•  17
    In this paper, I argue that participation in face-to-face social groups can make a crucial contribution to the inclusion of strangers into the social life of liberal democratic polities. First, I critically assess Alfred Schutz’s (1964) phenomenological analysis of “The Stranger” within the context of his overall conceptionof the “life-world.” I then argue that linguistic communication can only enable a partial integration of strangers into an alien group. This is due, I claim, to whatSchutz cal…Read more
  •  39
    Is our moral cognition “colored” by the language(s) that we speak? Despite the centrality of language to political life and agency, limited attempts have been made thus far in contemporary political philosophy to consider this possibility. We therefore set out to explore the possible influence of linguistic relativity effects on political thinking in linguistically diverse societies. We begin by introducing the facts and fallacies of the “linguistic relativity” principle, and explore the various…Read more
  •  17
    In this paper, I argue that participation in face-to-face social groups can make a crucial contribution to the inclusion of strangers into the social life of liberal democratic polities. First, I critically assess Alfred Schutz’s (1964) phenomenological analysis of “The Stranger” within the context of his overall conceptionof the “life-world.” I then argue that linguistic communication can only enable a partial integration of strangers into an alien group. This is due, I claim, to whatSchutz cal…Read more
  •  41
    Legislating about Unhealthy Food: A Millian Approach
    Ethical Perspectives 20 (4): 555-589. 2013.
    Tackling food-related health conditions is becoming one of the most pressing issues in the policy agendas of western liberal democratic governments. In this article, I intend to illustrate what the liberal philosopher John Stuart Mill would have said about legislation on unhealthy food and I focus especially on the arguments advanced by Mill in his classic essay On Liberty. Mill is normally considered as the archetype of liberal anti-paternalism and his ideas are often invoked by those who oppos…Read more
  •  41
    Food Labels, Autonomy, and the Right to Know
    Kennedy Institute of Ethics Journal 24 (4): 301-321. 2014.
    The Italian government recently criticized the UK’s “traffic light” food labelling system for unfairly discriminating against some traditional Italian foods such as mozzarella, Parma ham, and Parmesan cheese . This type of labelling highlights the percentages of fat, saturated fat, salt, sugar, and calories of each food and classifies them by using red, amber, and green colors depending on the level of each nutrient. While it is true that some Italian foods do contain a high level of fat or salt…Read more
  •  143
    Political parties have only recently become a subject of investigation in political theory. In this paper I analyse religious political parties in the context of John Rawls’s political liberalism. Rawlsian political liberalism, I argue, overly constrains the scope of democratic political contestation and especially for the kind of contestation channelled by parties. This restriction imposed upon political contestation risks undermining democracy and the development of the kind of democratic etho…Read more
  •  50
    Are Healthy Eating Policies Consistent with Public Reason?
    Journal of Applied Philosophy 36 (3): 506-522. 2019.
    States are increasingly implementing policies aimed at changing people's dietary habits, such as fat taxes, food bans, and nudges. In this article, we ask whether healthy eating policies are consistent with public reason, the view that state laws and policies should be justified on the basis of reasons that all citizens can accept at some level of idealisation despite their different conceptions of the good. What we intend to explore is an ‘if…, then…’ line of thought: if one is committed to pub…Read more
  •  30
    Deliberative perfectionism: Why we can and should talk about the good
    Philosophy and Social Criticism 41 (7): 637-653. 2015.
    In contemporary political theory, perfectionists believe that the state should promote substantive conceptions of the good through its legislation. Supporters of neutrality, instead, claim that the state should refrain from doing so. In this article I analyse perfectionism in relation to Jürgen Habermas’ theory of discourse and deliberative politics and critique Habermas’ distinction between ‘ethical’ and ‘moral’ discourses. By relating Habermas’ theory to George Sher’s account of perfectionism,…Read more
  •  49
    Partisanship and public reason
    Critical Review of International Social and Political Philosophy 17 (3): 314-331. 2014.
  •  24
    Introduction: Parties, partisanship and political theory
    with Veit Bader
    Critical Review of International Social and Political Philosophy 17 (3): 253-266. 2014.
  •  30
    Politics against domination
    Contemporary Political Theory 17 (S3): 155-159. 2018.
  •  64
    Does John Rawls’s political liberalism require the institutional separation between state and religion or does it allow space for moderate forms of religious establishment? In this paper I address this question by presenting and critically evaluating Cécile Laborde’s recent claim that political liberalism is ‘inconclusive about the public place of religion’ and ‘indeterminate about the symbolic dimensions of the public place of religion’. In response to Cécile Laborde, I argue that neither moder…Read more
  •  83
    Political liberalism, free speech and public reason
    European Journal of Political Theory 14 (2): 180-208. 2015.
    In this paper, I critically assess John Rawls' repeated claim that the duty of civility is only a moral duty and should not be enforced by law. In the first part of the paper, I examine and reject the view that Rawls' position may be due to the practical difficulties that the legal enforcement of the duty of civility might entail. I thus claim that Rawls' position must be driven by deeper normative reasons grounded in a conception of free speech. In the second part of the paper, I therefore exam…Read more
  •  37
    Integrating Strangers into the Mainstream Society: A Phenomenological Perspective
    Schutzian Research. A Yearbook of Worldly Phenomenology and Qualitative Social Science 5 (2013): 23-36. 2013.
    In this paper, I argue that participation in face-to-face social groups can make a crucial contribution to the inclusion of strangers into the social life of liberal democratic polities. First, I critically assess Alfred Schutz’s phenomenological analysis of “The Stranger” within the context of his overall conceptionof the “life-world.” I then argue that linguistic communication can only enable a partial integration of strangers into an alien group. This is due, I claim, to whatSchutz calls the …Read more