Unlike exploitative exchanges, exchanges featuring externalities have never seemed to pose particular problems to liberal theories of justice. State interference with exchanges featuring externalities seems permissible, like it is for coercive or deceptive exchanges. This is because exchanges featuring negative externalities seem to be clear cases of the two exchanging parties harming a third one via the exchange—and thus of conduct violating the harm principle. This essay aims to put this idea into question. I will argue that exchanges featuring (...) negative externalities are not unjust in this straightforward way, i.e. because they would constitute an instance of wrongfully causing or risking a bodily or material harm. In fact, unless we are subscribing to particularly demanding variants of liberalism—e.g. perfectionist liberalism—or unless we are exclusively focusing on borderline cases of externalities—i.e. of effects of exchanges hardly to be called externalities—there is no liberal theory of how exchanges featuring externalities are unjust. (shrink)

Property enhances autonomy for most people, but not for all. Because it both empowers and disables, property requires constant vigilance. A Liberal Theory of Property addresses key questions: how can property be justified? What core values should property law advance, and how do those values interrelate? How is a liberal state obligated to act when shaping property law? In a liberal polity, the primary commitment to individual autonomy dominates the justification of property, founding it on three (...) pillars: carefully delineated private authority, structural pluralism, and relational justice. A genuinely liberal property law meets the legitimacy challenge confronting property by expanding people's opportunities for individual and collective self-determination while carefully restricting their options of interpersonal domination. The book shows how the three pillars of liberal property account for core features of existing property systems, provide a normative vocabulary for evaluating central doctrines, and offer directions for urgent reforms. (shrink)

Most states are multination states, and most peoples are stateless peoples. Just as collectives can behave as sovereign states only if they are recognized by the international community, liberal multination states must recognize stateless peoples in order to determine their political status within that state. There is, however, no agreement on the kind of principles that should be considered, especially under classical liberalism, which gives individuals preeminence over groups. Liberal theories that attempt to accommodate collective rights are often (...) based on a comprehensive version of liberalism that subscribes to moral individualism. Within such a framework, they develop a watered-down concept of collective rights. In A Liberal Theory of Collective Rights Michel Seymour explores the theoretical resources of John Rawls’s political liberalism and shows that this particular approach can accommodate genuine collective rights. By Rawls’s account, Seymour explains, peoples are moral agents and sources of valid moral claims and are therefore entitled to collective rights. These kinds of rights translate, in the constitution of the multination state, to a true political recognition for stateless peoples. Ultimately, A Liberal Theory of Collective Rights answers three important questions: Who is the subject of collective rights? What is the object of collective rights? And can they be institutionalized in real politics? (shrink)

The prelims comprise: Theories of Justice Political Liberalism and its Critics Notes Bibliography.

This book advances a novel theory of international justice that combines the orthodox liberal notion that the lives of individuals are what ultimately matter morally with the putatively antiliberal idea of an irreducibly collective right of self-governance. The individual and her rights are placed at center stage insofar as political states are judged legitimate if they adequately protect the human rights of their constituents and respect the rights of all others. Yet, the book argues that legitimate states have (...) a moral right to self-determination and that this right is inherently collective, irreducible to the individual rights of the persons who constitute them. Exploring the implications of these ideas, the book addresses issues pertaining to democracy, secession, international criminal law, armed intervention, political assassination, global distributive justice, and immigration. A number of the positions taken in the book run against the grain of current academic opinion: there is no human right to democracy; separatist groups can be morally entitled to secede from legitimate states; the fact that it is a matter of brute luck whether one is born in a wealthy state or a poorer one does not mean that economic inequalities across states must be minimized or even kept within certain limits; most existing states have no right against armed intervention; and it is morally permissible for a legitimate state to exclude all would-be immigrants. (shrink)

This article argues that liberal arguments for human rights minimalism, such as those of John Rawls and Michael Ignatieff, contain fundamental inconsistencies in their treatment of core rights to life and liberty. Insofar as their versions of minimalism foreground rights to physical security and basic freedom of movement, they cannot coherently exclude certain social and economic protections and liberties that directly support or are even partly constitutive of these rights. Nor do they have good grounds for putting the social (...) and private realms wholly beyond the purview of international law. “New” human rights that represent an expansion of civil rights in particular beyond the classic conception to encompass, for example, the right to freedom from sexual and gender-based violence, illustrate especially well the extent to which civil, social, and economic rights violations, and their remedies, are deeply interwoven. These emergent rights also directly challenge the dichotomy between public/political and private/social realms, and the corollary assumption that human rights violations occur mainly or exclusively in the former sphere. While the concerns that motivate arguments for human rights minimalism — considerations of pluralism and prudence — are legitimate, proponents would do best to reconsider the multiple roles that human rights in fact play, in spite of their essentially contested status. (shrink)

This book develops a liberal theory of justice in exchange. It identifies the conditions that market exchanges need to fulfill to be just. It also addresses head-on a consequentialist challenge to existing theories of exchange, namely that, in light of new harms faced at the global level, we need to consider the combined consequences of millions of market exchanges to reach a final judgment about whether some individual exchange is just. The author argues that, even if we accept (...) this challenge, the effect of it is minimal. For different reasons, normatively problematic collective market outcomes like externalities, monopolies, violations of the Lockean proviso, inequality, and commodification do not pose particular problems to the justice of market exchanges. He outlines the various conditions a market exchange needs to fulfill to be considered just from a liberal background and in light of the new harms. Ultimately, he shows, it is not the market which is to blame; if we want to tackle issues like global warming or global economic injustice, we should not blindly follow the intuition that we best restrain and regulate markets. Commutative Justice is unique in its focus on justice in exchange rather than on end-state distributive justice, and the way in which it addresses the new harms we are facing today. It will be of interest to researchers and advanced students in philosophy, politics, and economics who are working on questions of economic justice. (shrink)

Applied to several of morality’s practical matters, Spurgin presents a conception of moral liberalism and argues that it is the best approach to practical morality in a plural society.

One argument often made in support of liberal political morality is that liberalism, both as a theory and as a practice, is neutral in regard to the question of the good life. In this essay, I shall criticize and reject this argument. Now this conclusion is anything but novel; one would have almost as much difficulty finding a critic, of whatever perspective, granting that liberalism is indeed neutral with regard to the good as one would have finding a (...) liberal denying it. It is this phenomenon that I find especially interesting, and which serves to set the context of my discussion. If, as I aim to show, it is a relatively straightforward path of argument which leads to the conclusion that liberalism is not neutral with regard to the question of the good life, then why do so many liberals remain convinced that it is? Why, when liberals and their critics debate the issue of neutrality, do they so often seem to talk beyond one another? It seems to me that instances of these debates ought to come off better than they do, and so I shall attempt here to describe how they might. (shrink)

This book gives an account of a full spectrum of property rights and their relationship to individual liberty. It shows that a purely deontological approach to justice can deal with the most complex questions regarding the property system. Moreover, the author considers the economic, ecological, and technological complexities of our real-world property systems. The result is a more conceptually sound account of natural rights and the property system they demand. If we think that liberty should be at the centre of (...) justice, what does that mean for the property system? Economists and lawyers widely agree that a property system must be composed of many different types of property: the kind of private ownership one has over one's person and immediate possessions, as well as the kinds of common ownership we each have in our local streets, as well as many more. However, theories of property and justice have not given anything approaching an adequate account of the relationship between liberty and any other form of property other than private ownership. It is often thought that a basic commitment to liberty cannot really tell us how to arrange the major complexities of the property system, which diverge from simple private ownership. Property and Justice demonstrates how philosophical rigour coupled with interdisciplinary engagement enables us to think clearly about how to deal with real-world problems. It will be of interest to political philosophers, political theorists, and legal theorists working on property rights and justice. (shrink)

"John Rawls's A Theory of Justice has been widely acclaimed as a book whose influence on the discussion of central questions in moral and political philosophy will be permanent. A brief review, writes Dr. Barry, would be of little more value than would be a brief review of Hobbes's Leviathan; instead, in this book he interprets Rawls's main tenets and discusses them with appropriate thoroughness. The book is in three parts. Chapters 1-5 set Rawls's theory in its intellectual (...) context and give an account of its basic features. Chapters 6-11 examine Rawls's claim to have advanced 'two principles of justice' and provided a logical deduction of them by showing that men denied various kinds of information about themselves and their society would choose them as the most rational way of advancing their 'conception of the good'. Chapters 12-15 extend the discussion to cover the most important of Rawls's economic and political deductions. Dr. Barry's argument is that Rawls's 'theory of justice' does not work; but that A Theory of Justice is nonetheless a work with which 'anyone in future who proposes to deal with any of the topics it touches must first come to terms'. His critique may be read either in conjunction with A Theory of Justice (there is a concordance of passages discussed) or independently of it." -- Backcover. (shrink)

Grenville Wall; Moral Autonomy and the Liberal Theory of Moral Education, Journal of Philosophy of Education, Volume 8, Issue 2, 30 May 2006, Pages 222–236, htt.

A principle of paternalism must be able to answer three questions. Who are the persons who are the proper object of paternalism? Which actions should we prevent persons from doing or induce them to perform? What should our goals be when acting paternalistically toward these persons? A satisfactory principle will also be reasonably precise in distinguishing appropriate from inappropriate instances of paternalism, and it will be comprehensive, speaking to most potential cases, including suicide. My purpose is not to reach a (...) conclusion about the acceptability of paternalistic restrictions on suicide. Rather, because such a conclusion will follow from the way in which a principle of paternalism is formulated, I want to examine several liberal attempts at formulation and the theoretical background underlying these attempts. (shrink)

A MAJOR THESIS OF CONTEMPORARY LIBERAL PHILOSOPHY is that its theory of justice, which incorporates strong rights to negative liberty, must be prior to and independent of a theory of the good. This priority is necessary, according to liberal theorists, in view of the requirement that any adequate theory accommodate a plurality of contending views of the good, no one of which is capable of eliciting public assent to it. Recent critics of liberalism have disputed (...) this thesis, maintaining instead that there is indeed an objective good, rather than a plurality of contending goods, which at least seriously compromises and possibly undermines the negative liberty with which liberals traditionally associated their theories. Variously called communitarians, virtue theorists, or republicans, these critics have presented an important challenge to contemporary liberalism whether of the individualist or welfare state variety. (shrink)

Hannah Arendt argued that refugees pose a major problem for liberalism. Most liberal theorists endorse the idea of human rights. At the same time, liberalism takes the existence of sovereign states for granted. When large numbers of people petition a liberal state for asylum, Arendt argued, these two commitments will come into conflict. An unwavering respect for human rights would mean that no refugee is ever turned away. Being sovereign, however, allows states to control their borders. States supposedly (...) committed to human rights will thus often violate the rights of refugees by denying them entry. I attempt to defend liberalism from Arendt’s criticism by outlining a rights-based model of asylum that is enforceable by sovereign states. This approach avoids the question of what border-enforcement measures, if any, are defensible at the level of ideal justice, and instead seeks to outline a framework of refugee rights that can be realized in a world in which migration controls are a fact of life. Central to my argument is a distinction between the place where a person is recognized as a rights-bearing agent and the potentially different place where he or she exercises those rights. (shrink)

This book is a sustained criticism of John Rawls’ comprehensive work on the theory of justice. While recognizing the significant contribution of Rawls to both ethics and social theory in articulating clearly a distinct and coherent version of liberalism, Barry believes that "Rawls’ theory does not work and that many of his individual arguments are unsound." In the introductory chapter, the author gives an illuminating comparison of Rawls’ work with Henry Sedgwick’s Methods of Ethics. Throughout the book, (...) critical references have been made to Rawls’ views expressed in the earlier papers. Critical attention is given to the notions of the original position, primary goods, and the thin theory of the good and their relation to Rawls’ contractarian principles of justice. (shrink)

A Hegelian Liberal Theory of the Penal Law Content Type Journal Article Category Book Review Pages 219-224 DOI 10.1007/s11572-011-9119-8 Authors Alfonso Donoso, Pontificia Universidad Cat’olica de Chile, ICP, Santiago, Chile Journal Criminal Law and Philosophy Online ISSN 1871-9805 Print ISSN 1871-9791 Journal Volume Volume 5 Journal Issue Volume 5, Number 2.

This brief text assists students in understanding Rawls' philosophy and thinking so they can more fully engage in useful, intelligent class dialogue and improve their understanding of course content. Part of the Wadsworth Notes Series,, ON RAWLS is written by a philosopher deeply versed in the philosophy of this key thinker. Like other books in the series, this concise book offers sufficient insight into the thinking of a notable philosopher, better enabling students to engage in reading and to discuss the (...) material in class and on paper. (shrink)

Judging on the basis of standard accounts of commodification, one might reasonably suggest that liberalism intrinsically lacks an adequate theory of commodification. Liberalism, with its commitment to individual choice and to neutrality as regards competing evaluation practices, seems conceptually incapable of identifying or abolishing many significant forms of commodification. This essay aims to refute this claim. It employs a strategy of appealing to the harm principle as grounds for a liberal anti-commodification theory. I claim that we are (...) harmed when we are denied ways to meaningfully engage in certain evaluative practices, ways that depend on evaluations shared with others with whom we stand in meaningful social relationships. Markets can crowd out these shared evaluations, and to this extent cause us psychological harm; this in turn supplies grounds for restrictions on certain markets within a liberal state. (shrink)

Liberalism, the founding philosophy of many constitutional democracies, has been criticized in recent years from both the left and the right for placing too much faith in individual rights and distributive justice. In this book, David Johnston argues for a reinterpretation of liberal principles he contends will restore liberalism to a position of intellectual leadership from which it can guide political and social reforms. He begins by surveying the three major contemporary schools of liberal political thought--rights-based, perfectionist, and (...) political liberalism--and, by weeding out their weaknesses, sketches a new approach he calls humanist liberalism. The core of Johnston's humanist liberalism is the claim that the purpose of political and social arrangements should be to empower individuals to be effective agents. Drawing on and modifying the theories of John Rawls, Michael Walzer, Ronald Dworkin, Joseph Raz, Amartya Sen, and others, Johnston explains how this purpose can be realized in a world in which human beings hold fundamentally different conceptions of the ends of life. His humanist liberalism responds constructively to feminist, neo-Marxist, and other criticisms while remaining faithful to the core values of the liberal tradition. (shrink)

In their perceptive critiques of my recent book on Multicultural Citizenship, Iris Young, Joseph Carens, Bhikhu Parekh and Rainer Forst raise a number of interesting and important issues. In this short response to their critiques, I focus on two of them. First, whereas I tried to draw a sharp distinction between immigrants and national minorities, my critics argue that we should think of ethnocultural groups on a more fluid continuum. Second, whereas I tried to ground a theory of minority (...) rights on specifically liberal principles, my critics argue that such an approach is unduly intolerant of non‐liberal ethnocultural groups. In response to these challenging questions, I try to both clarify and strengthen the positions I outlined in my book. (shrink)

Parenting has an ambiguous place within the liberal tradition. On the one hand, liberal theorists have traditionally portrayed it as a private activity. On the other hand, they have also acknowledged the need for some public regulation of parenting in order to protect children’s interests. Some theorists have suggested that this ambiguity within liberalism can be best resolved by implementing parental licensing plans that would limit childrearing opportunities strictly to individuals who could prove their psychological, moral, and financial (...) competency to raise children well. In this article, I critique parental licensing schemes from a liberal perspective and argue that public parenting support, including paid parenting leaves, public childcare subsidies, and the like, is more consistent with liberal values and, in fact, a necessary component of any coherent liberal theory of justice. (shrink)

In Principes de Politique (1815), Benjamin Constant offers a blueprint for later liberal attempts to retain a commitment to popular sovereignty, while moderating its absolutist tendencies and associations with arbitrary political power. This paper examines some notable tensions, still relevant today, in Constant’s domesticated liberal concept of popular sovereignty. These tensions, I contend, all point to the conclusion that Constant’s project of limiting popular sovereignty by appeal to a sacrosanct domain of rights rests on a liberal interpretation (...) of the general will, which is in fact constitutive for the enjoyment of individual liberties. Section 2 argues that Constant’s location of popular sovereignty in the legislative general will, as determined by elected representatives, does not overcome the problem of the potential arrogation of the popular will by a partisan minority. Section 3 then examines Constant’s views on rights and the implications of his acknowledgement that the enjoyment of liberties depends upon the institutional guarantee provided by constitutional enactment. Finally, in section 4, I demonstrate that Constant’s valorization of individual self-development is inseparable from an idea of political liberty which reflects the priorities of a liberal elite. (shrink)

A democratic society cannot flourish if its citizens merely pursue their own narrow interests. If it is to do more than survive, at least a substantial proportion of its citizens must fulfill responsibilities that go beyond simply avoiding the violation of others' rights and occasionally casting a vote. The vitality and success of a democracy requires that many citizens — ideally all of them — contribute something to their communities and participate responsibly in the political process. The disposition to do (...) these things is a large part of what constitutes civic virtue. But that virtue encompasses considerably more. My task here is to explore civic virtue. I first outline a conception of virtue in general and, with that set out, pursue the question of what makes a virtue civic. My special concern is to articulate what constitutes civic virtue in relation to an enduring problem for democratic societies and especially for the pluralistic democracies of the Western world: how to determine what constitutes a proper relation between religion and politics and, in the lives of religious citizens having civic virtue, an appropriate balance between religious and secular considerations. (shrink)

The Liberal Theory of Science, best articulated by Michael Polanyi, held that science advanced when autonomous scientists followed their best hunches and spontaneously coordinated their efforts as a result of their mutual dependence, in a setting devoted to scientific truth with a tradition supporting it, in a quest for a comprehensive understanding of reality. Pure science was for him an international community with the characteristics of the Republic of Letters of the past. This image of science was an (...) idealization at the time he wrote, and became less applicable as science grew and became more dependent on funding decisions, and therefore also on peer review, which compromised autonomy. From the painful attempts to make sense of these changes, particularly in the writings of John Ziman, we can reconstruct the effects of these changes: initially from a focus on discovery to the production of “reliable knowledge” for sponsors. This change made science more useful, but at a price, and made the Liberal Theory of Science increasingly irrelevant to actual science, but still useful as a basis for critique. (shrink)

For them, citizenship is by definition a matter of treating people as individuals with equal rights under the law. This is what distinguishes democratic citizenship from feudal and other pre-modern views that determined people's political status by ...

Multiculturalist theories of recognition consist of explanatory-descriptive social theoretical accounts of the position of the minorities whose predicaments the theories seek to address, together with normative principles generating political implications. Although theories of recognition are often based on illiberal principles or couched in illiberal-sounding language, it is possible to combine proper liberal principles with the kind of social theoretical accounts of minority groups highlighted in multiculturalism. The importance of ‘the social bases of self-respect’ in Rawls’s political liberalism is used (...) to illustrate how a liberal theory of recognition might be constructed, and it is argued that such a theory can capture some, though not all, of the concerns of multiculturalism, even though the resulting ‘politics of recognition’ is neither a ‘politics of difference’ nor a kind of ‘identity politics’. (shrink)

Many theorists have addressed a central concern of current political theory by contending that the dithering intellectualism of left politics prevents genuine political action. Arguments and Fists confronts this concern by refuting these arguments, and reconciling philosophical debates with the realities of current activism. By looking at theorists such as Montesquieu, Kant, Rousseau, the book contradicts current academic debates and also goes against contemporary theory's image of the liberal political agent as a narrowly rational abstraction. Mika LaVaque-Manty (...) also argues that progressive political philosophy and political action go hand in hand. He then ventures past Kant and Rousseau to talk about specific environmental activism, finding middle ground between the two while asserting that the liberal urge for political reform stems from sound philosophical considerations about the nature of politics and isn't the "cowardly" afterthoughts some theorists have called it. Arguments and Fists then puts these theoretical insights to use, examining environmental justice movements and varieties of environmental radicalism, showing how liberal theory illuminates concrete contemporary political practices. (shrink)