• Responding to Injustice (edited book)
    with Sadurski Wojciech and Coel Kirkby
    Routledge. forthcoming.
  •  40
    Political Obligation and the Need for Justice
    Canadian Journal of Law and Jurisprudence 36 (1): 195-214. 2023.
    This paper examines the claim that justice is necessary for a moral obligation to obey the law. By reflecting on the meaning of obedience, it identifies one version of the claim that must be right and another that must be wrong. It then focuses on the argument for a moral obligation to obey the law that most obviously includes the claim: John Rawls’s argument from the natural duty of justice. More specifically, it focuses on the degree of justice that is needed for this duty to ground a moral ob…Read more
  •  11
    Legitimacy: The State and Beyond (edited book)
    with Wojciech Sadurski and Michael Sevel
    Oxford University Press. 2019.
    Traditionally, political legitimacy has been associated exclusively with states. But are states actually legitimate? And why should discussions of legitimacy focus only on the nation-state? This volume explores how legitimacy is intertwined with notions of statehood and how it reaches beyond the state into supranational institutions.
  • Moral Obligations: A Response to Campbell
    Australian Journal of Legal Philosophy 42 256-265. 2017.
  •  49
    Is Democracy Sufficient for Political Obligation?
    Canadian Journal of Law and Jurisprudence 28 (2): 425-442. 2015.
    This paper examines the apparently widespread belief that the democratic pedigree of a state implies a moral obligation to obey its laws. The analysis focuses on the work of Ronald Dworkin, who is, perhaps surprisingly, alone among theorists of democracy in claiming that those whom the law addresses are morally bound to obey it whenever it is democratic. From Dworkin’s expansive conception of democracy, political obligation follows. But democracy should not be construed so widely. Rather, it oug…Read more
  •  91
    A realistic vision? Roberto Unger on law and politics
    Res Publica 5 (2): 139-159. 1999.
    This paper considers Roberto Unger's views on legal reasoning. His account is defended against two misplaced attacks. The first critique is by Emilios Christodoulidis. Using the language of systems theory, Christodoulidis contends that Unger's programme of democratic experimentalism cannot be achieved through law, as the constitutive structure of the legal system is immune to politics. Christodoulidis accuses Unger of attempting to reduce law to politics. It will be argued, however, that Unger d…Read more
  •  69
    In this paper, I examine the terms on which John Simmons rejects all arguments for a moral obligation to obey the law and so defends “philosophical anarchism.” Although I accept his rejection of several criteria on which others might and often do insist, I criticize his reliance on the conditions of “generality” and “particularity.” In doing so, I propose an alternative to his influential conception of legitimacy
  •  37
    In this paper, I argue that dialogue between legal philosophers and social scientists can be mutually beneficial. Nicola Lacey offers a vision of jurisprudence that supposes as much. I start by setting out my interpretation of her view. I then defend its potential, which she takes for granted, from the challenges posed by, first, an apparent friend—Brian Leiter—and, second, obvious adversaries—Joseph Raz and others. My response proposes an alternative to their conceptions of legal philosophy, on…Read more
  •  28
    The Content-Independence of Political Obligations
    Political Theory 42 (2): 218-222. 2014.
    George Klosko rejects the standard assumption that political obligations, at least insofar as they are conceived as moral requirements to obey the law, must be content-independent. He thereby neglects the familiar distinction between obedience to and mere compliance with legal norms. The present article insists on this distinction by identifying a plausible alternative to the understanding of content-independence that Klosko correctly, even if not for the most obvious reason, dismisses and mista…Read more