Bouke de Vries

A large share of countries is struggling to provide adequate care to their older populations. To deal with this challenge, philosopher Ingrid Robeyns has advocated legislation that requires (most) citizens to spend 1 year of their life providing dependency care. My aim of this contribution is to strengthen the case for this proposal, which I will refer to as a ‘universal care conscription’. I do so by defending this type of conscription against various alternative ways of addressing care-deficits that have been proposed. As I show, not only is it doubtful whether pursuing these alternatives will always, or even generally, suffice to prevent and/or alleviate care-deficits at reasonable financial and moral cost, a universal care conscription has significant civic benefits in an age of polarization that count strongly in its favour.

While several scholars have argued that the rise of the internet has allowed an autistic culture to emerge over the past two decades, the question of whether people with autism or, as some members of this group refer to themselves, ‘autists’, are legally entitled to their own cultural rights has not been investigated. This article fills part of this lacuna by considering whether such entitlements exist from the perspective of human rights law. I start by showing that, insofar as autists have their own culture, they are likely to be entitled to cultural rights under existing human rights treaties, before arguing that the absence of evidence that their beliefs, values, and behaviors are significantly shaped by distinct social norms renders it unclear whether they do in fact have their own culture. However, I end by arguing that, in terms of autists’ entitlements from a human rights perspective, little seems to depend on this.

Over the past decade, countries such as France, Belgium, Denmark, Austria, Latvia, and Bulgaria have banned face-coverings from public spaces. These bans are popularly known as ‘burqa bans’ as they seem to have been drafted with the aim of preventing people from wearing burqas and niqabs specifically. The scholarly response to these bans has been overwhelmingly negative, with several lawyers and philosophers arguing that they violate the human right to freedom of religion. While this article shares some of the concerns that have been raised, it argues that banning face-coverings in public is morally justified under certain conditions with the exception of facemasks that are necessary for the containment of infectious diseases, such as COVID-19. The reason for this is that those who publicly cover their face make it very difficult for other members of society to socially interact with them, especially for those who are deaf or hard-of-hearing, which is problematic in an age where many people are chronically lonely or at risk of becoming chronically lonely. As such, this article can be understood as a more elaborate, and arguably more sophisticated, defence of the justification that France offered for its face-covering ban before the European Court of Human Rights, namely that covering one’s face undermines the conditions for ‘living together’.

In recent years, a proportion of older Germans has been sent to relatively high‐end care homes within lower‐income countries where the care tends to be cheaper and more extensive than that in German care homes. Destination countries are found predominantly within Eastern Europe (e.g. Poland, Hungary, Czech Republic), but to a lesser extent also within South‐East Asia (e.g. Thailand). At the same time, these expatriations have caused much controversy, with some German commentators calling them ‘inhumane’ and ‘shameful’. In this article, I argue that such criticisms are overdrawn. Although sending an older individual to a care home within a lower‐income country can be morally impermissible, I find that there are at least three sets of conditions under which it is not.

Many higher-income countries are struggling to make decent and affordable care available to their older populations. In response, some Germans are sending their ageing relatives to relatively high-end care homes within Eastern Europe and South-East Asia where the care tends to be more comprehensive and a lot cheaper. At the same time, this practice has caused much controversy within Germany, with some commentators calling it “inhumane” and “shameful.” The aim of this article is to show that such criticisms are exaggerated. Whereas sending people to care homes in lower-income countries can be immoral, I argue that the most promising objections against it do not always apply and, to the extent that they do, do not always provide decisive reasons against sending people abroad. These objections maintain that such expatriations harm three different groups of individuals, namely the emigrants themselves; their friends and relatives; and vulnerable members of the receiving societies.

Faced with relatively old and ageing populations, a growing number of higher-income countries are struggling to provide affordable and decent care to their older citizens. This contribution proposes a new policy for dealing with this challenge. Under certain conditions, I argue that states should pay their citizens to move to foreign care homes in order to ease the pressure on domestic care institutions. This is the case if—but not necessarily only if— a significant proportion of resident citizens do not currently have access to adequate aged and nursing care; the care in the foreign care homes is not worse than the one that is available in domestic care homes; sending states conduct regular checks to ascertain that the level of care abroad is not worse or delegate this task to reliable local monitoring bodies; appropriate measures have been taken to ensure that this type of migration does not harm local residents; and the public money spent on the payments is not better spent on other ways of easing the pressure on domestic care institutions. I end by defending the proposed payments against the objection that they create morally problematic inequalities by exerting greater pressure on members of lower socioeconomic classes to migrate than on their more affluent compatriots.

One consequence of the lockdowns that many countries have introduced in response to the COVID-19 pandemic is that people have become more vulnerable to loneliness. In this contribution, I argue that even if this does not render lockdowns unjustified, it is morally incumbent upon states to make reasonable efforts to protect their residents from loneliness for as long as their social confinement measures remain in place. Without attempting to provide an exhaustive list of ways in which this might be done, I identify four broad measures that I believe many, if not most, states ought to take. These require states to (i) help ensure that people have affordable access to the internet, as well as opportunities for learning how to use this medium so as that they can digitally connect to others; (ii) help people to have harmonious and rewarding intimate relationships; and try to make (iii) non-human companionship as well as (iv) various non-social solutions to loneliness widely available.

As people grow old, many risk becoming chronically lonely which is associated with e.g. depression, dementia, and increased mortality. Whoever else should help to protect them from this risk, various philosophers have argued that any children that they might have will often be among them. Proceeding on this assumption, this article considers what filial duties to protect ageing parents from loneliness consist of, or might consist of. I develop my answer by showing that a view that may be intuitively plausible, namely that they simply require children to visit their ageing parents regularly when they can do so at reasonable cost and call, text, and/or email them from time to time, is defective in three respects. First, it ignores children’s potential responsibilities to encourage and/or facilitate social interaction between their parents and third parties. Second, it ignores their potential responsibilities to help provide their parents with non-human companionship. Third, it elides over their duties to coordinate their efforts to offer loneliness protection with others. What I end up proposing instead, then, is an approach for protecting ageing parents from loneliness that is multi-faceted.

In more than 20% of countries, a single religion is recognized in the constitution. This article argues that there are good reasons for opposing such ‘mono-recognition’ as it fails to show due concern to members of constitutionally unrecognized religions. Yet rather than opting for disestablishment as Sweden did in 2000, I show that there may be a better alternative in many cases: To constitutionally recognize a variety of religions. After distinguishing synchronic forms of plural recognition whereby multiple religions are constitutionally recognized simultaneously from diachronic forms whereby state religions are rotated, I defend the latter option. On this approach, a multi-religious state might have Catholicism as the state religion during the first part of the year, then Islam, then Judaism, and so on, whereby I argue that there ought to be differences in the amount of time that religions are recognized depending on differences in the strength of their claims to constitutional recognition. Besides being fairer than mono-recognition and synchronic plural recognition, I show that when some religious groups are marginalized, diachronic plural recognition has significant advantages over non-recognition of any religion as constitutionally recognizing these groups’ religions sends valuable signals that their members belong to society.

Many people move house at some point during their childhood and not rarely more than once. While relocations are not always harmful for under-aged children, they can, and frequently do, cause great disruption to their lives by severing their social ties as well as any attachments that they might have to their neighbourhood, town, or wider geographical region, with long-lasting psychological effects in some cases. Since it is increasingly recognised within normative philosophy as well as within Western societies that older minors should have the final say over certain issues that significantly affect their lives (think, for instance, of custody disputes, decisions about whether to get specific vaccinations or use contraceptives), this raises the question: Can it be morally incumbent upon parents to give their minor children a veto over family relocation? This article argues that the answer is affirmative. Specifically, it suggests that such duties exist if and only if (i) parents are not morally required to either relocate their families or stay put, (ii) the stakes of the decision about a family relocation are fairly low, and (iii) the children have the competence to make these decisions, as many older minors do.

Many people want to live in liberal democracies because they are liberal and democratic. Yet it would be mistaken, indeed naive, to assume that this applies to all would-be residents. Just as some inhabitants of liberal democracies oppose one or more fundamental liberal-democratic values and principles, so there are foreign would-be residents who do so, who might include individuals with e.g. Jihadist, Neo-Nazi, and radical anarchist views. Proceeding on the assumption that there exists no unconditional moral right to immigrate, this article asks whether it is ever morally permissible for liberal democracies to deny residence to nonnationals based on evidence that theypersonallyhold extremist views. I argue that this is sometimes the case. Specifically, my contention is that even if we adopt a cosmopolitan perspective on which states are not allowed to prioritise the interests of their own citizens and residents over those of foreign nonresidents, there are two conditions under which such exclusions are justified even when refugees are being refused admission.

What does it mean to be ‘illiberal’? ‘Illiberal’ is an adjective that is commonly used by scholars. For example, they might speak of ‘illiberal cultures’, ‘illiberal groups’, ‘illiberal states’, ‘illiberal democracies’, ‘illiberal beliefs’, and ‘illiberal practices’. Yet despite its widespread usage, no in-depth discussions exist of exactly what it means for someone or something to be illiberal, or might mean. This article fills this lacuna by providing a conceptual analysis of the term ‘illiberal practices’, which I argue is basic in that other bearers of the property of being illiberal can be understood by reference to it. Specifically, I identify five ways in which a practice can be illiberal based on the different ways in which this term is employed within both scholarly and political discourses. The main value of this disaggregation lies in the fact that it helps to prevent confusions that arise when people use the adjective ‘illiberal’ in different ways, as is not uncommon.

In recent years, several theorists have defended a form of neutrality that seeks to equalise the benefits that state policies bestow upon citizens’ conceptions of the good life. For example, when state policies confer special benefits upon a conception that revolves around a particular culture, religion or type of sports, other cultures, religions or types of sports might be due compensation. This article argues that this kind of neutrality – which I refer to as ‘hands-on neutrality’ – cannot be vindicated, whether it takes a resourcist form or welfarist form. After explaining why states cannot simply avoid bestowing unequal advantages upon citizens’ conceptions of the good life, I identify several versions of hands-on neutrality and show that all of them fail to respect the moral equality of citizens. (In so doing, however, I do find that a different form of neutrality is appropriately applied under a more limited set of conditions, which is lottery-based.) I conclude by showing that in cases where theories of hands-on neutrality have intuitive force, more plausible rival principles can account for our intuitions.

It is commonly assumed that many, if not most, adult children have moral duties to visit their parents when they can do so at reasonable cost. However, whether such duties persist when the parents lose the ability to recognise their children, usually due to dementia, is more controversial. Over 40% of respondents in a public survey from the British Alzheimer’s Society said that it was “pointless” to keep up contact at this stage. Insofar as one cannot be morally required to do pointless things, this would suggest that children are relieved of any duties to visit their parents. In what appears to be the only scholarly treatment of this issue, Claudia Mills has defended this view, arguing that our duties to visit our parents require a type of relationship that is lost when parents no longer remember who their children are. This article challenges Mills’ argument. Not only can children be duty-bound to visit parents who have lost the ability to recognise them, I argue that many children do in fact have such duties. As I show, these duties are grounded in any special interests that their parents have in their company; the fact that visiting their parents might allow them to comply with generic duties of sociability; and/or the fact that such visits allow them to express any gratitude that they owe their parents.

Many political theorists are multiculturalists. They believe that states ought to support and accommodate minority cultures, even if they disagree about when such support and accommodations are due and what forms they should take. In this contribution, I argue that multiculturalists have failed to notice an important objection against a wide range of multiculturalism policies. This objection is predicated on the notion that when states support and accommodate minority cultures, they should support and accommodate many subcultures and individualistic conceptions of the good as well. However, since a significant proportion of multiculturalism policies imposes financial costs on society, it will often be prohibitively expensive for states to support and accommodate citizens’ subcultures and individualistic conceptions of the good on an equal basis. The result is that implementing such policies is likely to end up discriminating against certain groups, which might include e.g. fervent football fans, globe-trotters, mountain climbers, motor bikers, Hippies, and artists. I conclude by considering six reasons for giving preferential treatment to minority cultures that would allow multiculturalists to avoid this implication, which invoke, inter alia, the depth, duration, and involuntariness of cultural commitments; the role of culture in allowing people to live autonomously; and cultural rights to political self-determination. None are found to be convincing.