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1Michael Freeden, Ideologies and Political Theory: A Conceptual ApproachRadical Philosophy. forthcoming.
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273Children's rightsStanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. 2008.Children are young human beings. Some children are very young human beings. As human beings children evidently have a certain moral status. There are things that should not be done to them for the simple reason that they are human. At the same time children are different from adult human beings and it seems reasonable to think that there are things children may not do that adults are permitted to do. In the majority of jurisdictions, for instance, children are not allowed to vote, to marry, to b…Read more
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31Classical Liberalism: The Unvanquished Ideal by David Conway Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1995, ix + 150 pp., £40.00 (review)Philosophy 71 (278): 628-. 1996.
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Review of Liberating Cyperspace: Civil Liberties, Human Rights and the Internet (review)Ends and Means 4 (1). 1999.
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26How Should We Teach Sex?Journal of Philosophy of Education 32 (3): 437-450. 1998.In the face of differences about how sex should be taught to young persons, and consistent with a liberal principle of neutrality, educationalists can adopt one of two strategies. The ‘retreat to basics’ consists in teaching only a basic agreed code of sexual conduct, or a set of agreed principles of sexual morality. The ‘conjunctive–disjunctive’ strategy consists in teaching the facts of sexual activity together with the various possible evaluations of these facts. Both strategies are beset wit…Read more
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17Liao, S. Matthew. The Right to Be Loved.New York: Oxford University Press, 2015. Pp. 272. $45.00Ethics 127 (1): 294-298. 2016.
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61Political ReasonabilityCanadian Journal of Philosophy 35 (1). 2005.According to Stephen Macedo, ‘[liberal], democratic politics is not only about individual rights and limited government, it is also about justification … political justification … understood politically.’ ‘Political justification,’ he asserts, ‘is a core liberal goal.’ Gerald Gaus, similarly, writes that the ‘idea of public justification is at the heart of a contractual liberalism.’ Very many other contemporary political philosophers believe that the politics of a liberal polity must be justifia…Read more
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29From Pluralist to Patriotic Politics, Putting Practice FirstContemporary Political Theory 3 (2): 212-213. 2004.
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136Wrongful lifePhilosophy 79 (3): 403-420. 2004.I argue that it is wrong deliberately to bring into existence an individual whose life we can reasonably expect will be of very poor quality. The individual's life would on balance be worth living but would nevertheless fall below a certain threshold. Additionally the prospective parents are unable to have any other child who would enjoy a better existence. Against the claims of John Harris and John Robertson I argue that deliberately to conceive such a child would not be to exercise the right t…Read more
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79Inequality Re-examinedPhilosophical Quarterly 45 (181): 553. 1995.This book develops some of the most important themes of Sen's works over the last decade. He argues in a rich and subtle approach that we should be concerned with people's capabilities rather than their resources or welfare
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129“A Nod's as Good as a Wink”: Consent, Convention, and Reasonable BeliefLegal Theory 3 (3): 273. 1997.Consider the following examples of behavior by Smith: 1. Smith, seated at her restaurant table, gives an order to the waiter; 2. Smith gets into a cab and names a destination; 3. Smith agrees to Jones's suggestion that they go back to Jones's apartment for a few drinks; 4. Smith casts her vote in some election. In each of these instances what can Smith be understood as consenting to? Is she consenting to pay the bill for whatever meal she orders; pay the fare for the journey to her named destina…Read more
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7The obligations and responsibilities of parenthoodIn David Archard & David Benatar (eds.), Procreation and parenthood: the ethics of bearing and rearing children, Oxford University Press. 2010.
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5A Brief Tribute to Stephen MillsInternational Journal of Philosophical Studies 9 (4): 499-500. 2001.
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214The moral and political status of childrenPhilosophical Quarterly 54 (216): 490-492. 2004.The book contains original essays by distinguished moral and political philosophers on the topic of the moral and political status of children. It covers the themes of children's rights, parental rights and duties, the family and justice, and civic education.
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70Choosing Tomorrow's Children: The Ethics of Selective Reproduction – By Stephen WilkinsonJournal of Applied Philosophy 28 (1): 101-104. 2011.
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20Negotiating Diversity: Liberalism, Democracy and Cultural DifferenceContemporary Political Theory 6 (4): 496-497. 2007.
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Queen's University, BelfastSchool of History, Anthropology, Philosophy and PoliticsRetired faculty