Justice

Persistent injustice in modern societies is commonly attributed to moral failure, deficient values, or corrupt leadership. This paper argues that such diagnoses are incomplete. Injustice endures even within morally coherent systems because its primary drivers are non-moral and structural. As embodied beings embedded in a finite world, humans possess an ineradicable acquisitive drive oriented toward survival. When combined with abstract cognition—comparison, symbolic accumulation, and future projection—this baseline greed becomes unbounded and increasingly decoupled from immediate feedback. Justice is therefore not primarily (...) constrained by moral intention or institutional design, but by limits of recognition and correction under scale. Small communities can sustain high levels of justice through direct visibility and rapid feedback, yet these conditions degrade nonlinearly as systems scale and abstraction replaces proximity. The paper reframes justice not as a solvable governance problem, but as a containment problem governed by scale-relative legibility and attentional limits. Injustice persists not because moral systems fail, but because recognition cannot scale as power does. (shrink)

Este ensayo propone el concepto de socialismo cultural como categoría analítica para describir la interiorización de axiomas y premisas estatistas en sociedades contemporáneas, con independencia de la etiqueta ideológica que los sujetos declaren. Mediante un paralelismo con la figura del “ateo católico” término acuñado por Gustavo Bueno, y apoyándose en la definición praxeológica de socialismo de Jesús Huerta de Soto como agresión institucional sistemática contra el libre ejercicio de la función empresarial o acción humana, se sostiene que gran parte del (...) debate público ocurre dentro de una lógica moral estatista previamente normalizada. Desde el marco del anarcocapitalismo ético, el texto ofrece un criterio de refutación basado en autopropiedad, realismo moral y la propiedad privada como materialización del tiempo vital. El objetivo es diagnosticar un marco cultural que antecede a las ideologías explícitas y condiciona lo pensable. Se concluye que la disidencia debe ser moral y epistemológica: exige revisar supuestos, recuperar precisión conceptual y reabrir preguntas éticas que el lenguaje político dominante ha dejado a voluntad fuera del debate público. (shrink)

Many of the problems currently facing our societies are long-term. Long-term problems are complex, often large-scale, and may require considerable planning and resources to avert undesirable outcomes in the (far) future. Consider issues such as climate change, nuclear waste disposal, and the sustainable management of ecosystems. The ability of a society to adequately address the most relevant problems depends on appropriate long-term governance, i.e., strategic, consistent, and coherent governance over an extended period of time. Serious obstacles are inherent in long-term (...) governance. These include short election cycles, intergenerational trade-offs, and the uncertainties involved in long-term decision-making. Liberal democracies appear to encounter difficulties in providing adequate responses to pertinent long-term issues, such as climate change, due to the institutions’ current design, which primarily focuses on safeguarding the interests of the present generation. This paper introduces long-term governance as a distinct philosophical topic by defining it in relation to a novel perspective on long-term challenges. The paper defends an obligation to engage in long-term governance based on the basic rights of those who do not yet vote. This includes, in particular, an obligation to engage in research into long-term governance institutions. (shrink)

Linguistic justice is about institutions distributing material and symbolic resources fairly when they are faced with linguistic diversity. However, no theory of linguistic justice has developed a systematic and comprehensive account of the moral dilemmas that take place in interpersonal linguistic relationships, in particular the power dynamics leading to (linguistic) domination. The aim of this article is to start building a general theory of linguistic domination, one that offers new conceptual tools for both empirical and normative analyses of linguistically diverse (...) societies. Using the republican tradition of thought, I argue that there is linguistic domination whenever someone is subject to the uncontrolled capacity for interference over their linguistic uses, ideology and acquisition by another agent. This article tests under what conditions this phenomenon takes place and the parties involved in it (both in terms of individuals and political institutions). (shrink)

Relational egalitarians defend a social arrangement ensuring that individuals can relate to each other with mutual respect as equal members of society. This equal standing is required also by the republican conception of freedom, which is therefore commonly endorsed by relational egalitarians. But while capturing egalitarian concerns might make republican freedom an attractive ideal, it prevents it from performing a useful role in the formulation of relational egalitarianism. When we develop the ideal of relational equality, we are better served by (...) a conception of negative freedom defined without egalitarian or other evaluative terms. Negative freedom turns out to be especially important as a component of the respect between individuals that lies at the core of relational egalitarianism. (shrink)

Bureaucracy is everywhere. We experience its burdens when we access (or attempt to access) many essential public goods and services, from healthcare and social welfare to visas and driving licences. I argue that not only can bureaucracy be burdensome, but it can also be unjust. When bureaucratic burdens unduly impair our ability to access our rights or disproportionately impact certain groups (such as disabled citizens or those from poorer backgrounds), they are unjust. This phenomenon is what I shall call bureaucratic (...) injustice – an intermediate obstacle to a fundamental good, which gives rise to a second-order injustice. This article provides a normative conceptualisation of bureaucratic injustice aimed at those working within the liberal egalitarian framework of distributive justice and draws our attention to the kinds of burdens experienced by citizens attempting to access public services. I show that bureaucratic injustice ought to be a concern even for those working within a purely distributive justice framework (and who may not care directly about the impact of power structures on institutional design). Ultimately, through my conceptualisation of bureaucratic injustice, I aim to show that distributive justice is not merely about having the right institutions and policies in place, but also about how individuals experience these institutions and policies in their day-to-day lives. (shrink)

After 2025 saw failed attempts at economic `liberation', i.e. projecting internal inequality onto the world by essentially shifting the burden of re-distribution from the US rich to everyone else, 2026 is now bound for an accelerating death spiral of attempts at political `liberation', i.e. the capture of non-US resources to gloss over mounting failures within. As the underlying economic causes of discontent remain unaddressed, culture war talking points have to be radicalized into Carl Schmitt-style decisionist arguments; unsurprisingly, `great' men still (...) think that (their) might makes right. After economical `liberation' has largely failed, political `liberation' is basically the admission that economic competition with autocratic socialism has become really hard: Giving up on directly competing with China, frantically grabbing other nation's resources has become a strategy now. But the basic problems are not solvable through a revival of imperialist and fascist ideas; western democracies have to learn how to use and distribute limited resources more efficiently themselves. Capitalism's core strength, the ultra-flexible assignment of labor, becomes less and less relevant for demographically stagnating and highly automated economies. For such economies, the ultra-efficient assignment of natural resources become key -- with nations like China already well on their way to develop the tools for AI-planned autocratic socialism. The problem is thus not that well-managed democracies could not learn to live with low-growth, 'cold' economies; it's that they might be no match for autocracies with AI-driven socialist resource use and distribution. (shrink)

Reparative justice for historical injustice concerns what present agents and societies must do to remedy past wrongs. Examples of historical injustice include the Holocaust, colonial violence and land expropriations, and chattel slavery in the United States. There is widespread intuition that these kinds of past wrongs require some form of reparation. However, because of the time that has passed between past wrongs and the present, explaining why reparative justice for these wrongs is possible encounters philosophical issues, including the nonidentity problem, (...) the supersession thesis, issues of causal indeterminacy, question of personal identity, and questions of group responsibility. These issues have created many debates among philosophers about the ideal account that can best explain how reparative justice for historical injustice is possible. In this paper, I carve up the conceptual terrain of these debates. I present the different positions one could take for each major philosophical issue in concerning historical injustice, and I discuss their merits and drawbacks. To conclude, I sketch an account that offers what I take to be the most promising way forward for an account of reparations for historical injustice that best incorporates the insights from these debates. (shrink)

Die Bedarfsgemeinschaft bildet eines der zentralen Strukturprinzipien des deutschen Sozialrechts im Bereich der existenzsichernden Leistungen. Sie wird juristisch und administrativ überwiegend als technische Berechnungseinheit oder als Abbild gemeinsamer wirtschaftlicher Lebensführung behandelt. Diese Arbeit argumentiert, dass eine solche Darstellung die tatsächlichen Wirkungen der Bedarfsgemeinschaft systematisch verfehlt. Ausgehend von einer strukturanalytischen Perspektive wird die Bedarfsgemeinschaft hier als Form institutioneller Gewalt untersucht, die individuelle Rechtssubjektivität partiell aufhebt, existenzielle Abhängigkeiten erzwingt und insbesondere für neurodivergente Menschen sowie für Künstler:innen mit nicht-standardisierten Erwerbsformen ein erhöhtes Risiko (...) sozialer, psychischer und materieller Schädigung erzeugt. Die Analyse zeigt, dass die Bedarfsgemeinschaft nicht lediglich Armut verwaltet, sondern Verwundbarkeit aktiv produziert, indem sie Existenzsicherung an relationale Abhängigkeit, implizite Konformitätsanforderungen und epistemische Entwertung koppelt. Die Arbeit knüpft an Konzepte wie Povertismus, strukturelle Gewalt und konditionalisierte Würde an und überträgt diese gezielt auf das Instrument der Bedarfsgemeinschaft. Ziel ist es, eine wissenschaftlich fundierte Grundlage bereitzustellen, um die Gewaltförmigkeit dieser Struktur im juristischen Kontext erkennbar, prüfbar und verantwortbar zu machen – insbesondere in Verfahren, in denen neurodivergente oder künstlerisch tätige Personen betroffen sind. (shrink)

This paper examines a contemporary moral configuration in which lethal and life-altering decisions are increasingly executed through administrative and computational interfaces rather than embodied confrontation. I argue that at-desk killing (a practice), moral firewalls (an institutional architecture), and moral deskilling (a loss of moral capacity) form a mutually reinforcing structure that reshapes how harm is enacted, justified, and resisted. Desk killing refers to executing life-altering or lethal acts via bureaucratic or computational interfaces, eliminating bodily involvement and perceptual immediacy. Moral firewalls (...) — procedural, role-diffused, and ostensibly neutral structures — insulate agents from moral engagement while preserving procedural legitimacy. Over time, this architecture produces moral deskilling: the erosion of the capacity to hesitate, resist, or make ethical judgments. Case studies include AI-assisted euthanasia, automated targeting systems, and algorithmic denial of life-sustaining resources. The central ethical concern is not AI rebellion, but human moral atrophy: when machines hesitate and humans no longer do, society risks losing its ability to recognise, contest, and ethically navigate killing. A society that kills by procedure may ultimately lose its ability to perceive killing at all. (shrink)

Colonial institutions unfairly treat the colonized as moral inferiors. Consequently, colonial institutions diminish colonized peoples’ social bases of self-respect. But that is unjust. Colonizers politically subjugate colonized peoples, so colonial institutions permeate colonized peoples’ basic structures of society. But a basic structure consists of important sociopolitical institutions. Colonial institutions therefore pervasively influence colonized individuals’ lives. So, since colonial institutions unfairly treat the colonized as inferior, they unjustly diminish their social bases of self-respect. After replying to several objections, I argue this (...) self-respect approach enjoys advantages over Stilz’s (2019), Ypi’s (2013), and Ferguson and Veneziani’s (2021) accounts of colonialism’s necessary wrong. Finally, I outline potential implications for future work on just war theory, self-determination, and oppression. (shrink)

This article explores the interplay between pity and indignation in the revolutionary works of Isabelle de Charrière, particularly in Lettres trouvées dans des porte-feuilles d’émigrés (1793). It argues that these two sentiments structure a moral and political response to the violence of the Revolution, and advances two key claims: first, that Charrière’s indignation arises from a form of pity rooted in sympathetic identification with the suffering of others; and second, that this indignation is directed at the widespread insensitivity demonstrated by (...) both aristocrats and revolutionaries. The article further shows how Charrière’s writing, following in the footsteps of Rousseau, seeks to elicit these two moral affections in the reader, thereby assuming both an ethical and performative function. Through a close textual analysis of the characters and their development, the study highlights the central role of compassion in shaping moral judgement and in critiquing the sacrificial logic underlying the Terror. (shrink)

Drawing on an analysis of the semantic ambiguities of pity and the pitiful, this paper seeks to highlight the tensions inherent in the concept as it appears in Rousseau’s work. The sentiment that inclines one to assist the destitute, akin to the Christian virtue of charity, cannot easily be transposed into terms of obligation. Furthermore, active beneficence presupposes the power of the helper and is therefore incompatible with the equality of beings that compassionate identification expresses. Finally, when pity takes the (...) form of distributive justice, it distinguishes among those to whom it is addressed according to ambivalent criteria. The hypothesis is thus advanced of a rupture with the logic of pity in favour of equality of rights. Following Wollstonecraft (and opposing Rousseau), such a rupture with respect to women’s rights entails a critique of the contempt inherent in pity, as well as an adherence to an ideal of independence which is not without its own difficulties. -/- . (shrink)

In a recent article, Alexander Motchoulski offers a novel relational egalitarian view of reparations for historical injustice. Motchoulski argues that we ought to prefer the relational egalitarian view to available harm and inheritance theories because it avoids epistemic uncertainty. I argue that Motchoulski’s theory involves ambiguity that limits it in avoiding this epistemic uncertainty. I offer an amendment to Motchoulski’s theory that insulates it from this ambiguity and epistemic uncertainty.

The present study deals with the notion of revolt, as present in the thought of Albert Camus and Peter Kropotkin. Although coming from different social, political and philosophical backgrounds, the two thinkers share a deep commitment to the values of freedom, solidarity, justice, and the necessity of revolt against oppression. Camus sees revolt as appealing to a shared human nature, uniting the person in revolt in a metaphysical solidarity with the rest of humanity. Kropotkin emphasizes the collective power of natural (...) solidarity, grounded in mutual aid, as the key principle of organization that can spark a revolt against authority and lead to revolutionary societal emancipation. Despite the differences between Camus’ person in revolt and Kropotkin’s anarchist, both are committed to a resistance against the world of masters and slaves. (shrink)

In Promoting Justice Across Borders: The Ethics of Reform Intervention, Lucia Rafanelli offers a framework for normatively evaluating reform interventions. In this comment, I focus not on Rafanelli’s explicit argument, with which I largely agree, but rather on how this argument implicitly maps the terrain of justice, injustice, and justice-promotion. I suggest that Rafanelli overstates the importance and distinctiveness of reform intervention compared to other justice-promoting projects, and in so doing downplays forms of justice-promotion besides reform intervention, including powerful entities (...) reducing their own unjust practices and subaltern groups fighting for justice for themselves. However, if we view reform intervention as one type of justice-promoting project among others, then we can see that, while Rafanelli’s framework is in one sense less consequential than she suggests, it also potentially offers insight into a much wider range of contexts than she acknowledges. (shrink)

This essay introduces the main arguments in Lucia Rafanelli’s Promoting Justice Across Borders: The Ethics of Reform Intervention (Oxford University Press, 2021). I place the book within the context of literatures on foreign intervention and global justice more broadly, review the major arguments Rafanelli develops in her book, and foreshadow some of the main points of critique and appreciation put forth by four engaging responses from: Paulina Ochoa Espejo, David Owen, Jennifer Rubenstein, and Arash Abizadeh.

In Promoting Justice Across Borders, Lucia Rafanelli develops an ethical theory of ‘reform intervention’: a deliberate attempt to promote justice in a foreign society. The theory specifies which types of interventions are justified under what circumstances and who is justified in intervening where. Rafanelli’s theory eschews nation-states and instead makes its main actors societies with capacity for self-determination. This, I argue, can make the theory hard to apply, because different societies can overlap or intersect, and the theory’s implications change depending (...) on how one draws boundaries around groups. So the theory can give contradictory directives for the same event, depending on how one envisions the subject of intervention. The move away from states, however, may be inevitable, because contemporary problems in international relations (such as those related to climate change) cannot be easily contained within the framework of independent sovereign states in the international system. The book opens avenues to think about this problem. (shrink)

In this paper I give some reasons why ‘saving for future generations’ is not as straightforward as it sounds and when we might be skeptical of the permissibility of states saving for future citizens, even though such savings are often seen to be morally praiseworthy. I emerge with an account of when state savings for future citizens through sovereign wealth funds may be morally permissible. I argue that we ought to follow a modified version of Armstrong’s criteria for the moral (...) permissibility of sovereign wealth fund savings. That is, states are entitled to the full proceeds from the sale of a natural resource until their citizens’ basic rights are secured. Once they are, states are entitled only to the improved value of the resource, so long as they have not excluded others from the opportunity also to improve the resource. States may create sovereign wealth funds based on this improved value and, due to justified compatriot partiality, may choose to distribute those funds to current or future members of the state, even if non-citizens may be worse off and/or in greater need. Any residual value of the resource extraction must be redistributed globally. (shrink)

From a traditional environmental ethics perspective, rights of nature are linked to debates about non-anthropocentrism because they give legal force to the idea that nature has intrinsic moral value. However, we claim that the emergence of Indigenous-led rights of nature initiatives shows that intercultural respect is also an important aspect of this issue. Supported by an example involving an Indigenous nation in Peru, we explain how intercultural respect encourages greater engagement between Western and Indigenous philosophies. On this basis, we advance (...) an argument that a river can be a living being with interests of its own. We also explain how intercultural respect is helpful for understanding the relationship between rights of nature and climate change. In general, our contention is that rights of nature should be understood in the context of efforts to counteract the disrespect of marginalized groups commonly found in environmental injustices. [Open access]. (shrink)

The authors argue that the ethics of marine environmental change should provide the grounding for political and policy responses. They identify what they consider to be vital ‘ethical building blocks’ and consider how these might be translated into legal practice in the marine context. They ask whether human rights approaches and viewing the oceans as a legal entity have utility in marine environmental governance. Their analysis leads them to conclude that the notion of a ‘covenant’ of leading states, within the (...) context of UNCLOS, has the potential to take seriously claims for environmental justice while having sufcient political viability to shape marine environmental governance amidst global environmental change. The initiative that they advocate, which they believe is implicit in SDG14, involves a ‘global initiative for ocean recovery and restoration’, aggressive cuts in carbon dioxide and other pollutants, expansion of marine protected areas and protection of coastal ecosystems, and the sustainable regulation of fisheries. Doing all of these things will promote ethics, justice and human rights while also realising the objectives discussed by other contributors to this volume. (shrink)

In his Theory of Moral Sentiments, Adam Smith lays out an account of ethics based on reflected passions towards our neighbours. I argue that this account can inform theories of intergenerational justice. Existing approaches implicitly focus on claims of justice between generations, not individuals. Instead, following Smith, we should think of each individual situated in her spatio-temporal neighbourhood. Relations between neighbours take the form of intergenerational sentiments. Reflection on these sentiments then allows us to identify due claims of justice. On (...) this account, individuals are not just members of their respective generation, but also of their intertemporal community. (shrink)

In this paper, I argue that epistemic reparations are complex social achievements. Previous accounts of epistemic reparations have failed to highlight the complex social nature of the epistemic goods that constitute epistemic reparations. To generate the knowledge required, a speaker must successfully communicate evaluatively robust content in a way that generates common knowledge. It is not sufficient fora speaker to offer information, they must generate knowledge. I argue that there are two conditions for a successful epistemic reparation: it must receive (...) audience uptake, and it must generate a reparative response. Since most cases of egregious wrongdoing intersect with systematic oppression and active ignorance, the barriers to epistemic reparations are high. Epistemic reparations are achievements because of myriad barriers to successful uptake and response. This shows an additional value to epistemic reparations. Epistemic Reparations can serve as a work of epistemic justice by providing pinpricks of light in systems of epistemic oppression. (shrink)

A background assumption in much contemporary political philosophy is that justice is the first virtue of social institutions, taking priority over other values such as beneficence. This assumption is typically treated as a methodological starting point, rather than as following from any particular moral or political theory. In this paper, I challenge this assumption. To frame my discussion, I argue, first, that justice does not in principle override beneficence, and second, that justice does not even typically outweigh beneficence, since, in (...) institutional contexts, the stakes of beneficence are often extremely high. While defenders of the priority of justice have various responses available to them, a running theme is that no such response challenges the core methodological point that political philosophy should abandon its preoccupation with justice and begin to pay considerably more attention to social beneficence—that is, to beneficence understood as a virtue of social institutions. (shrink)

Should rejected asylum seekers stay? Leila Hadj Abdou and Eszter Kollar argue that they should. This response examines their argument about the moral dilemma of whether rejected asylum seekers who have developed social membership ties should be allowed to stay. While acknowledging that deportation of socially integrated individuals is morally problematic, I argue that allowing rejected asylum seekers to remain poses a greater threat to the asylum system itself. Drawing on Homer’s metaphor of choosing between Scylla and Charybdis, I contend (...) this represents a choice between two unequal evils. States admit refugees for political and strategic reasons—to support allies, undermine rivals, and maintain opposition movements. If rejected asylum seekers can stay regardless of their claims’ validity, states lose motivation to admit refugees altogether. This would result in either harsh detention conditions preventing social integration or complete externalisation of asylum procedures, ultimately destroying the entire system and harming all potential refugees. (shrink)

The Citizens’ Revolution in Ecuador (2007–2017), led by President Rafael Correa, remains the subject of intense political and academic debate. A dominant traditionalist narrative depicts this decade as one of authoritarianism and economic mismanagement, thereby justifying the post-2017 push for institutional “reconstitution.” In contrast, heterodox accounts interpret the period as a project of democratic development—marked by the expansion of rights, social justice, and economic improvement—and as a rupture from the exclusionary neoliberal model of “minimal democracy” that preceded it. This study (...) adjudicates between these competing interpretations through a comparative analysis of political, economic, and social indicators across three periods: the pre–Citizens’ Revolution era (1996–2006), the Revolution itself (2007–2016), and the post-Revolution years (2016–2023). It evaluates democratic legitimacy, living standards, and development outcomes within Ecuador and compared against ten other Latin American countries to control for global commodity price shifts. The findings reveal substantial improvements during the Citizens’ Revolution in areas such as education, income inequality, infrastructure, security, and citizen consent, across internal, historical, and regional dimensions. These results support the view of the Citizens’ Revolution as a democratizing and developmental force, despite certain authoritarian tendencies. By contrast, like the regime prior to the Citizens’ Revolution, subsequent administrations have overseen a marked regression, characterized by diminished public consent, economic deterioration, and rising violence. The study concludes that the Citizens’ Revolution constituted a significant departure from neoliberal minimalist democracy, offered an alternative model of inclusive development, and left a legacy—both of accomplishments and contradictions—that continues to shape Ecuador’s political, social, and economic trajectory. (shrink)

The persistent shortage of organs, cadavers, and research participants in medicine has prompted proposals such as human 'bodyoids'—engineered human bodies lacking neural components necessary for consciousness and pain. Here, we critically assess the feasibility and ethics of creating bodyoids, highlighting significant technological challenges that render their development highly speculative and economically impractical. We further argue that even if feasible, engineering bodies devoid of consciousness raises profound ethical issues, including moral ambiguity, potential dehumanization, and legal concerns akin to those surrounding patients (...) with severe brain injuries. Our analysis suggests that pursuing bodyoids raises concerns about respect for human life and dignity. We conclude that resources should instead focus on more viable and ethically sound alternatives to address urgent clinical needs in transplantation and research. (shrink)

It is widely held that entities have moral status if they possess a status-conferring property to a sufficient degree. However, this means that for at least one degree to which an entity can possess the status-conferring property and that grounds moral status, there is some incrementally lower degree of possessing the property that does not ground moral status. Critics maintain that this renders any threshold for moral status arbitrary. In this paper, we reject common responses to this arbitrariness objection, such (...) as that moral status thresholds are not arbitrary but merely vague. Instead, we defend the moderate discontinuity view. This view holds that thresholds denote moderate rather than radical shifts in moral status and that significant shifts in the moral status of entities on opposite sides of the threshold are a function of their distance from the threshold rather than of the threshold itself. Crucially, it follows from this that there is no principled way to reconcile the commitment to the moral equality of persons with the commitment to the moral superiority of persons over nonhuman animals. (shrink)

This book argues that virtue ethics should be incorporated into public health ethics. It provides the theoretical foundations for a virtue ethics that is applicable to public health, as well as political institutions more broadly. -/- Ethical analyses of public health policies and practices have been mostly conducted in terms of examining the best consequences or weighing outcomes against liberty, autonomy, justice, and harm. While these debates are important, analyses conducted only in these terms leave a huge range of moral (...) issues under-examined. This book contends that a virtue ethics developed for political institutions such as public health provides the tools for a more robust moral analysis of institutional structures, actions, and responsibilities. First, it presents theoretical arguments for political virtues, explaining how institutions like public health have moral agency and how these institutional agents can, in turn, have (or lack) virtues. It then presents three political virtues that are particularly relevant to public health: justice, civic friendship, and epistemic humility. Each of these virtues is important to what it means for public health to do its work excellently, and each sheds light upon the moral justifiability of past or current public health practice. -/- Public Health Virtue Ethics will appeal to researchers and graduate students working in virtue ethics, bioethics, and public health ethics. (shrink)

En The Temporal Dimension of Justice analizo si la reparación de injusticias históricas puede conciliarse con las demandas prospectivas de justicia distributiva. A partir de la tesis de Jeremy Waldron sobre la superación de injusticias históricas mediante cambios en las circunstancias, propongo una versión modificada que, aunque exige dar prioridad a quienes están por debajo de un umbral de bienestar, acepta que las injusticias históricas se deben reparar incluso en condiciones de necesidad. Guillermo Lariguet examina esta tesis nueva y se (...) pregunta si implica la ausencia de dilemas morales genuinos. Adriana Vercellone analiza la aplicación de la tesis en asuntos de legitimidad política y se pregunta si el argumento según el cual los pueblos indígenas deben tener derechos políticos diferenciados en Argentina no debería extenderse a otras minorías, como los migrantes. Aquí intento responder a estas cuestiones mostrando que el pasado tiene peso tanto en lo que la justicia requiere en el presente como en lo relativo al diseño de instituciones públicas. (shrink)

In Anarchy, State and Utopia, Nozick defends a libertarian theory of property rights under a minimal state. Whether libertarian theory supports or excludes intellectual property (IP) rights remains controversial. This paper shows that, although Nozick only mentions intellectual property (IP) a few times in the book, these discussions turn out to be surprisingly pivotal for his arguments. Indeed, Nozick calls IP rights a “fundamental” issue for libertarian theory. So, it is important to analyse the structural, methodological, and substantive implications of (...) what Nozick says (and does not say) about IP rights. I will show that, in Part 1 of ASU, IP rights illustrate the non-ideal problems of persistent libertarian disagreement and deep value pluralism that libertarian protective associations need to come to terms with (whether through battle or reconciliation). In Part 2 of ASU, Nozick discusses patents to illustrate the limits of the Lockean Proviso. His embrace of counterfactual reasoning opens the surprising possibility that even property rights in physical resources may be up for time limitations, inheritance laws, or other rectifying regulations. Overall, Nozick’s discussion of IP rights illuminates the somewhat neglected role of non-ideal libertarian theory, epistemic indeterminacy, counterfactual reasoning, and the role of pragmatic, “rule-of-thumb” remedies in Nozick’s theory. In the final analysis, Nozick does not develop a fully coherent picture of IP rights, and his proposed solution, putting time limits on patents, seems somewhat ad hoc. Although IP rights play an underappreciated role in the book, his discussion raises more questions than it answers. The Nozickian answer is that the epistemically humble libertarian (or liberal) has to approach the regulation of IP rights, and other thorny issues of real-world property-ownership, with an open mind. (shrink)

In this stimulating work of political philosophy, acclaimed philosopher G. A. Cohen sets out to rescue the egalitarian thesis that in a society in which distributive justice prevails, people’s material prospects are roughly equal. Arguing against the Rawlsian version of a just society, Cohen demonstrates that distributive justice does not tolerate deep inequality. In the course of providing a deep and sophisticated critique of Rawls’s theory of justice, Cohen demonstrates that questions of distributive justice arise not only for the state (...) but also for people in their daily lives. The right rules for the macro scale of public institutions and policies also apply, with suitable adjustments, to the micro level of individual decision-making. Cohen also charges Rawls’s constructivism with systematically conflating the concept of justice with other concepts. Within the Rawlsian architectonic, justice is not distinguished either from other values or from optimal rules of social regulation. The elimination of those conflations brings justice closer to equality. (shrink)

Philosophers have recently argued that epistemic injustices require epistemic reparations. I draw attention to a particular kind of epistemic injustice: Epistemic moral remainders. Epistemic moral remainders are epistemic harms victims of epistemic injustices experience even if the goods the epistemic injustice interfered with have been restored. Available theories of epistemic reparations have tended to focus on establishing how reparations can restore the goods that the epistemic injustice interfered with. However, victims who experience epistemic remainders seem to be owed something even (...) when the epistemic goods the injustice interfered with have been restored or are impossible to restore. So, we must supplement our theories of epistemic reparations to explain epistemic remainders. I develop a novel theory of reparative justice that can do this. I do so by turning to our fundamental principles of general reparative justice. Doing so, however, reveals a tension. Theories of reparations must choose between addressing the particular goods a wrong interfered with or the harms that result from a wrong. I offer a novel hybrid theory of reparative justice that avoids this tension. And, I use this hybrid theory to develop a theory of epistemic reparations that explains epistemic remainders. (shrink)

The chapter is dedicated to the power-sharing political system functioning in Indonesia. This system, thanks to employing specific institutions, allows the members of various segments (including ethnic groups and religious communities) and sub-segments, defined especially on ascriptive, cultural, and ideological foundations, to be part of the decision-making processes at different power levels.

Many societies are strongly divided, especially in ethnic, religious, racial, and ideological terms. Such divisions are usually related to the existence of divergent interests that may lead to serious conflicts between groups and/or between them and state authorities. In order to limit them, participation in decision-making processes by members of different groups is needed. However, it is extremely difficult to establish and maintain effective power-sharing arrangements. This book examines the cases of Indonesia, Nigeria, Kenya, and Burundi, where hybrid models of (...) power-sharing have emerged, combining specific elements of consociational and centripetal types. It also explains the specificity, life cycle, and performance of different hybrid systems. In 2000, Donald L. Horowitz and Philippe Van Parijs began the discussion on the possibility of merging consociational and centripetal settlements within the same political system. The monograph, a quarter of a century later, demonstrates real-world examples of such hybridity. “It is clearly a formidable work of scholarship, incisive and comprehensive.” - Donald L. Horowitz, “A persuasive thesis backed up by a wealth of careful case studies.” - Philippe Van Parijs. (shrink)

Contemporary power-sharing theory is characterized by an impasse between consociationalism and centripetalism. This article proposes the concept of hybrid power-sharing (HPS) as a possible solution. HPS political systems not only combine institutional features from the different power-sharing models but HPS’s “own” institutions may also be shaped. The article conceptualizes such hybrid institutions within HPS, demonstrates empirical examples and proves how specific centripetal and consociational components meet in each of them. The article’s main purpose is to present the new, deepened HPS (...) conceptual assumptions defined and systematized based on the cases of Nigeria, Indonesia, Kenya, and Burundi. (shrink)

Feminist Ethics: An Introduction to Fundamental Concepts and Current Issues provides a valuable entry point into one of the most dynamic areas of contemporary philosophy. Moving beyond the rigid boundaries of a canon shaped almost exclusively by white, male thinkers, this volume highlights how feminist ethics rethinks and redefines traditional approaches to moral theory, and helps us navigate pressing questions of our time.

In this dissertation I defend the claim that not only was Marx not an anti-black racist, he was an anti-anti-black racist, despite sometimes employing racist language and epithets. I prove this claim by adducing massive amounts of textual evidence from Marx and Engels’ writings, spanning their entire careers as writers and revolutionaries, where time and again they condemn black slavery and the slave-trade, look forward to and call for their abolition, and aim at a future of racial justice and equality (...) for black people, as a component part of communist justice for all working people, under a communist mode of production. I thus show that Marx had a conception of communist justice, from which followed as a matter of course his endorsement of racial justice and equality for black workers. -/- In carrying out this project, I am contributing to the subfield of philosophy of race that has been engaged in a historical reexamination of Western canonical philosophers for their views on race and black people in particular. Much has been written about Kant in this connection, and some on Locke, Hume, Hegel, and others. But Marx has received scant attention. The most prominent philosopher to treat the topic of Marx and race was undoubtedly Charles Mills. But, I claim, Mills got Marx wrong. He wrote as if the only time Marx ever spoke about black people was when he was making racist remarks. Mills does not canvass the material I present here. I also demonstrate that outside of philosophy – in history, political science, anthropology, sociology, and so on – reading Marx as an anti-black racist and/or as one who ignored or misunderstood the relationship between black slavery and capitalism is also widespread. Thus, I also refute the claims of various non-philosophers who, like Mills, get Marx wrong on this issue. -/- Finally, by using Mills’ work as a foil, I seek to re-orient the sympathies of his many disciples. Mills was and is justly famous in philosophy and academia more broadly, and his work has reached and continues to reach a wide audience. Thus his characterization of Marx and Marxism as racist must have wide currency amongst those interested in race and racism, critical race theory, racial justice, black liberation and so on who rightly read and cite his work regularly. My secondary aim, then, is to bring to the attention of Mills’ followers this other – and in my view, correct – reading of Marx, so that they may reconsider the usefulness of Marx and Marxism for tackling issues of race, racism, and racial justice. Despite, as Mills has shown, liberalism’s ‘racial’ (i.e., racist) history, many may follow Mills in embracing a black radical version of liberalism that does not fundamentally challenge capitalist social relations, once they think Marx and Marxism are dumb on race and/or are sources of anti-black racism. Thus it is my hope that the claims I defend in this dissertation will go some way towards remedying this potential misperception on the part of Mills’ followers, and encouraging them to explore the Marxian paradigm in good faith, before they embrace a version of liberalism that inevitably must fail to challenge the capitalist world-order: a world-order that instituted and perpetuates global white supremacy (what Mills called ‘The Racial Contract’) under the guise of ‘liberalism.’. (shrink)

Xenotransplantation is increasingly touted as the solution to the organ crisis. Some bioethicists, however, have raised concerns about xenotransplantation's implications for health justice and animal welfare. We develop and sharpen these worries, and we explore how they might be mitigated. We compare xenotransplantation with several alternatives for addressing the organ crisis, including directing more money toward public health interventions, and argue that these alternatives are ethically preferable. In light of this, we argue that xenotransplantation is not a justifiable method of (...) addressing the organ crisis. Societal funds and attention ought instead be directed toward more efficient and ethically superior solutions. (shrink)

I argue that livability is both instrumentally valuable and of ultimate value for those whose embodied existence and relationships are mediated by the state system. The obligation to acknowledge people’s claim to the right to a livable locality thus includes addressing the instability associated with migration as well as facilitating in situ adaptation.

The moral status of negligent actions presents a unique quandary because these actions are prima facie unintentional, but preventable with due care. Legally culpable negligent acts occur without malicious intent but result in harm, and the agent owed care to the victim, but failed to act with the appropriate care due. In this essay, I argue that the moral status of negligent actions varies depending on whether the agent is an individual, or an organization or institution. I contend that while (...) negligence is often only minimally morally blameworthy for individual agents, it is significantly more blameworthy for an organization or institution. As agents, institutions are different in kind from individuals, partly due to their superior capacities, which give them the ability to shape their own character, and therefore the moral fault of their vices that lead to culpably negligent actions are morally weightier than those of individuals. (shrink)

A short reflection arguing that the Non-Identity Problem depends on excluding the mother’s continuing identity and welfare from the moral calculus.

This chapter articulates and defends a republican interpretation of corrective justice theory. This view takes “independence” as the constitutive aim of a legal system but understands independence in a substantive and not merely formal way. Developing Kant’s conception of substantive independence as an ideal of equal citizens working together, this chapter argues that corrective justice requires accounting for the role that private legal entitlements play in causing and upholding forms of subordinating dependence that arise from our interdependent participation in a (...) productive economy around work, housing, education, and public accommodation. It outlines an approach to defining the scope of private entitlements and a doctrine of exploitation consistent with corrective justice. Independence points to a non-distributive approach to justice that retains the core ideas of relationality and correlativity at the heart of private law. This alternative approach incorporates many of the considerations associated with public law and distributive justice while remaining within a corrective justice framework. (shrink)

In this paper, we question the applicability of eyeball test, a device for measuring social justice, which Philip Pettit introduces in On the People’s Terms. We claim that the result of the test is what it requires. Furthermore, we doubt that the test can indicate the relevant means to establish social justice. Finally, we assert incompatibilities (i.) of two assumptions Pettit postulates when ascribing to the test the capacity to compare different societies with regards to their social justice and (ii.) (...) between his concept of social justice and his presupposed idea of freedom. (shrink)

Aesthetic blight is persistently aversive aesthetic experience to which someone has been made systematically vulnerable by virtue of their identity, embodiment, or disempowered social position. Aesthetic blight undermines well-being and signals societal disregard, so justice requires working to eliminate it. An obvious solution is to clear up whatever stimuli are causing the aversive experience. But this strategy has its limits: it is not sensitive to variability in responses to stimuli, often produces an aesthetically bland environment, and generates further injustice when (...) human bodies and cultural products are among the stimuli perceived as aversive. A closer look reveals that aesthetic blight is not just a matter of aversive stimuli. It involves restrictions on aesthetic agency, conceived as taking two forms: agency to act on the world in response to our aesthetic evaluations (e.g., removing an aversive stimulus) and agency to act on our system of aesthetic evaluations to transform our responses—where the latter involves conceiving aversiveness not as a fixed quality of things, but as a potentially malleable quality of experience. By restoring people’s agency both to create valuable aesthetic environments and to transform their aversive responses in some circumstances, we can alleviate aesthetic blight without producing further injustice. (shrink)