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180The Agonies of Liberalism: Wallerstein on the Rise and Fall of Liberal IdeologyIn Patrick Hayden & Chamsy el-Ojeili (eds.), Anthem Companion to Immanuel Wallerstein, Anthem Press. pp. 83-102. 2023.This chapter interrogates the role that liberalism plays in Immanuel Wallerstein’s grand and sweeping narrative of modern history. From liberalism’s beginnings as an ideological response to the French Revolution in 1789, to its apotheosis in the global hegemony of the USA after the Second World War, to its final dissolution in the collapse of Soviet communism, liberalism is the analytical thread that animates Wallerstein’s World-Systems Analysis of the modern period. The chapter examines the ide…Read more
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148The Vices of Love and Rawlsian JusticeIn Roberto Luppi (ed.), John Rawls and the Common Good, Routledge. pp. 122-139. 2021.For Rawls, the demands of justice compete with moral and religious obligations that are part of citizens’ comprehensive doctrines. The ways we love are shaped by our comprehensive doctrines; however, love can also stand in opposition to our moral and religious beliefs. I will argue that love – spousal, familial and associational – constitutes its own register of values along with its own set of obligations. For this reason love confronts not only our moral and religious beliefs, it also confron…Read more
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13Partial Contractarianism and Moral MotivationThe Paideia Archive: Twentieth World Congress of Philosophy 44 263-268. 1998.In this paper I argue that David Gauthier’s answer to the Why be moral? question fails. My argument concedes the possibility of constrained maximization in all the senses Gauthier intends and does not rely on the claim that it is better to masquerade as a constrained maximizer than to be one. Instead, I argue that once a constrained maximizer in the guise of "economic man" is transformed through an affective commitment to morality into a constrained maximizer in the guise of the "liberal individ…Read more
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22Unjust noiseEtikk I Praksis - Nordic Journal of Applied Ethics 2 (2): 85-100. 2009.In this paper I argue that noise is a significant source of social harm and thoseharmed by noise often suffer not merely a misfortune but an injustice. I arguethat noise is a problem of justice in two ways; firstly, noise is a burden of socialcooperation and so the question of the distribution of this burden arises. And,secondly, some noises, although burdensome, are nevertheless just becausethey arise from practices that are ‘reasonable’. I offer a number of distinctions,between necessary and u…Read more
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68Robert S. Taylor, Reconstructing Rawls: The Kantian Foundations of Justice as Fairness (University Park: The Pennsylvania State University Press, 2011), 360 pp. ISBN: 978-0271037714. $74.95 (hbk.) (review)Journal of Moral Philosophy 10 (6): 799-801. 2013.
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Freud on Justice: Supporting Illusions with ArgumentsStudies in Psychoanalytic Theory 4 29-47. 1995.
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17Not quite dead yet: a liberal response to Van HeerdenSouth African Journal of Philosophy 17 (4): 354-362. 1998.
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96The Authority of Love as Sentimental ContractEssays in Philosophy 12 (1): 7. 2011.This paper argues that the categorical authority of love’s imperatives is derived from a sentimental contract. The problem is defined and the paper argues against two recent attempts to explain the authority of love’s demands by Velleman and Frankfurt. An argument is then set out in which it is shown that a constructivist approach to the problem explains the sources of love’s justifications. The paper distinguishes between the moral and the romantic case but argues that the sources of authority …Read more
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123Back to the Rough Ground: Wittgenstein and Politics (review)Journal of International Political Theory 1 91-102. 2005.
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Review Essay: Martha's Pillow: Nussbaum on Justice and SexSocial Justice Research 15 (2): 185-200. 2002.
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Human Rights and DemocracyIn Patrick Hayden (ed.), The Ashgate Research Companion to Ethics and International Relations, Ashgate Publishing Company. 2009.
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236Global Justice and the Challenge of Radical PluralismTheoria 51 (104): 15-37. 2004.Political philosophy has been under the sway of a certain picture since Rawls's A Theory of Justice was published in 1971. This picture com- bines the idea that the problem of justice should be approached from the direction oi ideal normative theory, and that there are some anchor- ing ideas that secure the justificatory role of a hypothetical agreement. I think this picture and the hold it has over political philosophy is beginning to fragment. This fragmentation I think is most evident in the …Read more
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105Privacy and DemocracySouth African Journal of Philosophy 35 (3): 1-9. 2016.The meaning of privacy has been frequently disputed in the philosophical and legal literature since Warren and Brandeis first argued for it as a distinct and important personal and social value. Nevertheless, while the meaning of privacy is held to be vague, there is general agreement that Warren and Brandeis were correct in their assessment of its value. Theorists of democracy, on the other hand, have been ambivalent towards the realm of the private. This paper interrogates the intersection bet…Read more
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146What Do Liberal Democratic States Owe the Victims of Disasters? A Rawlsian AccountJournal of Applied Philosophy 33 (4): 396-410. 2015.Is there a principled way to understand what liberal democratic states owe, as a matter of justice, to the victims of disasters? This article shows what is normatively special and distinctive about disasters and argues for the view that there are substantial duties of justice for liberal democratic states. The article rejects both a libertarian and a utilitarian approach to this question and, based on broadly Rawlsian principles, argues for a ‘political definition’ of disasters that is concerned…Read more
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94Consuming the World: Hannah Arendt on Politics and the EnvironmentJournal of International Political Theory 9 (2): 178-193. 2013.What can Hannah Arendt's writings offer to current thinking on the environment? Although there are some obvious connections between her work and current issues in environmental ethics, not very much has been written on the topic. This article argues that Arendt's philosophy is particularly fruitful for environmental thinking because she explicitly links the material and biological conditions of human existence with the political conditions of human freedom. This is articulated in the article as …Read more
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27The true confessions of a white Rawlsian liberal: An argument for a capacities approach to democratic legitimacySouth African Journal of Philosophy 23 (2): 195-211. 2004.
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6Morality and AgreementLang. 2002.This book argues for moral contractarianism, the view that moral justification rests on the idea of agreement. It critically appraises the views of contemporary contractarians such as John Rawls, David Gauthier, and Thomas Scanlon. It argues for a theory of moral justification that is based on a hypothetical agreement of restricted scope between strangers in the circumstances of justice and that is bound by historical place and circumstance.
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32Nancy Fraser and Axel Honneth, Redistribution or Recognition? A Political-Philosophical Exchange (review)Journal of International Political Theory 1 215-217. 2005.
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Rawls's Difference Principle and a Problem of SacrificeIn Henry R. Richardson Paul J. Weithman (ed.), The Two Principles and their Justifications, . pp. 28-35. 1999.
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39Democracy and the Need for Normative ClosureInternational Journal of Applied Philosophy 29 (1): 153-163. 2015.The paper is a response to Russell Daylight’s “In the Name of Democracy”. I argue that Daylight’s postmodernist approach to the question of democracy is flawed in several respects. First, he interprets the claim that the meaning of democracy is open to entail that there can be no closure when democratic norms are in dispute. I argue that normative closure is not only essential but also necessary to democratic practice, in particular for democratic legitimacy. I reject the claim that normative cl…Read more
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2Unjust NoiseNordic Journal of Applied Ethics/Etikk I Praksis 3 (2): 85-100. 2009.In this paper I argue that noise is a significant source of social harm and those harmed by noise often suffer not merely a misfortune but an injustice. I argue that noise is a problem of justice in two ways; firstly, noise is a burden of social cooperation and so the question of the distribution of this burden arises. And, secondly, some noises, although burdensome, are nevertheless just because they arise from practices that are ‘reasonable’. I offer a number of distinctions, between necessary…Read more
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59Nancy Fraser and Axel Honneth, Redistribution or Recognition? A Political-Philosophical ExchangePolitics and Ethics Review 1 (2): 215. 2005.
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35Political Aesthetics by sartwell, crispinJournal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 69 (4): 434-436. 2011.
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65Back to the Rough Ground: Wittgenstein and PoliticsA review of Cressida Heyes ,The Grammar of Politics: Wittgenstein and Political PhilosophyPolitics and Ethics Review 1 (1): 91-102. 2005.
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45Rawls Explained: From Fairness to UtopiaOpen Court. 2011.IDEAS EXPLAINEDTM Daoism Explained, Hans-Georg Moeller Frege Explained, Joan Weiner Luhmann Explained, Hans-Georg Moeller Heidegger Explained, Graham Harman Atheism Explained, David Ramsay Steele Sartre Explained, ...
Areas of Specialization
Meta-Ethics |
Social and Political Philosophy |
Areas of Interest
Meta-Ethics |
Social and Political Philosophy |