•  1110
    Real Estate: Foundations of the Ontology of Property
    In Heiner Stuckenschmidt, Erik Stubjkaer & Christoph Schlieder (eds.), The Ontology and Modelling of Real Estate Transactions, Ashgate. pp. 51-67. 2003.
    Suppose you own a garden-variety object such as a hat or a shirt. Your property right then follows the ageold saw according to which possession is nine-tenths of the law. That is, your possession of a shirt constitutes a strong presumption in favor of your ownership of the shirt. In the case of land, however, this is not the case. Here possession is not only not a strong presumption in favor of ownership; it is not even clear what possession is. Possessing a thing like a hat or a shirt is a rath…Read more
  •  1037
    Rationality in Action: A Symposium
    Philosophical Explorations 4 (2): 66-94. 2001.
    Searle’s tool for understanding culture, law and society is the opposition between brute reality and institutional reality, or in other words between: observer-independent features of the world, such as force, mass and gravitational attraction, and observer-relative features of the world, such as money, property, marriage and government. The question posed here is: under which of these two headings do moral concepts fall? This is an important question because there are moral facts – for example …Read more
  •  971
    For much of the first fifty years of its existence, analytic philosophy shunned discussions of normativity and ethics. Ethical statements were considered as pseudo-propositions, or as expressions of pro- or con-attitudes of minor theoretical significance. Nowadays, in contrast, prominent analytic philosophers pay close attention to normative problems. Here we focus our attention on the work of Searle, at the same time drawing out an important connection between Searle’s work and that of two othe…Read more
  •  537
    The metaphysics of real estate
    Topoi 20 (2): 161-172. 2001.
    The thesis that an analysis of property rights is essential to an adequate analysis of the state is a mainstay of political philosophy. The contours of the type of government a society has are shaped by the system regulating the property rights prevailing in that society. Views of this sort are widespread. They range from Locke to Nozick and encompass pretty much everything else in between. Defenders of this sort of view accord to property rights supreme importance. A state that does not suffici…Read more
  •  230
    The Paradox of Forgiveness
    Journal of Moral Philosophy 6 (3): 365-393. 2009.
    Philosophers often claim that forgiveness is a paradoxical phenomenon. I here examine two of the most widespread ways of dealing with the paradoxical nature of forgiveness. One of these ways, emblematized by Aurel Kolnai, seeks to resolve the paradox by appealing to the idea of repentance. Somehow, if a wrongdoer repents, then forgiving her is no longer paradoxical. I argue that this influential position faces more problems than it solves. The other way to approach the paradox, exemplified here …Read more
  •  159
    On Forgiveness and the Deliberate Refusal to Punish: Reiterating the Differences
    Journal of Moral Philosophy 9 (1): 103-113. 2012.
    In a recent article in this journal Brandon Warmke argues against my account of forgiveness. I here offer answers to his objections, and suggest ways in which I think he has misinterpreted my views. This exchange with Warmke also gives me the opportunity to insist on my general thesis that it is advisable to study punishment and forgiveness together. It is precisely the conceptual proximity of these two phenomena which make my account of forgiveness uncommon, and which make it more promising tha…Read more
  •  159
    The parceling of land into real estate is more than a simple geometrical affair. Real estate is a historical product of interaction between human beings, political, legal and economic institutions, and the physical environment. And while many authors, from Jeremy Bentham to Hernando de Soto, have drawn attention to the ontological (metaphysical) aspect of property in general, no comprehensive analysis of landed property has been attempted. The paper presents such an analysis and shows how landed…Read more
  •  143
    Punishment and revenge
    Law and Philosophy 25 (1): 81-118. 2006.
  •  114
    The fitting, the deserving, and the beautiful
    Journal of Moral Philosophy 3 (3): 331-350. 2006.
    Punishment is punishment even if it is not (perceived by the punisher to be) deserved. But punishment which is not (perceived by the punisher to be) fitting is not punishment. This paper explores the differences between desert and fittingness, and argues that incorporating fittingness into thedefinition of punishment is not problematic, whereas incorporating desert in such definition is, in contrast, infamously problematic. The main difference between these two notions turns on the interesting d…Read more
  •  104
    Derek Parfit has recently defended the view that no one can ever deserve to suffer. Were this view correct, its implications for the thorny problem of the justification of punishment would be extraordinary: age-old debates between consequentialists and retributivists would simply vanish, as punishment would only—and simply—be justifiable along Benthamite utilitarian lines. I here suggest that Parfit’s view is linked to uncharacteristically weak arguments, and that it ought to be rejected.
  •  96
    Legal ontology and the problem of normativity
    The Analytic-Continental Divide, Conference, University of Tel Aviv. 1999.
    Applied ontology is the attempt to put to use the rigorous tools of philosophical ontology in the development of category systems which can be of use in the formalization and systematization of knowledge of a given domain. In what follows we shall sketch some elements of the ontology of legal and socio-political institutions, paying attention especially to the normativity involved in such institutions. We shall see that there is more than one type of normativity, but that this fact that has ofte…Read more
  •  66
    Victor Tadros’ The Ends of Harm is the most recent systematic attempt to defend the good old utilitarian justification of punishment. The attempt fails for a variety of reasons, which are here explored. First, the attempt presupposes an implausible account of human’s psychology. Second, the attempt confuses an attack on retributivism with an attack on certain criminal justice systems. Finally, Tadros admits that his justification of punishment is best seen as a mere step along the road to full-b…Read more
  •  53
    The Construction of Social Reality (review)
    Grazer Philosophische Studien 54 (1): 230-232. 1998.
  •  46
    Forgiveness
    The Monist 92 (4): 481-487. 2009.
  •  42
    David Boonin, The Problem of Punishment. There are two reasons why David Boonin's recent book, The Problem of Punishment,1 offers me a unique oppor...
  •  41
    Prolegomena to a Metaphysics of Real Estate
    In Roberto Casati (ed.), Shadows and Socio-Economic Units. Foundations of Formal Geography, Technical University of Vienna. pp. 151--155. 1996.
    As an object in which property rights can be invested, land is a peculiar hybrid structure that comprehends both spatial and non-spatial aspects. Even in its purely spatial aspect land is treated differently from culture to culture, thus for example in the degree to which property rights in land are held to relate to vague or precisely delineated parcels and to portions of space above and below the surface of the earth. When we examine the non-spatial aspects of landed property, however, the dim…Read more
  •  37
    Review of Hannah Arendt in Jerusalem, ed. Steven E. Aschheim (review)
    Essays in Philosophy 3 (2): 300-304. 2002.
  •  31
    Linda Radzick's new book, _The Ethics of Social Punishment_, contains an important discussion of punishment outside the context of the state. By way of celebrating this fine and welcome book, I try to probe some analytical contours concerning punishment seen from the general perspective on which Radzick and I agree. I suggest altogether abandoning the idea that (non-state) punishment needs to be inflicted by an authority. Furthermore, I insist on an account of retributivism that resists the usua…Read more
  •  28
    Rethinking Mixed Justifications
    In Matthew C. Altman (ed.), The Palgrave Handbook on the Philosophy of Punishment, Palgrave-macmillan. pp. 221-241. 2022.
    Those of us who appreciate the force of both retributive and consequentialist rationales for the justification of punishment should be sympathetic to efforts to combine them, so as to develop a more compelling justificatory scheme. In this chapter, however, Zaibert argues that extant mixed justifications have failed in coherently combining these rationales. He attempts to explain this failure by identifying two widespread and interrelated mistakes made by punishment theorists. First, they have s…Read more
  •  17
    Contemporary criminal justice systems are extraordinarily unfair. Focusing on Hyman Gross’s Crimes and Punishment: A Concise Moral Critique, however, I identify ways in which scholarly criticisms of these criminal justice systems tend to miss their target. In particular, I argue against the assumption that in order to criticize these criminal justice systems we need to cast doubt on the very practice of blaming people and on the notion of desert, or that we need to reject wholesale retributive r…Read more
  •  14
    Punishment and Retribution
    Routledge. 2006.
    Punishment is a phenomenon which occurs in many contexts. Discussions of punishment assume punishment is criminal punishment carried out by the State. This book contains an account of punishment which overcomes the difficulties of competing accounts and treats punishment comprehensibly to better understand how it differs from similar phenomena, discussing its justification fruitfully.
  •  10
    Forgiveness
    The Monist 92 (4): 481-487. 2009.
  •  7
    Rethinking Punishment
    Cambridge University Press. 2018.
    The age-old debate about what constitutes just punishment has become deadlocked. Retributivists continue to privilege desert over all else, and consequentialists continue to privilege punishment's expected positive consequences, such as deterrence or rehabilitation, over all else. In this important intervention into the debate, Leo Zaibert argues that despite some obvious differences, these traditional positions are structurally very similar, and that the deadlock between them stems from the fac…Read more
  •  6
    The Theory and Practice of Ontology (edited book)
    Palgrave Macmillian. 2016.
    This book provides close examination of ontology and the work of Professor Barry Smith, one of the most prolific philosophers of the modern day. In this book numerous scholars who have collaborated with Smith explore the various disciplines in which the impact of his work has been felt over the breadth of his career, including biology, computer science and informatics, cognitive science, economics, genetics, geography, law, neurology, and philosophy itself. While offering in-depth perspectives o…Read more
  •  5
    Figuring Things Out, Morally Speaking
    Philosophy 96 (4): 553-576. 2021.
    The appeal of the moral principle according to which we should treat like cases alike is so great that it verges on the axiomatic, or on the platitudinous. Recently, however, the principle has been challenged in deeply interesting ways. These ways are interesting because they do not invite skepticism about morality at large, but about the specific claim that what is good (or bad) for an agent in a given situation must be good (or bad) for any other similarly situated agent. I here assess the pos…Read more
  •  5
    The Construction of Social Reality (review)
    Grazer Philosophische Studien 54 (1): 230-232. 1998.