The article argues that persons should be conceived as self-owners and entitled to acquire private property within justifiable property conventions because they should be able to live as project pursuers. This is the ‘project pursuit argument’. It leads to a conception of self-ownership that is stringent, but weaker than standard libertarian notions of self-ownership, and to an understanding of private property as a convention that has to meet a sufficientarian threshold in order to be justifiable.

Sufficientarian libertarianism is a theory of justice that combines libertarianism’s focus on property rights and non-interference with sufficientarianism’s concern for the poor and needy. Persons are conceived as having stringent rights to direct their lives as they see fit, provided that everyone has enough to live a self-guided life. Yet there are different ways to combine libertarianism and sufficientarianism and hence different types of sufficientarian libertarianism. In the article I present and discuss three types, and I argue that the last (...) one overcomes the problems of the other two. The first type combines libertarianism with a sufficiency principle in what is sometimes called the ‘ethics of distribution’. The second incorporates modest welfare rights into a libertarian theory of justice. The third endorses a sufficientarian Lockean proviso for practices of private property within a libertarian theory of justice. I argue that it is superior to the others. (shrink)

This book explores the morality of compromising. The author argues that peace and public justification are values that provide moral reasons to make compromises in politics, including compromises that establish unjust laws or institutions. He explains how it is possible to have moral reasons to agree to moral compromises and he debates our moral duties and obligations in making such compromises. The book also contains discussions of the sources of the value of public justification, the relation between peace and justice, (...) the nature of modus vivendi arrangements and the connections between compromise, liberal institutions and legitimacy. In exploring the morality of compromising, the book thus provides some outlines for a map of political morality beyond justice. (shrink)

In the last ten or fifteen years, realism has emerged as a distinct approach in political theory. Realists are skeptical about the merits of abstract theories of justice. They regard peace, order, and stability as the primary goals of politics. One of the more concrete aims of realists is to develop a realist perspective on legitimacy. I argue that realist accounts of legitimacy are unconvincing, because they do not solve what I call the “puzzle of legitimacy”: the puzzle of how (...) some persons can have the right to rule over others, given that all persons are equals. I focus on the realist accounts of legitimacy developed by Bernard Williams and John Horton. (shrink)

A libertarian theory of justice holds that persons are self-owners and have the Hohfeldian moral power to justly acquire property rights in initially unowned external resources. Different variants of libertarianism can be distinguished according to their stance on the famous Lockean proviso. The proviso requires, in Locke’s words, to leave ‘enough and as good’ for others, and thus specifies limits on the acquisition of property. Left-libertarians accept an egalitarian interpretation of the proviso, ‘right-libertarians’ either reject any kind of proviso or (...) accept rather weak versions of it. In be-tween there is room for moderate interpretations of the proviso, and in particular for a sufficientarian interpretation: a ‘sufficiency proviso.’ The resulting theory of justice can be called ‘moderate libertarianism.’ In this article I make a case for moderate libertarianism, so understood. I argue that moderate libertarianism has advantages over both left- and right-libertarianism because it better coheres with the most plausible rationale for endorsing a libertarian theory of justice in the first place. (shrink)

Philip Pettit’s republican conception of freedom is presented as an alternative both to negative and positive conceptions of freedom. The basic idea is to conceptualize freedom as non-domination, not as non-interference or self-mastery. When compared to negative freedom, Pettit’s republican conception comprises two controversial claims: the claim that we are unfree if we are dominated without actual interference, and the claim that we are free if we face interference without domination. Because the slave is a widely accepted paradigm of the (...) unfree person, the case of a slave with a non-interfering master is often cited as providing a good argument for the first republican claim and against a negative conception of freedom. One aim of this article is to raise doubts about whether this is true. The other aim of the article is to show that the prisoner—also a paradigm of the unfree person—presents a good argument against the second republican claim and in favour of a negative conception of freedom. This is called the ‘prisoner-argument’. It will be argued that neither Pettit’s distinction between free persons and free choices nor his distinction between compromising and conditioning factors of freedom can help to rebut the charge of the prisoner-argument. (shrink)

Public reason liberals from John Rawls to Gerald Gaus uphold a principle of public justification as a core commitment of their theories. Critics of public reason liberalism have sometimes conceded that there is something compelling about the idea of public justification. But so far there have not been many attempts to elaborate and defend a ‘comprehensive’ liberalism that incorporates a principle of public justification. This article spells out how public justifiability could be integrated into a comprehensive liberalism and defends the (...) claim that what is worthwhile about public justification can be extracted from public reason liberalism. (shrink)

Lockeans regard taxation as a—perhaps sometimes permissible—infringement of moral property entitlements. This essay discusses whether, or in what form, this charge is defensible. In doing so, it will explore the truth and the limits of the conventionalist reply of Murphy and Nagel to Lockean challenges to taxation. It argues that there is a moral rationale for property conventions that is independent of the question whether and how one can acquire natural, pre-conventional property rights in the state of nature, that this (...) rationale sets a moral standard for how good property conventions are and whether they are justifiable at all, and that once property conventions are in place, people’s moral property entitlements are at least partly determined by these conventions, sometimes even by unjustifiable ones that ought to be reformed. Because taxation can be a part of property conventions, taxation as such is not an infringement of moral property entitlements. But the essay will also argue that some taxation—excessive taxation—does infringe on moral property entitlements. This is because the moral rationale for property conventions sets some standards for what owners should be entitled to, and so excessive taxation will infringe upon moral entitlements that are partly not convention-based. (shrink)

It seems natural to think that compromises ought to be fair. But it is false. In this paper, I argue that it is never a moral desideratum to reach fair compromises and that we are sometimes even morally obligated to try to establish unfair compromises. The most plausible conception of the fairness of compromises is David Gauthier’s principle of minimax relative concession. According to that principle, a compromise is fair when all parties make equal concessions relative to how much they (...) can gain from an agreement and relative to how much they would lose without an agreement. To find out whether reaching a fair compromise sometimes is a moral desideratum, I discuss several paradigmatic cases in friendships, economics and politics, and I try to show that even when the parties have moral reasons to refrain from trying to maximize utility in the negotiations, they do not have moral reasons to aim at a fair compromise. My second claim is that we are sometimes morally obligated to try to establish unfair compromises, in particular when we are dealing with parties that try to establish morally very bad political arrangements. In such cases, we should try to concede as little as possible to achieve an outcome that is morally acceptable. Fair compromises, in other words, are morally much more dubious than is usually appreciated. (shrink)

Philosophical anarchists claim that all states lack political authority and are illegitimate, but that some states are nevertheless morally justified and should not be abolished. I argue that philosophical anarchism is either incoherent or collapses into either statism or political anarchism.

After the parliamentary elections in Germany in September 2017, the Christian Democratic Union (CDU), the Christian Social Union (CSU), The Greens (Bündnis90/Die Grünen) and the Free Democratic Party (FDP) started to negotiate about forming a coalition government. But, surprising to many, the FDP decided to let these coalition talks collapse, and many commentators in Germany found it highly problematic for a political party to refuse to take responsibility in government. Interestingly, the question whether (or: when) democratic parties may legitimately refuse (...) to govern has so far been neglected in political theory and political philosophy. The article develops a general answer by discussing several possible reasons for thinking that it is sometimes wrong to refuse to govern and thereby engages both democratic theory and the recent literature on compromise. The resulting view is that parties have an ‘integrity prerogative’ that allows them to refuse to govern, except when there is no reasonable and stable alternative government coalition available. (shrink)

Our societies are marked not only by disagreements on the good life, but also by disagreements on justice. This motivates philosophers as divergent as John Gray and Chandran Kukathas to focus their normative political theories on peace instead of justice. In this article, I discuss how peace should be conceived if peace is to be a more realistic goal than justice, not presupposing any moral consensus. I distinguish two conceptions of peace to be found in the literature. One, ordinary peace, (...) conceives of peace as non-violent coexistence based on modus vivendi arrangements. Modus vivendi arrangements, in turn, are explained as a special kind of compromise. Ordinary peace does not presuppose any moral consensus and is therefore realistic, but at the same time it is too minimalist and undemanding to be satisfying. The other conception of peace, ambitious peace, can be found in Kukathas’s work. It is a conception of peace ‘beyond compromise’, not minimalist and undemanding, but, I will argue, not realistic because presupposing at least a second-order moral consensus. In the end, I advocate a division of labour between both conceptions of peace under the umbrella of an overarching ideal of peace. (shrink)

The article defends the claim that if some laws are (or would be) widely accepted, this provides pro tanto moral reasons to support these laws and not to support otherwise better laws that are not widely accepted. In that sense the value of having widely accepted laws provides moral reasons to make compromises in politics, and it justifies a modest and qualified status quo bias. Widely accepted laws are valuable because they reduce enforcement costs, have symbolic value, help to maintain (...) peace, and realize the value of non-subjugation. (shrink)

While John Rawls made the notion of a “modus vivendi” prominent in political philosophy, he treats modus vivendi arrangements rather short and dismissively. On the other hand, some political theorists like John Gray praise modus vivendi as the only available and legitimate goal of politics. In the article I sketch the outlines of a different, more nuanced approach to modus vivendi arrangements. I argue that the moral standing of modus vivendi arrangements varies, and I try to spell out the factors (...) that determine the relative moral standing of modus vivendi arrangements. (shrink)

Robert Nozick and Eric Mack have tried to show that a minimal state could be just. A minimal state, they claim, could help to protect people’s moral rights without violating moral rights itself. In this article, I will discuss two challenges for defenders of a minimal state. The first challenge is to show that the just minimal state does not violate moral rights when taxing people and when maintaining a monopoly on the use of force. I argue that this challenge (...) can be met. The second challenge is to show that the just min-imal state has political authority including, most importantly, the moral power to im-pose duties on citizens. I argue that both Nozick and Mack lack the resources to meet that challenge, and that political authority cannot be deflated. This is an important prob-lem because a lack of political authority also undermines a state’s justness. (shrink)

From a left-libertarian perspective, it seems almost impossible for states to acquire political authority. For that reason, left-libertarians like Peter Vallentyne understandably hope that states without political authority could nonetheless implement left-libertarian justice. Vallentyne has argued that one can indeed assess a state’s justness without assessing its political authority. Against Vallentyne, I try to show that states without political authority have to be judged unjust even if they successfully promote justice. The reason is that institutions can be unjust independently from (...) what they achieve or do: they can be ‘intrinsically unjust’. Institutions, I argue, are intrinsically unjust when they have legal liberties and powers without having the corresponding moral liberties and powers. States without political authority are intrinsically unjust in that sense. Hence the issues of a state’s justness and a state’s political authority cannot be dealt with separately. This is a problem not only for left-libertarians but for ‘philosophical anarchism’ more generally. (shrink)

From citizens paying taxes to employees following their bosses’ orders and kids obeying their parents, we take it for granted that a whole range of authorities have the power to impose duties on others. However, although authority is often accepted in practice, it looks philosophically problematic if we conceive persons as free and as equals. -/- In this short and accessible book, Fabian Wendt examines the basis of authority, discussing five prominent theories that try to explain how claims to authority (...) can be vindicated. Focusing in particular on the issue of how states can rightfully claim authority, he rigorously analyses the theories’ arguments and evaluates their strengths and weaknesses. He also debates anarchism as an alternative that should be taken seriously if no theory ultimately succeeds in explaining state authority. -/- This clear and engaging book will be essential reading for anyone grappling with the most fundamental questions of authority and obligation in political theory and political philosophy. (shrink)

The article argues that liberty-based arguments alone are not enough to justify a universal basic income, whether as a replacement of current welfare programs, or as an addition to them. Appeals to negative liberty, real freedom, republican liberty, and autonomy cannot show that a universal basic income is superior to (all kinds of) conditional benefits. To do so, proponents of a universal basic income will have to invoke values beyond liberty.

Contribution to a special issue, edited by Giulia Bistagnino and Enrico Biale, on Matteo Bonotti's book Partisanship and Political Liberalism in Diverse Societies (Oxford 2017), in which I raise some objections to his account of partisan obligations.

This paper defends the view that the limits of compromise are identical with the moral principles that set limits to human action more generally. Moral principles that prohibit lying, stealing, or killing, for example, sometimes make it morally impermissible to accept a compromise proposal, for the simple reason that the proposal involves an act of lying, killing, or stealing. The same holds for any other moral principle that sets limits to human action. This may sound straightforward and, perhaps, trivial. Yet (...) in the philosophical literature, discussions of the limits of compromise have singled out more specific principles: Avishai Margalit proposes that the limits of compromise are set by the value of humanity, Simon May points at racial equality and more generally democratic legitimacy, Alexander Ruser and Amanda Machin appeal to the value of integrity, and a fourth at least initially plausible account invokes the idea of public justifiability. After discussing in greater detail what an account of the limits of compromise may be expected to do, the paper will show that none of these accounts is convincing. (shrink)

Staaten beanspruchen für sich das Recht, Gesetze geben und mit Zwangsgewalt durchsetzen zu dürfen. Doch unter welchen Bedingungen haben sie dieses Recht tatsächlich? -/- Das ist die grundlegendste Frage der Politischen Philosophie. Obwohl wir die Autoritätsansprüche des Staates oft als selbstverständlich hinnehmen, erscheinen sie moralisch durchaus fragwürdig, wenn man Personen als frei und gleich begreift. Wie können wenige Parlamentsmitglieder das Recht haben, für Millionen Menschen verbindliche Gesetze zu erlassen? Wie können Polizeibeamte und Richter das Recht haben, diese Gesetze gegenüber Personen (...) durchzusetzen, die sie ablehnen? In diesem kurzen, verständlichen und anregenden Buch stellt Fabian Wendt die fünf wichtigsten Theorien politischer Autorität aus der zeitgenössischen Politischen Philosophie vor. Er diskutiert darüber hinaus den Anarchismus, der als Alternative ernst zu nehmen ist, falls alle Begründungsversuche politischer Autorität fehlschlagen sollten. (shrink)

Peter Stemmer has developed an elegant and impressive theory of normativity and morality. In this article, I try to show that he does not achieve two goals he set for himself. First, his theory does not capture the categorical bindingness of moral demands, even in Stemmer’s own interpretation of categorical bindingness: it does not show that wemustfollow moral demands no matter what our personal goals and desires are. Second, just because it would be rational to establish positive moralities in a (...) hypothetical pre-moral scenario, it does not follow – and Stemmer does not establish – that only positive moralities that are in the interest of all members (and contain a prohibition on oppression) arelegitimate. For that reason, his contractarian theory collapses into relativism. (shrink)

In diesem Beitrag zeichne ich erstens Nozicks Kritik an strukturellen Gerechtigkeitstheorien nach und überlege, was sie wirklich zu zeigen vermag und was nicht; zweitens diskutiere ich, ob Nozicks Anspruchstheorie durch das von ihm akzeptierte „Lockesche Proviso“ ebenfalls strukturell ist; drittens stelle ich zwei Gerechtigkeitstheorien vor, die die Lehren von Nozicks Kritik an strukturellen Gerechtigkeitstheorien annehmen, ohne deswegen gleich alle strukturellen Prinzipien über Bord zu werfen: Den „Links-Libertarismus“ und den „moderaten Libertarismus“. Beide kombinieren eine Anspruchstheorie mit einem strukturellen Prinzip, und bei (...) beiden Theorien nimmt das strukturelle Prinzip die Form eines Lockeschen Provisos an. (shrink)

Presents Robert Nozick's Wilt Chamberlain argument in premise-conclusion form.

Ein kurzer Aufsatz über den Zusammenhang von negativer Freiheit und Privateigentum.

This is a response to an article by Lamont Rodgers that critically discusses my work on moderate libertarianism and the sufficiency proviso. I take the opportunity to clarify and elaborate a couple of points.

Eine kritische Diskussion von Ayn Rands Begründung libertärer Rechte.

When we compromise on justice, we accept or acquiesce to an arrangement that we judge to be unjust, or at least not fully just. Such arrangements are often described as constituting a ‘modus vivendi’. What reasons could we have to accept a modus vivendi, thereby compromising on justice? Given the fact of disagreement on justice, this is an important, but rather neglected question in political philosophy. One possible answer, inspired by John Rawls, is that compromising on justice is only justified (...) if this nonetheless brings us as close to ideal justice as possible under given circumstances. The most straightforward way to take issue with this answer is to present other reasons to compromise on justice. The articles in this book explore epistemic reasons and those that stem from values besides justice, like democracy, peace, toleration and non-subjugation. This book thereby sheds some light on the relevance of compromising for the legitimacy of institutional arrangements. It was previously published as a special issue of the Critical Review of Social and Political Philosophy (Vol. 16, No. 4, 2013). (shrink)

Auf einer Zwillingserde teilt Julian Nida-Rümelins Alter Ego dessen philosophische Grundüberzeugungen: den Pragmatismus, den Kohärentismus, den anthropologischen Humanismus und den unaufgeregten Realismus. Was die politische Philosophie angeht, steht er allerdings fest in der klassisch-liberalen bzw. libertären Tradition von John Locke, Adam Smith, Friedrich Hayek und Robert Nozick. Durch einen metaphysischen Unfall gelangen die Werke des hiesigen Nida-Rümelin in die Hände seines Alter Ego. In diesem Text erfahren wir von dessen Leseeindrücken.

In diesem Text skizziere ich erstens – auch in Abgrenzung zu alternativen Friedensbegriffen aus der Geschichte der Philosophie und der Friedensforschung – einen Friedensbegriff, der eine plausible Zielvorstellung für pluralistische, auch in Gerechtigkeitsfragen gespaltene Gesellschaften abgeben könnte. Zweitens diskutiere ich den Einwand, dass hier unter dem Deckmantel einer neuen Terminologie in Wirklichkeit eine minimalistische, libertäre Gerechtigkeitsvorstellung propagiert wird.

Gerechtigkeit ist ein wichtiger Wert, aber nur einer unter vielen. Für die Frage, welche und wie viele Flüchtlinge wir aufnehmen sollten, ist insbesondere der Wert sozialen Friedens von zentraler Bedeutung. Der Essay skizziert zunächst, was man aus der Perspektive der Gerechtigkeit über Flüchtlingspolitik sagen kann. Da manchmal Gerechtigkeit und sozialer Frieden für in der einen oder anderen Weise eng verbunden erachtet werden, versucht er danach zu zeigen, dass sozialer Frieden ein eigenständiger, von Gerechtigkeit unabhängiger Wert ist. In einem dritten Schritt (...) wird dann erörtert, was aus der Perspektive sozialen Friedens zu der Frage zu sagen ist, welche und wie viele Flüchtlinge wir aufnehmen sollten. (shrink)

Democratic party politics requires compromises. A question that has hardly been tackled in normative political theory is how political parties ought to navigate these compromises. In this paper, I would like to explore this question from the specific perspective of classical liberal political parties. My focus will mostly be on parties in Western European countries with proportional representation and multi-party systems like Denmark, Germany, or the Netherlands, where liberal parties have often taken an active role in coalition governments.

Introductory text for the CRISPP-special issue and Routledge-book on "Compromising on Justice". Also includes a summary of the articles by Steven Wall, Robert B. Talisse, Sune Lægaard, Daniel Weinstock, Enzo Rossi and Fabian Wendt.

Abschnitte: Libertäre Gerechtigkeit: Selbsteigentum und die Aneignung äußerer Güter, Begründung libertärer Gerechtigkeit, libertäre Gerechtigkeit und der Staat, libertäre Gerechtigkeit vs. soziale Gerechtigkeit, libertäre politische Philosophie ohne libertäre Gerechtigkeit, Bleeding Heart Libertarianism, Zusammenfassung.

Der Artikel zeichnet vier verschiedene Traditionslinien des Liberalismus und ihr Verhältnis zum Kapitalismus nach: Den Naturrechtlichen Liberalismus in der Tradition von John Locke, den Klassischen Liberalismus in der Tradition von Adam Smith und Friedrich Hayek, den Perfektionistischen Liberalismus, wie er unter anderem von T.H. Green vertreten wird, und den Kontraktualistischen Liberalismus von John Rawls.

Moralismus ist, allgemein gesprochen, ein Missbrauch oder zumindest falscher Umgang mit der Moral. „Moralismus“ ist deswegen ein Vorwurf. Aber es gibt verschiedene Formen eines falschen oder missbräuchlichen Umgangs mit der Moral und damit einhergehend verschiedene Moralismus-Vorwürfe. In diesem Essay werden vier Formen des Moralismus unterscheiden und in der Migrationsdebatte verortet.

Das Prinzip öffentlicher Rechtfertigung ist ein Kernprinzip einer Hauptströmung des zeitgenössischen Liberalismus. Es besagt, in einer von Gerald Gaus vertretenen Variante, dass Regeln der Sozialmoral ebenso wie staatliche Institutionen und Gesetze gegenüber allen betroffenen Personen mit ihren je verschiedenen evaluativen Standards rechtfertigbar sein müssen. Die Regeln, Institutionen oder Gesetze sind rechtfertigbar, wenn alle betroffenen Personen vor dem Hintergrund ihrer je verschiedenen evaluativen Standards einen hinreichenden Grund haben, sie zu akzeptieren. Das Universalisierbarkeitsprinzip dagegen ist kein normatives Prinzip der politischen Philosophie, sondern (...) ein metaethisches Prinzip. Es besagt (in einer auf moralische Gründe bezogenen Variante), dass wenn es für Person A einen moralischen Grund gibt, x zu tun, es auch für Person B in relevant ähnlichen Umständen einen moralischen Grund gibt, x zu tun. Steven Wall nun hat zu zeigen versucht, dass beide Prinzipien inkompatibel sind. Da das Universalisierbarkeitsprinzip sehr plausibel erscheint, das Prinzip öffentlicher Rechtfertigung dagegen sehr umstritten ist, ist die Unvereinbarkeit der beiden Prinzipien für Wall ein Argument, das Prinzip öffentlicher Rechtfertigung abzulehnen. In diesem Aufsatz möchte ich Walls Unvereinbarkeitsthese kritisch diskutieren und schließlich zurückweisen. (shrink)

In diesem Text versuche ich zu zeigen, dass Nozicks Geschichte von Wilt Chamberlain zwar nicht gegen die Akzeptabilität jeder Form struktureller Gerechtigkeitsprinzipien spricht, dass das Wilt Chamberlain-Argument aber ein überzeugendes Argument gegen eine bestimmte Subklasse struktureller Gerechtigkeitsprinzipien darstellt, nämlich gegen organische Gerechtigkeitsprinzipien.

There have been four main motives to introduce the notion of modus vivendi in the political-philosophical literature. One is to use it as a negative contrast to what one regards as the ideal goal in politics. The second is to use it within a distinctively realist political theory that refrains from advocating utopian ideals. The third is to defend liberal institutions as a modus vivendi. The fourth is to have a concept for the institutional tools for peace. Depending on the (...) motive to introduce the notion of modus vivendi, the notion is conceptualized slightly differently. One aim of the chapter is to provide an overview of the different motives that have led theorists to think about modus vivendi and the different conceptualizations of modus vivendi they have offered. But the chapter also makes a more substantial point: it argues that we should conceptualize the notion of modus vivendi in line with the fourth motive, because this seems the most promising way to get a conception of modus vivendi that is both ‘deeply motivated’ and ‘open’ for all kinds of approaches in political theory. (shrink)