•  574
    Don’t Know, Don’t Kill: Moral Ignorance, Culpability, and Caution
    Philosophical Studies 136 (1): 59-97. 2007.
    This paper takes on several distinct but related tasks. First, I present and discuss what I will call the “Ignorance Thesis,” which states that whenever an agent acts from ignorance, whether factual or moral, she is culpable for the act only if she is culpable for the ignorance from which she acts. Second, I offer a counterexample to the Ignorance Thesis, an example that applies most directly to the part I call the “Moral Ignorance Thesis.” Third, I argue for a principle—Don’t Know, Don’t Kill—t…Read more
  •  383
    The paradox of voting and the ethics of political representation
    Philosophy and Public Affairs 38 (3): 272-306. 2010.
    This paper connects the question of the rationality of voting to the question of what it is morally permissible for elected representatives to do. In particular, the paper argues that it is rational to vote to increase the strength of the manifest normative mandate of one's favored candidate. I argue that, due to norms of political legitimacy, how representatives ought to act while in office is tied to how much support they have from their constituents, where a representative’s “support” is a …Read more
  •  379
    Against Elections: The Lottocratic Alternative
    Philosophy and Public Affairs 42 (2): 135-178. 2014.
    It is widely accepted that electoral representative democracy is better—along a number of different normative dimensions—than any other alternative lawmaking political arrangement. It is not typically seen as much of a competition: it is also widely accepted that the only legitimate alternative to electoral representative democracy is some form of direct democracy, but direct democracy—we are told—would lead to bad policy. This article makes the case that there is a legitimate alternative system…Read more
  •  311
    Deliberation, Responsibility, and Excusing Mistakes of Law
    Jurisprudence 6 (1): 81-94. 2015.
    In ‘Excusing Mistakes of Law’, Gideon Yaffe sets out to ‘vindicate’ the claim ‘that mistakes of law never excuse’ by ‘identifying the truth that is groped for but not grasped by those who assert that ignorance of law is no excuse’. Yaffe does not offer a defence of the claim that mistakes of law never excuse. That claim, Yaffe argues, is false. Yaffe’s article is, rather, an effort to assess what plausible thought might be behind the idea that mistakes of law often should not excuse. (Yaffe …Read more
  •  168
    Appropriately Using People Merely as a Means
    Criminal Law and Philosophy 10 (4): 777-794. 2016.
    There has been a great deal of philosophical discussion about using people, using people intentionally, using people as a means to some end, and using people merely as a means to some end. In this paper, I defend the following claim about using people: NOT ALWAYS WRONG: using people—even merely as a means—is not always morally objectionable. Having defended that claim, I suggest that the following claim is also correct: NO ONE FEATURE: when it is morally objectionable to use people, this is for …Read more
  •  110
    Lawyers, Context, and Legitimacy: A New Theory of Legal Ethics
    Georgetown Journal of Legal Ethics 25 (1): 107-164. 2012.
    Even good lawyers get a bad rap. One explanation for this is that the professional rules governing lawyers permit and even require behavior that strikes many as immoral. The standard accounts of legal ethics that seek to defend these professional rules do little to dispel this air of immorality. The revisionary accounts of legal ethics that criticize the professional rules inject a hearty dose of morality, but at the cost of leaving lawyers unrecognizable as lawyers. This article suggests that t…Read more
  •  83
    In “Publicity and Measurement,” Marie Collins Swabey writes that “if democracy is not to be abandoned, some attempt must be made to devise ways in which what is of genuine public concern may be made to concern the public." Her article grapples with the problem of democratic governance in an age of policy complexity and voter ignorance, a problem that remains arguably the core problem of democracy today, with policy issues having become, if anything, substantially more complex. Unfortunately, de…Read more
  •  64
    Peter Unger
    The Harvard Review of Philosophy 9 (1): 46-56. 2001.
  •  57
    Although the individual mandate was upheld and the Commerce Clause may have been cabined, the decision to strike down a significant element of the “Medicaid expansion” may prove to be the most significant aspect of the Supreme Court’s decision in NFIB v. Sebelius. Under the Affordable Care Act (ACA), States were required to extend Medicaid coverage to all individuals under the age of 65 with incomes below 133 percent of the poverty line, a new “essential health benefits” package was required for…Read more
  •  48
    Doubt and the Revolutionary
    Midwest Studies in Philosophy 45 423-456. 2021.
    So, you want to start a revolution. There is something significant in the world around you that is wrong: unjust, oppressive, unfair, unequal. Half measures won’t suffice. Something dramatic, revolutionary, is required. You have ideas. You might have a plan. But although you are certain of the wrong around you, you are not certain of the path forward. You have some doubt about the plan, whether it will work, its moral costs, and whether there are problems you cannot yet see. You have revolutiona…Read more
  •  40
    Law and Violence
    Journal of Ethics and Social Philosophy 22 (1). 2022.
    The law marks a significant difference between violent and non-violent criminal actions. Violent crimes are typically met with more severe punishments and consequences than non-violent crimes. Even in discussions of criminal justice reform, the refrain remains: violent crime is different; those convicted of violent crimes are different; and it is appropriate to respond to violent crime differently. This article argues that the violent/non-violent distinction cannot bear the normative weight plac…Read more
  •  37
    Alex Guerrero, Off The Beaten Track
    with Jean Kazez
    The Philosophers' Magazine 94 6-13. 2021.
  •  37
    The existence of experts raises a host of interesting questions in social, legal, and political epistemology. This article introduces and discusses interested experts – people who are experts on some topic, but who also have a distinct set of values and preferences regarding that topic, so that they are not well-described as “disinterested” parties. Interested experts raise several distinct problems in social, legal, and political epistemology. Some general questions arise: can we rationally or …Read more
  •  17
    Don’t stop thinking about tomorrow
    Journal of Medical Ethics 47 (2): 100-101. 2021.
    Maybe you only have 1000 units of some resource, but 10,000 people need the resource or would benefit from it. One question: why do you control the resource? Leave that aside for now. A second question: how should you allocate the resource? If you are a decision-maker in a health system, and if the resource has to do with medicine or public health, we are in the world of the ethics of scarce resource allocation decisions in healthcare. Munthe et al 1 note that the ‘operational norms that guide a…Read more
  •  15
    In most common-law and civil-law jurisdictions, mistakes of law do not excuse. That is, the fact that one was ignorant of the content or requirements of some law does not excuse violations of that law. Many have argued that this doctrine is mistaken. In particular, many have argued that if an individual’s ignorance or false belief is blameless, if she held the false belief reasonably, then she ought to be able to use that ignorance as an excuse for violating the law. It is much harder to find de…Read more
  •  14
    Children, Political Power, and Punishment
    The Journal of Ethics 24 (3): 269-280. 2020.
    How does age matter to moral responsibility and criminal liability? Almost no one thinks that a 3-year old is morally responsible for what she does. No one would think an 8-year old should be held criminally liable for engaging in illegal criminal action—even for something seriously harmful such as intentionally setting fire to a building or badly harming another child. Something else should happen, certainly, but not criminal prosecution and conviction and State punishment. And that’s true even…Read more