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Showing papers in "Critical Review of International Social and Political Philosophy in 2014"


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors explore to what degree the logic of the refugee convention, as set out in my earlier paper, can and should be extended to those fleeing the results of climate change.
Abstract: Under the UNHCR definition of a refugee, set out in the 1967 Protocol Relating to the Status of Refugees, people fleeing their homes because of natural disasters or other environmental problems do not qualify for refugee status and the protection that come from such status. In a recent paper, I defended the essentials of the UNHCR definition on the grounds that refugee status and protection is best reserved for people who can only be helped by granting them refuge in a safe state for an indefinite period of time, and argued that this does not include most people fleeing from natural disasters. This claim is most strongly challenged by the possibility of displacement from climate change. In this paper, I will explore to what degree the logic of the refugee convention, as set out in my earlier paper, can and should be extended to those fleeing the results of climate change.

88 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: This article argued that the right to exclude is grounded in the right not to become the agent charged with the defense of another's human rights unless there is some independent moral reason one ought to become so charged.
Abstract: Many contemporary theories of immigration begin with the idea that we obtain the right to exclude, because there are some goods that can be produced only within bounded societies. I believe these views to be mistaken, both ethically and empirically. More plausible accounts of the right to exclude begin with the idea that individuals have rights, in virtue of their moral rights of association or of property, to avoid admitting foreigners into their societies. I believe these accounts have to be amended to make reference to the juridical nature of the modern state. My own view is that the right to exclude is grounded in the right to avoid becoming the agent charged with the defense of another’s human rights – unless there is some independent moral reason one ought to become so charged. This account is able to ground the right to exclude, but does not justify the ways in which modern states employ that putative right.

43 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors examine three kinds of arguments that have been brought forward against individuals having such duties: the view that individual emissions cause no harm, the belief that individual mitigation efforts would have no morally significant effect, and the view of lifestyle changes would be overly-demanding.
Abstract: Moral duties concerning climate change mitigation are – for good reasons – conventionally construed as duties of institutional agents, usually states. Yet, in both scholarly debate and political discourse, it has occasionally been argued that the moral duties lie not only with states and institutional agents, but also with individual citizens. This argument has been made with regard to mitigation efforts, especially those reducing greenhouse gases. This paper focuses on the question of whether individuals in industrialized countries have duties to reduce their individual carbon footprint. To this end it will examine three kinds of arguments that have been brought forward against individuals having such duties: the view that individual emissions cause no harm; the view that individual mitigation efforts would have no morally significant effect; and the view that lifestyle changes would be overly-demanding. The paper shows how all three arguments fail to convince. While collective endeavours may be most eff...

38 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this article, the authors discuss the ethical issues raised by immigration to rich democratic states in Europe and North America, including access to citizenship, inclusion, residents, temporary workers, irregular migrants, non-discrimination in admissions, family reunification, refugees, and open borders.
Abstract: This essay discusses the ethical issues raised by immigration to rich democratic states in Europe and North America. The article identifies questions about the following topics: access to citizenship, inclusion, residents, temporary workers, irregular migrants, non-discrimination in admissions, family reunification, refugees, and open borders. It explores the answers to these questions that flow from a commitment to democratic principles.

36 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The most distinctive features of public goods are usually understood to be the difficulty of excluding potential beneficiaries and the fact that one appropriator's benefits do not diminish the amount of benefits left for others as mentioned in this paper.
Abstract: The most distinctive features of public goods are usually understood to be the difficulty of excluding potential beneficiaries and the fact that one appropriator’s benefits do not diminish the amount of benefits left for others. Yet, because of these properties (non-excludability and non-rivalry), public goods cause market failures and contribute to problems of collective action. This article aims to portray public goods in a different light. Following a recent reassessment of public goods in political philosophy, this contribution argues that public goods are particularly suitable for sustaining a well-ordered society. Public goods contribute to social inclusion, they support the generation of the public, and they strengthen a shared sense of citizenship. This article scrutinizes these functions of public goods and offers a discussion of the interventionist thesis which states that governments should sustain public goods.

34 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this paper, a framework for addressing the problem of denizenship, structured around the republican ideal of non-domination, is proposed, which can inform policies in three areas: improving the accountability of countries to their non-citizen population, empowering denizens in private relationships, and reducing arbitrariness in citizenship acquisition.
Abstract: The status of being a non-citizen or ‘denizen’ has been described as second-class citizenship. But many instances of denizenship are not morally troubling, e.g. highly skilled temporary workers. This paper examines the conditions under which denizenship is problematic by developing a framework for addressing the problem of denizenship, structured around the republican ideal of non-domination. Denizens are subject to the coercive power of the state like citizens, but lack many of the accountability mechanisms citizens enjoy. Whether this matters, I argue, depends on their exit costs of leaving the state of denizenship: either by leaving the country or by acquiring citizenship. This model could inform policies in three areas: improving the accountability of countries to their non-citizen population, empowering denizens in private relationships and reducing arbitrariness in citizenship acquisition. Although republicanism provides the conceptual architecture for this study, the concept of ‘exit costs’ has wid...

33 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The authors argued that partisanship in the transnational domain will tend to be episodic, structured as a low-density network and delocalized in its ideational content, and that these tendencies affect the normative expectations one can attach to it.
Abstract: That parties might successfully organize transnationally is an idea often met with scepticism. This article argues that while certain favourable conditions are indeed absent in the transnational domain, this implies not that partisanship is impossible but that it is likely to be marked by certain traits. Specifically, it will tend to be episodic, structured as a low-density network and delocalized in its ideational content. These tendencies affect the normative expectations one can attach to it. Transnational partisanship should be valued as a transitional phenomenon, e.g. as a pathway to transnational democracy, more than as a desirable thing in itself.

29 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The authors argue that the moral and practical concerns against restricting the movement of skilled migrants and contend that conceptualizing the moral issue in these terms leads theorists to neglect the moral salience of institutions that determine the distributive effects of migration.
Abstract: Theorists concerned about the distributive effects of skilled emigration (‘brain drain’) often argue that its harmful effects can be justly mitigated by restricting emigration from sending countries or by limiting immigration opportunities to receiving countries. I raise moral and practical concerns against restricting the movement of skilled migrants and contend that conceptualizing the moral issue in these terms leads theorists to neglect the moral salience of institutions that determine the distributive effects of migration. Using an analogy to skilled migration in a domestic context, I argue for locating brain drain in a more holistic, institutional context that includes the reform of global institutions and of policies affecting migration.

28 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
Sarah Fine1
TL;DR: This paper explore the ways in which neo-Roman republicanism, organized as it is around the twin notions of free person and free state, might contribute to the ongoing conversation about the ethics of migration.
Abstract: In this paper, I begin a preliminary exploration of the ways in which neo-Roman republicanism, organized as it is around the twin notions of free person and free state, might contribute to the ongoing conversation about the ethics of migration. I extrapolate and sketch distinctively republican responses to the following migration-related issues: refugees, resident non-citizens, international freedom of movement and state rights to exclude would-be immigrants. I indicate areas where I think republicans are on the strongest ground, areas where republicanism’s contribution is limited and areas where republicans face important dilemmas. I examine how these dilemmas might be addressed from within republican theory. The aim is to reflect upon the ethics of migration through the lens of the neo-Roman conception of political liberty, to see what we learn both about enduring questions in the ethics of migration and about the appeal of contemporary republicanism as a political theory.

27 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The notion of freedom as non-domination as discussed by the authors provides a distinctive criterion for assessing the justifiability of migration controls, different from both freedom of movement and autonomy, and it is sufficient under contemporary conditions of globalization to warrant limits on states' discretion with respect to admission.
Abstract: Freedom as non-domination provides a distinctive criterion for assessing the justifiability of migration controls, different from both freedom of movement and autonomy. Migration controls are dominating insofar as they threaten to coerce potential migrants. Both the general right of states to control migration, and the wide range of discretionary procedures prevalent in migration controls, render outsiders vulnerable to arbitrary power. While the extent and intensity of domination varies, it is sufficient under contemporary conditions of globalization to warrant limits on states’ discretion with respect to admission. Reducing domination requires, rather than removing all immigration restrictions or democratically justifying them to all, that there be certain constraints on states’ freedom to control migration: giving migrants a publicly secured status somewhat analogous to that enjoyed by citizens, subjecting migration controls to higher legal regulation, and making immigration policies and decision conte...

27 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The authors defend a Neo-republican account of the right to have political rights, arguing that freedom from domination is a sufficient condition for the extension of political rights not only for permanent residents, but also for temporary residents, unauthorized migrants, and some expatriates.
Abstract: I defend a neo-republican account of the right to have political rights. Neo-republican freedom from domination is a sufficient condition for the extension of political rights not only for permanent residents, but also for temporary residents, unauthorized migrants, and some expatriates. I argue for the advantages of the neo-republican account over the social membership account, the affected-interest account, the stakeholder account, and accounts based on the justification of state coercion.

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The Inherited Debt Principle (IDP) as discussed by the authors is a non-contribution-based historical principle that aims to account for the intuition that historical injustice matters to current duties in a way that does not appeal to the counterfactual benefits derived from that injustice.
Abstract: The problem of past emissions – how to share fairly the costs of climate-changing emissions caused by polluters who are no longer in existence – presents an increasingly pressing challenge to scholars and policy-makers. Since standard contribution-based principles are inapplicable when it comes to past emissions, theorists have instead proposed various non-contribution-based historical principles. This paper develops such a principle – the Inherited Debt Principle – which seeks to account for the intuition that historical injustice matters to current duties in a way that does not appeal to the counterfactual benefits derived from that injustice. This principle, it is argued, offers a surprisingly plausible solution to the problem of past emissions.

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this article, the authors start from a sober, realist account of the empirical state of affairs and from structural problems of democracy and participations, in terms of limits of time, information, qualification and relevant expertise.
Abstract: The contrast between the normative functions of political parties in representative democracies and their empirical working is stark and rapidly increasing. This article starts from a sober, realist account of the empirical state of affairs and from structural problems of democracy and participations – in terms of limits of time, information, qualification and relevant expertise – that have to be acknowledged by any realist–utopian proposal of alternatives beyond the exclusive alternative of ‘thin, realist democracy’ or emphatic ‘strong, participatory, direct, or mass democracy’. We can do better. My search for institutional alternatives looks not for the replacement of political parties but for their relief. Many, not all, of their normative tasks can be shared with other functional networks, associations and organizations. In exploring such a new division of political labour I draw on older debates and designs of associative democracy and on recent discussions to democratize expertise and to expertise d...

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this article, a study of detention refocuses scholarly attention on the temporal and spatial aspects of immigration enforcement, the undesirability of warehousing or containment proposals for addressing refugee or immigration crises, and the virtually irreconcilable ethical conflicts at the core of the immigration admissions debate.
Abstract: Detention of irregular migrants and asylum seekers takes place at the behest and convenience of virtually all liberal states. It is a harmful practice that impacts non-citizens as well as citizens, and has far-reaching ramifications for our understandings of the ethics of immigration and border control. Thus far, however, normative theorists engaged in the vibrant immigration admissions debate have remained mostly silent on the topic of detention. By unmasking and revealing the essential roles played by detention in enforcing immigration controls, this paper is intended to highlight the dangers for normative theory of maligning or underestimating detention. In particular, a study of detention refocuses scholarly attention on the temporal and spatial aspects of immigration enforcement, the undesirability of warehousing or containment proposals for addressing refugee or immigration crises, and the virtually irreconcilable ethical conflicts at the core of the immigration admissions debate. Normative theorist...

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The authors compare three non-skeptical ways of explaining and reconciling political struggles: monologue, instrumental dialogue, and a comparative dialogical approach promoted by Charles Taylor and James Tully.
Abstract: This paper contrasts three non-skeptical ways of explaining and reconciling political struggles: monologue, instrumental dialogue, and a comparative dialogical approach promoted by Charles Taylor and James Tully. It surveys the work of Taylor and Tully to show three particular family resemblances: their emphasis on practice, irreducible diversity, and periodic reconciliation. These resemblances are evident in the way they employ dialogical approaches to explain struggles over recognition and distribution. They describe these as dialogical actions, and suggest that a form of dialogical comparison might reconcile their various contested demands.

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this article, the authors propose a non-domination as a benchmark for assessing the justifiability of unequal residence statuses for non-nationals in liberal democracies, which has advantages over the principles of equality and rights alike in accommodating both the inclusive and exclusive logics of liberal democratic citizenship.
Abstract: I propose a principle of non-domination as a benchmark for assessing the justifiability of unequal residence statuses for non-nationals in liberal democracies. This has advantages over the principles of equality and rights alike, in accommodating both the inclusive and exclusive logics of liberal democratic citizenship. Non-domination requires the state to grant upon first admission a degree of inclusion in the social privileges of citizenship that is sufficient to guard against the most severe forms of domination in social relationships. However, as resident non-nationals become more permanent and come to be in relationships open to other, if less severe forms of domination, it requires gradually increasing the degree of inclusion, over time, to protect non-nationals against these forms of domination also, and, finally, eventually giving them access to the sites of political decision-making that contribute to shaping the background conditions for independent action in social relationships.

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The authors argue that non-domination-based approaches to multicultural accommodation are more suitable to assess the dynamic of intra-and inter-group relations than the prominent liberal-multiculturalist alternative.
Abstract: What normative principles should multicultural states be guided by in responding to minority claims for the accommodation of cultural and religious social practices? This article explores how theories of non-domination can contribute to debates on this question in the multiculturalism literature. It examines Philip Pettit’s, Cecile Laborde’s and Frank Lovett’s republican theories and argues that non-domination-based approaches to multicultural accommodation are more suitable to assess the dynamic of intra- and inter-group relations than the prominent liberal–multiculturalist alternative. However, their advantages are not contingent on the wider theories from which they emerge, but rather related to generalizable features of the non-domination ideal. This suggests that non-domination should also be appealing to non-republicans, who can adopt it minimally as a critical principle to determine illegitimate policies.

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: This article argued that a strict definition of terrorism is not only unhelpful, but also impossible if the historicity and flexibility of the concept are to be taken seriously, and argued that failure to account for terrorism as a historical phenomenon produces serious analytical and epistemological problems that result in an anachronistic, ahistorical, and reductive understanding.
Abstract: This article disputes the premise dominant in moral philosophy and the social sciences that a strict definition of terrorism is needed in order to evaluate and confront contemporary political violence. It argues that a definition of terrorism is not only unhelpful, but also impossible if the historicity and flexibility of the concept are to be taken seriously. Failure to account for terrorism as a historical phenomenon produces serious analytical and epistemological problems that result in an anachronistic, ahistorical, and reductive understanding. Because there are no historically or contextually stable answers to the question what terrorism is, this article argues for a novel account of terrorism that replaces the attempt to define terrorism with an analysis of its meaning and function within a specific context.

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this article, the role of arbitrary and contingent features in philosophical debates about migration is discussed, and the importance of "unreason" in the debate and the limits of rational criticism.
Abstract: In this paper, I critically address the role of arbitrary and contingent features in philosophical debates about migration. These features play a central role, and display the importance of ‘unreason’ in the debate and the limits of rational criticism. Certain elements of political thought have to be taken as given, as essential starting points or indispensable building blocks. As such, they cannot be exposed to rational criticism. Political arrangements such as national borders, nation-states and national identities constitute these building blocks, and justify coercive borders in order to sustain them. If we are to subject these arrangements to critical examination, then we move beyond the limits of liberal political philosophy. I examine theorists who take this kind of approach to the ethics of immigration: Michael Blake, Samuel Scheffler and David Miller. I argue that such approaches ask us to balance arbitrary and contingent features of the political world against the non-contingent moral equality of...

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this article, the authors show that the objection to the freedom argument for open borders is unsound and that restrictions on international freedom of movement can be morally impermissible even when potential immigrants have adequate options.
Abstract: According to the freedom argument for open borders, immigration restrictions are generally unjust because these restrictions infringe on important freedoms, such as freedom of association and the economic liberties. Some authors have objected to the freedom argument by claiming that potential immigrants only have rights to sufficient options to live decent or autonomous lives and, consequently, states can permissibly prevent people from immigrating when potential immigrants have adequate options. This paper shows that this objection to the freedom argument for open borders is unsound and that restrictions on international freedom of movement can be morally impermissible even when potential immigrants have adequate options.

Journal ArticleDOI
Seyla Benhabib1
TL;DR: The authors argue that moral rights comprise more than human rights and that non-human beings such as animals can have moral rights claims against us, and that neither is prior and that although debates about religion and secularization have been endemic to modernity, the return of references to Carl Schmitt's "political theology" is rather new.
Abstract: This essay engages with several critiques of my project a ‘cosmopolitanism without illusions.’ Who is the subject of rights? What are the objects of rights? Is there a distinction between human and moral rights? Furthermore, what is prior in this cosmopolitan account: democracy or human rights? Do democratic iterations exhaust the meaning of principles of rights? Finally, does the ‘scarf affair’ really signify the return of ‘political theology’ or have not such disputes always accompanied secularization and modernity? I argue that moral rights comprise more than human rights and that non-human beings such as animals can have moral rights claims against us. Democratic iterations and rights complement one another; neither is prior and that although debates about religion and secularization have been endemic to modernity, the return of references to Carl Schmitt’s ‘political theology’ is rather new.

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this paper, it is argued that even on the basis of a mild understanding of Rawls's political liberalism, which takes into account the various stipulations Rawls provided throughout his later work, when applied to partisans the constraints of public reason lose none or little of their hindering force.
Abstract: In the large body of literature concerning John Rawls’s Political Liberalism (1993) and his conception of public reason, little attention has been paid to the implications that the constraints of public reason have for partisans, i.e. citizens who participate in politics through political parties. This paper argues that even on the basis of a ‘mild’ understanding of Rawls’s conception of the constraints of public reason, which takes into account the various stipulations Rawls provided throughout his later work, when applied to partisans the constraints of public reason lose none or little of their hindering force. This seriously undermines the contribution that parties and partisans can provide to the change and the varieties of public reason that Rawls himself advocates as a response to social change and, therefore, to political justification and legitimacy. Parties articulate, coordinate and enhance societal demands which, without their support, may remain unheard and fail to change the acceptable terms of public reason and political justification. If the political speech of partisans is restrained, this potential for change (and, therefore, its contribution to political legitimacy) is seriously undermined.

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this article, the authors argue that the assumption that all migrants aim at permanent inclusion and is therefore inadequate in the case of those who are engaged in "temporary migration projects" and suggest that in order to provide these migrants with a form of political voice that fits their life plans, we need to look at different institutional tools than conventional voting rights, and point to trade unions and migrant organizations as promising alternatives.
Abstract: Theorists have recently argued that in order to protect migrants from vulnerability and domination, host countries should grant voting rights to all residents, including those who are present on the territory on a temporary visa. Although we endorse the inclusive and egalitarian rationale of this approach, we argue that it is based on the presumption that all migrants aim at permanent inclusion and is therefore inadequate in the case of those who are engaged in ‘temporary migration projects’. We suggest that in order to provide these migrants with a form of political voice that fits their life plans, we need to look at different institutional tools than conventional voting rights, and we point to trade unions and migrant organizations as promising alternatives. We also show that, contrary to what may be thought of other forms of temporary mobility, temporary migration projects and the institutional solutions we propose in order to address the needs of the migrants involved are not disruptive of liberal-de...

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The authors consider the current relevance of settler colonial tropes, narratives and idioms by discussing the opening section of On Settling (2012), a recently published book authored by respected political scientist Robert E. Goodin.
Abstract: This article considers the current relevance of settler colonial tropes, narratives and idioms by discussing the opening section of On Settling (2012), a recently published book authored by respected political scientist Robert E. Goodin. While Goodin argues that ‘settling’ should be considered a ‘normatively defensible practice’, my critique focuses on his assumed link between ‘settling’ in general and settler colonialism in particular. The first section of this article follows the narrative of settlement that underpins Goodin’s book. The second section discusses this narrative’s inherently exclusionary character, a characteristic that undermines claims to universal normative validity; while the third section appraises the language that supports it. In the fourth, conclusive, section On Settling’s apology of settler colonialism is used as a starting point for an analysis of the settler colonial present in an ‘age of unsettlement’.

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The authors consider the history of Europe's religious parties in the late 19th and early 20th centuries and find that these parties made a real and lasting contribution to Europe's democratization and their history suggests ways in which Habermas and other defenders of public reason misunderstand the nature of democratic political legitimacy.
Abstract: Thinkers committed to an ideal of public reason are suspicious of religiously informed political activity as it undermines democratic political legitimacy. This paper considers Jurgen Habermas’s recent shifts on this question in light of the history of Europe’s religious parties in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. These parties made a real and lasting contribution to Europe’s democratization and their history suggests ways in which Habermas and other defenders of public reason misunderstand the nature of democratic political legitimacy.

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors address republican conditions of legitimacy for the constitution of the civic statuses of migrants, and identify two legitimacy tests to which any civic status is subject, namely, that it does not make its bearers more vulnerable to the arbitrary exercise of private or public power (R1) and that the person as bearer of this status is not itself the product of an arbitrary exercise (R2), and argue that R1 puts significant constraints on what can be legitimate migrant statuses and R2 links republicanism to cosmopolitanism in terms of a basic norm in
Abstract: This paper addresses republican conditions of legitimacy for the constitution of the civic statuses of migrants. It identifies two legitimacy tests to which any civic status is subject, namely, that it does not make its bearers more vulnerable to the arbitrary exercise of private or public power (R1) and that the constitution of the person as bearer of this status is not itself the product of an arbitrary exercise of public power (R2). It is argued that R1 puts significant constraints on what can be legitimate migrant statuses and R2 links republicanism to cosmopolitanism in terms of a basic norm in respect of the production and allocation of civic statuses in that those who are subject to such a regime should have the effective power to ‘shape and contest’ the rules of this regime.

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this article, the authors take issue with contemporary arguments that value the political identity "Independent" and disparage partisanship, and argue that the moral distinctiveness of partisanship for democracy can be found in the commitment to political pluralism, to regulated political rivalry, and to shifting responsibility for governing.
Abstract: Against the background of historical antipartyism in practice and in democratic theory, and with a focus on American political thought, this paper takes issue with contemporary arguments that value the political identity ‘Independent’ and disparage partisanship. A typology of ‘Independent’ is offered and both empirical and moral claims about the superiority of Independent voters are rebutted, with particular focus on the ‘weightlessness’ of Independents. The reasons to appreciate the moral distinctiveness of partisanship for democracy are set out: commitment to political pluralism, to regulated political rivalry, and to shifting responsibility for governing. Inclusiveness, comprehensiveness, and compromisingness set the contours for an ethic of partisanship.

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The authors provide a conceptual overview of some immigration theories and highlight the challenges new streams of immigration pose for normative (political) theory and liberal democratic practice, by focusing on the non-standard immigration questions that have so far been ‘neglected' by normative political theory.
Abstract: Normative political theory over recent decades has focused mainly on what ought to be done as far as migration policies are concerned. It faces a basic challenge, which stems from two competing, yet equally fundamental, ideals underpinning liberal democratic societies: a commitment to moral universalism and the exclusionary requirement of democracy. The objective of this special issue, ‘New Challenges in Immigration Theory’, is to provide a conceptual overview of (some) immigration theories and to highlight the challenges new streams of immigration pose for normative (political) theory and liberal democratic practice. The issue will consider how to reconcile state-based exclusion with a commitment to equal moral concern for all persons, by focusing on the non-standard immigration questions that have so far been ‘neglected’ by normative political theory. In line with this objective, the issue will discuss some of the inadequacies of the dominant political theories of immigration and show how such theories ...

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors consider two arguments from Benhabib against the minimalist view and conclude that these arguments do not represent a robust case for rejecting minimalism and show that even the human rights protections minimalists take to legitimize institutions cannot be had without democracy.
Abstract: Minimalists about human rights hold that a state can have political legitimacy if it protects a basic list of rights and democratic rights do not have to be on that list. In this paper, I consider two arguments from Benhabib against the minimalist view. The first is that a political community cannot be said to have self-determination, which minimalists take to be the value at the heart of legitimacy, without democracy. The second is that even the human rights protections minimalists take to legitimize institutions cannot be had without democracy. These rights can only be adequately interpreted and specified for any social context if the interpretations and specifications result from democratic processes. Here, I bring out some important problems with these arguments and so conclude that they do not represent a robust case for rejecting minimalism.

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this article, a revision of the basic ideas of persons and society is proposed, and the idea of persons should be regarded as more fundamental than that of social cooperation, and persons defined in terms of minimal moral powers.
Abstract: Unlike his theory of justice as fairness, John Rawls’s political liberalism has generally been spared from critiques regarding what is due to the disabled. This paper demonstrates that, due to the account of the basic ideas of society and persons provided by Rawls, political liberalism requires that the interests of numerous individuals with disabilities should be put aside when the most fundamental issues of justice are settled. The aim is to accommodate within public reason the due concern for the disabled while upholding political liberalism. To achieve this aim, a revision of the basic ideas of persons and society is proposed. The idea of persons should be regarded as more fundamental than that of social cooperation, and persons should be defined in terms of minimal moral powers.