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1156On the currency of egalitarian justiceEthics 99 (4): 906-944. 1989.In his Tanner Lecture of 1979 called ‘Equality of What?’ Amartya Sen asked what metric egalitarians should use to establish the extent to which their ideal is realized in a given society. What aspect of a person’s condition should count in a fundamental way for egalitarians, and not merely as cause of or evidence of or proxy for what they regard as fundamental?
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664Robert Nozick and wilt Chamberlain: How patterns preserve liberty (review)Erkenntnis 11 (1). 1977.Robert Nozick's Anarchy, State and Utopia is in large measure an ingenious elaboration of an argument for capitalism adumbrated by Plekhanov. The capitalism Nozick advocates is more pure than the one we know today. It lacks taxation for social welfare, and it permits degrees of inequality far greater than most apologists for contemporary bourgeois society would countenance. The present paper paper is only indirectly a critique of Nozick's defense of capitalism. Its immediate aim is to refute Noz…Read more
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537Where the Action Is: On the Site of Distributive JusticePhilosophy and Public Affairs 26 (1): 3-30. 1997.The JSTOR Archive is a trusted digital repository providing for long-term preservation and access to leading academic journals and scholarly literature from around the world. The Archive is supported by libraries, scholarly societies, publishers, and foundations. It is an initiative of JSTOR, a not-for-profit organization with a mission to help the scholarly community take advantage of advances in technology. For more information regarding JSTOR, please contact [email protected].
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472Chapter 8. Rescuing Conservatism: A Defense of Existing ValueIn Gerald Allan Cohen (ed.), Finding oneself in the other, Princeton University Press. pp. 143-174. 2012.
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375Casting the First Stone: Who Can, and Who Can’t, Condemn the Terrorists?Royal Institute of Philosophy Supplement 58 113-136. 2006.‘No matter what the grievance, and I'm sure that the Palestinians have some legitimate grievances, nothing can justify the deliberate targeting of innocent civilians. If they were attacking our soldiers it would be a different matter.’ (Dr. Zvi Shtauber, Israeli Ambassador to the United Kingdom, BBC Radio 4, May 1, 2003).
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298Karl Marx's Theory of History: A DefenceOxford University Press. 1978.First published in 1978, this book rapidly established itself as a classicof modern Marxism.
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295Rescuing Justice and Equality (edited book)Harvard University Press. 2008.In this stimulating work of political philosophy, acclaimed philosopher G. A. Cohen sets out to rescue the egalitarian thesis that in a society in which distributive justice prevails, peopleâes material prospects are roughly equal. Arguing against the Rawlsian version of a just society, Cohen demonstrates that distributive justice does not tolerate deep inequality. In the course of providing a deep and sophisticated critique of Rawlsâes theory of justice, Cohen demonstrates that questions of dis…Read more
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295The Pareto Argument for Inequality*: G. A. COHENSocial Philosophy and Policy 12 (1): 160-185. 1995.Some ways of defending inequality against the charge that it is unjust require premises that egalitarians find easy to dismiss—statements, for example, about the contrasting deserts and/or entitlements of unequally placed people. But a defense of inequality suggested by John Rawls and elaborated by Brian Barry has often proved irresistible even to people of egalitarian outlook. The persuasive power of this defense of inequality has helped to drive authentic egalitarianism, of an old-fashioned, u…Read more
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275Self-Ownership, World Ownership, and Equality: Part II: G. A. COHENSocial Philosophy and Policy 3 (2): 77-96. 1986.1. The present paper is a continuation of my “Self-Ownership, World Ownership, and Equality,” which began with a description of the political philosophy of Robert Nozick. I contended in that essay that the foundational claim of Nozick's philosophy is the thesis of self-ownership, which says that each person is the morally rightful owner of his own person and powers, and, consequently, that each is free to use those powers as he wishes, provided that he does not deploy them aggressively against o…Read more
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222Marxism after the collapse of the soviet unionThe Journal of Ethics 3 (2): 99-104. 1999.The article studies the implications for historical materialism of the failure of the socialist project in the Soviet Union. The author demonstrates that the said failure broadly confirms central historical materialist theses, which would have been difficult to sustain if the Russian revolution had succeeded in its goal of superseding capitalism and establishing a socialist society.
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211Functional explanation, consequence explanation, and marxismInquiry: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Philosophy 25 (1). 1982.I argued in Karl Marx's Theory of History that the central claims of historical materialism are functional explanations, and I said that functional explanations are consequence explanations, ones, that is, in which something is explained by its propensity to have a certain kind of effect. I also claimed that the theory of chance variation and natural selection sustains functional explanations, and hence consequence explanations, of organismic equipment. In Section I I defend the thesis that hist…Read more
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198More on exploitation and the labour theory of valueInquiry: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Philosophy 26 (3). 1983.In ?The Labour Theory of Value and the Concept of Exploitation? I distinguished between two ways in which the labour theory of value is formulated, both of which are common. In the popular formulation, the amount of value a commodity has depends on how much labour was spent producing it. In the strict formulation, which is so called because it formulates the labour theory of value proper, the amount of value a commodity has depends on nothing about its history but only on how much labour would (…Read more
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190Luck and Equality: A Reply to Hurley (review)Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 72 (2). 2006.In Chapter 6 (“Why the Aim to Neutralize Luck Cannot Provide a Basis for Egalitarianism”) of her Justice, Luck, and Knowledge, Susan Hurley defends two claims: that “the aim to neutralize luck [does not] contribute to identifying and specifying what egalitarianism is”, and that it also provides no “independent non‐question‐begging reason or justification for egalitarianism” (p. 147). In the present response, I reject the first of Hurley's claims, and I show that the second, while true, lacks pol…Read more
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180Human nature and social change in the marxist conception of historyJournal of Philosophy 85 (4): 171-191. 1988.
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154On the Currency of Egalitarian Justice, and Other Essays in Political PhilosophyPrinceton University Press. 2011.G. A. Cohen was one of the most gifted, influential, and progressive voices in contemporary political philosophy. At the time of his death in 2009, he had plans to bring together a number of his most significant papers. This is the first of three volumes to realize those plans. Drawing on three decades of work, it contains previously uncollected articles that have shaped many of the central debates in political philosophy, as well as papers published here for the first time. In these pieces, Coh…Read more
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138Marxism and Contemporary Political Philosophy, or: Why Nozick Exercises some Marxists more than he does any Egalitarian LiberalsCanadian Journal of Philosophy 20 (sup1): 363-387. 1990.Now, we stand outcast and starving,Mid the wonders we have made….I belong to a school of thought which has been called analytical Marxism. Some of the partisans of this position, and that includes me, are deeply engaged by questions in moral and political philosophy which have not, in the past, attracted the attention of Marxists. We are concerned with exactly what a commitment to equality requires, and with exactly what sort of obligations productive and talented people have to people who are r…Read more
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127Once more into the breach of self-ownership: Reply to Narveson and Brenkert (review)The Journal of Ethics 2 (1): 57-96. 1998.In reply to Narveson, I distinguish his no-proviso argument from his liberty argument, and I show that both fail. I also argue that interference lacks the strategic status he assigns to it, because it cannot be appropriately distinguished, conceptually and morally, from prevention; that natural resources do enjoy the importance he denies they have; that laissez-faire economies lack the superiority he attributes to them; that ownership can indeed be a reflexive relation; that anti-paternalism doe…Read more
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76Lectures on the History of Moral and Political PhilosophyPrinceton University Press. 2013.However, throughout his career he regularly lectured on a wide range of moral and political philosophers of the past. This volume collects these previously unpublished lectures
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68Chapter 7. Ways of Silencing CriticsIn Gerald Allan Cohen (ed.), Finding oneself in the other, Princeton University Press. pp. 134-142. 2012.
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54Reply to Elster on "marxism, functionalism, and game theory"In Derek Matravers & Jonathan Pike (eds.), Theory and Society, Routledge, in Association With the Open University. pp. 483. 2002.
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43Chapter 10. Notes on Regarding People as EqualsIn Gerald Allan Cohen (ed.), Finding oneself in the other, Princeton University Press. pp. 193-200. 2012.
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41Peter Mew on justice and capitalismInquiry: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Philosophy 29 (1-4). 1986.Section I argues, against Peter Mew, that, since people create nothing ex nihilo, everything now privately owned incorporates something that once was not, and that this has important consequences for distributive justice. Section II defends the ?diachronic? approach to distributive justice against Mew's charge that it is ?otiose?, and section III claims that beliefs about distributive justice have a big effect on political conflict in the real world. Section IV enters a few disagreements with Me…Read more
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38Chapter 6. Casting the First Stone: Who Can, and Who Can’t, Condemn the Terrorists?In Gerald Allan Cohen (ed.), Finding oneself in the other, Princeton University Press. pp. 115-133. 2012.
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37Chapter Two. Equality of What? On Welfare, Goods, and CapabilitiesIn G. A. Cohen (ed.), On the Currency of Egalitarian Justice, and Other Essays in Political Philosophy, Princeton University Press. pp. 44-72. 2011.
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34Chapter Twelve. Rescuing Justice from Constructivism and Equality from the Basic Structure RestrictionIn G. A. Cohen (ed.), On the Currency of Egalitarian Justice, and Other Essays in Political Philosophy, Princeton University Press. pp. 236-254. 2011.