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1In political philosophy, reflective equilibrium is a standard method used to systematically reconcile intuitive judgments with theoretical principles. In this paper, we propose that survey experiments and a model selection method—i.e., the Akaike Information Criterion (AIC)-based model selection method—can be viewed together as a methodological means of satisfying the epistemic desiderata implicit in reflective equilibrium. To show this, we conduct a survey experiment on two theories of distribu…Read more
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7Autonomy and PovertyIn Gottfried Schweiger & Clemens Sedmak (eds.), Routledge Handbook of Philosophy and Poverty, Routledge. pp. 329-340. 2023.In contemporary political philosophy, reflections on poverty demand careful treatment in the light of key ethical concepts—especially autonomy. While the negative effects of poverty on autonomy are acknowledged, the welfare dependency of the poor is seen as an autonomy-undermining factor, which I call the “autonomy–poverty dilemma.” This chapter discusses contemporary political theories about autonomy and poverty in terms of how they relate to this dilemma. The features and problems of three per…Read more
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22Relational Egalitarianism and Intergenerational Justice: Reply to SommersRes Publica (00): 1-7. 2024.It is often argued that relational egalitarianism has a fundamental problem with intergenerational justice when compared to other theories of justice such as utilitarianism, prioritarianism, and luck egalitarianism. Recently, Timothy Sommers argued that there is no such comparative disadvantage for relational egalitarianism. His argument is quite modest: it merely aims to reject the claim that there could be no way to extend relational egalitarianism to intergenerational justice. This may be cal…Read more
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14Rawls’s EfficiencySouthwest Philosophy Review 40 (1): 127-136. 2024.The purpose of this paper is to show the plausibility of John Rawls’s treatment of efficiency within the system of justice. While in political philosophy efficiency is often treated as an independent condition for establishing justice, or more precisely, as a necessary condition for establishing justice, Rawls considers efficiency as a non-negligible factor that has normativity in general circumstances. This is similar to the view that efficiency is a presumptive condition for evaluating social …Read more
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17Refund: a defense of luck egalitarian policy in healthcareTheoretical Medicine and Bioethics 45 (1): 25-40. 2024.Luck egalitarianism assigns a central role to personal responsibility in egalitarian justice. In the context of healthcare, luck egalitarianism is the view that the distribution of medical and healthcare resources—or common resources in general—should respond to the (im)prudence of individuals. Recently, Joar Björk, Gert Helgesson, and Niklas Juth have argued that it is impractical to use luck egalitarianism as a normative framework in healthcare because it has no reasonable way of dealing with …Read more
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15Are good leaders truly good?Analysis 83 (3): 437-446. 2023.This paper offers a new insight on the Condorcet Jury Theorem (CJT) in the theory of epistemic democracy. This theorem states that democratic decision-making leads us to correct outcomes under certain assumptions. One key assumption is the ‘independence condition’, which requires that voters form their beliefs independently when they vote. This paper examines the role of an opinion leader as an informational source, which potentially violates independence. We demonstrate that voters’ beliefs may…Read more
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9Keith Dowding, Power, Luck and Freedom: Collected Essays: Manchester: Manchester University Press. 2017. ISBN 978-1-5261-0456-4, Pbk £24.99Journal of Value Inquiry 53 (4): 657-662. 2019.
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21The Trolley Problem and the Ethics of Autonomous Vehicles in the Eyes of the Public: Experimental EvidenceIn David Černý, Ryan Jenkins & Tomáš Hříbek (eds.), Autonomous Vehicles Ethics: Beyond the Trolley Problem, Oxford University Press. pp. 80-98. 2022.The trolley problem is a classic thought experiment that evokes an ethical dilemma. Thomson’s “bystander” and “footbridge” versions of the trolley problem induce different intuitive judgments about what to choose in the ethical dilemma. However, we can question how robust these intuitive judgments are. We thus conducted an online survey experiment of Thomson’s versions of the trolley problem which showed that more respondents tended to choose not pulling the lever in the bystander version and p…Read more
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17Making the Veil of Ignorance Work: Evidence from Survey ExperimentsIn Tania Lombrozo, Joshua Knobe & Shaun Nichols (eds.), Oxford Studies in Experimental Philosophy Volume 4, Oxford University Press. pp. 53-80. 2021.This chapter purports to give empirical feedback on impartial reasoning to justice by using online survey experiments. More precisely, the study focuses on whether and how the different conceptions of the veil of ignorance and John Rawls’s method of reflective equilibrium affect real people’s impartial reasoning to justice. The findings show that, while ordinary people support impartial reasoning to the difference principle (maximin), their endorsement of it echoes neither John Harsanyi’s nor Ra…Read more
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4Commentary: Justice, Fairness, and Deliberative Democracy in Health CareIn The Future of Bioethics: International Dialogues, Oxford University Press. 2014.First, the author argues that Daniels and Sabin’s way of setting priorities in healthcare is implausible. Daniels and Sanin think there is a lack of consensus on comprehensive principle(s) of justice that can resolve the issue of priority-setting in healthcare. Nevertheless, their argument appeals to the deliberative democracy-based idea of accountability for reasonableness that involve the conception of justice construed naturally as comprehensive. The author then proposes a comprehensive conce…Read more
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19The Proper Scope of the All-Subjected PrinciplePolitical Studies Review 1-9. forthcoming.This article shows that the democratic borders argument is defensible, albeit not in the way Arash Abizadeh proposes. The democratic borders argument depends on the All-Subjected Principle, according to which the exercise of political power is justified only insofar as everyone who is subjected to that power is guaranteed a right to vote. According to the so-called “scope objection,” the scope of the All-Subjected Principle is too broad, however, and therefore, the argument can be refuted by red…Read more
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How Broad is the Scope of Sunstein's and Thaler’s Theory?Australian Journal of Legal Philosophy 41 1-14. 2016.
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6Inequalities, responsibility and rational capacities: A defence of responsibility-sensitive egalitarianismAustralian Journal of Political Science 51 (1): 86-101. 2016.This article aims to defend responsibility-sensitive egalitarianism by arguing for the rational capacities-based principle of responsibility as a plausible conception of an agent's responsibility for inequalities caused by his or her choice in responsibility-sensitive egalitarianism. I show that the rational capacities-based principle of responsibility is not only philosophically defensible as a conception of genuine choice, but also promising enough to ward off two common worries which cast dou…Read more
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16In the Shadow of Justice: Postwar Liberalism and the Remaking of Political Philosophy by Katrina ForresterJournal of the History of Philosophy 59 (3): 527-528. 2021.In the Shadow of Justice presents a powerful reconstruction of Anglophone political philosophy. Although the central focus of the book is on the origin and influence of John Rawls's theory of justice, it also uncovers the significance of British political theories in ways that contrast them with the Rawlsian liberal egalitarian idea. The book is, thus, a work of intellectual history that engages with the traditions of normative political theories.By referring extensively to the literature of phi…Read more
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67Can a right of self-ownership be robust?Law and Philosophy 26 (6): 575-587. 2007.According to a renowned left-libertarian, Michael Otsuka, a libertarian right of self-ownership can be so robust that one need not sacrifice the use of one's mind and body to help others. In this article, I demonstrate that Otsuka's way of reconciling this robust conception of self-ownership with equality is not appealing and, at best, would provide limited guidance in the face of real-life uncertainty
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110Is Moderate Essentialism Truly Moderate?Public Health Ethics 6 (1): 21-27. 2013.In this article, I argue that Powers and Faden’s non-ideal, comprehensive theory of justice cannot keep in line with the proposed moderateness of their essentialist approach. My argument is as follows: Powers and Faden’s comprehensive theory of justice contravenes the thrust of moderate essentialism, in claiming that their theory values health for its own sake. Why do they define their conception of justice as valuing health for its own sake when it is likely to be incongruous with their essenti…Read more
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45Can Luck Egalitarianism Serve as a Basis for Distributive Justice? A Critique of Kok-Chor Tan’s Institutional Luck EgalitarianismLaw and Philosophy 35 (4): 391-414. 2016.This paper examines whether Kok-Chor Tan’s institutional luck egalitarianism is successful as a pluralist luck egalitarian theory of justice and morality. In recent years, pluralist luck egalitarianism has become a salient theory of justice. Tan’s pluralist proposal for institutional luck egalitarianism is attractive because it seems to refute the metaphysical and practical challenges against luck egalitarianism. This paper demonstrates that, although Tan’s institutional luck egalitarianism is i…Read more
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68Luck vs. Capability? Testing Egalitarian TheoriesReview of Philosophy and Psychology 10 (4): 809-823. 2019.The issue of distributive justice receives substantial amount of attention in our society. On the one hand, we are sensitive to whether and the extent to which people are responsible for being worse off. On the other hand, we are mindful of society’s worst-off members. There has been a debate over luck egalitarianism, which relates to the former concern, and relational egalitarianism, which echoes the latter. By investigating the psychological processes of these two concerns, this paper examines…Read more
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22A Lockean Theory of Climate Justice for Food SecurityThe Journal of Ethics 27 (2): 151-172. 2023.This paper argues that the Lockean proviso can be utilized as a relevant principle of justice for food security under global climate change. Since reducing GHG emissions is key to enhancing food security, we suggest a global food security scheme that systematically allots, among all people, access to GHG sinks in food systems impacted by global climate change. For consideration of the scheme, it is important to have a principle of justice. Furthermore, it should incorporate the value of fairness…Read more
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31A Defense of Pluralist Egalitarianism under Severe Uncertainty: Axiomatic CharacterizationWiley: Journal of Political Philosophy 30 (3): 370-394. 2022.Journal of Political Philosophy, Volume 30, Issue 3, Page 370-394, September 2022.
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7This paper aims to specify the precise conditions under which an agent is responsible for inequalities. Admittedly, the careful examination of the conditions in question has been the main focus of contemporary egalitarianism. As a matter of fact, contemporary political philosophers take responsibility to be a core conception which in principle justifies inequalities. In particular, they tend to flesh out the conception of responsibility in terms of choice, in such a way that we should hold indiv…Read more
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49The Harshness Objection is Not (too) Harsh for Luck EgalitarianismPhilosophia 50 (5): 2571-2583. 2022.The harshness objection is the most important challenge to luck egalitarianism. Very recently, Andreas Albertsen and Lasse Nielsen provided a scrupulous analysis of the harshness objection and claim that only the inconsistency objection—the objection that luck egalitarianism is incompatible with the ideal of basic moral equality—has real bite. I argue that the relevantly construed incoherence objection is not as strong as Albertsen and Nielsen believe. In doing so, first, I show that the deontol…Read more
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16Beyond a Strictly Political Liberalism?Journal of Ethics and Social Philosophy 2 (3): 1-6. 2008.No abstract.
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22Keith Dowding, Power, Luck and Freedom: Collected Essays: Manchester: Manchester University Press. 2017. ISBN 978-1-5261-0456-4, Pbk £24.99Journal of Value Inquiry 53 (4): 657-662. 2019.
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Rawlsian contractualism and cognitive disabilitiesIn Edwin E. Etieyibo (ed.), Perspectives in social contract theory, The Council For Research in Values and Philosophy. 2018.
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52Libertarian approaches to the COVID‐19 pandemicBioethics 36 (4): 445-452. 2022.Bioethics, Volume 36, Issue 4, Page 445-452, May 2022.
Areas of Specialization
Value Theory |
Social and Political Philosophy |
Areas of Interest
Value Theory |
Philosophy, Misc |