Colleen Murphy

Transitional justice is the process of dealing with wrongdoing committed in the context of conflict or repression for the sake of recognizing victims, holding perpetrators to account, and, most fundamentally, contributing to societal transformation. This paper considers, from the perspective of transitional justice, the Movement for Black Lives (M4BL). The author’s analysis is comparative. Specifically, the focus is on the armed struggle to end apartheid in South Africa and the pursuit of transitional justice in the aftermath of apartheid’s end with the civil rights movement in the United States. Although the achievement of transitional justice in South Africa is unfinished in important respects, explicit steps in that direction were made in South Africa that were not made in the United States. This account conceptualizes M4BL in the United States in part as a response to the absence of transitional justice in this context, and as calling for mechanisms of transitional justice to address explicitly past wrongs as part of the pursuit of broader societal transformation.

Knowledge of the responsibilities of engineers is the foundation for answering ethical questions about the work of engineers. This paper defines the responsibilities of engineers by considering what constitutes the nature of engineering as a particular form of activity. Specifically, this paper focuses on the ethical responsibilities of engineers qua engineers. Such responsibilities refer to the duties acquired in virtue of being a member of a group. We examine the practice of engineering, drawing on the idea of practices developed by philosopher Alasdair MacIntyre, and show how the idea of a practice is important for identifying and justifying the responsibilities of engineers. To demonstrate the contribution that knowledge of the responsibilities of engineers makes to engineering ethics, a case study from structural engineering is discussed. The discussion of the failure of the Sleipner A Platform off the coast of Norway in 1991 demonstrates how the responsibilities of engineers can be derived from knowledge of the nature of engineering and its context

We live in a world of rapidly growing gaps between rich and poor. In the rich parts of the world, new resource-consuming devices are launched every year. But at the same time, about a fourth of the world’s population does not have access to clean drinking water, and more than half lack safely managed sanitation. What role does technology have in these growing global inequalities? Is technological development the root cause of inequality? Or is the unequal distribution of technology just a mirror of social inequities that have other causes? And can new technologies be instrumental in making the world less unfair? In _Technology and Equality_, these issues are addressed from a wide range of perspectives by scholars in disciplines such as history, sociology, gender studies, anthropology, economics, law, ethics, and philosophy. Case studies highlight technology-related inequalities for instance in climate mitigation, public transport, access to water, waste management, sanitation, air pollution, healthcare, digital communication, and law enforcement. The more theoretical chapters provide tools and concepts that are helpful for analyzing and understanding the relationships between technology and inequality in other applications and in more general perspectives.

In The Idea of Prison Abolition, philosopher Tommie Shelby critically analyzes the case for prison abolition advanced by scholar-activists such as Angela Davis. Abolition is understood as the dismantling and permanent abandonment of incarceration as a method of responding to a social problem like crime. In Shelby's view, abolitionists do not successfully show that prisons must be abolished. Prisons for him retain a necessary and morally defensible function: preventing serious crime. In my commentary, I first suggest that Shelby implicitly evaluates some of Davis's arguments on the terms of success of a scholar, not those of a scholar-activist, and does not consider an objection to his conclusions that scholar-activists are likely to raise. Second, I problematize the basis for Shelby's claim that punishment remains necessary to prevent the most serious crimes.

In The Shifting Border, Ayelet Shachar (2020) argues that the exercise of sovereign power through border regimes no longer tracks territorial boundaries. In my commentary, I first argue that Shachar’s analysis implicitly calls into question the legitimacy of the international order. I then raise the worry that the logic which severs the link between the exercise of sovereignty and territory is the same logic that can be used to justify injustice and atrocity such as ethnic cleansing. Shachar’s normative proposals do not sufficiently recognize or guard against this risk.

Engineers must deal with risks and uncertainties as a part of their professional work and, in particular, uncertainties are inherent to engineering models. Models play a central role in engineering. Models often represent an abstract and idealized version of the mathematical properties of a target. Using models, engineers can investigate and acquire understanding of how an object or phenomenon will perform under specified conditions. This paper defines the different stages of the modeling process in engineering, classifies the various sources of uncertainty that arise in each stage, and discusses the categories into which these uncertainties fall. The paper then considers the way uncertainty and modeling are approached in science and the criteria for evaluating scientific hypotheses, in order to highlight the very different criteria appropriate for the development of models and the treatment of the inherent uncertainties in engineering. Finally, the paper puts forward nine guidelines for the treatment of uncertainty in engineering modeling

Following extended periods of conflict or repression, political reconciliation is indispensable to the establishment or restoration of democratic relationships and critical to the pursuit of peacemaking globally. In this book, Colleen Murphy offers an innovative analysis of the moral problems plaguing political relationships under the strain of civil conflict and repression. Focusing on the unique moral damage that attends the deterioration of political relationships, Murphy identifies the precise kinds of repair and transformation that processes of political reconciliation ought to promote. Building on this analysis, she proposes a normative model of political relationships. A Moral Theory of Political Reconciliation delivers an original account of the failure and restoration of political relationships, which will be of interest to philosophers, social scientists, legal scholars, policy analysts, and all those who are interested in transitional justice, global politics, and democracy.

Within philosophy there has been little discussion of the risks associated with natural events such as earthquakes. The first objective of this paper is to demonstrate why such risks should be the subject of more sustained philosophical interest. We argue that we cannot simply apply to risks associated with natural events those insights and frameworks for moral evaluation developed in the literature considering ordinary risks, technological risks and the risks posed by anthropogenic climate change. The second objective of this paper is to identify and develop a framework for the moral evaluation of the source of the risks associated with natural events, or the actions which sustain and impact such risks. Our discussion concentrates on the ways the construction and modification of built and natural environments can alter the probability of occurrence of natural events and the character and magnitude of the impact that such events have. We then argue for the need to develop a standard of reasonable care for decisions about the built and modified natural environment, which accounts for technical and resource constraints, as well as the place of natural hazard mitigation in public policy