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10. Quentin Skinner, Reason and Rhetoric in the Philosophy of Hobbes Quentin Skinner, Reason and Rhetoric in the Philosophy of Hobbes (pp. 820-823)In Stephen Everson (ed.), Ethics, Cambridge University Press. 1998.
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33Critical Moral Liberalism: Theory and PracticePhilosophical Review 108 (3): 442. 1999.While it forms the framework for most analytical political philosophy, liberalism is widely attacked and even ridiculed outside that small world. It is, according to one widely accepted line of thinking, tainted by the color and sex of its most prominent formulators, its use in defense of the morally indefensible behavior of imperialist states and their agents, and its presumption that the rights it prescribes are applicable to all people in all places at all times.
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45Why Should States Fund Schools?British Journal of Educational Studies 46 (2). 1998.In arguing for government withdrawal from funding and regulating schooling, James Tooley claims that equality of opportunity in education implies only that all deserve an adequate minimum education. However, he concedes the 'abstract egalitarian thesis' that all should be treated with equal concern and respect. I show that this thesis indeed implies educational equality, and that Tooley's arguments against educational equality rest on a misunderstanding of the foundations of egalitarianism.
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139Should marxists care about alienation?Topoi 15 (2): 149-162. 1996.We have found that a sparse version of the claim that alienated labor is a bad thing can inform a political morality without turning that morality into one which makes more comment on people's ends than the liberal can accept. We have also seen that a modification of the ideas of alienation from our species being can play a limited role in a liberal political morality, but that the rational kernel of the critique from species alienation is already a familiar part of the liberal tradition. Howeve…Read more
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9A Modest Defence of School ChoiceJournal of Philosophy of Education 36 (4): 653-659. 2002.This is a response to Samara Foster’s engaging critique of my book School Choice and Social Justice. In this response to her criticisms I clarify and try to correct some apparent misunderstandings of the book, but also take the opportunity to pose again a challenge to opponents of choice which neither she, nor other of my critics, has taken up.
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98On EducationRoutledge. 2005.What is education for? Should it produce workers or educate future citizens? Is there a place for faith schools - and should patriotism be taught? In this compelling and controversial book, Harry Brighouse takes on all these urgent questions and more. He argues that children share four fundamental interests: the ability to make their own judgements about what values to adopt; acquiring the skills that will enable them to become economically self-sufficient as adults; being exposed to a range of …Read more
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27Educational Justice and Socio-Economic Segregation in SchoolsJournal of Philosophy of Education 41 (4): 575-590. 2007.Sociologists exploring educational injustice often focus on socio-economic segregation as a central measure of injustice. The comprehensive ideal, furthermore, has the idea of socio-economic integration built into it. The current paper argues that socio-economic segregation is valuable only insofar as it serves other, more fundamental values. This matters because sometimes policy-makers will find themselves facing trade-offs between increasing integration and promoting the other, more fundamenta…Read more
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1CitizenshipIn Catriona McKinnon (ed.), Issues in Political Theory, Oxford University Press. 2008.
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33The egalitarian virtues of educational vouchersJournal of Philosophy of Education 28 (2). 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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133Neutrality, Publicity, and State Funding of the ArtsPhilosophy and Public Affairs 24 (1): 35-63. 1995.
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10Is There a Neutral Justification for Liberalism?†Pacific Philosophical Quarterly 77 (3): 193-215. 2017.Neutralist defenses of liberalism fail because they cannot account for essential features of an acceptable liberal theory: a firm guarantee for a sphere of individual liberty, an account of our interest in being able to revise our moral commitments, a wide range of applicability, and the possibility of legitimate government in the face of rejection by unreasonable citizens. A liberalism based on the value of autonomy can address the problems which motivate neutralists, while succeeding in provid…Read more
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36Distribution of what? How will we know if we have achieved education for all by 2015?3rd Conference on the Capabilities Approach. 2003.In 1990 at the Jomtein Conference in Thailand organised by UNESCO, UNICEF, UNDP and the World Bank the 157 governments present agreed to a Declaration, the World Declaration on Education for All that signalled their commitment to achieve Education for All (EFA) by 2000. EFA was not defined succinctly, but was laid out as comprising: universal access to education services ‘of quality’; equity with regard to removing disparities ‘in access to learning opportunities’ for certain groups (girls.
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2424What's wrong with privatising schools?Journal of Philosophy of Education 38 (4). 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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83Should We Teach Patriotic History?In Kevin McDonough & Walter Feinberg (eds.), Citizenship and Education in Liberal-Democratic Societies: Teaching for Cosmopolitan Values and Collective Identities, Oxford University Press. 2003.Harry Brighouse’s essay concludes Part I of the book by taking up one aspect of the task of clarifying the role of common education, by applying it to the teaching of patriotism in public schools. He asks whether liberal and cosmopolitan values are compatible with a common education aimed at fostering patriotic attachment to the nation. He examines numerous arguments recently developed to justify fostering patriotism in common schools from a liberal–democratic perspective, and finds them all wan…Read more
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17A Modest Defence of School ChoiceJournal of Philosophy of Education 36 (4): 653-659. 2002.This is a response to Samara Foster’s engaging critique of my book School Choice and Social Justice. In this response to her criticisms I clarify and try to correct some apparent misunderstandings of the book, but also take the opportunity to pose again a challenge to opponents of choice which neither she, nor other of my critics, has taken up.
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52Political 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, Cambridge University Press. pp. 108--4. 1998.
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1024Equality 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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3298An 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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7Is There Any Such Thing as Political Liberalism?Pacific Philosophical Quarterly 75 (3-4): 318-332. 2017.
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