legacy 12 (7): 853-865. 2007.Political reconciliation involves the repairing of damaged political relationships. This paper considers the possibility and moral justifiability of pursuing political reconciliation in the aftermath of systematic and egregious wrongdoing, in particular genocide. The first two sections discuss what political reconciliation specifically requires. I argue that it neither entails nor necessitates forgiveness. Rather, I claim, political reconciliation should be conceptualized as the (re-)establishme…Read more
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78The acceptability and the tolerability of societal risks: A capabilities-based approachScience and Engineering Ethics 14 (1): 77-92. 2008.In this paper, we present a Capabilities -based Approach to the acceptability and the tolerability of risks posed by natural and man-made hazards. We argue that judgments about the acceptability and/or tolerability of such risks should be based on an evaluation of the likely societal impact of potential hazards, defined in terms of the expected changes in the capabilities of individuals. Capabilities refer to the functionings, or valuable doings and beings, individuals are able to achieve given …Read more
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73Justice and Reconciliation in Post-Apartheid South AfricaPhilosophical Papers 40 (1): 49-154. 2011.This Article does not have an abstract
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20Political reconciliation, the rule of law and post-traumatic stress disorderIn Nancy Nyquist Potter (ed.), Trauma, Truth and Reconciliation: Healing Damaged Relationships, Oxford University Press. 2006.I discuss why one critical aspect of the process of political reconciliation involves the restoration of mutual respect for the rule of law and suggest that psychological research on post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) provides valuable resources for understanding how successfully to restore such mutual respect.
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170Lon Fuller and the moral value of the rule of lawLaw and Philosophy 24 (3): 239-262. 2004.It is often argued that the rule of law is only instrumentally morally valuable, valuable when and to the extent that a legal system is used to purse morally valuable ends. In this paper, I defend Lon Fuller’s view that the rule of law has conditional non-instrumental as well as instrumental moral value. I argue, along Fullerian lines, that the rule of law is conditionally non-instrumentally valuable in virtue of the way a legal system structures political relationships. The rule of law specifie…Read more
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1The Nature and Moral Importance of Political ReconciliationDissertation, The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. 2004.Societies in transition from repressive rule or civil conflict to a just social order confront distinctive challenges. Many authors claim that the long-term stability of newly established democracies depends crucially upon the ability of former adversaries to reconcile. Interestingly, however, authors typically assume, rather than attempt to prove, the truth of this claim, thereby presupposing the moral value of political reconciliation. Similar assumptions underlie debates about whether truth c…Read more