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5Against Limiting OpportunityIn How to Make Opportunity Equal, Blackwell. 2007.This chapter contains section titled: Quantity of opportunity The Meritonia argument The practical argument Illustrating the practical argument The socialization principle The strong socialization principle Reply to the strong socialization principle I: Adam Smith Reply to the strong socialization principle II: Michael Walzer We should not limit opportunity.
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2Justice and MarketsIn How to Make Opportunity Equal, Blackwell. 2007.This chapter contains section titled: The conflict between the moral powers Market efficiency and justice From the point of view of market morality egalitarianism is unjust Markets without material incentives?
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2Transforming RelationshipsIn How to Make Opportunity Equal, Blackwell. 2007.This chapter contains section titled: Competitiveness Competition for social esteem Social comparison and self‐esteem in Franz Kafka's “The Judgment” Group identities, racism, and the struggle for a sense of self‐worth Amour‐propre in Rousseau Esteem and respect From competition to harmony Optimism revisited.
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5Are Some Born Smarter Than Others?In How to Make Opportunity Equal, Blackwell. 2007.This chapter contains section titled: Social structure, ideology, and the rationalization principle Are some born smarter than others? Rejecting ideology and rejecting the division of labor.
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6Opportunity for What? Defending the ConstellationIn How to Make Opportunity Equal, Blackwell. 2007.This chapter contains section titled: What makes life good? The good of developing and exercising complex abilities The good of contributing our abilities to a social group The good of thinking well of ourselves and being thought well of by others Why labor is important to self‐ and social esteem Why we think more highly of complex than of simple abilities How complex, challenging work enhances one's life; how routine labor damages it Is this an adequate defense of the constellation?
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3Can Everyone Be Esteemed?In How to Make Opportunity Equal, Blackwell. 2007.This chapter contains section titled: Opportunities of limited and unlimited supply Two sources of esteem Comparative and competitive Power and other sources of prestige Must positions of prestige be of limited supply? Dividing labor and limiting positions of prestige Self‐esteem and sub‐group norms of esteem Social unity: can social esteem be of unlimited supply?
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3Race and Political PhilosophyIn How to Make Opportunity Equal, Blackwell. 2007.This chapter contains section titled: Bringing issues of race and racism to the center of political philosophy Race, unequal opportunity, and the division of labor Capabilities and functionings Racism, opportunities, and capabilities Racism and other oppression Race, contribution, and political philosophy.
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8Egalitarianism of Opportunity and Other EgalitarianismsIn How to Make Opportunity Equal, Blackwell. 2007.This chapter contains section titled: Two egalitarian traditions What is an opportunity? Resources, capabilities, and commensurability Perfectionism and liberal egalitarianisms Why pay the costs of opportunities and provision of other goods? Egalitarianism of opportunity and the neoclassical tradition.
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FrontmatterIn How to Make Opportunity Equal, Blackwell. 2007.The prelims comprise: Half Title Title Copyright Contents Preface.
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11Contributive JusticeIn How to Make Opportunity Equal, Blackwell. 2007.This chapter contains section titled: Preamble to contributive justice Justice is about contribution A conception of contributive justice Can contribution be normatively motivated? Contributive justice and coercion Contributive norms are supportable Some problems A fuller theory Marxism, race, and opportunity.
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4Against Leveling the Playing FieldIn How to Make Opportunity Equal, Blackwell. 2007.This chapter contains section titled: Competitive opportunity Roemer on equal opportunity The fallacy of moralizing politics Why are we different from one another?
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4IndexIn How to Make Opportunity Equal, Blackwell. 2007.This chapter contains section titled: Why egalitarianism of opportunity is incompatible with Rawls's egalitarianism The difference principle and the functional theory of stratification Natural lottery of talents? What motivates us? The natural history of stratification Is inequality necessary?
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3Who Toils? Race, Equal Opportunity, and the Division of LaborIn How to Make Opportunity Equal, Blackwell. 2007.This chapter contains section titled: A radical proposal Some history Why our conception of equal opportunity changes Racism and the costs of unequal opportunity The social context of political philosophy Contributive justice Race and opportunity.
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260Workers without RightsSymposion: Theoretical and Applied Inquiries in Philosophy and Social Sciences 4 (1): 49-76. 2017.In the United States the Civil Rights Movement emerging after World War II ended Jim Crow racism, with its legal segregation and stigmatization of black people. Yet black people, both in chattel slavery and under Jim Crow, had provided abundant labor subject to racist terror; they were workers who could be recruited for work others were unwilling to do. What was to replace this labor, which had been the source of so much wealth and power? Three federal initiatives helped to create new workers wi…Read more
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21[Book review] marxism, 1844-1990, origins, betrayal, rebirth (review)Science and Society 58 (3): 364-367. 1994.
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15Morality and the Push for ResultsPhilosophy Research Archives 3 771-786. 1977.In "Freedom and Resentment" P.F. Strawson proposes that the dispute between compatibilists and incompatibilists can be resolved if we can identify what is missing in the compatibilist account of our morality, an account intended to reconcile determinism and moral responsibility. Strawson argues that our common morality requires us to take an involved attitude toward others. He says that compatibilist accounts of that morality suggest that we take an objective attitude toward others, which preclu…Read more
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13Are We Ever Right to Say We Know?Philosophy Research Archives 4 315-328. 1978.Austin tried to forstall skeptical conclusions from the alleged ever present possibility of error. He felt that knowledge did not preclude the possibility of error and that the appearance that it did was due to a pragmatic requirement of saying one knows. Moreover, he seemed to feel that we were often right to say we know even though it is always possible that we are mistaken. The present paper argues, contra Austin, that if it is always possible that we are mistaken, then the skeptic is right t…Read more
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45Review of N. Scott Arnold: Marx's Radical Critique of Capitalist Society: A Reconstruction and Critical Evaluation. (review)Ethics 102 (1): 171-172. 1991.
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8Review of Roger S. Gottlieb: Marxism 1844-1990: Origins, Betrayal, Rebirth. (review)Ethics 106 (4): 882-885. 1996.
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14Workers without RightsSymposion. Theoretical and Applied Inquiries in Philosophy and Social Sciences. forthcoming.Paul Gomberg ABSTRACT: In the United States the Civil Rights Movement emerging after World War II ended Jim Crow racism, with its legal segregation and stigmatization of black people. Yet black people, both in chattel slavery and under Jim Crow, had provided abundant labor subject to racist terror; they were workers who could be recruited...
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3Review of N. Scott Arnold: Marx's Radical Critique of Capitalist Society: A Reconstruction and Critical Evaluation. (review)Ethics 102 (1): 171-172. 1991.
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4Universalism and optimismIn Peter Singer (ed.), Ethics, Oxford University Press. pp. 104--3. 1994.
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42How Morality Works and Why It Fails: On Political Philosophy and Moral ConsensusJournal of Social Philosophy 28 (3): 43-70. 1997.
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31The Fallacy Of PhilanthropyCanadian Journal of Philosophy 32 (1): 29-65. 2002.Should we stop spending money on things we do not really need and send the money instead to groups that aid victims of absolute poverty? Garrett Cullity and Peter Unger have given renewed vigor to the well known argument by Peter Singer that we should do this. Like Singer, Cullity and Unger compare our duties to the poor to our duties when we encounter a victim of calamity, such as a child in danger of drowning. Singer and Unger tell us what to do and why we must do it; most starkly, Unger gives…Read more
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832Abortion and the Morality of NurturanceCanadian Journal of Philosophy 21 (4). 1991.Most discussion of the morality of abortion assume the central issue is whether the fetus is a person. I disagree. The central issue is better understood as whether the fetus is one's *baby* whom one has a duty to nurture (babies need not be persons). Understanding the central issue as centering on duties to nurture one's children allows us better to understand both liberal and conservative views about abortion.
Davis, California, United States of America
Areas of Specialization
Social and Political Philosophy |
Philosophy of Gender, Race, and Sexuality |
Areas of Interest
Applied Ethics |
Meta-Ethics |
Normative Ethics |