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320Moral obligations of statesIn Moral obligations of states, Center of Applied Ethics and Philosophy. 2011.It is widely accepted that industrialized or wealthy countries in particular have moral obligations or duties of justice to combat world poverty or to shoulder burdens of climate change. But what does it actually mean to say that a state has moral obligations or duties of justice? In this paper I focus on Tony Erskine’s account of moral agency of states. With her, I argue that collectives such as states can hold (collective) moral duties. However, Erskine’s approach does not clarify what moral d…Read more
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73Comments on Responsible Citizens, Irresponsible StatesAnalysis 84 (1). 2024.What is it that makes us as citizens liable for the actions – including the wrongdoings – of our state? Answering this question is part of the larger debate on the nature of complicity and collective action. When are we connected to joint endeavours and collective outcomes in a way that makes us (on some level) responsible for them? Of particular interest within this debate is the normative relationship of citizens to their state. For instance, when states pay reparations for past crimes the cos…Read more
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35Science–policy research collaborations need philosophersNature Human Behaviour. 2024.Wicked problems’ are tricky to solve because of their many interconnected components and a lack of any single optimal solution. At the science–policy interface, all problems can look wicked: research exposes the complexity that is relevant to designing, executing and implementing policy fit for ambitious human needs. Expertise in philosophical research can help to navigate that complexity.
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187Duties to Promote Just Institutions and the Citizenry as an Unorganized GroupIn Säde Hormio & Bill Wringe (eds.), Collective Responsibility: Perspectives on Political Philosophy from Social Ontology, Springer. forthcoming.Many philosophers accept the idea that there are duties to promote or create just institutions. But are the addressees of such duties supposed to be individuals – the members of the citizenry? What does it mean for an individual to promote or create just institutions? According to the ‘Simple View’, the citizenry has a collective duty to create or promote just institutions, and each individual citizen has an individual duty to do their part in this collective project. The simple view appears to …Read more
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71The Meaning of Terrorism (review)Australasian Journal of Philosophy. 2023.Twenty years after September 11, the definition of terrorism remains a contentious issue. How to understand or not to understand ‘terrorism’ is by no means a purely academic exercise. The term has a history of being used to denounce certain types of political violence and their perpetrators as being wrongful per se. Like Tony Coady, I believe that it is not just possible but, in fact, crucial to separate the descriptive from the evaluative component if the concept is to be informative at all and…Read more
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282Epistemology of ignorance: the contribution of philosophy to the science-policy interface of marine biosecurityFrontiers in Marine Science 10 1-5. 2023.Marine ecosystems are under increasing pressure from human activity, yet successful management relies on knowledge. The evidence-based policy (EBP) approach has been promoted on the grounds that it provides greater transparency and consistency by relying on ‘high quality’ information. However, EBP also creates epistemic responsibilities. Decision-making where limited or no empirical evidence exists, such as is often the case in marine systems, creates epistemic obligations for new information ac…Read more
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182Commentary for NASSP Award Symposium on 'Getting Our Act Together'Social Philosophy Today 39 215-226. 2023.This commentary is part of a symposium on my book 'Getting Our Act Together: A Theory of Collective Moral Obligations' (Routledge, 2021). Here, I respond to the members of the North American Society for Social Philosophy’s 2022 Book Award Committee. I discuss whether most moral theory is individualistic, arguing that “traditional ethical theories” - meaning the traditions of Virtue Ethics, Kantian ethics as well as consequentialist ethics - certainly are. All of these focus on what individual ag…Read more
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433Collective inaction, omission, and non-action: when not acting is indeed on ‘us’Synthese 200 (5): 1-19. 2022.The statement that we are currently failing to address some of humanity’s greatest challenges seems uncontroversial—we are not doing enough to limit global warming to a maximum of 2 °C and we are exposing vulnerable people to preventable diseases when failing to produce herd immunity. But what singles out such failings from all the things we did not do when all are unintended? Unlike their individualist counterparts, collective inaction and omission have not yet received much attention in the li…Read more
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324Wenn gemeinsames Handeln das Böse hervorbringt (review)Deutsche Zeitschrift für Philosophie 70 (1): 172-179. 2022.
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498Kollektive Verantwortung und ArmutIn Gottfried Schweiger & Clemens Sedmak (eds.), Handbuch Philosophie Und Armut, J.b. Metzler. pp. 326-332. 2021.Die Frage nach der Verantwortung für globale Armut laesst sich auf mindestens zwei Weisen stellen – als Frage nach der (retrospektiven) Verantwortung für das Auftreten dieses Problems oder als Frage nach der (prospektiven) Verantwortung für dessen Behebung. Dieses Kapitel wird sich vor allem auf die zweite Frage konzentrieren: Inwiefern sollte die Verantwortung, Armut zu bekaempfen, als kollektive Verantwortung verstanden werden? Für viele von uns werden diese Pflichten nur im weiten (schwac…Read more
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1703How we fail to know: Group-based ignorance and collective epistemic obligationsPolitical Studies 70 (4): 901-918. 2022.Humans are prone to producing morally suboptimal and even disastrous outcomes out of ignorance. Ignorance is generally thought to excuse agents from wrongdoing, but little attention has been paid to group-based ignorance as the reason for some of our collective failings. I distinguish between different types of first-order and higher order group-based ignorance and examine how these can variously lead to problematic inaction. I will make two suggestions regarding our epistemic obligations vis-a-…Read more
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565The possibility of collective moral obligationsIn Saba Bazargan-Forward & Deborah Perron Tollefsen (eds.), Routledge Handbook of Collective Responsibility, Routledge. pp. 258-273. 2020.Our moral obligations can sometimes be collective in nature: They can jointly attach to two or more agents in that neither agent has that obligation on their own, but they – in some sense – share it or have it in common. In order for two or more agents to jointly hold an obligation to address some joint necessity problem they must have joint ability to address that problem. Joint ability is highly context-dependent and particularly sensitive to shared (or even common) beliefs. As such, joint abi…Read more
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512The Epistemology of Group Duties: What We Know and What We Ought to doJournal of Social Ontology (1): 91-100. 2020.In Group Duties, Stephanie Collins proposes a ‘tripartite’ social ontology of groups as obligation-bearers. Producing a unified theory of group obligations that reflects our messy social reality is challenging and this ‘three-sizes-fit-all’ approach promises clarity but does not always keep that promise. I suggest considering the epistemic level as primary in determining collective obligations, allowing for more fluidity than the proposed tripartite ontology of collectives, coalitions and …Read more
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414Antimicrobial Footprints, Fairness, and Collective HarmIn Euzebiusz Jamrozik & Michael Selgelid (eds.), Ethics and Drug Resistance: Collective Responsibility for Global Public Health, Springer. pp. 379-389. 2020.This chapter explores the question of whether or not individual agents are under a moral obligation to reduce their ‘antimicrobial footprint’. An agent’s antimicrobial footprint measures the extent to which her actions are causally linked to the use of antibiotics. As such, it is not necessarily a measure of her contribution to antimicrobial resistance. Talking about people’s antimicrobial footprint in a way we talk about our carbon footprint may be helpful for drawing attention to the glob…Read more
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505Getting Our Act Together: A Theory of Collective Moral ObligationsRoutledge. 2021.WINNER BEST SOCIAL PHILOSOPHY BOOK IN 2021 / NASSP BOOK AWARD 2022 Together we can often achieve things that are impossible to do on our own. We can prevent something bad from happening or we can produce something good, even if none of us could do it by herself. But when are we morally required to do something of moral importance together with others? This book develops an original theory of collective moral obligations. These are obligations that individual moral agents hold jointly, but not as…Read more
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1041Structural Injustice and Massively Shared ObligationsJournal of Applied Philosophy 38 (1): 1-16. 2021.It is often argued that our obligations to address structural injustice are collective in character. But what exactly does it mean for ‘ordinary citizens’ to have collective obligations visà- vis large-scale injustice? In this paper, I propose to pay closer attention to the different kinds of collective action needed in addressing some of these structural injustices and the extent to which these are available to large, unorganised groups of people. I argue that large, dispersed and unorgani…Read more
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849Shared Intentions, Loose Groups and Pooled KnowledgeSynthese (5): 4523-4541. 2019.We study shared intentions in what we call “loose groups”. These are groups that lack a codified organizational structure, and where the communication channels between group members are either unreliable or not completely open. We start by formulating two desiderata for shared intentions in such groups. We then argue that no existing account meets these two desiderata, because they assume either too strong or too weak an epistemic condition, that is, a condition on what the group members know an…Read more
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261Cosmopolitanism Versus Non-Cosmopolitanism: Critiques, Defenses, Reconceptualizations, edited by Gillian Brock: Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013, pp. x +331, £61 (review)Australasian Journal of Philosophy 95 (1): 187-190. 2017.
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587Making sense of collective moral obligations: A comparison of existing approachesIn Kendy Hess, Violetta Igneski & Tracy Lynn Isaacs (eds.), Collectivity: Ontology, Ethics, and Social Justice, Rowman & Littlefield International. pp. 109-132. 2018.We can often achieve together what we could not have achieved on our own. Many times these outcomes and actions will be morally valuable; sometimes they may be of substantial moral value. However, when can we be under an obligation to perform some morally valuable action together with others, or to jointly produce a morally significant outcome? Can there be collective moral obligations, and if so, under what circumstances do we acquire them? These are questions to which philosophers are increasi…Read more
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700Collective moral obligations: ‘we-reasoning’ and the perspective of the deliberating agentThe Monist 102 (2): 151-171. 2019.Together we can achieve things that we could never do on our own. In fact, there are sheer endless opportunities for producing morally desirable outcomes together with others. Unsurprisingly, scholars have been finding the idea of collective moral obligations intriguing. Yet, there is little agreement among scholars on the nature of such obligations and on the extent to which their existence might force us to adjust existing theories of moral obligation. What interests me in this paper is the pe…Read more
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1181Should Environmental Ethicists Fear Moral Anti-Realism?Environmental Values 28 (4): 405-427. 2019.Environmental ethicists have been arguing for decades that swift action to protect our natural environment is morally paramount, and that our concern for the environment should go beyond its importance for human welfare. It might be thought that the widespread acceptance of moral anti-realism would undermine the aims of environmental ethicists. One reason is that recent empirical studies purport to show that moral realists are more likely to act on the basis of their ethical convictions than ant…Read more
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67Gemeinsame Hilfspflichten, Weltarmut und kumulative HandlungenZeitschrift für Praktische Philosophie 4 (1): 123-150. 2017.Duties to reduce global poverty are often portrayed as collective duties to assist. At first glance this seems to make sense: since global poverty is a problem that can only be solved by a joint effort, the duty to do so should be considered a collective duty. But what exactly is meant by a ‚joint‘ or ‚collective‘ duty? This paper introduces a distinction between genuinely cooperative and cumulative collective actions. Genuinely cooperative actions require mutually responsive, carefully adjusted…Read more
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2072Why Business Firms Have Moral Obligations to Mitigate Climate ChangeIn Martin Brueckner, Rochelle Spencer & Megan Paull (eds.), Disciplining the Undisciplined? Perspectives from Business, Society and Politics on Responsible Citizenship, Corporate Social Responsibility and Sustainability, Springer. pp. 55-70. 2018.Without doubt, the global challenges we are currently facing—above all world poverty and climate change—require collective solutions: states, national and international organizations, firms and business corporations as well as individuals must work together in order to remedy these problems. In this chapter, I discuss climate change mitigation as a collective action problem from the perspective of moral philosophy. In particular, I address and refute three arguments suggesting that business firm…Read more
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707Terrorism, jus post bellum and the Prospect of PeaceIn Florian Demont-Biaggi (ed.), The Nature of Peace and the Morality of Armed Conflict, Imprint: Palgrave Macmillan. pp. 123-140. 2017.Just war scholars are increasingly focusing on the importance of jus post bellum – justice after war – for the legitimacy of military campaigns. Should something akin to jus post bellum standards apply to terrorist campaigns? Assuming that at least some terrorist actors pursue legitimate goals or just causes, do such actors have greater difficulty satisfying the prospect-of-success criterion of Just War Theory than military actors? Further, may the use of the terrorist method as such – state or…Read more
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450Renewable EnergyIn Benjamin Hale & Andrew Light (eds.), The Routledge Companion to Environmental Ethics, Routledge. pp. 359-373. 2016.There exist overwhelming – and morally compelling – reasons for shifting to renewable energy (RE), because only that will enable us to timely mitigate dangerous global warming. In addition, several other morally weighty reasons speak in favor of the shift: considerable public health benefits, broader environmental benefits, the potential for sustainable and equitable economic development and equitable energy access, and, finally, long-term energy security. Furthermore, it appears that the transi…Read more
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1001Terrorism, Supreme Emergency and Killing the InnocentPerspectives - The Review of International Affairs 17 (1): 105-126. 2009.Terrorist violence is often condemned for targeting innocents or non-combatants. There are two objections to this line of argument. First, one may doubt that terrorism is necessarily directed against innocents or non-combatants. However, I will focus on the second objection, according to which there may be exceptions from the prohibition against killing the innocent. In my article I will elaborate whether lethal terrorism against innocents can be justified in a supreme emergency. Starting from a…Read more
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592Moral obligations of statesIn Applied Ethics Series, Centre For Applied Ethics and Philosophy, Hokkaido University. pp. 86-93. 2011.The starting point of the paper is the frequent ascription of moral duties to states, especially in the context of problems of global justice. It is widely assumed that industrialized or wealthy countries in particular have a moral obligation or duties of justice to shoulder burdens of poverty reduction or climate change adaptation and mitigation. But can collectives such as states actually hold moral duties? If answering this affirmatively: what does it actually mean to say that a state has mor…Read more
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1892Defining TerrorismIn Terrorism: A Philosophical Enquiry, Palgrave-macmillan. pp. 7-47. 2012.Without doubt, terrorism is one of the most vehemently debated subjects in current political affairs as well as in academic discourse. Yet, although it constitutes an issue of general socio-political interest, neither in everyday language nor in professional (political, legal, or academic) contexts does there exist a generally accepted definition of terrorism. The question of how it should be defined has been answered countless times, with as much variety as quantity in the answers. In academic …Read more
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1743Is there an obligation to reduce one’s individual carbon footprint?Critical Review of International Social and Political Philosophy 17 (2): 168-188. 2014.Moral duties concerning climate change mitigation are – for good reasons – conventionally construed as duties of institutional agents, usually states. Yet, in both scholarly debate and political discourse, it has occasionally been argued that the moral duties lie not only with states and institutional agents, but also with individual citizens. This argument has been made with regard to mitigation efforts, especially those reducing greenhouse gases. This paper focuses on the question of whether i…Read more
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