Edmund Abegg constructs a coherent path that leads from abstract psychological and moral theory to ideal political and economic scenarios and then to their real-world applications. This book establishes a framework that clarifies important public policy issues.

In this important new work in political and constitutional theory, Michael J. Perry elaborates and defends an account of the political morality of liberal democracy: the moral convictions and commitments that in a liberal democracy should govern decisions about what laws to enact and what policies to pursue. The fundamental questions addressed in this book concern the grounding, the content, the implications for one or another moral controversy and the judicial enforcement of the political morality (...) of liberal democracy. The particular issues discussed include whether government may ban pre-viability abortion, whether government may refuse to extend the benefit of law to same-sex couples and what role religion should play in the politics and law of a liberal democracy. (shrink)

The article gives the reasons why a distinction between political morality and ethical conceptions needs to be drawn, as well as the reasons for which political liberalism is a substantial moral conception, and as such in tension with certain understandings of the neutrality. Further, the text analyzes the definition of personality through capacity for action. Recognition of this capacity is necessary, but not sufficient to attribute to a person a special status from the standpoint of political (...) morality, since individuals also must be capable to coordinate their ethical actions with moral principles of others. Further, the text critiques Charles Larmore?s moral grounding of the theory of justice on respect of persons by arguing that the concept of respect should be considered as part of the complex interrelationships with other moral concepts, such as equality. In this way, neutrality regarding content of respect, as well as neutrality regarding capacity for ethical action turns out to be insufficient. (shrink)

In diesem Beitrag wird die These vertreten, daß die gegenwärtig herrschende liberal-egalitaristische idealistische Doktrin eine verzerrte Darstellung der liberalen politischen Ethik liefert. Diese idealistisch-theoretische Verzerrung kann erhebliche praktische Konsequenzen haben, insbesondere im Kontext des idealistisch-theoretischen Denkens über die Probleme globaler Gerechtigkeit. Aus einer globalen Perspektive betrachtet sind die idealistisch-theoretischen Verzerrungen der historisch entstandenen liberalen politischen Ethik in zweifacher Hinsicht gegeben. Zum einen überschätzt die liberal-egalitaristische idealistische Doktrin die substanzielle Reichweite der Universalisierungsanforderungen des Kontraktua-lismus. Zum anderen unterschätzt die Doktrin die Bindungen, (...) die liberal teleolo-gische Werte für die Verallgemeinbarkeit bedeuten. Der vorliegende Beitrag unterscheidet zwischen einer deontologischen und einer teleologischen Richtung innerhalb der idealistischen Doktrin. Außerdem werden die historisch erzeugten begrifflichen und substanziellen Bindungen innerhalb jeder der beiden Richtungen benannt, und es wird die These vertreten, daß global denkende liberale Egalitaristen diesen Bindungen ausweichen, a) indem sie die kontraktu-alistische Deontologie mit einer Naturrechts-Deontologie vermengen und b), indem sie die historische materialistische Konzeption eines aus liberaler Perspektive guten Lebens durch eine nicht-materialistische idealistisch-theoretische Variante ersetzen. Der Beitrag schließt mit der Frage, ob solche idealistisch-theoretischen Verzerrungen nicht möglicherweise die Propagierung einer politischen Ethik ermutigen könnten, die zumindest in bestimmter Hinsicht besonders ungeeignet ist, um als ein Modell für das Denken über globale Gerechtigkeit zu dienen. Wenn hier diese Bedenken erhoben werden, so bedeutet das nicht, in Abrede zu stellen, daß eine realistischer konzipierte liberale Ethik durchaus die einzige politisch lebensfähige, für diese Aufgabe verfügbare ist. The paper argues that currently dominant liberal-egalitarian ideal theory offers a distorted account of liberal political morality. These ideal-theoretical distortions may have grave practical consequences especially in the context of ideal-theoretical thinking about issues of global justice. Considered from a global perspective, ideal-theoretical distortions of historically evolved liberal political morality are twofold. First, liberal-egalitarian ideal theory overestimates the substantive reach of contractarianism"s universalisability requirements. Second, it underestimates the constraints upon universalisability imposed by liberal teleological values. The paper distinguishes between a deontological and a teleological strand within ideal theory. It specifies some of the historically engendered conceptual and substantive constraints within each strand and argues that global liberal-egalitarians evade these constraints a.) by conflating contractualist deontology with natural law deontology, and b.) by substituting the historically materialistic conception of the liberal good life with a non-materialistic ideal-theoretical variant. The paper concludes by asking whether such ideal theoretical distortions may not encourage the recommendation of a political morality that is at least in certain respect particularly ill-suited to serve as a model for thinking about global justice. Raising these worries is not to deny, however, that a more realistically conceived liberal morality may well be the only politically viable alternative available to this task. (shrink)

How should a crisis sparked by migration of the poor be dealt with? How should tax evasion be addressed? What is the appropriate response to manipulation of elections? Daniel Schwartz's book illustrates that moralists, lawyers, political decision makers, and society at large already contended with these issues some four hundred years ago. The underlying problems and their normative implications were thoroughly analyzed by scholastic authors at the time, many of whom wrote with an eye on influencing the emerging interested (...) public, or doubled as advisors for political decision makers. Political morality, the moral analysis of political decisions, is a particular field of applied ethics (undoubtedly, an important... (shrink)

In my recent book Liberalism with Excellence, I have expounded at length a conception of warranted self-respect. That conception, which draws heavily though far from uncritically on the scattered passages about self-respect in the writings of John Rawls, is central to my defense of a variety of liberalism that combines and transfigures certain aspects of Rawlsianism and perfectionism. However, it is also central to the positions taken in some earlier books of mine on capital punishment and torture. Although my understanding (...) of warranted self-respect was presented far more briefly or obliquely in each of those earlier books than in Liberalism with Excellence, it in fact underlies both my limited defense of the death penalty and my absolutist insistence that the use of interrogational torture is never morally permissible. The present paper will recount the gist of my conception of warranted self-respect and will then explain how that conception figures pivotally in my ruminations on the diverse matters of political morality that have been mentioned here. (shrink)

The late scholastics, writing in the Baroque and Early Modern periods, discussed a wide variety of moral questions relating to political life in times of both peace and war. Is it ever permissible to bribe voters? Can tax evasion be morally justified? What are the moral duties of artists? Is it acceptable to fight in a war one believes to be unjust? May we surrender innocents to the enemy if it is necessary to save the state? These questions are (...) no less relevant for philosophers and politicians today than they were for late scholastic thinkers. By bringing into play the opinions and arguments of numerous authors, many of them little known or entirely forgotten, this book is the first to provide an in-depth treatment of the dynamic and controversial nature of late scholastic applied moral thinking which demonstrates its richness and diversity. (shrink)

Cheryl Misak argues that truth ought to be reinstated to a central position in moral and political philosophy. She argues that the correct account of truth is one found in a certain kind of pragmatism: a true belief is one upon which inquiry could not improve, a belief which would not be defeated by experience and argument. This account is not only an improvement on the views of central figures such as Rawls and Habermas, but it can also make (...) sense of the idea that, despite conflict, pluralism, and the expression of difference, our moral and political beliefs aim at truth and can be subject to criticism. Anyone interested in a fresh discussion of political theory and philosophy will find this a fascinating read. (shrink)

R. M. Hare, one of the most widely discussed of today's moral philosophers, presents a selection of essays in which he brings ethical theory lucidly to bear on moral problems arising in politics. He examines our obligation to obey the law; the limits of legitimate lawbreaking, civil violence, and war; rights of various sorts and their supposed conflict with utility; justice, distributive and retributive; and care of the environment.

This book argues that contractarianism is well suited as a political morality and explores the implications of deploying it in this way. It promises to revive contractarianism as a viable political theory, breaking it free from its Rawlsian moorings while taking seriously the long-standing objections to it. It's natural to think that the state owes things to its people: physical security, public health and sanitation services, and a functioning judiciary, for example. But is there a theory--a (...) class='Hi'>political morality--that can explain why this is so and who the state's people are? This new contractarianism deploys a reversed state of nature thought experiment as the starting point of political theorizing. From this starting point it develops a political morality: a theory of the common ground of the role moralities attached to the various roles within the state. Contractarianism, so understood, can provide a basis for already popular ideas in political theory--such as political and legal liberalism--and overturn conventional wisdom, for example that the state is obligated to secure justice and that animals should have no legal standing. Contractarianism, Role Obligations, and Political Morality will be of interest to scholars and advanced students working in moral and political philosophy. (shrink)

In America today, the problem of achieving racial justice--whether through "color-blind" policies or through affirmative action--provokes more noisy name-calling than fruitful deliberation. In Color Conscious, K. Anthony Appiah and Amy Gutmann, two eminent moral and political philosophers, seek to clear the ground for a discussion of the place of race in politics and in our moral lives. Provocative and insightful, their essays tackle different aspects of the question of racial justice; together they provide a compelling response to our nation's (...) most vexing problem.Appiah begins by establishing the problematic nature of the idea of race. He draws on the scholarly consensus that "race" has no legitimate biological basis, exploring the history of its invention as a social category and showing how the concept has been used to explain differences among groups of people by mistakenly attributing various "essences" to them. Appiah argues that, while people of color may still need to gather together, in the face of racism, under the banner of race, they need also to balance carefully the calls of race against the many other dimensions of individual identity; and he suggests, finally, what this might mean for our political life.Gutmann examines alternative political responses to racial injustice. She argues that American politics cannot be fair to all citizens by being color blind because American society is not color blind. Fairness, not color blindness, is a fundamental principle of justice. Whether policies should be color-conscious, class conscious, or both in particular situations, depends on an open-minded assessment of their fairness. Exploring timely issues of university admissions, corporate hiring, and political representation, Gutmann develops a moral perspective that supports a commitment to constitutional democracy.Appiah and Gutmann write candidly and carefully, presenting many-faceted interpretations of a host of controversial issues. Rather than supplying simple answers to complex questions, they offer to citizens of every color principled starting points for the ongoing national discussions about race. (shrink)

The book also points to some of the ways in which polities currently termed 'liberal democracies' fall clearly short of the values that might legitimize them.

This collection of original essays on political and legal theory concentrates on themes dealt with in the work of Felix Oppenheim, including fundamental political and legal concepts and their implications for the scope of morality in politics and international relations. Among the issues addressed are the relationship between empirical and normative definitions of "freedom", "power", and "interests", whether governments are free to act against the national interest, and whether they can ever be morally obliged to do so.

El largometraje La llorona (Jayro Bustamante, 2019) persigue contribuir a la restitución de una deuda histórica con el pueblo indígena guatemalteco; una deuda no satisfecha plenamente con los acuerdos de paz de 1996. El pasado espectral viene encarnado en Alma, la sirvienta maya kaqchikel que entra a trabajar en la casa del general Monteverde, responsable del genocidio de las comunidades indígenas cuando era presidente del país centroamericano. Al invertir la idea del haunting, o tormento, son el torturador y su familia (...) lxs que se ven acosados por sus acciones pasadas, que hasta ahora habían quedado impunes, no solo a nivel jurídico, sino también a nivel moral. La figura metafórica de “La Llorona”, que llora desconsolada más allá de la muerte porque sus hijos han sido asesinados frente a ella, desencadena el terror que vivirá la familia protagonista, obligada a enfrentarse al pasado en el contexto del juicio popular contra Monteverde. La lujosa mansión del expresidente, una casa tomada, rodeada de manifestantes clamando por sus desaparecidxs, se volverá un espacio asfixiante capaz de atentar contra sus habitantes como respuesta a las demandas de justicia. Este artículo se interroga sobre tres aspectos fundamentales de la película. En primer lugar, cómo se elabora audiovisualmente el contra-archivo del juicio de Ríos Montt en 2013, de quien Monteverde es trasunto en la ficción. En segundo lugar, de qué manera se movilizan las politics of haunting negociando un discurso que transciende el género de terror y entronca con el de denuncia social. Y finalmente, cuáles son los procedimientos que utiliza el filme para presentar la resistencia indígena y la decolonialidad como opciones para construir el presente democrático en Guatemala. (shrink)

A remarkable feature of contemporary political discourse is the dominance of morality. One legacy of logical positivism and analytical philosophy was the reluctance of political theorists during the twentieth century to engage in substantive argument about appropriate social ends or individual rights and values. Philosophers were content to describe the linguistic framework within which related political proposals were discussed without offering any proposals themselves. It was felt that the philosopher was not especially qualified to give (...) class='Hi'>political advice or make any recommendations. The technical political theorist was properly confined to the second level of inquiry, that is, explanation of the meaning of concepts, not the first level, which was concerned with questions of how we ought to live, or issues of public policy. Economists and sociologists might have the technical skills appropriate for inquiries into public policy, but as to the big questions—such as the ends and purposes of man and society—almost anybody could make pronouncements. The important point was that reason was incapable of adjudicating between rival versions of the good life. (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)

This book examines the ways in which reasonable people can disagree about the requirements of political morality. Christopher McMahon argues that there will be a 'zone of reasonable disagreement' surrounding most questions of political morality. Moral notions of right and wrong evolve over time as new zones of reasonable disagreement emerge out of old ones; thus political morality is both different in different societies with varying histories, and different now from what it was in (...) the past. McMahon explores this feature of his theory in detail and traces its implications for the possibility of making moral judgments about other polities, past or present. His study sheds light on an important and often overlooked aspect of political life, and will be of interest to a wide range of readers in moral and political philosophy and in political theory. (shrink)

A common critique of nudges is that they reduce someone's of choices or elicit behavior through means other than rational persuasion. In this paper, I argue against this form of critique. I argue that, if there is anything distinctively worrisome about nudges from the standpoint of morality, it is their tendency to hide the amount of social control that they embody, undermining democratic governance by making it more difficult for members of a political community to detect the social (...) architect’s pulling of the strings. This concern is particularly salient as to choices where it is important for people to directly engage with a certain set of values, “big personal decisions” (to use a simplifying phrase). Many healthcare decisions are exactly these kinds of choices. (shrink)

This paper presents a way of thinking about how to respond to the pluralism of modern societies that avoids any commitment to contractualist norms of political justification. The argument developed appeals to the notion of a constitutional settlement. Constitutional settlements are complex on-going social practices that both express certain values to which political societies are committed and establish procedures for resolving disputes among members of these societies. As such, they are a product of both moral commitment and the (...) balance of power. The paper shows how constitutional settlements relate to issues of stability and non-subjugation in politics, and explains how they can ground a distinction between justice and legitimacy. (shrink)

The idea of a distinctively political normativity came under sustained fire lately. Here I formulate, test, and reject a moderate and promising way of conceiving it. According to this conception, political normativity is akin to the kind of normativity at play in all-things-considered judgments, i.e., those judgments that weight together all the relevant reasons to determine what practical rationality as such requires to do. I argue that even when we try to conceive political normativity in this all-things-considered (...) way, and even when we do not concede from the get-go that moral reasons necessarily trump or override normative reasons of a different kind, political normativity is still reducible to morality, because the peculiar content of all-things-considered political oughts can be explained by the interplay of general moral principles and contextual facts that do not obtain exclusively in political scenarios. If my arguments are correct, I provide political realists with one more reason to withdraw from the metaethical battle over the idea of a distinctively political normativity and show that the moralist approach is defensible against a prima facie promising, but ultimately untenable, alternative. (shrink)

Claims concerning the death of the nation-state are often accompanied by postnationalist arguments that emphasize the potential of human rights to contest nation-bounded conceptualizations of membership. Conversely, arguments focusing on the continuing importance of state-bounded social citizenship rights undermine such postnationalist claims. To assess these claims, this article turns to the Irish state and its prohibition of abortion except in cases where the life of the pregnant woman is in danger. The authors focus their analysis on four legal cases that (...) unfolded between 1992 and 2010. These cases reflect how specific women’s social location within interconnected power hierarchies of nationality, gender, class, race/ethnicity positioned them differently vis-a-vis the Irish state, international and supranational bodies. Furthermore, the transnational, in the form of immigration, non-governmental organizations and the Catholic Church, plays an important role in structuring the context within which these cases unfold. Rather than showing that the international, supranational and transnational are conduits for the declining power of the nation-state, this article finds that in the increasingly dense legal-political field there is room for all of these forces. (shrink)

People frequently advance political proposals in the name of a goal while remaining apparently indifferent to the fact that those proposals, if implemented, would frustrate that goal. Theorists of "deliberative democracy" purport to avoid this difficulty by arguing that deliberation is primarily about moral not empirical issues. We reject this view (the moral turn) and propose a method (The Display Test) to check whether a political utterance is best explained by the rational ignorance hypothesis or by the moral (...) turn: the speaker must be prepared to openly acknowledge the bad consequences of his political position. If he is, the position is genuinely moral; if he is not, the position evinces either rational ignorance or posturing. We introduce deontological notions to explain when the moral turn works and when it does not. We discuss and reject possible replies, in particular the view that a moral-political stance insensitive to consequences relies on a distribution of moral responsibility in evildoing. Finally, we show that even the most plausible candidates for the category of purely moral political proposals are best explained by the rational ignorance/posturing hypothesis, if only because enforcing morality gives rise to complex causal issues. (shrink)

Deep ecological appeals for wilderness preservation commonly conjoin arguments for participatory land use decision-making with their central championing of natural areas protection. As an articulation of the normative meaning of participatory democracy, the discourse ethics advanced by Jürgen Habermas is employed to highlight the consistency and justifiability of this dual claim. I argue that Habermasian moral theory reveals a key tension between, on the one hand, an ethical commitment to wilderness preservation informed by deep ecological and bioregional principles that is (...) oriented to a naturalistic value order and, on the other, the procedural norms of democratic participation. It is claimed that discourse ethics thereby raises critical philosophical and practical questions concerning the political legitimacy of deep ecology. In examining the progressive claims of environmental philosophers and wilderness activists embracing this perspective, I draw empirically upon Canadian arguments for natural areas protection and associated radical prescriptions for a democratisation of land use decision-making. (shrink)

Responsible citizens are expected to combine ethical judgement with judiciously exercised social activism to preserve the moral foundation of democratic society and prevent political injustice. But do they? Utilizing a research model integrating insights from rational choice theory and cognitive developmental psychology this book carefully explores three exemplary cases of morally inspired activism: Jewish rescue in wartime Europe, abortion politics in the United States, and peace and settler activism in Israel. From all three analyses a single conclusion emerges: the (...) most politically competent individuals are, most often, the least morally competent. This is the central paradox of political morality. These findings cast doubt on strong models of political morality characterized by enlightened moral reasoning and concerted political action while affirming alternative weak models that fuse activism with sectarian moral interests. They provide empirical support to further upend the liberal vision of democratic character, education, and society. (shrink)

Drawing on the Confucian political philosophy of China, Roger Ames presents “family feeling” (xiao) as a candidate for a universal minimalist morality. Challenging certain conventional views in political philosophy that see family feeling as a threat to achieving an egalitarian level playing field, Ames underscores the ethical and political significance of family, advocating for the integration of familial sentiments into the political sphere. He addresses modern challenges, showing how diverse cultural expressions are allowed for within (...) this philosophy’s pluralistic and locally focused framework. This dynamic ethical perspective rooted in the shared sentiment of family feeling challenges us to critically reexamine Confucianism, China, and our entire geopolitical situation. (shrink)

This book explores the relationship between the law and pervasive and persistent reasonable disagreement about justice. It reveals the central moral function and creative force of reasonable disagreement in and about the law and shows why and how lawyers and legal philosophers should take reasonable conflict more seriously. Even though the law should be regarded as the primary mode of settlement of our moral conflicts,it can, and should, also be the object and the forum of further moral conflicts. There is (...) more to the rule of law than convergence and determinacy and it is important therefore to question the importance of agreement in law and politics. By addressing in detail issues pertaining to the nature and sources of disagreement, its extent and significance, as well as the procedural, institutional and substantive responses to disagreement in the law and their legitimacy, this book suggests the value of a comprehensive approach to thinking about conflict, which until recently has been analysed in a compartmentalized way. It aims to provide a fully-fledged political morality of conflict by drawing on the analysis of topical jurisprudential questions in the new light of disagreement. Developing such a global theory of disagreement in the law should be read in the context of the broader effort of reconstructing a complete account of democratic law-making in pluralistic societies. The book will be of value not only to legal philosophers and constitutional theorists, but also to political and democratic theorists, as well as to all those interested in public decision-making in conditions of conflict. (shrink)

In the context of a new global order where the logic of the market reigns virtually unopposed, there is a need for thinking that might reinvigorate a progressive political project. This collection of essays brings together the work of a number of leading scholars who are concerned to construct a convincing basis for incisive criticism. These contributors represent such contemporary critical perspectives as egalitarian liberalism, socialism, poststructuralism, psychoanalysis, hermeneutics and critical theory.

After the United States invaded Puerto Rico in 1898, the new unincorporated territory sought to define its future. Seeking to shape the next generation and generate popular support for colonial rule, U.S. officials looked to education as a key venue for promoting the benefits of Americanization. At the same time, public schools became a site where Puerto Rican teachers, parents, and students could formulate and advance their own projects for building citizenship. In _Negotiating Empire_, Solsiree del Moral demonstrates how these (...) colonial intermediaries aimed for regeneration and progress through education. Rather than seeing U.S. empire in Puerto Rico during this period as a contest between two sharply polarized groups, del Moral views their interaction as a process of negotiation. Although educators and families rejected some tenets of Americanization, such as English-language instruction, they also redefined and appropriated others to their benefit to increase literacy and skills required for better occupations and social mobility. Pushing their citizenship-building vision through the schools, Puerto Ricans negotiated a different school project—one that was reformist yet radical, modern yet traditional, colonial yet nationalist. (shrink)

The relationship among morality, reflection, and ideology is extremely intricate, with many avenues open for investigation. In this intriguing collection, an eminent group of scholars, including Bernard Williams, address the question of how far our moral beliefs and practices can survive the reflective understanding we have of them. From the work of a particular historical figure to the discussion of moral metaphysics, psychology, and political theory, the contributors approach the question from a variety of different fascinating angles.

The U.S. military has now occupied Iraq for more than five years. This is a long time for one state to impose a military occupation on another. But of course the American occupation of Iraq seems almost momentary by comparison with Israel’s fortyone-year occupation of Palestinian territories in the West Bank and Gaza. Considering how controversial both these occupations have been, one would expect them to have elicited a substantial body of thought about the moral dimensions of the practice of (...) occupation. But such an expectation would be disappointed. There is, of course, a body of law governing the practice of occupation, but the moral foundations of that law have suffered the same neglect by moral and political theorists that the practice of occupation itself has. As I prepared my remarks for the conference from which this symposium issue is derived, I was surprised to be unable to recall having read or even seen any philosophical discussions of occupation. I own most of the books that have been written on the theory of the just war over the past half century or so, but a search through their indexes turned up only a few entries on occupation, none of which proved, on investigation, to offer significant illumination. I have not, however, had to conjure up a theory de novo. Occupation involves both the threat of military force and, usually, the use of military force; hence it is akin to, and indeed often overlaps with, war (as the alternating references to the occupation of Iraq and the war in Iraq attest). There should therefore be continuities between the morality of war and the morality of.. (shrink)