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Who should make decisions about children's education?In Randall R. Curren (ed.), Handbook of philosophy of education, Routledge. 2023.
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Values and evidence in educational decision-makingIn Randall R. Curren (ed.), Handbook of philosophy of education, Routledge. 2023.
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27Strong Gender EgalitarianismPolitics and Society 36 (3): 360-372. 2008.Perhaps the most intractable aspect of gender inequality concerns inequalities within the family around the domestic division of labor, especially over child care and other forms of caregiving. These enduring gender inequalities constitute a significant obstacle to achieving “strong gender egalitarianism”—a structure of social relations in which the division of labor around housework and caregiving within the family and occupational distributions within the public sphere are unaffected by gender…Read more
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24Educational Goods Reconsidered: A ResponseJournal of Philosophy of Education 54 (5): 1382-1394. 2020.We gratefully reply to our five commentators, responding to their criticisms and comments under the following headings: parochialism and curriculum; rationality and truth; production and distribution; perfectionism, decision-making and disagreement; adultism and parents' interests; non-consequential educational goods; and self-education.
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26Educational Goods: Values, Evidence, and Decision‐Making—A SummaryJournal of Philosophy of Education 54 (5): 1346-1348. 2020.Journal of Philosophy of Education, EarlyView.
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11Debating Education: Is There a Role for Markets?Oup Usa. 2019.Debating Education puts two leading scholars in conversation with each other on the subject of education-specifically, what role, if any, markets should play in policy reform. The authors focus on the nature, function, and legitimate scope of voluntary exchange as a form of social relation, and how education raises concerns that are not at issue when it comes to trading relationships between consenting adults.
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29The Aims of Higher Education: Problems of Morality and Justice (edited book)University of Chicago Press. 2015.This book features a group of top-notch philosophers tackling some of the biggest questions in higher education: What role should the liberal arts have in a college education? Should colleges orient themselves to the educational demands of the business sector? What is the role of highly selective colleges in the public sphere? To what extent should they be subsidized directly, or indirectly, by the public? Should they simply teach students skills and academic knowledge, or should they play a rol…Read more
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17Book ReviewsHans. Oberdiek, Between Forbearance and Acceptance.Lanham, Md.: Rowman & Littlefield, 2001. Pp. ix+182. $24.95 (review)Ethics 113 (3): 716-718. 2003.
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25This paper considers four institutional models for funding higher education in the light of principles of fairness and meritocracy, with particular reference to the debate in the UK over ‘top-up fees’. It concludes that, under certain plausible but unproven assumptions, the model the UK government has adopted is fairer and more meritocratic than alternatives, including, surprisingly, the Graduate Tax.
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18Civic education and liberal legitimacyIn Stephen Everson (ed.), Ethics: Companions to Ancient Thought, Vol. 4, Cambridge University Press. pp. 108--4. 1998.
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8Education: Not a Real Utopian DesignPolitics and Society 42 (1): 51-72. 2014.This paper identifies four criteria, all of which an ideal real utopian proposal would meet. We argue for a moderate skepticism that it is possible to give a real utopian proposal to guide the design of education for a society that meets these criteria; both for the practical reason that what happens in schools depends on the background environment within which they operate, and for the principled reason that when educating children we should attend to their individual future well-being in ways …Read more
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44Political Equality and the Funding of Political SpeechSocial Theory and Practice 21 (3): 473-500. 1995.
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Liberal legitimacy and civic educationIn Stephen Everson (ed.), Ethics: Companions to Ancient Thought, Vol. 4, Cambridge University Press. pp. 108--4. 1998.
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1203Equality of opportunity and complex equality: The special place of schooling (review)Res Publica 13 (2): 147-158. 2007.This paper is an engagement with Equality by John Baker, Kathleen Lynch, Judy Walsh and Sara Cantillon. It identifies a dilemma for educational egalitarians, which arises within their theory of equality, arguing that sometimes there may be a conflict between advancing equality of opportunity and providing equality of respect and recognition, and equality of love care and solidarity. It argues that the latter values may have more weight in deciding what to do than traditional educational egalitar…Read more
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15The Egalitarian Virtues of Educational VouchersJournal of Philosophy of Education 28 (2): 211-220. 1994.The paper argues that there is no fundamental incompatibility between the use of vouchers and managed market mechanisms in the distribution of education und the principled aims of egalitarian educational policy. It takes those aims to be equality of opportunity, education for autonomy, and democratic education, and shows in each case how a voucher scheme could accommodate the aim. It explains why a judiciously designed voucher scheme may constitute a more politically feasible method of achieving…Read more
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66Justice is the first virtue of social institutions, and of the institutions which regulate schooling no less than others. Education policy, just like social policy more generally, should be guided principally by considerations of justice and only secondarily by pragmatic considerations such as what compromises must be made with existing social forces opposed to justice in order to optimize the justice of the existing institutions. But of course, in an otherwise unjust society there are sharp lim…Read more
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1504An Argument Against CloningCanadian Journal of Philosophy 40 (4): 539-566. 2010.It is technically possible to clone a human being. The result of the procedure would be a human being in its own right. Given the current level of cloning technology concerning other animals there is every reason to believe that early human clones will have shorter-than-average life-spans, and will be unusually prone to disease. In addition, they would be unusually at risk of genetic defects, though they would still, probably, have lives worth living. But with experimentation and experience, ser…Read more
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8Is There Any Such Thing as Political Liberalism?Pacific Philosophical Quarterly 75 (3-4): 318-332. 2017.
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43Complex Egalitarianism: A Review of Alex Callinicos 'Equality' (review)Historical Materialism 10 (1): 193-222. 2001.
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25What’s Wrong With Privatising Schools?Journal of Philosophy of Education 38 (4): 617-631. 2004.Full privatisation of schools would involve states abstaining from providing, funding or regulating schools. I argue that full privatisation would, in most circumstances, worsen social injustice in schooling. I respond to James Tooley’s critique of my own arguments for funding and regulation and markets. I argue that even his principle of educational adequacy requires a certain level of state involvement and demonstrate that his arguments against a principle of educational equality fail. I show,…Read more
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135Egalitarianism and equal availability of political influenceJournal of Political Philosophy 4 (2). 1996.
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94The Altruism Puzzle: The Obligation to Sacrifice One's LifeJournal of Social Philosophy 44 (2): 115-117. 2013.
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61Against NationalismCanadian Journal of Philosophy, Supplementary Volume 22 365-405. 1996.A recent resurgence of interest within analytical political philosophy in the status of ethnic and national minorities coincides with the re-emergence of national identity as a primary organizing principle of political conflict, and with an increasing attentiveness to identity and recognition as organizing principles of political struggle. The recent theoretical literature within political philosophy has focused very much on recognizing the importance of national identity, and allowing attention…Read more
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