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215The Possibility and Defensibility of NonState ‘Censorship’In J. P. Messina (ed.), New Directions in the Ethics and Politics of Speech, Routledge. pp. 13-31. 2022.Whether Social Media Companies (hereafter, SMCs) such as Twitter and Facebook limit speech is an empirical question. No one disputes that they do. Whether they “censor” speech is a conceptual question, the answer to which is a matter of dispute. Whether they may do so is a moral question, also a matter of dispute. We address both of these latter questions and hope to illuminate whether it is morally permissible for SMCs to restrict speech on their platforms. This could be part of a larger argum…Read more
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193Toleration DefinedIn Mitja Sardoč (ed.), The Palgrave Handbook of Toleration, Palgrave-macmillan. 2020.The task of this paper is to provide what is necessary for a conceptual analysis of toleration such that one would have a clear definition of this central liberal tenet. First, notions related to but different from toleration are discussed; this provides guidance by introducing the likely definitional conditions of toleration. Next, those conditions are explicated and defended. Putting the conditions together, we can say an agent tolerates when she intentionally and on principle refrains from in…Read more
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152Academic Values and the Possibility of an Academic Impartial SpectatorSociety 2019 (56): 555-558. 2019.Emily Chamlee-Wright is clearly right that self-censorship is an issue of concern within the academy. How much of a problem it is—how widespread and how bad it is when it occurs—is unclear and difficult to quantify. Administrators, faculty, and students all self-censor from time to time. Sometimes the self-censorship is just a matter of being polite or exercising pedagogical restraint, as Chamlee-Wright notes. The worry, of course, is that sometimes it prevents open and honest discussion about d…Read more
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151Response to Emily M. Crookston and David KelleyReason Papers 2 (38): 27-38. 2016.A response to critical commentaries. Crookston begins her commentary by noting that my book would have been better with answers to “the following three questions: (1) Why is the harm principle the right principle upon which to base a theory of toleration? (2) How is Cohen thinking of the concept of volenti? (p. x ) Is interference (i.e., the abandonment of toleration) ever morally required by the harm principle?” (p. x ). She is right, and I address these questions below in Sections 2, 3, an…Read more
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149Liberalism Beyond Justice: Citizens, Society, and the Boundaries of Political Theory by John Tomasi (review)Humane Studies Review 2002. 2002.Review of John Tomasi's Liberalism Beyond Justice: Citizens, Society, and the Boundaries of Political Theory
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105Harm: An Event-Based Feinbergian AccountIn Donald Downs & Chris Surprenant (eds.), The Value and Limits of Academic Speech, Routledge. pp. 115-135. 2018.In this paper, I defend an account of harm as event-based but also in the mold of the account offered by Joel Feinberg in his magnum opus, The Moral Limits of the Criminal Law.3 The analysis I offer is meant, that is, to be serviceable in a project like Feinberg’s–that is, it is one of normative political philosophy—and, importantly here, useful for determining when speech might rightly be limited. On the account defended here, to undergo a harm is to be the subject of an event wherein one’s int…Read more
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91TolerationPolity. 2014.In this engaging and comprehensive introduction to the topic of toleration, Andrew Jason Cohen seeks to answer fundamental questions, such as: What is toleration? What should be tolerated? Why is toleration important? Beginning with some key insights into what we mean by toleration, Cohen goes on to investigate what should be tolerated and why. We should not be free to do everythingÑmurder, rape, and theft, for clear examples, should not be tolerated. But should we be free to take drugs, hire a …Read more
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46The Communitarian Critique of Liberalism's IndividualismDissertation, Georgetown University. 1997.The recent debate between liberals and their communitarian critics has reached a false plateau, with liberals conceding more than they should. After explicating the central communitarian thesis, the four ways that thesis could be understood, and the corresponding four senses of "independence," I argue that communitarians are right that liberalism requires a view of the self as 'unencumbered,' but I defend that view as superior to the alternatives. This allows me to defend true moral impartiality…Read more
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43Toleration and Freedom From Harm: Liberalism ReconceivedRoutledge. 2018.Toleration matters to us all. It contributes both to individuals leading good lives and to societies that are simultaneously efficient and just. There are personal and social matters that would be improved by taking toleration to be a fundamental value. This book develops and defends a full account of toleration—what it is, why and when it matters, and how it should be manifested in a just society. Cohen defends a normative principle of toleration grounded in a new conception of freedom as freed…Read more
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12Exchanges and RelationshipsSocial Theory and Practice 38 (2): 231-257. 2012.Many social scientists think of exchange in terms far broader than philosophers. I defend the broader use of the term as well as the claim that meaningful human relationships are usefully understood as constituted by exchanges. I argue, though, that we must recognize that a great number of non-monetary and non-material goods are part of our daily lives and exchanges. Particularly important are emotional goods. I defend my view against the important objection that it demeans intimate relationship…Read more
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11A conceptual and (preliminary) normative exploration of wasteIn Ellen Frankel Paul, Fred Dycus Miller & Jeffrey Paul (eds.), Moral obligation, Cambridge University Press. 2010.In this paper, I first argue that waste is best understood as (a) any process wherein something useful becomes less useful and that produces less benefit than is lost—where benefit and usefulness are understood with reference to the same metric—or (b) the result of such a process. I next argue for the immorality of waste. My concluding suggestions are that (W1) if one person needs something for her preservation and a second person has it, is avoidably wasting it, and refuses to allow the first…Read more
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