• Human rights are a construct of international law. Their legitimacy depends on them being informed by the deep-seated fact of global cultural pluralism and the concern of establishing a system that recognizes this pluralism, transcends a narrow parochial perspective and thus avoids the accusation of cultural or moral colonialism. There are two broad strategies to do this: by invoking an individualist-moral conception of HR designed to promote well-being and by invoking a social-political concept…Read more
  •  23
    Who owns the product?
    Philosophical Quarterly 54 (217). 2004.
    If persons fully own themselves and can acquire, by unilateral acts, unconditional full property rights to previously unowned natural resources, then by these same principles of property they also own the products of their property and of their labour. But (a) the principles of property are silent on the question of the division of joint products; (b) the market is a form of co-operation in production which makes the total social product a joint product. In the circumstances of an unrestrained f…Read more
  •  1
    Terms of Trust
    Oxford Studies in Political Philosophy 2 209-233. 2016.
    Situations of fundamentally opposing interests are such that, without some degree of trust, they will fail to advance. In this paper I consider war and the achievement of peace through a series of reciprocal steps as the primary setting in which to examine trust, its terms, and its limits. A surprising point that transpires is that, in the attempt to resolve situations that are fundamentally conflictive, there is often a tendency to take steps to promote something else, superficially resembling …Read more
  •  29
    David Miller argues that the proper principle to govern distribution in the economy is a principle of desert and that markets (at their best) distribute to the participating agents rewards that are proportional to their respective contributions. This is explained by appeal to the notion of marginal productivity, and by the theory that perfect competition results in a distribution according to marginal contribution. Marginal product in this sense is taken to be a measure of the producer's contrib…Read more
  •  54
    Libertarianism attempts to establish a set of property rights as a complete political morality, its argument proceeding from liberty tout court, as the unique foundational aspect of well being that grounds rights. In this book, Attas presents a sympathetic reconstruction of the libertarian argument and then brings to bear a critical evaluation leading to an ultimate rejection of libertarianism. Exposing the limitations of libertarianism and disclosing its errors, Attas argues that the rights whi…Read more
  •  26
    A Moral Stakeholder Theory of the Firm
    Ethics and Economics 2 (2). 2004.
    To be a coherent and genuinely alternative conception to the shareholder model, any moral stakeholder theory must meet the following conditions: It must be an ethical theory; It must identify a limited group as stakeholders; The group must be identified on morally relevant grounds; Stakeholder claims must be non-universal; And not held against everyone. A principle for identifying the stakeholder is suggested as a person who has much to lose – financially, socially, or psychologically – by the f…Read more
  •  436
    What’s Wrong with "Deceptive" Advertising?
    Journal of Business Ethics 21 (1): 49-59. 1999.
    In this paper I present a moral account of the legal notion of deceptive advertising. I argue that no harmful consequences to the consumer need follow from a deceptive advertisement as such, and I suggest instead that one should focus on the consequences of permitting the practise of deceptive advertising on society as a whole. After a brief account of deceptive advertising, I move to discuss the role of the reasonable person standard in its definition. One interpretation of this standard is emp…Read more
  •  69
    Workfare: the Subjection of Labour
    with Avner De-Shalit
    Journal of Applied Philosophy 21 (3): 309-320. 2004.
    When viewed as a question of distributive justice the evaluation of workfare typically reflects exclusively on the distribution of income: do the physically capable have a justified claim for state support, or is it fair to demand from those who do work to subsidise this support? Rarely is workfare appraised in terms of how it affects other parties such as employers or other workers, and on the structural effects the pattern of incentives it generates brings about, or as an issue of distributive…Read more
  •  28
    Who Owns the Product?
    Philosophical Quarterly 54 (217): 537-556. 2004.
    If persons fully own themselves and can acquire, by unilateral acts, unconditional full property rights to previously unowned natural resources, then by these same principles of property they also own the products of their property and of their labour. But the principles of property are silent on the question of the division of joint products; the market is a form of co-operation in production which makes the total social product a joint product. In the circumstances of an unrestrained fully dev…Read more
  •  88
    The Negative Principle of Just Appropriation
    Canadian Journal of Philosophy 33 (3). 2003.
    According to the negative principle of appropriation a person can acquire an unowned resource if doing so respects a certain condition (the Lockean proviso). Contrary to some views, a proviso of this sort is not incompatible with libertarianism. Moreover, no unilateral powers of acquisition can fail to consider the impact on the interests of others. Hence, a doctrine of appropriation must incorporate such a proviso. However, the several interpretations such a proviso can take on various dimensio…Read more
  •  148
    Working from a "capitalist" theory of exploitation, based on a neo-classical account of economic value, I argue that guest workers are exploited. It may be objected, however, that since they are not citizens, any inequality that stems from their status as non-citizens is morally unobjectionable. Although host countries are under no moral obligation to admit guest workers as citizens, there are independent reasons that call for the extension of economic rights – the freedom of occupation in parti…Read more
  •  80
    The difference principle and time
    Politics, Philosophy and Economics 7 (2): 209-232. 2008.
    Rawls's difference principle contains a certain normative ambiguity, so that opposing views, including strong inegalitarian ones, might find a home under it. The element that introduces this indeterminacy is the absence of an explicit reference to time . Thus, a society that agrees on the difference principle as the proper justification of basic political-economic institutions, might nevertheless disagree on whether their specific institutions are justified by that principle. Such disagreement w…Read more
  •  72
    Lockean justifications of intellectual property
    In Gosseries Axel, Marciano A. & Strowel A. (eds.), Intellectual Property and Theories of Justice, Basingstoke & N.y.: Palgrave Mcmillan. pp. 29--56. 2008.
    This paper explores the possibility of extending Locke’s theory with respect to tangible property so that it might offer a feasible theoretical basis for intellectual property too. The main conclusion is that such an attempt must fail. Locke’s theory comes in three parts: a general justification of property which serves to explain why assets ought to be under the exclusive control of individuals; a positive method of private appropriation whereby an individual acquires a prima facie exclusive cl…Read more
  •  1
    John Rawls: A Critical Review (edited book)
    with David Heyd
    Hotsaʼat sefarim ʻa. sh. Y.L. Magnes, ha- Universiṭah ha-ʻIvrit. 2006.
  •  81
    Freedom and Self–Ownership
    Social Theory and Practice 26 (1): 1-23. 2000.
    The principle that each person is his own property occupies an almost axiomatic status in right-wing liberal thought as well as in some egalitarian theories. I reject any, full or partial, notion of property with respect to oneself by showing that any appeal and any justifiability which may be associated with self-ownership can at most serve to ground rights which are demonstrably non-property rights. As a contrast to self ownership, I introduce the non-proprietarian notion of Original Freedom. …Read more
  •  112
    Fragmenting property
    Law and Philosophy 25 (1): 119-149. 2005.
    The orthodoxy on the concept of ownership is given by Honoré's list of incidents. The idea this portrays is as ownership as a very flexible concept. The main purpose of this paper is to argue that the concept of property has much more integrity than the notion of a bundle of incidents may suggest. The Libertarian Challenge claims that redistributive theories of Justice, in so far as they impose involuntary taxes, are inconsistent with property rights, and are therefore unjustifiable. One respon…Read more
  •  40
    Future People (review)
    Journal of Moral Philosophy 6 (1): 127-132. 2009.
  •  3
    A Trans-Generational Difference Principle
    In Axel Gosseries & Lukas H. Meyer (eds.), Intergenerational Justice, Oxford University Press. pp. 189. 2009.
    Can Rawls’s theory provide a framework for assessing obligations to future generations? Extending the veil of ignorance so that participants in the original position do not know to which generation they belong appears to fail in this endeavour. Earlier generations cannot improve their situation by “cooperating” with later generations. Such circumstances, lacking mutuality, leave no room for an agreement or contract. Nevertheless, the original position can be reconstructed so as to model relation…Read more