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3260The Goods of Work (Other Than Money!)Journal of Social Philosophy 47 (1): 70-89. 2016.The evaluation of labour markets and of particular jobs ought to be sensitive to a plurality of benefits and burdens of work. We use the term 'the goods of work' to refer to those benefits of work that cannot be obtained in exchange for money and that can be enjoyed mostly or exclusively in the context of work. Drawing on empirical research and various philosophical traditions of thinking about work we identify four goods of work: 1) attaining various types of excellence; 2) making a social cont…Read more
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1793An ethical framework for global vaccine allocationScience 1. 2020.In this article, we propose the Fair Priority Model for COVID-19 vaccine distribution, and emphasize three fundamental values we believe should be considered when distributing a COVID-19 vaccine among countries: Benefiting people and limiting harm, prioritizing the disadvantaged, and equal moral concern for all individuals. The Priority Model addresses these values by focusing on mitigating three types of harms caused by COVID-19: death and permanent organ damage, indirect health consequences, s…Read more
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584What are the obligations of pharmaceutical companies in a global health emergency?Lancet 398 (10304): 1015. 2021.All parties involved in researching, developing, manufacturing, and distributing COVID-19 vaccines need guidance on their ethical obligations. We focus on pharmaceutical companies' obligations because their capacities to research, develop, manufacture, and distribute vaccines make them uniquely placed for stemming the pandemic. We argue that an ethical approach to COVID-19 vaccine production and distribution should satisfy four uncontroversial principles: optimising vaccine production, including…Read more
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418Wer sind wir, wenn wir arbeiten? Soziale Identität im Markt bei Smith und HegelDeutsche Zeitschrift für Philosophie 59 (6): 835-852. 2011.This article examines the ways in which Adam Smith and G. W. F Hegel conceptualize the identity of workers in a market economy. Although both see human beings as shaped in and through social rela- tionships, the relation between the worker and his work is seen in different ways. For Smith, workers “have” human capital, while for Hegel workers “are” brewers, butchers or bakers;; their profession is part of their identity. This conceptual difference, which is reflected in different “varieties of c…Read more
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223Workplace democracy—The recent debatePhilosophy Compass 14 (4). 2019.The article reviews the recent debate about workplace democracy. It first presents and critically discusses arguments in favor of democratizing the firm that are based on the analogy with states, meaningful work, the avoidance of unjustified hierarchies, and beneficial effects on political democracy. The second part presents and critically discusses arguments against workplace democracy that are based on considerations of efficiency, the difficulties of a transition towards democratic firms, and…Read more
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214Obligations in a global health emergency - Authors’ replyLancet 398 (10316): 2072. 2021.In response to commentators, we argue that whether waiving patent rights will meaningfully improve access to COVID-19 vaccines for low income and middle-income countries (LMICs), particularly in the short term, is an empirical matter. We also reject preferentially allocating vaccines to countries that hosted trials because doing so unethically favours those with research infrastructure, rather than those facing the worst burdens from COVID-19.
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175Philosophy of money and financeIn Peter Adamson (ed.), Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. 2012.
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162What Could Be Wrong with a Mortgage? Private Debt Markets from a Perspective of Structural InjusticeJournal of Political Philosophy 25 (4): 411-434. 2016.In many Western capitalist economies, private indebtedness is pervasive, but it has received little attention from political philosophers. Economic theory emphasizes the liberating potential of debt contracts, but its picture is based on assumptions that do not always hold, especially when there is a background of structural injustice. Private debt contracts are likely to miss their liberating potential if there is deception or lack of information, if there is insufficient access to (regular for…Read more
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141MarketsStanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy 2013. forthcoming.This article presents the most important strands of the philosophical debate about markets. It offers some distinctions between the concept of markets and related concepts, as well as a brief outline of historical positions vis-à-vis markets. The main focus is on presenting the most common arguments for and against markets, and on analyzing the ways in which markets are related to other social institutions. In the concluding section questions about markets are connected to two related themes, me…Read more
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121Cook Ding meets homo oeconomicus: Contrasting Daoist and economistic imaginaries of workCritical Review of International Social and Political Philosophy. 2024.In this paper, we attempt to de-naturalize the prevailing economistic imaginary of work that Max Weber and later commentators described as ‘protestant work ethic,’ epitomized in the figure of homo economicus. We do so by contrasting it with the imaginary of skillful work that can be found in vignettes about artisans in the Zhuangzi. We argue that there are interesting contrasts between these views concerning 1) direct goal achievement vs. indirect goal achievement through the cultivation of skil…Read more
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101Adam Smith on Markets and JusticePhilosophy Compass 9 (12): 864-875. 2014.This paper discusses Adam Smith's views of social justice. It first describes Smith's optimistic view of markets, for example with regard to the absence of negative externalities, which implies that he considered certain normative problems to be the exception rather than the rule. Then, Smith's views on redistribution are discussed: although he is sympathetic to progressive taxation, his main focus remains on free markets, which can partly be explained by his distrust of politicians. If one take…Read more
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100Why economic agency matters: An account of structural domination in the economic realmEuropean Journal of Political Theory 20 (3): 465-485. 2019.Authors like Iris Young and Philip Pettit have come up with proposals for theorizing ‘structural injustice’ and social relations marred by ‘domination’. These authors provide conceptual tools for f...
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100Ideal and Non‐ideal Theory and the Problem of KnowledgeJournal of Applied Philosophy 29 (4): 271-288. 2012.This article analyses a hitherto neglected problem at the transition from ideal to non‐ideal theory: the problem of knowledge. Ideal theories often make idealising assumptions about the availability of knowledge, for example knowledge of social scientific facts. This can lead to problems when this knowledge turns out not to be available at the non‐ideal level. Knowledge can be unavailable in a number of ways: in principle, for practical reasons, or because there are normative reasons not to use …Read more
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81Distributive Justice, Feasibility Gridlocks, and the Harmfulness of Economic IdeologyEthical Theory and Moral Practice 18 (5): 957-969. 2015.Many political theorists think about how to make societies more just. In recent years, with interests shifting from principles to their institutional realization, there has been much debate about feasibility and the role it should play in theorizing. What has been underexplored, however, is how feasibility depends on the attitudes and perceptions of individuals, not only with regard to their own behaviour, but also with regard to the behaviour of others. This can create coordination problems, wh…Read more
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73The modern social contract traditionIn Christopher Luetege (ed.), Handbook of the Philosophical Foundations of Business Ethics, Springer. pp. 631--645. 2013.This chapter discusses central strands of the modern social contract tradition. Distinguishing between moral and political theories on the one hand and contractualist and contractarian theories on the other, it presents one example of each of the ensuing categories: Gauthier’s moral contractarianism, Buchanan’s political contractarianism, Scanlon’s moral contractualism, and Rawls’ political contractualism. In the conclusion, strengths and weaknesses of social contract theories are discussed.
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70Higher and lower virtues in commercial society: Adam Smith and motivation crowding outPolitics, Philosophy and Economics 10 (4): 370-395. 2011.Motivation crowding out can lead to a reduction of ‘higher’ virtues, such as altruism or public spirit, in market contexts. This article discusses the role of virtue in the moral and economic theory of Adam Smith. It argues that because Smith’s account of commercial society is based on ‘lower’ virtue, ‘higher’ virtue has a precarious place in it; this phenomenon is structurally similar to motivation crowding out. The article analyzes and systematizes the ways in which Smith builds on ‘contrivanc…Read more
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65Inventing the Market: Smith, Hegel, and Political TheoryOxford University Press. 2013.Inventing the Market explores two paradigms of the market in the thought of Adam Smith and G.W.F. Hegel, bridging the gap between economics and philosophy, it shows that both disciplines can profit from a broader, more historically situated ...
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64Making Power ExplicitSocial Theory and Practice 47 (2): 221-246. 2021.In this paper we argue that liberal-egalitarian theorists of justice should take power, especially economic power, seriously and make it explicit. We argue that many theories of justice have left power implicit, relying on what we call the “primacy of politics” model as a background assumption. However, this model does not suffice to capture the power relations of today’s globalized world, in which the power of nation states has been reduced and material inequality has sky-rocketed. We suggest r…Read more
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62Citizens' Autonomy and Corporate Cultural PowerJournal of Social Philosophy 51 (2): 205-230. 2020.Journal of Social Philosophy, EarlyView.
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53Adam Smith’s Account of Justice Between Naturalness and HistoricityJournal of the History of Philosophy 52 (4): 703-726. 2014.adam smith1 is often taken to be an heir to the natural jurisprudence tradition, to which he explicitly refers in several places in his oeuvre.2 He combines it with an account of the moral sentiments, in which he sees the origin of morality and justice.3 The moral sentiments, as explored in The Theory of Moral Sentiments, are the basis for justice, which, embodied in positive law, is the framework for commercial society, the economy of which Smith explores in the Wealth of Nations. in this sense…Read more
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52Internalized Moral Identity in Ethical LeadershipJournal of Business Ethics 133 (2): 249-260. 2016.The relevance of leader ethicality has moti- vated ethical leadership theory. In this paper, we emphasize the importance of moral identity for the concept of ethical leadership. We relate ethical leadership incorporating an internalized moral identity to productive deviant workplace behavior. Using qualitative empirical data we illustrate the relevance of critical situations, i.e., situations in which hypernorms and organizational norms diverge, for the distinction of ethical leaders with or wit…Read more
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52The Community of Commerce: Smith's Rhetoric of Sympathy in the Opening of the Wealth of NationsPhilosophy and Rhetoric 46 (1): 65-87. 2013.In the late 1740s a young man who had just returned from Oxford to his native Scotland gave a series of lectures on rhetoric and belles lettres in Edinburgh. This man was no other than Adam Smith, who would soon become famous for his writings about moral philosophy and, most of all, economic issues. Smith the moral philosopher and Smith the economist quickly overshadowed Smith the theoretician of rhetoric. Even in today’s scholarly perception the curious fact that the founder of economics made h…Read more
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51Harry G. Frankfurt, On Inequality. Princeton and Oxford: Princeton University Press, 2015Ethical Theory and Moral Practice 19 (3): 823-825. 2016.This is a book review. Summary: I'm not a fan.
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50Professional Ethics in Banking and the Logic of “Integrated Situations”: Aligning Responsibilities, Recognition, and IncentivesJournal of Business Ethics 156 (2): 531-543. 2019.The paper develops a responsibility-based account of professional ethics in banking. From this perspective, bankers have duties not only toward clients—the traditional focus of professional ethics—but also regarding the prevention of systemic harms to whole societies. When trying to fulfill these duties, bankers have to meet three challenges: epistemic challenges, motivational challenges, and a coordination challenge. These challenges can best be met by a combination of regulation and ethics tha…Read more
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50‘But it’s your job!’ the moral status of jobs and the dilemma of occupational dutiesCritical Review of International Social and Political Philosophy. forthcoming.
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48Urban–rural justiceJournal of Political Philosophy 31 (2): 233-253. 2023.Journal of Political Philosophy, EarlyView.
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48Global reserve currencies from the perspective of structural global justice: distribution and dominationCritical Review of International Social and Political Philosophy 24 (7): 931-953. 2021.This paper discusses global reserve currencies from the perspective of structural global justice. Drawing on notions of structural justice and background justice, it suggests that the structures of global finance, by creating positions of privilege and disadvantage, can lead to injustices both with regard to distributive outcomes and with regard to domination. While the role of the dollar and Euro as global reserve currencies are not the only factors that contribute to these structural injustice…Read more
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46Is the privatization of state functions always, and only intrinsically_, wrong? On Chiara Cordelli’s _The Privatized StateEuropean Journal of Political Theory 22 (4): 657-665. 2023.The legitimacy of putting public activities – such as providing education and welfare, but also running prisons or providing military services – into the hands of private companies is hotly contested. In The Privatized State, Chiara Cordelli puts forward an original argument, from a Kantian perspective, for why it is problematic: it replaces the omnilateral will of all citizens, which is realized through public institutions, with the unilateral will of agents to whom these activities have been d…Read more
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45Just Wages in Which Markets?Erasmus Journal for Philosophy and Economics 11 (2): 105-123. 2018.Joseph Heath argues that we should reject the idea of a ‘just wage’ because market prices are supposed to signal scarcities and thereby to promote overall efficiency, rather than reward contributions. This argument overlooks the degree to which markets are institutionally, socially, and culturally embedded. Their outcomes are hardly ever ‘pure’ market outcomes, but the result of complex interactions of economic and other factors, including various forms of power. Instead of rejecting moral intui…Read more
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42Debates about justice in political philosophy often ask which distributive end state is normatively desirable. The economic mechanisms that generate the ‘pie’ that is to be distributed are usually left unexplored. Mark R. Reiff’s new book, in contrast, asks what justice means within economic processes, and how changes in the framework of the economy could lead to more justice, including justice in the distributive sense. As such, Reiff’s account is in a line with other recent accounts such as Di…Read more
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University of GroningenAssociate Professor
University of Oxford
DPhil, 2011
Areas of Specialization
Social and Political Philosophy |
Areas of Interest
Normative Ethics |
Social and Political Philosophy |
19th Century Philosophy |