•  631
    Cosmopolitanism and unipolarity: the theory of hegemonic transition
    Critical Review of International Social and Political Philosophy 26 (2). 2020.
    Cosmopolitans typically argue that the realization of cosmopolitan ideals requires the creation of global political institutions of some kind. While the precise nature of the necessary institutions is widely discussed, the problem of the transition to such an order has received less attention. In this paper, we address what we take to be a crucial aspect of the problem of transition: we argue that it involves a moral coordination problem because there are several morally equivalent paths to refo…Read more
  •  82
    How does the difference principle make a difference?
    Res Publica 16 (3): 263-280. 2010.
    The paper examines the relationship between the two parts of Rawls’ second principle of justice. More specifically, it explores the ways in which the Difference Principle (DP) may constrain the range of acceptable social arrangements in light of the stated lexical priority of the requirement of fair equality of opportunity (FEO) over the DP. The paper discusses two possibilities. First, it examines the role the DP may play within an institutional scheme that satisfies the requirement of FEO. Sec…Read more
  •  61
    The problem of equal moral status
    Politics, Philosophy and Economics 21 (4): 372-392. 2022.
    A central puzzle of contemporary moral and political philosophy is that while most of us believe that all or almost all human beings enjoy the same moral status, human beings possess the capacities that supposedly ground moral status to very unequal levels. This paper aims to develop a novel strategy to vindicate the idea of moral equality against this challenge. Its central argument is that the puzzle emerges only if one accepts a usually unstated theoretical premise about value and the proper …Read more
  •  51
    Disagreement and Legitimacy
    Res Publica 20 (1): 1-8. 2014.
    Disagreement in politics is ubiquitous. People disagree about what makes a life worthy or well-lived. They disagree about what they owe to each other in terms of justice. They also disagree about the proper manner of dealing with the consequences of disagreement. What is more, they disagree about the normative significance of moral and political disagreement. Disagreement has been, for at least three decades now, the focus of a series of major works in political philosophy. It has been called on…Read more
  •  51
    Against the Principle of All-Affected Interests
    Social Theory and Practice 38 (3): 483-503. 2012.
    The paper examines the so-called principle of all-affected interests (PAAI), which holds that political decisions ought to be made in such a manner that all those whose interests are affected by them have appropriate opportunity to participate in them. In conjunction with factual observations regarding global economic interdependence, the PAAI is frequently proposed as the normative premise of arguments for global democracy. The paper argues that these arguments underspecify the supposed wrong o…Read more
  •  48
    Compliance with Just Institutions
    Social Theory and Practice 34 (2): 183-207. 2008.
  •  48
    This paper argues that there is a tension between two central features of Dworkin’s partnership conception of democracy. The conception holds, on the one hand, that it is a necessary condition of the legitimacy of the decisions of a political majority that every member of the political community has a very robust right to publicly criticize those decisions. A plausible interpretation of this argument is that free political speech constitutes a normatively privileged vehicle for political minorit…Read more
  •  45
    Varieties of Relational Egalitarianism
    In David Sobel, Steven Wall & Peter Vallentyne (eds.), Oxford Studies in Political Philosophy, Oxford University Press. pp. 110-136. 2018.
    This chapter explores the relational critique of distributive conceptions of justice, according to which the proper focus of egalitarian justice is the egalitarian nature of social relations rather than the equal distribution of certain goods. It maintains that the relational critique constitutes a fundamental challenge to distributive egalitarianism only if it rejects the “core distributive thesis” that holds that the distribution of some nonrelational goods has relation-independent significanc…Read more
  •  12
    Association, property, territory: What is at stake in immigration?
    Filozofija I Društvo 28 (1): 53-73. 2017.
    It is often claimed that states have territorial rights, and that these rights include the right to exclude people who seek admission to their territory. In this paper I will examine whether the most defensible account of territorial rights can provide support to the right to exclude. I will discuss three types of theories of territorial rights. The first account links the right of states to exclude to the prior right of individuals to freedom of association, which is said to include the right n…Read more
  •  6
    Immigration and the Democratic Stability Argument
    Moral Philosophy and Politics 3 (2). 2016.
  •  5
    Collective responsibility and the scope of justice
    Ethics and Global Politics 9 (1): 30541. 2016.
  •  4
    Reconsidering the Capacity Principle
    Analysis 84 (1): 122-131. 2024.
    Avia Pasternak’s admirably clearly and tightly argued book defends four broad theses. First, it argues that contemporary states are appropriately regarded as co.
  •  3
    Compliance with Just Institutions
    Social Theory and Practice 34 (2): 183-207. 2008.