•  110
    Against Lottocracy
    European Journal of Political Theory 20 (2): 312-334. 2018.
    Dissatisfaction with democratic institutions has run high in recent years. Perhaps as a result, political theorists have begun to turn their attention to possible alternative modes of political dec...
  •  105
    Democratic Legitimacy and the Competence Objection
    Res Publica 25 (2): 283-293. 2019.
    Elitist scepticism of democracy has a venerable history. This paper responds to the latest round of such scepticism—the ‘competence objection’, articulated in recent work by Jason Brennan. Brennan’s charge is that democracy is unjust because it allows uninformed, irrational, and morally unreasonable voters to exercise power over high-stakes political decisions, thus imposing undue risk upon the citizenry. I show that Brennan’s objection admits of two interpretations, and argue that neither can b…Read more
  •  52
    What’s wrong with vote buying
    Philosophical Studies 177 (2): 1-21. 2020.
    Almost everyone would agree that vote buying is morally wrong, and that prohibitions on vote buying are morally justified. Yet, recently, several philosophers have argued that vote buying is morally permissible, and that it should be legally permitted. This paper begins by examining and criticising arguments that have been offered in defence of vote buying. I then go on to consider existing attempts to explain the wrongness of vote buying, arguing that none is wholly successful. I then advance a…Read more
  •  44
    Rights and Demands: A Foundational Inquiry
    Australasian Journal of Philosophy 98 (1): 210-210. 2020.
    Volume 98, Issue 1, March 2020, Page 210-210.
  •  33
    Enfranchising the Youth
    Critical Review of International Social and Political Philosophy 23 (6): 732-755. 2020.
  •  31
    Enfranchising the Youth
    Critical Review of International Social and Political Philosophy 23 (6): 1-24. 2018.
  •  25
    Going to Alone: Cities and States for Climate Action
    Ethics, Policy and Environment 21 (1): 56-59. 2018.
    The first year of the Trump Presidency has been marked by regressive steps in US climate policy. Trump’s announcement on 1 June 2017 of his intention to withdraw the US from the Paris Agreement was...
  •  19
    A Citizens’ Assembly for the Cognitively Disabled
    Social Theory and Practice 46 (1): 205-229. 2020.
    Most democracies disenfranchise persons with cognitive disabilities. Several democratic theorists have, for a range of reasons, recently argued that such restrictions ought to be abolished. I agree with such arguments. Some, however, have also expressed the hope that enfranchising such persons might give politicians more powerful incentives to attend to such persons’ interests. I argue that such hopes are likely to be disappointed. If we wish to ensure that such persons’ interests are taken seri…Read more
  •  14
    Virtually every figure in the climate justice literature agrees that states are presently failing to discharge their duties to take action on climate change. Few, however, have attempted to think through what follows from that fact from a moral point of view. In Climate Justice Beyond the State, Lachlan Umbers and Jeremy Moss argue that states’ failures to take action on climate change have important implications for the duties of the most important actors states contain within them – sub-nation…Read more
  •  9
    This book investigates the relationship between non-state actors and climate justice from a philosophical perspective. The climate justice literature remains largely focused upon the rights and duties of states. Yet, for decades, states have failed to take adequate steps to address climate change. This has led some to suggest that, if severe climate change and its attendant harms are to be avoided, non-state actors are going to have to step into the breach. This collection represents the first a…Read more