•  205
    Inclusive dignity
    Politics, Philosophy and Economics 23 (1): 22-46. 2024.
    The idea of dignity is pervasive in political discourse. It is central to human rights theory and practice, and it features regularly in conceptions of social justice as well as in the social movements they seek to understand or orient. However, dignity talk has been criticized for leading to problematic exclusion. Critics challenge it for undermining our recognition of the rights of non-human animals and of many human individuals (such as children, the elderly, and people with disabilities). I …Read more
  •  463
    Self-esteem and competition
    Philosophy and Social Criticism 49 (6): 711-742. 2023.
    This paper explores the relations between self-esteem and competition. Self-esteem is a very important good and competition is a widespread phenomenon. They are commonly linked, as people often seek self-esteem through success in competition. Although competition in fact generates valuable consequences and can to some extent foster self-esteem, empirical research suggests that competition has a strong tendency to undermine self-esteem. To be sure, competition is not the source of all problematic…Read more
  •  40
    Human Dignity and Social Justice
    Oxford University Press. 2023.
    Human dignity: social movements invoke it, several national constitutions enshrine it, and it features prominently in international human rights documents. But what is it, why is it important, and what is its relationship to human rights and social justice? Pablo Gilabert offers a systematic defence of the view that human dignity is the moral heart of justice. In Human Dignity and Human Rights (OUP 2019), he advanced an account of human dignity for the context of human rights discourse, which co…Read more
  •  29
    Defending human dignity and human rights
    Journal of Global Ethics 16 (3): 326-342. 2020.
    I am very grateful to Christian Barry, Michael Blake, Adam Etinson, and Cristina Lafont for their essays on Human Dignity and Human Rights.1 I admire and have learnt from their own philosophical wo...
  •  10
    Précis of Human Dignity and Human Rights
    Journal of Global Ethics 16 (3): 283-287. 2020.
    ABSTRACT This précis offers a summary of key claims in my book Human Dignity and Human Rights.
  •  538
    Perfectionism and Dignity
    European Journal of Philosophy 30 (1): 259-278. 2022.
    Perfectionism about well-being is, at a minimum, the view that people’s lives go well when, and because they realize their capacities. It is common to link perfectionism with an idea of human essence or nature, to yield the view that what constitutes people’s well-being is the development and exercise of characteristically human capacities. The first part of this paper considers the very serious problems associated with the idea of human nature or essence, and argues that perfectionism would be …Read more
  •  213
    The two principles of justice (in justice as fairness)
    In Jon Mandle and David Reidy (ed.), The Cambridge Rawls Lexicon, Cambridge University Press. pp. 845-850. 2015.
  •  117
    Amartya Sen
    In Jon Mandle and David Reidy (ed.), The Cambridge Rawls Lexicon, Cambridge University Press. pp. 765-767. 2015.
  •  110
    Fundamental Ideas
    In Jon Mandle and David Reidy (ed.), The Cambridge Rawls Lexicon, Cambridge University Press. pp. 306-307. 2015.
  •  604
    Alienation, Freedom, and Dignity
    Philosophical Topics 48 (2): 51-80. 2020.
    The topic of alienation has fallen out of fashion in social and political philosophy. It used to be salient, especially in socialist thought and in debates about labor practices in capitalism. Although the lack of identification of people with their working lives—their alienation as workers—remains practically important, normative engagement with it has been set back by at least four objections. They concern the problems of essentialist views, a mishandling of the distinction between the good an…Read more
  •  358
    Exploitation, Solidarity, and Dignity
    Journal of Social Philosophy 50 (4): 465-494. 2019.
    This paper offers a normative exploration of what exploitation is and of what is wrong with it. The focus is on the critical assessment of the exploitation of workers in capitalist societies. Such exploitation is wrongful when it involves a contra-solidaristic use of power to benefit oneself at the expense of others. Wrongful exploitation consists in using your greater power, and sometimes even in making other less powerful than you, in order to get them to benefit you more than they ought to. T…Read more
  •  134
    Human Dignity and Human Rights
    Oxford University Press. 2019.
    Human dignity: social movements invoke it, several national constitutions enshrine it, and it features prominently in international human rights documents. But what is human dignity, why is it important, and what is its relationship to human rights? This book offers a sophisticated and comprehensive defence of the view that human dignity is the moral heart of human rights. First, it clarifies the network of concepts associated with dignity. Paramount within this network is a core notion of human…Read more
  •  52
    Facts, norms, and dignity
    Critical Review of International Social and Political Philosophy 22 (1): 34-54. 2019.
  •  417
    A Broad Definition of Agential Power
    Journal of Political Power 11 (1): 79-92. 2018.
    Can we develop a definition of power that is satisfactorily determinate but also enables rather than foreclose important substantive debates about how power relations proceed and should proceed in social and political life? I present a broad definition of agential power that meets these desiderata. On this account, agents have power with respect to a certain outcome (including, inter alia, the shaping of certain social relations) to the extent that they can voluntarily determine whether that out…Read more
  •  30
    An intellectual laboratory for the democratic and cosmopolitan left
    Philosophy and Social Criticism 43 (3): 329-330. 2017.
  •  2147
    Kantian Dignity and Marxian Socialism
    Kantian Review 22 (4): 553-577. 2017.
    This paper offers an account of human dignity based on a discussion of Kant's moral and political philosophy and then shows its relevance for articulating and developing in a fresh way some normative dimensions of Marx’s critique of capitalism as involving exploitation, domination, and alienation, and the view of socialism as involving a combination of freedom and solidarity. What is advanced here is not Kant’s own conception of dignity, but an account that partly builds on that conception and p…Read more
  •  1331
    Dignity at Work
    In Hugh Collins, Gillian Lester & Virginia Mantouvalou (eds.), Philosophical Foundations of Labour Law, Oxford University Press. pp. 68-86. 2018.
    This paper offers a justification of labor rights based on an interpretation of the idea of human dignity. According to the dignitarian approach, we have reason to organize social life in such a way that we respond appropriately to the valuable capacities of human beings that give rise to their dignity. That dignity is a deontic status in virtue of which people are owed certain forms of respect and concern. Dignity at work involves the treatment of people in accordance to the ideal of solidarist…Read more
  •  73
    The substantive dimension of deliberative practical rationality
    Philosophy and Social Criticism 31 (2): 185-210. 2005.
    The aim of this paper is to propose a model for understanding the relation between substance and procedure in discourse ethics and deliberative democracy capable of answering the common charge that they involve an ‘empty formalism’. The expressive-elaboration model introduced here answers this concern by arguing that the deliberative practical rationality presupposed by discourse ethics and deliberative democracy involves the creation of a practical medium in which certain general basic ideas of…Read more
  •  190
    Response to my Critics
    Les ateliers de l'éthique/The Ethics Forum 8 (2): 121-132. 2013.
  •  154
    Is There a Human Right to Democracy? A Response to Joshua Cohen
    Revista Latinoamericana de Filosofía Política 1 (2): 1-37. 2012.
    Is democracy a human right? There is a growing consensus within international legal and political practice that the answer is “Yes.” However, some philosophers doubt that we should see democracy as a human right. In this paper I respond to the most systematic challenge presented so far, which was recently offered by Joshua Cohen. His challenge is directed to the view that democracy is a human right, not to the view that democracy is part of what justice demands. It is instructive because it forc…Read more
  •  596
    Humanist and Political Perspectives on Human Rights
    Political Theory 39 (4): 439-467. 2011.
    This essay explores the relation between two perspectives on the nature of human rights. According to the "political" or "practical" perspective, human rights are claims that individuals have against certain institutional structures, in particular modern states, in virtue of interests they have in contexts that include them. According to the more traditional "humanist" or "naturalistic" perspective, human rights are pre-institutional claims that individuals have against all other individuals in …Read more
  • Comentario Bibliografico (review)
    Revista Latinoamericana de Filosofia 32 (1): 114-119. 2006.
  •  50
    Lectures on the History of Political Philosophy (review)
    with Roberto Gargarella
    Social Theory and Practice 34 (4): 640-647. 2008.
  •  478
    The duty to eradicate global poverty: Positive or negative?
    Ethical Theory and Moral Practice 7 (5): 537-550. 2005.
    In World Poverty and Human Rights, Thomas Pogge argues that the global rich have a duty to eradicate severe poverty in the world. The novelty of Pogges approach is to present this demand as stemming from basic commands which are negative rather than positive in nature: the global rich have an obligation to eradicate the radical poverty of the global poor not because of a norm of beneficence asking them to help those in need when they can at little cost to themselves, but because of their having …Read more
  •  3732
    Reflections on Human Rights and Power
    In Adam Etinson (ed.), Human Rights: Moral or Political?, Oxford University Press. pp. 375-399. 2018.
    Human rights are particularly relevant in contexts in which there are significant asymmetries of power, but where these asymmetries exist the human rights project turns out to be especially difficult to realize. The stronger can use their disproportionate power both to threaten others’ human rights and to frustrate attempts to secure their fulfillment. They may even monopolize the international discussion as to what human rights are and how they should be implemented. This paper explores this te…Read more