Showing papers in "Journal of Ethics & Social Philosophy in 2021"

Contractualism, Complaints, and Risk

Abstract: How should contractualists assess the permissibility of risky actions? Both main views on the question, ex ante and ex post, fail to distinguish between different kinds of risk. In this article, I argue that this overlooks a third alternative that I call “objective ex ante contractualism”. Objective ex ante substitutes discounting complaints by epistemic risk in favor of discounting by objective risk. I further argue in favor of this new view. Objective ex ante contractualism provides the best model of justifiability to each.

Games and the Good Life

Abstract: human life devoid of play would be a deeply impoverished one. Play in childhood is especially important, but for human beings play remains an important ingredient in the good life throughout adulthood. Stuart Brown goes so far as to claim that a “life without play is a grinding, mechanical existence organized around doing the things necessary for survival.”1 While equally strong claims about how essential playing games is to a good life are less plausible, it is remarkable just how many people do find playing games immensely rewarding. Indeed, a disposition not only to play but to play games is cross-culturally robust. Although games are perhaps “not for everyone,” it remains plausible that for a large portion of humanity playing games contributes to the good life. One might naturally wonder how does playing games so contribute? Granted, games can be very good, but what exactly is so good about them when they are good? Although a natural starting point, this question is perhaps naive. Games come in all shapes and sizes, and different games are often good in very different ways. Chess, bridge, bingo, Chutes and Ladders, football, spin the bottle, Dungeons & Dragons, Pac-Man, Minecraft, and charades can all contribute to a good life, but each will characteristically enrich life in its own distinctive way. Some games facilitate socializing, others improve physical fitness, others promote a sense of fairness and reciprocity, while others enhance concentration and analytic skills. Asking, “What is good about games?” with the presupposition that there is a simple, unified answer is as naive as asking (in the same spirit), “What is good about fiction?” “What is good about art?” or “What is good about sex?” However, a less naive question in the vicinity is not hard to formulate. Plausibly, much of the heterogeneity of the value of games stems from the different instrumental value of different games. Perhaps we should therefore ask in what ways the activity of playing games is characteristically good for its own sake. Even here there may be heterogeneity. One and the same kind of activity can be good for its own sake in different ways in different contexts. In one context, dancing might be good for its own sake in virtue of its expressive value, as in the intimate

Resisting Wrongful Explanations

Abstract: In this paper I explore a method for refusing uptake when explanations are morally and epistemically troubling Gaile Pohlhaus Jr (2011) has shown that imploring marginalised people to “understand” marginalising practices amounts to a request that they legitimise their own marginalisation In this paper, I expand upon this analysis with the aim of describing a method for withholding understanding First, I analyse understanding through its association with explanation Drawing on pragmatic theories, I describe explanations as speech acts whose success depends on the explainee granting the explainer uptake by revising their background assumptions Those background assumptions sometimes reference troubling generalisations, and in those cases, the explanation must be blocked Accordingly, I formalise a form of explanatory resistance in which the explainee feigns misunderstanding to corner the explainer into exposing the problematic assumptions upon which their explanation depends Second, I situate wrongful requests for understanding within the epistemic injustice schema as “explanatory injustices,” emphasising the fact that marginalised groups are also specifically marginalised within the explanation economy I conclude that we should be more cognisant of the way in which explanations track power, and be prepared to undertake resistance in order to expose moral and epistemic shortcomings in how we explain

Friendship as a Non-Relative Virtue

Abstract: This article takes its bearings from Martha Nussbaum’s “Non-Relative Virtues: An Aristotelian Approach.” There, Nussbaum proposes an analytic framework that is intended to allow those who disagree about the virtues, in particular due to cultural differences, to engage in fruitful dialogue with one another. To explore what such an approach might look like in practice, this article considers the case study of friendship. It critiques Aristotle’s account of that virtue and provides an alternative based on contemporary understandings. By placing these two accounts into conversation, the analysis demonstrates the promise of cross-cultural and cross-historical dialogue about the virtues.

Is Deontic Evaluation Capable of Doing What it is For

Abstract: Many philosophers think the distinctive function of deontic evaluation is to guide action This idea is used in arguments for a range of substantive claims In this paper, we entirely do one completely destructive thing and partly do one not entirely constructive thing The first thing: we argue that there is an unrecognized gap between the claim that the function of deontic evaluation is to guide action and attempts to put that claim to use We consider and reject four arguments intended to bridge this gap The interim conclusion is thus that arguments starting with the claim that the function of deontic evaluation is to guide action have a lacuna The second thing: we consider a different tack for making arguments of this sort work We sketch a methodology one could accept that would do the trick Unfortunately, as we’ll explain, although this methodology would bridge the gap in arguments that put claims about the function of deontic evaluation to work, it would do so in a way that vitiates any interest we might have in such arguments As an aside, we’ll also point out how epistemologists, who have recently become interested in the function of epistemic evaluation, appear to already recognize this fact The conclusion is hence a dilemma: either arguments from deontic function to substance have a lacuna or such arguments lack teeth

Elusive Reasons and the Motivational Constraint

Abstract: The Motivational Constraint says that a consideration is a normative reason for an agent to act only if it is logically possible for the agent to act for that reason, or at least to be moved so to act. Because it is entailed by a number of prominent views about normative reasons, its truth or falsehood has important implications. Mark Schroeder (2007) and Julia Markovits (2014) have criticized the Motivational Constraint for its inconsistency with so-called “elusive reasons.” Elusive reasons are normative reasons that an agent cannot act for. Hille Paakkunainen (2017), Neil Sinclair (2016), and Michael Ridge and Sean McKeever (2012) have offered three strategies for reconciling the Motivational Constraint with elusive reasons. In this paper, I argue that these strategies fail in that conciliatory task. Furthermore, I argue for the existence of a type of elusive reason not heretofore discussed in the literature, and show how these strategies also fail to reconcile this type of elusive reason with the Motivational Constraint.

Political Disagreement and Minimal Epistocracy

Abstract: eparting from democratic ideals is heavily controversial among most contemporary western philosophers. Democracy, in its various forms, is widely seen as the all-things-considered best political arrangement. Still, recent work in political philosophy has challenged this orthodoxy. Central to these challenges lie worries about high levels of voter ignorance among modern democratic populations. Such ignorance, one might think, leads democracies to occasionally produce bad outcomes. If that is right, perhaps allocating comparatively more political power to voters who know more politically relevant facts will lead to better outcomes. Call political arrangements that make the possession of a certain amount of political knowledge a legal requirement for holding political power epistocratic.1 In a recent paper, Julian Reiss articulates an important challenge to epistocracy.2 At the core of any defense of epistocracy is the conviction that we can reliably identify a subset of voters who possess more politically relevant knowledge than others. But if we cannot identify such a subset of voters, the case for epistocracy falls at the first hurdle. We cannot allocate comparatively more political power to voters who know more politically relevant facts if we cannot even identify such voters. Why think that we are unable to identify the appropriate subset of voters? Oversimplifying for the moment, it is natural to think that such voters should possess knowledge of various politically relevant social-scientific facts. Perhaps they should possess knowledge of basic economics, sociology, political science, and more. However, the social sciences are filled with controversy, and this controversy makes it exceedingly difficult to know which facts ought to be known by voters. Indeed, it makes it difficult to know the relevant facts at all. Reiss claims that since there are no uncontroversial social-scientific facts, we

The Welfare-Nihilist Arguments against Judgment Subjectivism

Abstract: ne way to construe subjectivism about well-being is as the view that x is basically good for S if and only if, because, and to the extent that x is valued, under the proper conditions, by S.1 Dale Dorsey argues for an idealized, judgment-based theory of valuing, one according to which a person values a thing if and only if, because, and to the extent that she would believe, under the proper conditions, that it is basically good for herself.2 Call subjectivism about well-being coupled with a judgment-based theory of valuing judgment subjectivism.3 Judgment subjectivism is a remarkable theory, and Dorsey’s case for it is compelling. If the theory is true, then what is good for you is wholly determined by what you believe is good for you. It is somewhat surprising that it has not been the subject of much scrutiny.4 In this paper, I offer three related arguments against the theory. The arguments are about what judgment subjectivism implies about the well-being of welfare nihilists, people who believe that there are no welfare properties or at least that none are instantiated. I maintain that wel-

Territorial Exclusion: An Argument against Closed Borders

Abstract: Supporters of open borders sometimes argue that the state has no pro tanto right to restrict immigration, because such a right would also entail a right to exclude existing citizens for whatever reasons justify excluding immigrants. These arguments can be defeated by suggesting that people have a right to stay put. I present a new form of the exclusion argument against closed borders which escapes this “right to stay put” reply. I do this by describing a kind of exclusion that has not been discussed in depth, which I call “territorial exclusion.” Territorial exclusion is the process according to which the group that wishes to exclude current citizens secedes from the territory in which those citizens reside. I argue that the wrongness of territorial exclusion explains why there is no pro tanto right for a state to exclude immigrants, because otherwise there would be a pro tanto right for the state to kick people out by seceding from the territory they inhabit. Because kicking people out like this is typically wrong, borders cannot be closed.

The Moral Closure Argument

Abstract: skeptical hypothesis argument introduces a scenario—a skeptical hypothesis—where our beliefs about some subject matter are systematically false, but our experiences do not discriminate between the case where our beliefs are true and the skeptical scenario where they are not. Because we are unable to rule out this scenario, we do not know that any of our beliefs about the subject matter are true. As one famous skeptical hypothesis argument goes: I cannot rule out the hypothesis that I am being deceived by a demon. Therefore, I cannot know anything about the external world. By similar token, a moral skeptical hypothesis argument is an argument that moral knowledge is impossible for agents like us in situations like ours, because we are unable to rule out some skeptical hypothesis. In this paper, I will defend a moral skeptical hypothesis argument—the Moral Closure Argument—against a number of objections. This argument is not novel, but it has rarely been taken seriously because it is widely held that the argument has serious flaws. My task in this paper is to argue that these supposed flaws are merely apparent; the Moral Closure Argument is much more potent than it might seem.

Does Deportation Infringe Rights

Abstract: onsider the migrant who illegally crosses an international border, and suppose that agents of the state she has entered apprehend and detain her and then forcibly return her to her country of origin.1 Some opponents of aggressive deportation policies believe that, barring unusual circumstances, this process of using coercion and force to expel the migrant is an infringement of the migrant’s rights. Many of those who disagree contend that because a state has a right to enact and enforce immigration restrictions, most deportations do not infringe rights. I maintain that, absent an adequate argument to the contrary, one can conclude presumptively that the typical deportation is an infringement of the migrant’s rights. The primary aim of this paper is to show that certain serious arguments to the contrary are inadequate.

Objectified Women and Fetishized Objects

Abstract: There are at least three senses of sexual objectification: the moral sense of treating a person as if she were primarily a sexual object, the political sense in which women socially count as instruments for men’s sexual pleasure, and the epistemic sense of forming a belief that a person is as one sexually desires them to be. These different senses have been treated as rivals, competing about what the correct account of sexual objectification is, or they have been treated as entirely different projects. I argue for a third relation between them: each sense grasps an aspect of the existing social phenomenon of sexual objectification. Each further points out a wrong involved in sexual objectification. And the three aspects interact—we cannot fully explain any one sense of sexual objectification without the other two. To properly understand this interrelation I lean on an analogy: commodity fetishism as described by Marx helps make sense of the complex social reality of sexual objectification.

Why Extending Actions through Time Can Violate a Moral Right to Privacy

Abstract: Recently, Ingmar Persson and Julian Savulescu argued that an action that does not violate a moral right to privacy cannot violate that right if it is extended over time. Specifically, they argue that a moral right to privacy does not protect against gawking or stalking. In this reply the reverse position is defended. Specifically, it is argued that their arguments fails on according to their own definition of the right to privacy. Furthermore, it is argued and illustrated by examples that this conceptual conclusion holds for many other conceptions of the right to privacy. Moreover, it is argued that Persson and Savluescu fail to recognize the privacy-related harm extended to individuals through gawking or stalking. Lastly, the article ends by sketching how the role of privacy in public and consent relates to the given examples.

Meaning in Life and Becoming More Fulfilled

Abstract: Subjectivism about meaning in life remains a viable option, despite its relative unpopularity. Two arguments against it in the literature, the first by Susan Wolf and the second by Aaron Smuts and Antti Kauppinen, fail. Pace Wolf, lives devoted to activities of no objective value need not be pointless, unproductive, and futile, and so not prima facie meaningless; and, pace Smuts and Kauppinen, subjectivism is compatible with people being mistaken about how meaningful their own lives are. This paper elaborates a novel subjectivist view according to which becoming more fulfilled makes a life meaningful for a person. Becoming more fulfilled is a process that has being more fulfilled as its endpoint, and, as with any process, it can come to a halt before it is complete. More substantively, becoming more fulfilled by some x is a matter of aiming to do various activities well, where doing them well at least partly constitutes benefiting x , and requires that one be more fulfilled by x than one presently is. Finally, this paper shows why the becoming more fulfilled view is to be preferred to the standard subjectivist theory, the fulfillment view, and how it produces intuitive results.

An Occasionalist Response to Korman and Locke

Abstract: an Korman and Dustin Locke argue that nonnaturalists are rationally committed to withhold moral belief.1 A main principle in their argument, which they call EC*, can be read in either of two ways, which I call EC*-narrow and EC*-wide. I show that EC*-narrow faces serious problems. Then I show that, if Korman and Locke rely on EC*-wide to critique nonnaturalism, the critique fails. I explain how the availability of a view that I like to call moral occasionalism can be used to respond on the nonnaturalist’s behalf to the EC*wide version of the argument. Moral occasionalism is what is called a “third-factor account” (an explanation of the correlation between moral facts and moral beliefs in terms of some third factor). I show how moral occasionalism is more useful for responding to Korman and Locke than the most widely discussed third-factor account, namely David Enoch’s preestablished harmony view.

Does Convergence Liberalism Risk Anarchy

Abstract: Public reason liberals argue that coercive social arrangements must be publicly justified in order to be legitimate. According to one model of public reason liberalism, known as convergence liberalism, this means that every moderately idealized member of the public must have sufficient reason, of her own, to accept the arrangement. A corollary of this Principle of Public Justification is that a coercive social arrangement fails to be legitimate so long as even one member of the public fails to have sufficient reason to endorse the arrangement. This high bar for justification has led many critics, most notably David Enoch, to argue that convergence models are incapable of vindicating liberalism. They argue that in a sufficiently diverse society, there will always be someone for whom an arrangement is not justified, and therefore convergence liberalism leads to anarchy – the view that no law or coercive social arrangement is legitimate. Other critics accept that convergence liberalism could vindicate core liberal institutions but nothing more, and thus argue that the view makes libertarians effective “dictators”. In either case, critics hold that this objection is sufficient to reject convergence liberalism, either in favor of alternative public reason views or as a means of rejecting all public reason views. In this paper I argue that convergence liberalism can overcome this anarchy objection. I show that the objection largely rests on misinterpretations of convergence liberalism, and thus clarify aspects of the theory. However, I also show that internal debate over the scope of public justification – what stands in need of justification – must be resolved in favor of a wide scope, encompassing both State-based and non-State-based coercion, in order to overcome the anarchy objection. Therefore, my response to the anarchy objection has implications for how convergence liberalism should be developed going forward.

On Emad Atiq's Inclusive Anti-positivism

Abstract: In this discussion of Emad Atiq's article "There are No Easy Counterexamples to Legal Anti-Positivism" I pose three challenges to his construction of an Inclusive Anti-positivism. I firstly argue that, contra Atiq, the moral facts that both ground IAP and allow it to satisfy the extensional challenge are sometimes reducible to social facts. In Section II, I briefly discuss internal- and external-to-practice appraisals of legal norms. Finally, in Section III, I touch upon the divergent explanations of legal normativity IAP and positivism offer.

Blaming for Unreasonableness: Accountability without Ill Will

Abstract: Quality of will accounts of moral responsibility hold that ill will is necessary for blameworthiness. But all such accounts are false to ordinary moral practice, which licenses blame for agents who act wrongly from epistemically unreasonable ignorance even if the act is not ill willed. This should be especially concerning to Strawsonians about moral responsibility, who think the genuine conditions of blameworthiness are derived from the standards internal to our practice. In response, I provide a theory of moral blameworthiness on which ill will is not necessary for blameworthiness. On the view I defend, “Rational Capacitarianism,” agents are blameworthy whenever they act wrongly from an unreasonable attitude which is attributable to them, where an attitude is attributable to an agent just in case she has the capacity to assess reasons for and against the attitude and modulate the attitude in light of these assessments. Acting from unreasonable ignorance is just a special case of acting from an unreasonable attitude. My theory contrasts both with both quality of will accounts of blameworthiness (Strawson, Wallace, Rosen, McKenna) and the Capacitarian view (Sher, Rudy-Hiller, Clarke), which specifies that agents who act wrongly from ignorance are culpable if they could and should have known better. On Capacitarianism, a variety of awareness-relevant capacities are pertinent, including memory; on my view it is only failures of rational capacities that render the agent culpable, because only failures of rational capacities are attributable to the agent.

Scope Restrictions, National Partiality, and War

Abstract: Most of us believe that partiality applies in a broad range of relationships. One relationship on which there is much disagreement is co-nationality. Some writers argue that co-national partiality is not justified in certain cases, like killing in war, since killing in defense of co-nationals is intuitively impermissible in other contexts. I argue that this approach overlooks an important structural feature of partiality—namely, that its scope is sometimes restricted. In this essay, I show how some relationships that generate reasons of partiality are restricted in scope—that is, they generate reasons within particular contexts or with respect to particular goods. I then argue that co-national partiality is scope restricted. I then show how this fact helps proponents of co-national partiality overcome the aforementioned objection to its application in cases like war.

Supersession, Reparations, and Restitution

Abstract: Jeremy Waldron argues that claims to reparation for historic injustices can be superseded by the demands of justice in the present. For example, justified Maori claims to reparation resulting from the wrongful appropriation of their land by European settlers may be superseded by the claim to a just distribution of resources possessed by the world’s existing inhabitants. However, if we distinguish between reparative and restitutive claims, we see that while claims to restitution may be superseded by changes in circumstance, this does not entail that claims to reparation are. In contrast, claims to reparation are robust to changes in circumstance.