Political Philosophy

Constructivism in Practical Philosophy

James Lenman, Yonatan Shemmer (eds)

This book presents twelve chapters on constructivism — some sympathetic, others critical — by a group of moral philosophers. ‘Kantian constructivism holds that moral objectivity is to be ... More

This book presents twelve chapters on constructivism — some sympathetic, others critical — by a group of moral philosophers. ‘Kantian constructivism holds that moral objectivity is to be understood in terms of a suitably constructed social point of view that all can accept. Apart from the procedure of constructing the principles of justice, there are no moral facts.’ So wrote John Rawls in his highly influential 1980 Dewey lectures ‘Kantian Constructivism in Moral Theory’. Since then there has been much discussion of constructivist understandings, Kantian or otherwise, both of morality and of reason more generally. Such understandings typically seek to characterize the truth conditions of propositions in their target domain in maximally metaphysically unassuming ways, frequently in terms of the outcome of certain procedures or the passing of certain tests, procedures or tests that speak to the distinctively practical concerns of deliberating human agents living together in societies. But controversy abounds over the interpretation and the scope as well as the credibility of such constructivist ideas. The chapters here reach to the heart of this contemporary philosophical debate, and offer a range of new approaches and perspectives. Less

Cosmopolitan War

Cécile Fabre

The book articulates and defends a cosmopolitan theory of the just war. It takes the following two views as its starting point: first, the individual is the fundamental locus of concern ... More

The book articulates and defends a cosmopolitan theory of the just war. It takes the following two views as its starting point: first, the individual is the fundamental locus of concern and respect; second, political borders are arbitrary from a moral point of view and largely irrelevant to individuals' entitlements central. With those two assumptions in hand, the book shows that some key principles of just-war ethics — notably, the just-cause requirement, the requirement of legitimate authority, the principle of discrimination, and the requirement of proportionality — need defending. It does so by examining different kinds of war in the light of those assumptions: wars of national defence, wars over scarce resources (subsistence wars), civil wars; humanitarian wars, wars in which private actors such as mercenaries are deployed, and asymmetrical wars. Less

From Rationality to Equality

James P. Sterba

Most contemporary moral and political philosophers would like to have an argument showing that morality is rationally required. This book provides just such an argument and further show ... More

Most contemporary moral and political philosophers would like to have an argument showing that morality is rationally required. This book provides just such an argument and further show that morality, so justified, leads to substantial equality. The argument from rationality to morality is based on the principle of non-question-beggingness and it has two forms. The first assumes that the egoist is willing to argue for egoism non-question-beggingly, and the second only assumes that the egoist is willing to assent to premises she actually needs to achieve her egoistic goals. Either way, it is argued, morality is rationally (i.e., non-question-beggingly) preferable to egoism. The argument from morality to equality also non-question-beggingly starts with assumptions that are acceptable from a libertarian perspective, the view that appears to endorse the least enforcement of morality, and then shows that this perspective requires a right to welfare, and that further, when this right is extended to distant peoples and future generations, it leads to substantial equality. The strategy is to find conflicts of (negative) liberty within a libertarian perspective, and then argue that when these conflicts are appropriately resolved, they favor an allocation of liberty that supports a right to welfare that, in turn, when fully implemented, leads to substantial equality. The book also defends thus two-part argument against recent critics and further show how the argument is preferable to alternative attempts to justify morality as well as alternative attempts to show that morality leads to a right to welfare and/or to equality. Less

How to Treat Persons

Samuel J. Kerstein

This book takes its inspiration from Immanuel Kant’s “Formula of Humanity,” which commands that we treat persons never merely as means but always as ends in themselves. The book aims, first, to ... More

This book takes its inspiration from Immanuel Kant’s “Formula of Humanity,” which commands that we treat persons never merely as means but always as ends in themselves. The book aims, first, to develop ideas suggested by the Formula of Humanity into clear, plausible moral principles. It builds a new, detailed account of when a person treats another merely as a means, that is, “just uses” the other and thereby acts pro tanto wrongly. The book questions the plausibility of an orthodox Kantian account of the dignity of persons, but then offers a novel account of its own. The book’s second main goal is to show how the Kantian principles it develops shed light on pressing issues in bioethics. The book investigates how, morally speaking, scarce resources such as flu vaccine ought to be distributed. Allocating such resources in order to maximize benefits can be inconsistent with respecting persons’ dignity, the book argues. But it is not necessarily a violation of persons’ dignity to allocate them so as to preserve as many persons as possible. The book also explores the morality of regulated markets in organs (e.g., kidneys). Finally, it probes the ethics of doing research on “anonymized” biological samples and of conducting placebo-controlled pharmaceutical trials in developing countries. The book champions the view that even if an agent gets another’s voluntary, informed consent to use parts of his body for transplantation or medical research, she might nevertheless be treating him merely as a means or failing to respect his dignity.Less

Kant on Practical Justification: Interpretive Essays

Mark Timmons, Sorin Baiasu (eds)

The literature on Kantian accounts of practical justification has been growing of late. This is not surprising given that Kant’s approach seems so promising: he claims to be able to justify ... More

The literature on Kantian accounts of practical justification has been growing of late. This is not surprising given that Kant’s approach seems so promising: he claims to be able to justify unconditional normative claims without recourse to assumptions, views or doctrines, which are not in their turn justifiable. Within the context of modern pluralism, this is exactly what we seem to need: an approach which can demonstrably show why certain normative claims are valid, and why the grounds of these claims are valid in their turn, and why the freedom to question should not be stifled. Although this has been a growth area in philosophy, no systematic and sustained study of the topic of practical justification in Kantian philosophy has been undertaken so far. The aim of this volume is to provide a comprehensive and structured examination of this topic, as a starting point for a focused investigation of the Kantian approach to justification in practical disciplines (ethics, legal and political philosophy or philosophy of religion). The book consists of 14 chapters and an introduction from leading researchers in the field. All contributions were written especially for this volume, which is well reflected by the unity of the volume and the unique combination between the complementariness of the chapters and the broad spectrum of themes and positions discussed. The starting point for the project has been the still-dominant view that a successful account of the justification of practical normativity has to be non-metaphysical. Contributions engage directly with this issue, arguing for a metaphysical, anti-metaphysical or non-metaphysical interpretation of Kant’s account, and with related issues concerning the implications of such construals for Kant’s ethics, political and legal philosophy or philosophy of religion.Less

Mill's Progressive Principles

David O. Brink

In Mill’s Progressive Principles David Brink provides a systematic reconstruction and assessment of John Stuart Mill’s contributions to the utilitarian and liberal traditions by interpreting his ... More

In Mill’s Progressive Principles David Brink provides a systematic reconstruction and assessment of John Stuart Mill’s contributions to the utilitarian and liberal traditions by interpreting his first principles and their application to issues of representative democracy and sexual equality. Brink defends novel interpretations of key elements in Mill’s moral and political philosophy, including his concepts of motivation, happiness, duty, proof, harm and the harm principle, freedom of expression, anti-paternalism, representative democracy and weighted voting, and sexual equality. However, the most distinctive aspect of this account of Mill’s commitments is the case it makes for a perfectionist reading of his conception of happiness and the significance this has for other aspects of his moral and political philosophy. On this perfectionist conception, the chief ingredients of happiness involve the exercise of a person’s capacities for practical deliberation and decision that mark us as progressive beings. Once this perfectionist theme is made explicit, it can be shown to be central to Mill’s views about utilitarianism, liberalism, rights, democratic government, and sexual equality.Less

Morality, Authority, and Law: Essays in Second-Personal Ethics I

Stephen Darwall

The Second-Person Standpoint (SPS) advanced an analysis of central moral concepts as irreducibly second personal in the sense of conceptually entailing mutual accountability and the authority to ... More

The Second-Person Standpoint (SPS) advanced an analysis of central moral concepts as irreducibly second personal in the sense of conceptually entailing mutual accountability and the authority to address demands. The essays in this volume illustrate the second-personal framework’s power to illuminate a wide variety of issues in moral, political, and legal philosophy. Section I concerns morality: its distinctiveness among normative concepts, the metaethics of “bipolar obligations” (owed to someone), the relation between moral obligation’s form and the substance of our obligations, whether the fact that an action is wrong is itself a reason against action (as opposed to simply entailing that sufficient moral reasons independently exist), and whether morality requires general principles or might be irreducibly particularistic. Section II consists of two essays on autonomy: one discussing the relation between Kant’s “autonomy of the will” and the right to autonomy and another arguing that what makes an agent’s desires and will reason giving is not “internal” practical reasons’ basis in desire, but the dignity of persons and shared second-personal authority. Section III focuses on the nature of authority and the law. Two essays take up Joseph Raz’s influential “normal justification thesis” and argue that it fails to capture authority’s second-personal nature, without which authority cannot create “exclusionary” and “preemptive” reasons. The final two essays concern law. The first sketches insights a second-personal approach provides into the nature of law and the grounds of distinctions between different parts of law. And the second shows how a second-personal framework can be used to develop the “civil recourse theory” in the law of torts.Less

Understanding Liberal Democracy: Essays in Political Philosophy

Nicholas Wolterstorff

Terence Cuneo (ed.)

This book collects Nicholas Wolterstorff's papers in political philosophy. While this collection includes some of Wolterstorff's earlier and influential work on the intersection between ... More

This book collects Nicholas Wolterstorff's papers in political philosophy. While this collection includes some of Wolterstorff's earlier and influential work on the intersection between liberal democracy and religion, it also contains nine new essays in which Wolterstorff stakes out novel positions regarding the nature of liberal democracy, human rights, and political authority. The overall position is one that is intended to be an attractive alternative to so-called public reason liberalism defended by thinkers such as John Rawls. Of interest to philosophers, political theorists, and theologians, the book should engage a wide audience of those interested in how best to understand the nature of liberal democracy and its relation to religion. Less