-
47What’s Wrong with Social Hierarchy? On Niko Kolodny’s The Pecking OrderEthical Theory and Moral Practice 27 (1): 129-137. 2023.This review critically assesses Niko Kolodny’s theory of social hierarchy and its importance as articulated in _The Pecking Order_ ( 2023 ). After summarizing Kolodny’s argument, I raise two critical challenges. First, I ask whether Kolodny leaves us without adequate account of why social hierarchies are, in themselves, objectionable. Second, I query whether Kolodny’s defense of representative democracy is decisive, and suggest that egalitarians should be open to alternative ways of mitigating t…Read more
-
13The Politics of Social Cohesion: Immigration, Community, and Justice, written by Nils HoltugJournal of Moral Philosophy 20 (5-6): 573-576. 2023.
-
387What Immigrants OweErgo: An Open Access Journal of Philosophy 8 (n/a). 2021.Unlike natural-born citizens, many immigrants have agreed to undertake political obligations. Many have sworn oaths of allegiance. Many, when they entered their adopted country, promised to obey the law. This paper is about these agreements. First, it’s about their validity. Do they actually confer political obligations? Second, it’s about their justifiability. Is it permissible to get immigrants to undertake such political obligations? Our answers are ‘usually yes’ and ‘probably not’ respective…Read more
-
40Democratic Empathy and Affective PolarizationSocial Philosophy Today 39 71-87. 2023.Social scientists have observed a sharp rise in affective polarization in many societies, particularly the United States. Since it is widely agreed that this poses a threat to democracy, finding solutions to this predicament is essential. One prominent proposal to depolarize the electorate holds that citizens need to exercise their capacities for empathy with the political opposition. However, defenders of the empathy response to affective polarization have yet to fully specify the range of mec…Read more
-
27The Right to EmigrateJournal of Ethics and Social Philosophy 24 (3). 2023.It is widely believed that there’s a right to emigrate. But what justifies this right? This paper explores this issue. It first argues that existing defenses of the right to emigrate are incomplete. It then outlines a novel egalitarian defense of the right to emigrate, on which that right is in part justified as a protection against social inequality. After considering objections, it argues that this account of the right to emigrate entails a limited right to immigrate and that states are under …Read more
-
47Immigration, Naturalization, and the Purpose of CitizenshipPacific Philosophical Quarterly 104 (2): 408-441. 2022.It is widely believed that immigrants, after some time, acquire a claim to naturalize and become citizens of their new state. What explains this claim? Although existing answers (may) succeed in justifying some of immigrants' rights claims, they cannot justify the claim that immigrants are owed the opportunity to naturalize because these theories lack a sufficiently rich account of the purpose of citizenship. To fill this gap, I offer a novel egalitarian account of citizenship. Citizenship, on t…Read more
-
42Democratic citizenship and polarization: Robert Talisse’s theory of democracyEthical Theory and Moral Practice 25 (4): 701-708. 2022.This review essay critically discusses Robert Talisse’s account of democracy and polarization. I argue that Talisse overstates the degree to which polarization arises from the good-faith practice of democratic citizenship and downplays the extent to which polarization is caused by elites and exacerbated by social structures; this leads Talisse to overlook structural approaches to managing polarization and leaves his account of how citizens should respond to polarization incomplete. I conclude th…Read more
-
22Javier S. Hidalgo, Unjust Borders: Individuals and the Ethics of ImmigrationJournal of Moral Philosophy 19 (2): 205-208. 2022.
-
192Why Citizenship Tests are Necessary Illiberal: A Reply to BlakeEthics and Global Politics 15 (1): 1-7. 2022.In ‘Are Citizenship Tests Necessarily Illiberal?’, Michael Blake argues that difficult citizenship tests are not necessarily illiberal, so long as they test for the right things. In this paper, I argue that Blake’s attempt to square citizenship tests with liberalism fails. Blake underestimates the burdens citizenship tests impose on immigrants, ignoring in particular the egalitarian claims immigrants have on equal social membership. Moreover, Blake’s positive justification of citizenship tests –…Read more
-
461Einwanderung in Zeiten von CoronaRevista Portuguesa de Filosofia 77 (2-3): 657-688. 2021.After the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic, most states enacted new measures to constrain international mobility. By May 8th, 2020, more than 93% of the world’s population lived in states with special entry bans and more than three billion lived in countries whose borders were almost completely closed to non-citizens. Can such measures be justified? If so, would this undermine the open borders view? This paper examines these questions. It argues, first, that, although short-term entry bans and …Read more
-
15‘Wittgenstein’s Moral Thought’, Edited by Reshef Adam-Segal and Edmund DainNordic Wittgenstein Review 7 (1): 109-115. 2018.A review of _Wittgenstein’s Moral Thought,_ edited by Reshef Adam-Segal and Edmund Dain.
-
38Immigration and state system legitimacyCritical Review of International Social and Political Philosophy 27 (2): 294-304. 2020.Several political philosophers have recently developed novel legitimacy-based theories of migration. These accounts argue that individual states’ legitimacy depends upon their role in a legitimate state system characterized by global cooperation on migration. This review critically assesses these arguments, as articulated by Christopher Bertram, Gillian Brock, and David Owen.
-
36Justice, Migration & Mercy. MichaelBlake, 2020, Oxford, Oxford University Press, ix+266 £22.99 (hb) (review)Journal of Applied Philosophy 38 (1): 175-177. 2021.
-
18Anna Stilz: Territorial Sovereignty: A Philosophical Exploration: Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2019, 292 pp, ISBN: 9780198833536Res Publica 26 (4): 607-612. 2020.
-
9Compatibilism and a Political Conception of AutonomyAmerican Journal of Bioethics Neuroscience 4 (4): 55-56. 2013.
-
347The Post-2015 Development Agenda: Keeping Our Focus On the Worst OffAmerican Journal of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene 92 (6): 1087-89. 2015.Non-communicable diseases now account for the majority of the global burden of disease and an international campaign has emerged to raise their priority on the post-2015 development agenda. We argue, to the contrary, that there remain strong reasons to prioritize maternal and child health. Policy-makers ought to assign highest priority to the health conditions that afflict the worst off. In virtue of how little healthy life they have had, children who die young are among the globally worst off. …Read more
-
61Deep Brain Stimulation, Historicism, and Moral ResponsibilityNeuroethics 9 (2): 173-185. 2016.Although philosophers have explored several connections between neuroscience and moral responsibility, the issue of how real-world neurological modifications, such as Deep Brain Stimulation, impact moral responsibility has received little attention. In this article, we draw on debates about the relevance of history and manipulation to moral responsibility to argue that certain kinds of neurological modification can diminish the responsibility of the agents so modified. We argue for a historicist…Read more
-
882Prioritarianism for Global Health Investments: Identifying the Worst OffJournal of Applied Philosophy 112-132. 2018.The available resources for global health assistance are far outstripped by need. In the face of such scarcity, many people endorse a principle according to which highest priority should be given to the worst off. However, in order for this prioritarian principle to be useful for allocation decisions, policy-makers need to know what it means to be badly off. In this article, we outline a conception of disadvantage suitable for identifying the worst off for the purpose of making health resource a…Read more
-
24'Wittgenstein and the Creativity of Language', Edited by Grève and Mácha (review)Nordic Wittgenstein Review 5 (2): 226-231. 2016.Book review of Grève, Sebastian Sunday and Mácha, Jakub 2016, _Wittgenstein and the Creativity of Language_, London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2016, xxi + 318pp.
-
New York UniversityDoctoral student