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33No Platforming and Academic FreedomErgo: An Open Access Journal of Philosophy 10 (n/a). 2023.Much of the popular debate that surrounds no platforming centres on its putatively corrosive impact on free speech. This is apt to give a misleading picture of the particular puzzle that no platforming presents. Focusing on the university specifically, I contend that no platforming is distinctively objectionable not because it necessarily runs counter to general free speech values but when and because it is inconsistent with principles of academic freedom. This is because it conflicts with the s…Read more
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62Reclaiming two concepts of libertyPolitics, Philosophy and Economics 12 (3): 228-246. 2013.The article responds to an influential critique of the view that there is a conceptual distinction between kinds of liberty. The critique in question began with Gerald MacCallum Jr’s famous argument that liberty is a single concept that has a triadic structure between agent, constraint, and end. Against this view, the article argues that the triadic structure offered by MacCallum is unable to conceptualize a particular distinct understanding of liberty. Following Charles Taylor, the article defe…Read more
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12Fairness, Costs, and Procreative JusticeJournal of Ethics and Social Philosophy 24 (2). 2023.A commitment to holding persons responsible for the consequences of their choices has come to find a central expression in certain popular liberal egalitarian views. However, the basis for their commitment to responsibility remains imprecisely understood. Specifically, there is a failure to distinguish between two distinct grounds for holding persons responsible for the consequences of their choices. On the one hand there is a fairness-type basis for responsibility – that an agent’s being better…Read more
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38Legitimacy, Hate Speech, and Viewpoint DiscriminationJournal of Moral Philosophy 1-26. forthcoming.One of the most powerful arguments against state regulation of expression has, in recent years, been presented in a reinvigorated and developed form. The argument in question maintains that state regulation of expression undercuts the legitimacy of the law because it involves the suppression of a source of democratic contestation. The paper distinguishes between three importantly different versions of this legitimacy argument that existing work fails to clearly separate. Doing so is important b…Read more
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44When Is Inequality Fair?Ethical Theory and Moral Practice 21 (5): 1205-1218. 2018.Recent literature on responsibility-sensitive egalitarianism has suggested that an opposition to unchosen inequality on the grounds of unfairness is compatible with a range of accounts as to which inequalities are fair. I argue that forms of responsibility-sensitive egalitarianism face a challenge in the construction of such accounts; namely to explain the fairness of such inequalities specifically, as opposed to their being merely justified in a broader sense. I illustrate the nature of this ch…Read more
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148Survey Article: Relational Equality and DistributionJournal of Political Philosophy 25 (4): 80-99. 2017.
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42The Coherence of Luck EgalitarianismEthical Theory and Moral Practice 20 (3): 617-626. 2017.One of the foremost egalitarian theories in recent years, luck egalitarianism, has recently been subjected to the charge that it is in fact incoherent. This charge is brought by David Miller who highlights two dimensions of luck egalitarianism: on the one hand a commitment to the justice of certain inequalities arising from responsible choices; on the other a commitment to injustice of brute inequalities. The putative incoherence emerges in cases where the inequalities that justice requires on t…Read more
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68Men Who Would Be KingsSocial Theory and Practice 38 (2): 193-212. 2012.The luck egalitarian view famously maintains that inequalities in individuals' circumstances are unfair, whereas inequalities traceable to individuals' own responsible choices are fair. There is, however, an important question about the inequality justifying power of responsible choice where choices are made in circumstances of existing unfair inequality. This paper considers a luck egalitarian answer to this question which holds that individuals are fairly held liable for disadvantages resultin…Read more
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23Preserving fairness: Williams against Cohen on just inequalityCritical Review of International Social and Political Philosophy 19 (6): 699-713. 2016.
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50Pains of Perseverance: Agent-Centred Prerogatives, Burdens and the Limits of Human MotivationEthical Theory and Moral Practice 18 (3): 501-514. 2015.An important question in recent work in political philosophy concerns whether facts about individuals’ motivational deficiencies are facts to which principles of justice are sensitive. In this context, David Estlund has recently argued that the difficulties individuals’ face in motivating themselves to act do not affect the content of normative principles that apply to them. Against Estlund, the paper argues that in principle the motivational difficulties individuals face can affect the content …Read more
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399Equality of Opportunity and Other-Affecting Choice: Why Luck Egalitarianism Does Not Require Brute Luck EqualityEthical Theory and Moral Practice 16 (1): 139-149. 2013.The luck egalitarian view famously maintains that inequalities in individuals’ circumstances are unfair or unjust, whereas inequalities traceable to individuals’ own responsible choices are fair or just. On this basis, the distinction between so-called brute luck and option luck has been seen as central to luck egalitarianism. Luck egalitarianism is interpreted, by advocates and opponents alike, as a view that condemns inequalities in brute luck but permits inequalities in option luck. It is als…Read more
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145Social Class, Merit and Equality of Opportunity in EducationRes Publica 22 (3): 267-284. 2016.The paper offers to substantiate a claim about the so-called Meritocratic Conception of how educational opportunities ought to be distributed. Such a conception holds an individual’s prospects for educational achievement may be a function of that individual’s talent or effort levels but should not be influenced by their social class background. The paper highlights the internal tension in the Meritocratic Conception between on the one hand a prohibition on the influence of social class on educat…Read more
Oxford, United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland
Areas of Interest
Normative Ethics |
Social and Political Philosophy |