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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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25Educational 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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10Debating 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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20Book 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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24This 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, 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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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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3335An 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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43Complex Egalitarianism: A Review of Alex Callinicos 'Equality' (review)Historical Materialism 10 (1): 193-222. 2001.
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134Egalitarianism and equal availability of political influenceJournal of Political Philosophy 4 (2). 1996.
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23What’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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59Against 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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94The Altruism Puzzle: The Obligation to Sacrifice One's LifeJournal of Social Philosophy 44 (2): 115-117. 2013.
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1862Legitimate parental partialityPhilosophy and Public Affairs 37 (1): 43-80. 2008.Some of the barriers to the realisation of equality reflect the value of respecting prerogatives people have to favour themselves. Even G.A. Cohen, whose egalitarianism is especially pervasive and demanding, says that
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41In defence of educational equalityJournal of Philosophy of Education 29 (3). 1995.The principle of educational equality is important for the plausibility of egalitarianism. I argue against John Wilson's recent attempts to show that two particular versions of the principle are incoherent, and I rebut his argument that even if it were coherent it would be wrong to endorse it. Two other objections to this version of the principle are considered and shown not to be decisive. The principle governing the distribution of educational resources that Wilson advocates is also rejected.
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65Choosing Justice: An Experimental Approach to Ethical Theory, Frohlich Norman and Joe A. Oppenheimer. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1992, xiv + 258 pages (review)Economics and Philosophy 10 (1): 127. 1994.
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74Can Justice as Fairness Accommodate the Disabled?Social Theory and Practice 27 (4): 537-560. 2001.
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546What rights (if any) do children haveIn David Archard & Colin M. Macleod (eds.), The Moral and Political Status of Children, Oxford University Press. pp. 31--52. 2002.According to the interest theory of rights, the primary function of rights is the protection of fundamental interests. Since children undeniably have fundamental interests that merit protection, it is perfectly sensible to attribute rights, especially welfare rights, to them. The interest theory need not be hostile to the accommodation of rights that protect agency because, at least in the case of adults, there is a strong connection between the protection of agency and the promotion of welfare.…Read more
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