Taking reasonable pluralism seriously: an internal critique of political liberalism

The later Rawls attempts to offer a non-comprehensive, but nonetheless moral justification in political philosophy. Many critics of political liberalism doubt that this is successful, but Rawlsians often complain that such criticisms rely on the unwarranted assumption that one cannot offer a moral justification other than by taking a philosophically comprehensive route. In this article, I internally criticize the justification strategy employed by the later Rawls. I show that he cannot offer us good grounds for the rational hope that citizens will assign political values priority over non-political values in cases of conflict about political matters. I also suggest an alternative approach to justification in political philosophy (that is, a weak realist, Williams-inspired account) that better respects the later Rawls’s concern with non-comprehensiveness and pluralism than either his own view or more comprehensive approaches. Thus, if we take reasonable pluralism seriously, then we should adopt what Shklar aptly called ‘liberalism of fear’. </jats:p

Sovereign Wealth Funds and Global Justice

Dozens of countries have established Sovereign Wealth Funds in the last decade or so, in the majority of cases employing those funds to manage the large revenues gained from selling resources such as oil and gas on a tide of rapidly rising commodity prices. These funds have raised a series of ethical questions, including just how the money contained in such funds should eventually be spent. This article engages with that question, and specifically seeks to connect debates on SWFs with debates on global justice. Just how good are national claims to the great wealth contained in SWFs in the first place? Using the example of Norway's very large SWF – derived from selling North-Sea petroleum – I show that national claims are at least sometimes very weak, with the implication that the wealth in many such funds is ripe for redistribution in the interests of global justice. I conclude by offering some guidance for how the money contained in such funds could best be spent, with the goal of advancing global justice

In defence of global egalitarianism

This essay argues that David Miller's criticisms of global egalitarianism do not undermine the view where it is stated in one of its stronger, luck egalitarian forms. The claim that global egalitarianism cannot specify a metric of justice which is broad enough to exclude spurious claims for redistribution, but precise enough to appropriately value different kinds of advantage, implicitly assumes that cultural understandings are the only legitimate way of identifying what counts as advantage. But that is an assumption always or almost always rejected by global egalitarianism. The claim that global egalitarianism demands either too little redistribution, leaving the unborn and dissenters burdened with their societies' imprudent choices, or too much redistribution, creating perverse incentives by punishing prudent decisions, only presents a problem for global luck egalitarianism on the assumption that nations can legitimately inherit assets from earlier generations – again, an assumption very much at odds with global egalitarian assumptions

Disaggregating political authority: what's wrong with Rawlsian civil disobedience?

Contemporary philosophical and theoretical discussions of civil disobedience hope to contribute to significant political debates around when and in which forms political dissent, protest and resistance is appropriate. In doing so, they often focus on and criticize John Rawls' work on civil disobedience. However, ignoring the frame in which Rawls discusses civil disobedience has led critics to wrongly attack his theory for being too restrictive when it is more likely to be too permissive. That permissiveness depends on treating any political order which does not come close to fulfilling his theory of justice as absolutely illegitimate. In this sense, Rawls’ theory of political authority is binary and demanding. The problems his theory shares with most others, including his critics’, show that political authority needs to be disaggregated to make sense of the conditions under which different forms of protest and resistance are appropriate

The location of international practices: what is human rights practice?

This article opens up space to challenge state-centrism about human rights practice. To do so, it presents and critically assesses four methods that can be used to determine who and/or what counts as a part of any international practice: the agreement method, which locates a practice by referring to speech acts that define it; the contextual method, which locates a practice by referring to the actions, meanings, and intentions of practitioners; the value method, which locates a practice by identifying a value or principle that the practice reflects or instantiates; and the purpose method, which locates a practice by constructing an account of the sociopolitical reason(s) for a practice's existence. The purpose method, based on an interpretation of Rawls' constructivism, is developed, in a way that focuses on practitioners' judgement-based reasons to assign responsibility for human rights to any state or non-state actor

How to Identify Disadvantage: Taking the Envy Test Seriously

In this paper, I am concerned with the comparative disadvantage an individual suffers in having less valuable opportunities than another individual. The dominant approach with respect to this topic proceeds by identifying a metric by which to determine whether an individual?s opportunities are less valuable than another?s. Let?s call this the Metric Test. However, there is another way in which to proceed. Rather than appealing to a metric by which to determine disadvantage, we could instead allow an individual to determine for herself whether or not she is disadvantaged. On the version of this view that I shall defend, we should treat an individual as disadvantaged if and only if that individual envies another?s opportunities. Let?s call this the Envy Test. My overall aim is to illuminate the appeal of the Envy Test and, in particular, to explain its superiority over the Metric Test

The Margin of Appreciation Doctrine: A Low-Level Institutional View

The paper argues that the margin of appreciation (MoA) doctrine of the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR, or Court), should be understood as, inter alia, an underenforcement doctrine, according to which Convention rights should not be applied to their full conceptual limits. Underenforcement is justified by institutional considerations relating to the Court's role and competence. Although institutional considerations have been theorised normatively, the paper claims that ‘low-level’ empirical inquiry into the comparative institutional competence of different decision makers across the Council of Europe is critical in explaining MoA. Such comparative empirical analysis ties shared institutional responsibility and subsidiarity with certain traits of decision makers when determining Convention rights. In this context, the paper briefly compares the decision making abilities of different institutions. It concludes by stressing that under certain circumstances the Court can be worse placed than national authorities to decide on violations of Convention rights. This is corroborated by the Court's case-law concerning Convention rights impinging on the economic and social policies of States Parties

Law, Liberty and the Rule of Law (in a Constitutional Democracy)

In the hunt for a better--and more substantial--awareness of the “law,” The author intends to analyze the different notions related to the “rule of law” and to criticize the conceptions that equate it either to the sum of “law” and “rule” or to the formal assertion that “law rules,” regardless of its relationship to certain principles, including both “negative” and “positive” liberties. Instead, he pretends to scrutinize the principles of the “rule of law,” in general, and in a “constitutional democracy,” in particular, to conclude that the tendency to reduce the “democratic principle” to the “majority rule” (or “majority principle”), i.e. to whatever pleases the majority, as part of the “positive liberty,” is contrary both to the “negative liberty” and to the “rule of law” itself

The Structural Injustice of Forced Migration and the Failings of Normative Theory

I propose to criticize two strands of argument - contractarian and utilitarian – that liberals have put forth in defense of economic coercion, based on the notion of justifiable paternalism. To illustrate my argument, I appeal to the example of forced labor migration, driven by the exigencies of market forces. In particular, I argue that the forced migration of a special subset of unemployed workers lacking other means of subsistence (economic refugees) cannot be redeemed paternalistically as freedom or welfare enhancing in the long run. I further argue that contractarian and utilitarian approaches are normatively incapable of appreciating this fact because the kinds of reasons that they adduce for justifying the long-term freedom-enhancing consequences of forced migration are not ones that would be acceptable to the migrants themselves. I conclude that only a discourse ethical approach, which mandates direct, empathetic communication between would-be migrants and members of potential host communities, captures the full range of reasons that would be acceptable to both migrants and members of these communities. These reasons – appealing both to agency-enhancing communal attachments as well as to agency-enhancing freedom of choice – fully reveals the extent to which a global capitalist system composed of relatively closed national communities coerces the world’s poorest migrants