Cecile Fabre

In this chapter, it is argued that although cosmopolitanism is sceptical about the value of national self-determination, it nevertheless has the resources to justify the claim that individuals whose community is attacked unwarrantedly have the right to use force in its defence. The argument proceeds by distinguishing between three different kinds of aggression and identifies when combatants, when invited to sacrifice the collective goods of sovereignty and territorial integrity, are entitled to use force against rights-violators.

Should governments give special rights to ethnic and cultural minorities? Should rich countries open their borders to economic immigrants or transfer resources to poor countries? When framing and implementing economic and environmental policies, should current generations take into account the interests of future generations? If our political community committed a wrong against another group a hundred years ago, do we owe reparations to current members of that group? These are just some of the pressing questions which are fully explored in this accessible new analysis of justice in the contemporary world. They force us to reconsider the extent of our obligations to our fellow citizens, future generations and foreigners. _Justice in a Changing World_ introduces the moral debates around issues such as immigration, national self-determination, cultural rights and reparations, as well as resource transfers from one generation to the next and from rich to poor countries, through the lenses of liberalism, communitarianism and libertarianism. In so doing, it helps to unravel the complexity of key ethical dilemmas facing us today. The book will be a valuable resource for students of political theory, and will appeal to anyone wishing to reflect on their deepest values and commitments by putting them to the test of practical politics.

Should governments give special rights to ethnic and cultural minorities? Should rich countries open their borders to economic immigrants or transfer resources to poor countries? When framing and implementing economic and environmental policies, should current generations take into account the interests of future generations? If our political community committed a wrong against another group a hundred years ago, do we owe reparations to current members of that group? These are just some of the pressing questions which are fully explored in this accessible new analysis of justice in the contemporary world. They force us to reconsider the extent of our obligations to our fellow citizens, future generations and foreigners. _Justice in a Changing World_ introduces the moral debates around issues such as immigration, national self-determination, cultural rights and reparations, as well as resource transfers from one generation to the next and from rich to poor countries, through the lenses of liberalism, communitarianism and libertarianism. In so doing, it helps to unravel the complexity of key ethical dilemmas facing us today. The book will be a valuable resource for students of political theory, and will appeal to anyone wishing to reflect on their deepest values and commitments by putting them to the test of practical politics.

In this paper, I respond to Lars Christie, David Omand and Stephen Ratner for their thoughtful comments on my book Spying through a Glass Darkly. In that book, I provide a philosophical defence of espionage and counter-intelligence activities. I have little to say about how best to implement the moral norms I defend so that they can help guide intelligence officers’ actions, in the world as we know it here and now. Relatedly, I have little if anything to say about whether domestic and international law should reflect and entrench those norms. These are the gaps which David Omand’s and Stephen Ratner’s contributions seek to fill. First, though, I consider Lars Christie’s probing objections to my views on the ethics of deception.

A normative defense of espionage and counterintelligence activities in the service of foreign policy goals must show at least two things. First, it must show which foreign policy goals, if any, provide a justification for such activities. Second, it must provide an account of the means that intelligence agencies are morally permitted, indeed morally obliged, to use during those activities. I first discuss Ross Bellaby's probing critique of my defense of economic espionage. I then turn to the other four essays, which consider the ethics of the means by which espionage and counterintelligence activities are conducted.

A theory of political corruption must give a plausible descriptive account of what counts as politically corrupt conduct, and a plausible normative account of the reasons why (if any) such conduct is wrongful, and distinctively so. On Ceva and Ferretti's sophisticated descriptive and normative account of corruption if and only if the act is carried out by a public official acting in her capacity as officeholder, and she knowingly acts to ends which are not congruent with the terms of her mandate. By their own admission, Ceva and Ferretti focus for the most part on just, or nearly just, regimes – which include democratic regimes. In this paper, I probe the strength and implications of their account for political corruption in clearly unjust regimes, in which individuals’ basic civil, political and socio-economic rights are routinely and systematically violated. I argue that their account does not straightforwardly apply to these cases, and that their cursory treatment of all-things-considered justified corruption in those regimes exposes a gap in their account of corruption.

The literature on reparative justice focuses for the most part on the grounds and limits of wrongdoers’ duties to their victims. An interesting but relatively neglected question is that of what – if anything – victims owe to wrongdoers. In this paper, I argue that victims are under a duty to accept wrongdoers’ apologies. I claim that to accept an apology is to form the belief that the wrongdoer’s apologetic utterance or gesture has the requisite verdictive, commissive and expressive dimensions; to communicate as much to him; and to recognise that his apology changes one’s normative status in relation to him, and to comport oneself accordingly. I then offer a Kantian argument for the duty to accept and qualify that argument in the light of some hard cases. I end the paper by addressing the objection that victims do not owe it to wrongdoers to engage in any form of reparative encounter.

Gossip is pervasive and complex. It lubricates and wrecks social relationships. Many people openly confess to loving “a good gossip” yet acknowledge that gossiping, while often gratifying, is sometimes morally problematic. Surprisingly, gossip has not received much attention in moral philosophy. In this article, I argue that, notwithstanding its valuable relational and social functions, it is wrongful, at least in some of its forms, when and to the extent that it amounts to a particular kind of failure to treat others (be they gossipees or fellow gossipers) with the concern and respect they are owed as persons.

Suppose that state A attacks state D without warrant. The ensuing military conflict threatens international peace and security. State D (I assume) has a justification for defending itself by means of military force. Do third parties have a justification for intervening in that conflict by such means? To international public lawyers, the well-rehearsed and obvious answer is “yes.” Threats to international peace and security provide one of two exceptions to the legal and moral prohibition (as set out in Article 2[4] of the UN Charter) on using force as a means for resolving interstate disputes. Just war theorists are not as verdictive. Compared to the ethics of humanitarian intervention and the ethics of national self-defense, the ethics of third-party military involvement in interstate conflicts remains underdeveloped in contemporary just war theory. This essay begins to fill that gap. I argue that to defend such interventions is tantamount to defending preventive military force, deterrent military force, and the resort to force in more cases than standardly thought. I then provide an account and limited defense of the deterrence argument. I show that deterrence is morally justified in relatively few cases and examine two problems with the argument: deterrence failures and the level of uncertainty under which leaders who use deterrent force operate. I conclude that we should take seriously the possibility that nonintervention, construed as the rejection of the direct use of military force, is the morally correct response to the most serious threats to international peace and security.

Just war theorists who argue that war is morally justified under certain circumstances infer implicitly that establishing the military institutions needed to wage war is also morally justified. In this paper, I mount a case in favor of a standing military establishment: to the extent that going to war is a way to discharge duties to protect fellow citizens and distant strangers from grievous harms, we have a duty to set up the institutions that enable us to discharge that duty. I then respond to four objections drawn from Ned Dobos's recent book Ethics, Security, and the War-Machine.

According to the doxastic wrongs thesis, holding certain beliefs about others can be morally wrongful. Beliefs which take the form of stereotypes based on race and gender and which turn out to be false and are negatively valenced are prime candidates for the charge of doxastic wronging: it is no coincidence that most of the cases discussed in the literature involve false beliefs. My aim in this paper is to show that the thesis of doxastic wrongs does not turn on the truth-value or valence of beliefs.

All parties involved in researching, developing, manufacturing, and distributing COVID-19 vaccines need guidance on their ethical obligations. We focus on pharmaceutical companies' obligations because their capacities to research, develop, manufacture, and distribute vaccines make them uniquely placed for stemming the pandemic. We argue that an ethical approach to COVID-19 vaccine production and distribution should satisfy four uncontroversial principles: optimising vaccine production, including development, testing, and manufacturing; fair distribution; sustainability; and accountability. All parties' obligations should be coordinated and mutually consistent. For instance, companies should not be obligated to provide host countries with additional booster shots at the expense of fulfilling bilateral contracts with countries in which there are surges. Finally, any satisfactory approach should include mechanisms for assurance that all parties are honouring their obligations. This assurance enables countries, pharmaceutical companies, global organisations, and others to verify compliance with the chosen approach and protect ethically compliant stakeholders from being unfairly exploited by unethical behaviour of others.