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830Respect for persons and the moral force of socially constructed normsNoûs 55 (2): 385-408. 2021.When and why do socially constructed norms—including the laws of the land, norms of etiquette, and informal customs—generate moral obligations? I argue that the answer lies in the duty to respect others, specifically to give them what I call “agency respect.” This is the kind of respect that people are owed in light of how they exercise their agency. My central thesis is this: To the extent that (i) existing norms are underpinned by people’s commitments as agents and (ii) they do not conflict wi…Read more
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276II- What's Wrong with Being Lonely? Justice, Beneficence, and Meaningful RelatopnshipsAristotelian Society Supplementary Volume 90 (1): 49-69. 2016.A life without liberty and material resources is not a good life. Equally, a life devoid of meaningful social relationships—such as friendships, family attachments, and romances—is not a good life. From this it is tempting to conclude that just as individuals have rights to liberty and material resources, they also have rights to access meaningful social relationships. I argue that this conclusion can be defended only in a narrow set of cases. ‘Pure’ social relationship deprivation—that is, depr…Read more
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37Philosophical Foundations of Human Rights Rowan Cruft, S. Matthew Liao & Massimo Renzo , 2015 Oxford, Oxford University Press, xiii 720 pp., £39.99 (review)Journal of Applied Philosophy 33 (3): 443-445. 2016.
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12Philosophical Foundations of Human Rights Rowan Cruft, S. Matthew Liao & Massimo Renzo , 2015 Oxford, Oxford University Press, xiii 720 pp., £39.99 (review)Journal of Applied Philosophy 34 (3): 443-445. 2016.
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269On the Value of Constitutions and Judicial ReviewCriminal Law and Philosophy 11 (4): 817-832. 2017.In his thought-provoking book, Why Law Matters, Alon Harel defends two key claims: one ontological, the other axiological. First, he argues that constitutions and judicial review are necessary constituents of a just society. Second, he suggests that these institutions are not only means to the realization of worthy ends, but also non-instrumentally valuable. I agree with Harel that constitutions and judicial review have more than instrumental value, but I am not persuaded by his arguments in sup…Read more
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458On the Distinctive Procedural Wrong of ColonialismPhilosophy and Public Affairs 43 (4): 312-331. 2015.
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33On the Justification of Basic RightsNetherlands Journal of Legal Philosophy 45 (3): 52-63. 2016.
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1916On the apparent paradox of ideal theoryJournal of Political Philosophy 17 (3): 332-355. 2008.No Abstract
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1058" Measuring Justice: Primary Goods and Capabilities," Harry Brighouse and Ingrid Robeyns, eds. (review)Ethics and International Affairs 25 (1). 2011.
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24Measuring Justice: Primary Goods and Capabilities, Harry Brighouse and Ingrid Robeyns, eds. , 247 pp., $85 cloth, $29.99 paper (review)Ethics and International Affairs 25 (1): 95-96. 2011.
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79Justice in a Globalized World: A Normative FrameworkOxford University Press. 2011.Are wealthy countries' duties towards developing countries grounded in justice or in weaker concerns of charity? Justice in a Globalized World offers both an in-depth critique of the most prominent philosophical answers to this question, and a distinctive approach for addressing it.
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633Kant, Ripstein and the Circle of Freedom: A Critical NoteEuropean Journal of Philosophy 20 (3): 450-459. 2012.Much contemporary political philosophy claims to be Kant-inspired, but its aims and method differ from Kant's own. In his recent book, Force and Freedom, Arthur Ripstein advocates a more orthodox Kantian outlook, presenting it as superior to dominant (Kant-inspired) views. The most striking feature of this outlook is its attempt to ground the whole of political morality in one right: the right to freedom, understood as the right to be independent of others’ choices. Is Ripstein's Kantian project…Read more
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251Interactive justice, the boundary problem, and proportionalityCritical Review of International Social and Political Philosophy 22 (4): 466-472. 2019.
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2263Ideal vs. Non‐ideal Theory: A Conceptual Map (review)Philosophy Compass 7 (9): 654-664. 2012.This article provides a conceptual map of the debate on ideal and non‐ideal theory. It argues that this debate encompasses a number of different questions, which have not been kept sufficiently separate in the literature. In particular, the article distinguishes between the following three interpretations of the ‘ideal vs. non‐ideal theory’ contrast: (i) full compliance vs. partial compliance theory; (ii) utopian vs. realistic theory; (iii) end‐state vs. transitional theory. The article advances…Read more
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39This article examines the methodology of a core branch of contemporary political theory or philosophy: “analytic” political theory. After distinguishing political theory from related fields, such as political science, moral philosophy, and legal theory, the article discusses the analysis of political concepts. It then turns to the notions of principles and theories, as distinct from concepts, and reviews the methods of assessing such principles and theories, for the purpose of justifying or crit…Read more
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789Human Rights, Freedom, and Political AuthorityPolitical Theory 40 (5): 573-601. 2012.In this article, I sketch a Kant-inspired liberal account of human rights: the freedom-centred view. This account conceptualizes human rights as entitlements that any political authority—any state in the first instance—must secure to qualify as a guarantor of its subjects' innate right to freedom. On this picture, when a state (or state-like institution) protects human rights, it reasonably qualifies as a moral agent to be treated with respect. By contrast, when a state (or state-like institutio…Read more
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836Global Justice and Practice‐Dependence: Conventionalism, Institutionalism, FunctionalismJournal of Political Philosophy 19 (4): 399-418. 2010.
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26Human rights and discourse theory: some critical remarksCritical Review of International Social and Political Philosophy 17 (6): 674-680. 2014.
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113Gillian Brock, Global Justice: A Cosmopolitan Account: Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009. ISBN-10: 0199230943. £22.50 , £60 (review)Ethical Theory and Moral Practice 14 (2): 251-252. 2011.
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600Coercion and JusticeAmerican Political Science Review 105 (1): 205-220. 2011.In this article, I develop a new account of the liberal view that principles of justice are meant to justify state coercion, and consider its implications for the question of global socioeconomic justice. Although contemporary proponents of this view deny that principles of socioeconomic justice apply globally, on my newly developed account this conclusion is mistaken. I distinguish between two types of coercion, systemic and interactional, and argue that a plausible theory of global justice sho…Read more
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41Ethics for a Broken World: Imagining Philosophy After Catastrophe, by Tim Mulgan.: Book Reviews (review)Mind 122 (488): 1161-1164. 2013.
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727Assessing the global order: justice, legitimacy, or political justice?Critical Review of International Social and Political Philosophy 15 (5): 593-612. 2012.Which standards should we employ to evaluate the global order? Should they be standards of justice or standards of legitimacy? In this article, I argue that liberal political theorists need not face this dilemma, because liberal justice and legitimacy are not distinct values. Rather, they indicate what the same value, i.e. equal respect for persons, demands of institutions under different sets of circumstances. I suggest that under real-world circumstances – characterized by conflicts and disagr…Read more
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26Arguing for assistance-based responsibilities: are intuitions enough?Ethics and Global Politics 12 (1): 24-32. 2019.Millions of people in our world are in need of assistance: from the global poor, to refugees, from the victims of natural disasters, to those of violent crimes. What are our responsibilities towards them? Christian Barry and Gerhard Øverland’s answer is plausible and straightforward: we have enforceable duties to assist others in need whenever we can do so ‘at relatively moderate cost to ourselves, and others’. Barry and Øverland defend this answer on the ground that it best fits our intuitions …Read more
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725A Paradigm Shift in Theorizing About Justice? A Critique of SenEconomics and Philosophy 27 (3): 297-315. 2011.In his recent bookThe Idea of Justice, Amartya Sen suggests that political philosophy should move beyond the dominant, Rawls-inspired, methodological paradigm – what Sen calls ‘transcendental institutionalism’ – towards a more practically oriented approach to justice: ‘realization-focused comparison’. In this article, I argue that Sen's call for a paradigm shift in thinking about justice is unwarranted. I show that his criticisms of the Rawlsian approach are either based on misunderstandings, or…Read more
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925On the meta-ethical status of constructivism: Reflections on G.A. Cohen's `facts and principles'Politics, Philosophy and Economics 7 (4): 403-422. 2008.The Queen's College, Oxford, UK In his article `Facts and Principles', G.A. Cohen attempts to refute constructivist approaches to justification by showing that, contrary to what their proponents claim, fundamental normative principles are fact- in sensitive. We argue that Cohen's `fact-insensitivity thesis' does not provide a successful refutation of constructivism because it pertains to an area of meta-ethics which differs from the one tackled by constructivists. While Cohen's thesis concerns t…Read more
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1161The Methodology of Political TheoryIn Herman Cappelen, Tamar Gendler & John P. Hawthorne (eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Philosophical Methodology, Oxford University Press. 2016.This article examines the methodology of a core branch of contemporary political theory or philosophy: “analytic” political theory. After distinguishing political theory from related fields, such as political science, moral philosophy, and legal theory, the article discusses the analysis of political concepts. It then turns to the notions of principles and theories, as distinct from concepts, and reviews the methods of assessing such principles and theories, for the purpose of justifying or crit…Read more
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728Freedom as IndependenceEthics 126 (4). 2016.Much recent philosophical work on social freedom focuses on whether freedom should be understood as non-interference, in the liberal tradition associated with Isaiah Berlin, or as non-domination, in the republican tradition revived by Philip Pettit and Quentin Skinner. We defend a conception of freedom that lies between these two alternatives: freedom as independence. Like republican freedom, it demands the robust absence of relevant constraints on action. Unlike republican, and like liberal fre…Read more
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Ludwig Maximilians Universität, MünchenProfessor
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King's College LondonVisiting Professor
Munich, Bayern, Germany
Areas of Specialization
Social and Political Philosophy |
Philosophy of Law |
Applied Ethics |
Areas of Interest
2 more
Methods in Political Philosophy |
Social Ontology |
Freedom and Liberty |
Global Justice |
Rights |
Democracy |
Legal Authority and Obligation |