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113Ethics and the patenting of human genesJournal of Philosophy, Science and Law 1 31-46. 2001.Human gene patents are patents on human genes that have been removed from human bodies and scientifically isolated and manipulated in a laboratory. The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (the USPTO) has issued thousands of patents on such genes, and patents have also been granted by the European Patent Office, (the EPO). Legal and moral justification, however, are not identical, and it is possible for a legal decision to be immoral although consistent with legal precedent and procedure. So, it …Read more
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508Is compulsory voting justified?Public Reason 1 (1): 57-74. 2009.Should voting be compulsory? Many people believe that it should, and that countries, like Britain, which have never had compulsion, ought to adopt it. As is common with such things, the arguments are a mixture of principle and political calculation, reflecting the idea that compulsory voting is morally right and that it is likely to prove politically beneficial. This article casts a sceptical eye on both types of argument. It shows that compulsory voting is generally unjustified although there a…Read more
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28Democracy and the Rule of LawContemporary Political Theory 4 (2): 204-206. 2005.This book addresses the question of why governments sometimes follow the law and other times choose to evade the law. The traditional answer of jurists has been that laws have an autonomous causal efficacy: law rules when actions follow anterior norms; the relation between laws and actions is one of obedience, obligation, or compliance. Contrary to this conception, the authors defend a positive interpretation where the rule of law results from the strategic choices of relevant actors. Rule of la…Read more
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375Democracy and securityThe Philosophers' Magazine 63 (4): 99-110. 2013.It is especially hard, at present, to read the newspapers without emitting a howl of anguish and outrage. Philosophy can heal some wounds but, in this case, political action may prove a better remedy than philosophy. It can therefore feel odd trying to think philosophically about surveillance at a time like this, rather than joining with like-minded people to protest the erosion of our civil liberties, the duplicity of our governments, and the failings in our political institutions - includin…Read more
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109Democracy and judicial review: are they really incompatible?Public Law 280-298. 2007.This article shows that judicial review has a democratic justification even though judges may be no better at protecting rights than legislatures. That justification is procedural, not consequentialist: reflecting the ability of judicial review to express and protect citizen’s interests in political participation, political equality, political representation and political accountability. The point of judicial review is to symbolize and give expression to the authority of citizens over their gove…Read more
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344Democratic equality and freedom of religionPhilosophy and Public Issues - Filosofia E Questioni Pubbliche 6 (1): 55-65. 2016.According to Corey Brettschneider, we can protect freedom of religion and promote equality, by distinguishing religious groups’ claims to freedom of expression and association from their claims to financial and verbal support from the state. I am very sympathetic to this position, which fits well with my own views of democratic rights and duties, and with the importance of recognizing the scope for political choice which democratic politics offers to governments and to citizens. This room for …Read more
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139Democracy, Epistemology and the Problem of All‐White JuriesJournal of Applied Philosophy 34 (4): 541-556. 2017.Does it matter that almost all juries in England and Wales are all-White? Does it matter even if this result is the unintended and undesired result of otherwise acceptable ways of choosing juries? Finally, does it matter that almost all juries are all-White if this has no adverse effect on the treatment of non-White defendants and victims of crime? According to Cheryl Thomas, there is no injustice in a system of jury selection which predictably results in juries with no minority members so long …Read more
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223Democratic epistemology and democratic morality: the appeal and challenges of Peircean pragmatismCritical Review of International Social and Political Philosophy 22 (4): 432-453. 2017.Does the wide distribution of political power in democracies, relative to other modes of government, result in better decisions? Specifically, do we have any reason to believe that they are better qualitatively – more reasoned, better supported by the available evidence, more deserving of support – than those which have been made by other means? In order to answer this question we examine the recent effort by Talisse and Misak to show that democracy is epistemically justified. Highlighting the s…Read more
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1122Compulsory voting: a critical perspectiveBritish Journal of Political Science 40 897-915. 2010.Should voting be compulsory? This question has recently gained the attention of political scientists, politicians and philosophers, many of whom believe that countries, like Britain, which have never had compulsion, ought to adopt it. The arguments are a mixture of principle and political calculation, reflecting the idea that compulsory voting is morally right and that it is will prove beneficial. This article casts a sceptical eye on the claims, by emphasizing how complex political morality …Read more
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236Beate Rossler, ed., Privacies: Philosophical Evaluations Reviewed byPhilosophy in Review 25 (1): 67-69. 2005.
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226Claudia Card, ed., The Cambridge Companion to Simone De Beauvoir Reviewed byPhilosophy in Review 24 (3): 172-174. 2004.
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1531What's wrong with racial profiling? Another look at the problemCriminal Justice Ethics 26 (1): 20-28. 2007.According to Mathias Risse and Richard Zeckhauser, racial profiling can be justified in a society, such as the contemporary United States, where the legacy of slavery and segregation is found in lesser but, nonetheless, troubling forms of racial inequality. Racial profiling, Risse and Zeckhauser recognize, is often marked by police abuse and the harassment of racial minorities and by the disproportionate use of race in profiling. These, on their view, are unjustified. But, they contend, this doe…Read more
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118'A liberal defence of compulsory voting': some reasons for scepticismPOLITICS 28 (1): 61-64. 2008.Liberal egalitarians such as Rawls and Dworkin, insist that a just society must try to make sure that socio-economic inequalities do not undercut the value of the vote, and of other political liberties. They insist on this not just for instrumental reasons, but because they assume that democratic forms of political participation can be desirable ends in themselves. However, compulsory voting laws seem to conflict with respect for reasonable differences of belief and value, essential to liberal e…Read more
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140Privacy, Democracy and Freedom of ExpressionIn Beaete Roessler & Dorota Mokrosinska (eds.), The Social Dimensions of Privacy, Cambridge University Press. pp. 67-69. 2014.Must privacy and freedom of expression conflict? To witness recent debates in Britain, you might think so. Anything other than self-regulation by the press is met by howls of anguish from journalists across the political spectrum, to the effect that efforts to protect people’s privacy will threaten press freedom, promote self-censorship and prevent the press from fulfilling its vital function of informing the public and keeping a watchful eye on the activities and antics of the powerful.[Brown, …Read more
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Claudia Card, ed., The Cambridge Companion to Simone De Beauvoir (review)Philosophy in Review 24 172-174. 2004.
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813Democracy and epistemology: a reply to TalisseCritical Review of International Social and Political Philosophy 18 (1): 74-81. 2015.According to Robert Talisse, ‘we have sufficient epistemological reasons to be democrats’ and these reasons support democracy even when we are tempted to doubt the legitimacy of democratic government. As epistemic agents, we care about the truth of our beliefs, and have reasons to want to live in an environment conducive to forming and acting on true, rather than false, beliefs. Democracy, Talisse argues, is the best means to provide such an environment. Hence, he concludes that epistemic agenc…Read more
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247Book Review: A Response to James RuleJournal of Law, Culture, and Humanities 10 (1). 2014.James Rule is puzzled by the ‘idiosyncratic’ approach that I take to the philosophical study of privacy. As evidence for this idiosyncracy, he cites my relative indifference to the distinction between consequentialist and deontological perspectives on privacy although these differences are proof of ‘intricate, yet enormously consequential intellectual tensions’. My choice of philosophical topics is ‘unsystematic’ and more a reflection of my own ‘intellectual hobby-horses’ than a ‘well-worked-o…Read more
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90A Democratic Conception of PrivacyAuthorhouse, UK. 2013.Carol Pateman has said that the public/private distinction is what feminism is all about. I tend to be sceptical about categorical pronouncements of this sort, but this book is a work of feminist political philosophy and the public/private distinction is what it is all about. It is motivated by the belief that we lack a philosophical conception of privacy suitable for a democracy; that feminism has exposed this lack; and that by combining feminist analysis with recent developments in political p…Read more
Annabelle Lever
SciencesPo, Paris
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SciencesPo, ParisProfessor