-
149Well-ordered ScienceJournal of Philosophical Research 32 (9999): 127-139. 2007.The debate over the use of genetically-modified (GM) crops is one where the heat to light ratio is often quite low. Both proponents and opponents of GM crops often resort more to rhetoric than argument. This paper attempts to use Philip Kitcher’s idea of a “well-ordered science” to bring coherence to the debate. While I cannot, of course, here decide when and where, if at all, GM crops should be used I do show how Kitcher’s approach provides a useful framework in which to evaluate the desirabili…Read more
-
48Citizenship, in the Immigration ContextUniversity of Maryland Law Review 70 175. 2010.Many international law scholars have begun to argue that the modern world is experiencing a "decline of citizenship," and that citizenship is no longer an important normative category. On the contrary, this paper argues that citizenship remains an important category and, consequently, one that implicates considerations of justice. I articulate and defend a "civic" notion of citizenship, one based explicitly on political values rather than shared demographic features like nationality, race, or cu…Read more
-
68The Use and Abuse of Presumptions: Some comments on Dempsey on FinnisVillanova Law Review 57 485. 2012.This paper is a short commentary on Michelle Dempsey's contribution to a symposium on the work of John Finnis which took place at Villanova Law School in the fall of 2011. It focuses on Finnis's claim that there is a presumptive obligation to obey the law and some worries that Dempsey raises against this claim. It is forthcoming, along with several other papers from the symposium, in the Villanova Law Review
-
212Review of Carl Knight, Luck Egalitarianism (review)Journal of Moral Philosophy 9 (1): 127-30. 2012.This is a review of Carl Knight's recent book, _Luck Egalitarianism_
-
121John Corvino and Maggie Gallagher: Debating Same-Sex Marriage: Oxford University Press, 2012, 281 pp, $16.95 , ISBN: 9780199756315Criminal Law and Philosophy 9 (4): 727-735. 2015.This is a review of the book by John Corvino and Maggie Gallagher, _Debating Same-Sex Marriage_.
-
89Empirical Desert, Individual Prevention, and Limiting Retributivism: A ReplyNew Criminal Law Review 17 (2): 312-375. 2014.A number of articles and empirical studies over the past decade, most by Paul Robinson and co-authors, have suggested a relationship between the extent of the criminal law's reputation for being just in its distribution of criminal liability and punishment in the eyes of the community – its "moral credibility" – and its ability to gain that community's deference and compliance through a variety of mechanisms that enhance its crime-control effectiveness. This has led to proposals to have criminal…Read more
-
113There is no Human Right to Democracy. But May We Promote it Anyway?Stanford Journal of International Law 48 (2): 257. 2012.The idea of “promoting democracy” is one that goes in and out of favor. With the advent of the so-called “Arab Spring”, the idea of promoting democracy abroad has come up for discussion once again. Yet an important recent line of thinking about human rights, starting with John Rawls’s book The Law of Peoples, has held that there is no human right to democracy, and that nondemocratic states that respect human rights should be “beyond reproach” in the realm of international relations. This is, for…Read more
-
27Criminal law conversations: "Desert: Empirical, not metaphysical" and "contractualism and the sharing of wrongs"In Paul Robinson, Kimberly Ferzan & Stephen Garvey (eds.), Criminal Law Conversations, . 2009.Following are two short contributions to the book, _Criminal Law Conversations_: commentaries on Paul Robinson's discussion of "Empirical Desert" and Antony Duff & Sandra Marshal's discussion of the sharing of wrongs
-
48Gang-related asylum claims: An overview and prescriptionUniversity of Memphis Law Review 38 (4). 2008.Over the last several years asylum cases relating to activities of criminal gangs have greatly increased in frequency. Cases involving Central American gangs, the so-called maras, have attracted the most attention but similar cases have arisen out of South Eastern and Eastern Europe as well. Applicants in such cases face a number of difficulties as their cases do not fit into paradigm categories for asylum claims. These cases almost always involve non-state actors, for example, acting for reason…Read more
-
75Alien Ideas: Review of Strangers in our Midst: The Political Philosophy of Immigration, by David Miller (review)Thew New Rambler 2016. 2016.David Miller, Professor of Politics at Oxford University, has long been one of the most important and interesting contributors to political theory and philosophy. He is well known for insisting on the mutual relevance of philosophical reflection and political practice, an approach well captured by the title of his recent book, Justice for Earthlings. In his most recent book, Strangers in our Midst: The Political Philosophy of Immigration, Miller revises and extends the work he has been doing for…Read more
-
102Review of Gerald Gaus, The Order of Public Reason (review)Notre Dame Philosophical Review. 2011.This is a review of Gerald Gaus's recent book, _The Order of Public Reason_
-
67Review of Defeasibility in Philosophy: Knowledge, Agency, Responsibility, and the Law; Claudia Blöser, Mikael Janvid, Hannes Ole Matthiessen, and Marcus Willaschek (eds.) (review)Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews 2014. 2014.This volume is based on papers presented at a conference on defeasibility in ethics, epistemology, law, and logic that took place at the Goethe University in Frankfurt in 2010. The subtitle (“Knowledge, Agency, Responsibility, and the Law”) better reflects the content than does the title of the original conference. None of the papers focuses directly or primarily on defeasible reasoning in logic, though a few touch on this indirectly. Nor are the papers evenly split among the topics. Six are pri…Read more
-
86A Rawlsian argument for extending family-based immigration benefits to same-sex couplesUniversity of Memphis Law Review 37 (Summer): 763-764. 2007.In this paper I argue that anyone who accepts a Rawlsian account of justice should favor granting family-based immigration benefit to same-sex couples. I first provide a brief over-view of the most relevant aspects of Rawls's position, Justice as Fairness. I then explain why family-based immigration benefits are an important topic and one that everyone interested in immigration and justice must consider. I then show how same-sex couples are currently systematically excluded from the benefits tha…Read more
-
83The Legitimating Role of Consent in International LawChicago Journal of International Law 11 (2). 2011.According to many traditional accounts, one important difference between international and domestic law is that international law depends on the consent of the relevant parties (states) in a way that domestic law does not. In recent years this traditional account has been attacked both by philosophers such as Allen Buchanan and by lawyers and legal scholars working on international law. It is now safe to say that the view that consent plays an important foundational role in international law is …Read more