Davide Saracino

While most philosophers and legal systems now regard capital punishment as impermissible, life imprisonment without parole (LWOP) has remained comparatively unchallenged and is often treated as the harshest permissible penalty. This article challenges the assumption that LWOP should function as the default maximal punishment by proposing a two-option system in which offenders sentenced to LWOP may instead choose the death penalty. It argues that such a system would better uphold widely shared societal values—particularly individual autonomy and the efficient use of societal resources—without undermining offenders’ rights to life, a fair trial, or rehabilitation, or values such as moral desert, deterrence, and legal equality. The argument is grounded in broadly endorsed societal principles rather than any single theory of punishment. Finally, the article addresses two issues concerning framing and scope: the expressive significance of framing the alternative to life behind bars as capital punishment rather than assisted suicide, and the strategic limitation of the proposal to LWOP, even though similar considerations could, in principle, apply to milder sentences.

This dissertation investigates the source, if any, of political legitimacy. To answer this question, I examine conceptual, methodological, empirical, and normative issues. First, I define political legitimacy as the state’s claim-right to coerce, correlative to subjects’ duty to accept coercion through political obedience. Second, I argue that practical relevance is the sole desideratum for a theory of legitimacy. Maximising it requires determining how individuals with the most prevalent basic desires should rationally choose among competing theories. Third, drawing on experimental psychology, I identify these desires as predominantly selfish. It follows that the most practically relevant theory of legitimacy must be the one that best serves selfish desires. Fourth, in the normative section, I evaluate major theories of legitimacy and conclude that express consent theory most effectively fulfils predominantly selfish desires. Therefore, rational selfish individuals should endorse express consent theory, making it the most practically relevant theory of legitimacy.

Most political philosophers assume that political apologies are appropriate only in response to past morally wrongful acts committed by state officials. In this article, I challenge the view that moral wrongdoing is a necessary condition for the duty to issue a public apology. I argue that political apologies may be warranted even in the absence of past moral wrongs – particularly in cases where morally justified political actions nevertheless inflict harm on innocent parties. My central claim is that there exists a duty to alleviate the harm suffered by the blameless, regardless of whether such harm was morally justified or even necessary, and that political apologies represent an appropriate means of discharging this duty. I begin by examining this hypothesis at a more basic, interpersonal level – apologies between private individuals – before extending the analysis to the political realm. To support my argument, I draw on a historical example from the Second World War: the British decision to bomb German cities in late 1940. I present Winston Churchill’s choice to target civilian areas, resulting in the deaths of innocent people (including infants), as both morally justified and harmful. I argue that the harm caused to innocent families created an obligation for Churchill to apologise, despite the justificatory context of war. I conclude that adopting a harm-based account prompts a revised categorisation of the necessary criteria for a proper political apology.

Panarchism is a theory of political legitimacy proposing a global society of voluntary, non-territorial states established through explicit contracts between governments and prospective citizens. This article explores the foundational works and divergent legacies of two 19th-century Belgian panarchists – Gustave De Molinari and Paul Émile De Puydt – to clarify panarchism's core principles. In 1849, De Molinari introduced The Production of Security, advocating a free market for governance where non-territorial governments compete as alternatives to territorial states in safeguarding life and property. In 1860, De Puydt published his seminal article ‘Panarchy’, from which the theory derives its name, endorsing voluntary, non-contiguous governments as a means of maximising individual freedom. While De Molinari is often seen as a precursor to right-wing anarcho-capitalism and De Puydt's ideas resonate more with left-libertarians, this article argues that these differences are rhetorical rather than substantive. By showing that a commitment to individual autonomy underpins both thinkers' work, the article explains how their divergent receptions are shaped more by external factors than theoretical discrepancies. Recognising this clarifies panarchism's theoretical coherence and offers contemporary political theorists a unified understanding of the panarchist view.

In The Profession and Vocation of Politics, Weber argues that Machiavelli’s Prince is «harmless» in comparison to Kauṭilya’s Arthaśāstra. Some contemporary comparative political theorists similarly argue that the Arthaśāstra is a fully realistic speculum principis free from moralistic considerations, while The Prince’s supposed realism is in fact moderated by Machiavelli’s republicanism. An opposite viewpoint suggests that Kauṭilya’s extremism, unlike Machiavelli’s republican realism, would breed the sovereign’s ruin in our age. In this article, I take a via media, arguing for the contextual and non-substantive nature of the difference between these authors and their main works.

Panarchism is a political theory advocating a global society made up of voluntary trans-territorial states founded on explicit contracts signed between governments and prospective citizens. Throughout this paper, I first aim to clarify what panarchism entails from a theoretical and institutional standpoint. Thereafter, I examine the two most relevant arguments in support of panarchism: the intuitionist appeal to the value of consent and the consequentialist stress on the individual and/or social utility of a panarchist society. In this regard, I maintain that consequentialist arguments are better equipped to counter anti-panarchist objections. Finally, I purport to illustrate this point through a rebuttal of two different claims highlighting panarchism’s inability to safeguard rights other than the one to freedom of association and its unfeasibility due to the disregard for territorial contiguity. I suggest that moral and prudential reasons weaken both of these concerns.