Avery Kolers

Recognising and responding to injustices that benefit us is a pervasive problem of contemporary life, and arguably a mark of moral seriousness in anyone who presumes to take moral stands at all. In response, a number of authors have defended the view that such benefits normally bring with them prima facie obligations of compensation. This ‘wrongful-benefits’ approach has considerable intuitive plausibility, much of it founded in the financial metaphor that gives it an appearance of precision. Yet while the compensation scenario works reasonably well in one-off cases such as receiving stolen property, it yields incoherent results when facing ongoing structural injustices. In such cases ‘innocence’ is ambiguous and our status as beneficiaries and victims is complex. In contrast, solidarity — understood as a principle of equity requiring that we side with the least well off — provides a better account of duties to respond to structural injustice. In solidarity the agent follows the lead of organised out-groups and defers to their judgment about collective actions to overcome injustice. Solidarity leads us to support the organised group that suffers from the greatest inequity. Solidarity does not use a financial metaphor and thus it neither requires full disgorgement, nor absolves us of further action when we reach the point of net-zero benefit. Rather, solidarity is a principal means for ordinary citizens to promote equity by affirming the equal status of the victims, and to atone for having benefited from injustice, whether they did so willingly or otherwise.

Territorial disputes have defined modern politics, but political theorists and philosophers have said little about how to resolve such disputes fairly. Is it even possible to do so? If historical attachments or divine promises are decisive, it may not be. More significant than these largely subjective claims are the ways in which people interact with land over time. Building from this insight, Avery Kolers evaluates existing political theories and develops an attractive alternative. He presents a novel link between political legitimacy and environmental stewardship, and applies these ideas in an extended and balanced discussion of the Israeli-Palestinian dispute. The result is the first systematic normative theory of territory, and an impressive example of applied philosophy. In addition to political theorists and philosophers, scholars and students of sociology, international relations, and human geography will find this book rewarding, as will anyone with wider interests in territory and justice.

Ethical investing is all the rage. Unfortunately, excitement about it has outpaced plausible philosophical discussions. This article asks and answers two questions: “What counts as investment?”, and “What moral choices do investors have?”. I answer the first question broadly. Investment is pervasive in our economy, and by participating we share responsibility for corporate practices. These facts lead to an “austere conclusion”: short of outright withdrawal from the standard forms of investment, we have little hope of avoiding participation in immoral activities. Thus we must withdraw. Fortunately, the answer to the second question mitigates this disturbing result. Under certain circumstances, shareholder activism aimed at moral goals is a valuable way to participate in a deeply flawed system. By demonstrating the pervasiveness of investment and analogies with consumption and democratic political participation, the conclusions of this paper illuminate not only the ethics of investment but a more-general problem of individual responsibility in complex institutions. The paper is informative both for its applicability to these latter questions, and for its demonstration that investment is not merely a side-topic for business ethics texts, but rather a central problem of modern market societies.

Accounts of solidarity typically defend it in teleological or loyalty terms, justifying it by invoking its goal of promoting justice or its expression of support for a shared community. Such solidarity seems to be a moral option rather than an obligation. In contrast, A Moral Theory of Solidarity develops a deontological theory grounded in equity. With extended reflection on the Spanish conquest of the Americas and the US Civil Rights movement, Kolers defines solidarity as political action on others' terms. Unlike mere alliances and coalitions, solidarity involves a disposition to defer to others' judgment about the best course of action. Such deference overrides individual conscience. Yet such deference is dangerous; a core challenge is then to determine when deference becomes appropriate.Kolers defends defernce to those who suffer gravest inequity. Such deference constitutes equitable treatment, in three senses: it is Kantian equity, expressing each person's equal status; it is Aristotelian equity, correcting general rules for particular cases; and deference is 'being an equitable person,' sharing others' fate rather than seizing advantages that they are denied. Treating others equitably is a perfect duty; hence solidarity with victims of inequity is a perfect duty. Further, since equity is valuable in itself, irrespective of any other goal it might promote, such solidarity is intrinsically valuable, not merely instrumentally valuable. Solidarity is then not about promoting justice, but about treating people justly. A Moral Theory of Solidarity engages carefully with recent work on equity in the Kantian and Aristotelian traditions, as well as the demandingness of moral duties, collective action, and unjust benefits, and is a major contribution to a field of growing interest.

Cosmopolitans oppose excluding persons from political institutions on grounds of geographic location. But this problem of illegitimate exclusion is parallel to an equally pressing, but widely ignored, problem of illegitimate inclusion. Best understood, cosmopolitanism requires small-scale territorial self-determination. Impoverished states' inability to exclude powerful governments and regulatory institutions from decision procedures is a grave injustice that cosmopolitans ignore. Cultural groups have a strong interest in maintaining effective control of land use by excluding nonresidents. Appealing to democracy and political equality, the argument shows that territorial self-determination, exercised at geographically small scales, is necessary for global justice

“Resilience” is booming. No longer a mere metaphor or abstract reference to dispositional properties, the resilience of communities or social-ecological systems is increasingly grounded in specific first-order properties. Consequently, resilience now constitutes a contentful and achievable partial conception of a good society. Yet political philosophers have taken little notice. The current article first discerns within recent social-scientific literature a set of attainable and measurable first-order properties that constitute “community resilience” or “ecological resilience.” Then, specifying “resilience” as the resilience of high-HDI democratic societies to environmental disasters, infrastructure failures, and economic collapse, the current article argues from within a liberal framework that both “classical” and “egalitarian” liberals must treat resilience so understood as a necessary condition of legitimacy and justice; and this conclusion forces an overhaul of these liber...