•  64
    Can power be self‐legitimating? Political realism in Hobbes, Weber, and Williams
    European Journal of Philosophy 27 (4): 1016-1036. 2019.
    European Journal of Philosophy, EarlyView.
  •  51
    In this paper I defend Max Weber's concept of political legitimacy as a standard for the moral evaluation of states. On this view, a state is legitimate when its subjects regard it as having a valid claim to exercise power and authority. Weber’s analysis of legitimacy is often assumed to be merely descriptive, but I argue that Weberian legitimacy has moral significance because it indicates that political stability has been secured on the basis of civic alignment. Stability on this basis enables …Read more
  •  20
    In the final chapter of Speech Matters, Seana Shiffrin argues that institutions have especially stringent duties to protect speech freedoms. In this article, I develop a few lines of criticism. First, I question whether Shiffrin’s framework of justified suspended contexts is appropriate for institutional settings. Second, I challenge the presumption that the knowledge-gathering function performed by police is necessarily compromised by insincere practices. Third, I criticize Shiffrin’s character…Read more
  •  4
    When are markets illegitimate?
    Social Philosophy and Policy 36 (2): 212-241. 2019.
    :In this essay I defend an alternative account of why markets are legitimate. I argue that markets have a raison d’être—a potential to be valuable that, if fulfilled, would justify their existence. I characterize this potential in terms of the goods that are promoted by the legal protection of economic agency: resource discretion, contribution esteem, wealth, diffusion of power, and freedom of association. I argue that market institutions deliver these goods without requiring the participants to…Read more