"Among the foremost Catholic philosophers of his generation. He has utilized the fullness of the Catholic intellectual tradition to brilliantly take the measure of modern philosophical thought... This volume is an expression of Robert Wood's singular philosophical outlook." -Jude Dougherty, dean emeritus, school of philosophy, The Catholic University of America.

This book examines the Condorcet Jury Theorem and how its assumptions can be applicable to the real world. It will use the theorem to assess various familiar political practices and alternative institutional arrangements, revealing how best to take advantage of the truth-tracking potential of majoritarian democracy.

Utilitarianism, the great reforming philosophy of the nineteenth century, has today acquired the reputation for being a crassly calculating, impersonal philosophy unfit to serve as a guide to moral conduct. Yet what may disqualify utilitarianism as a personal philosophy makes it an eminently suitable guide for public officials in the pursuit of their professional responsibilities. Robert E. Goodin, a philosopher with many books on political theory, public policy and applied ethics to his credit, defends utilitarianism against its critics and (...) shows how it can be applied most effectively over a wide range of public policies. In discussions of such issues as paternalism, social welfare policy, international ethics, nuclear armaments, and international responses to the environment crisis, he demonstrates what a flexible tool his brand of utilitarianism can be in confronting the dilemmas of public policy in the real world. (shrink)

Revisioning macro-democratic processes in light of the processes and promise of micro-deliberation, Innovating Democracy provides an integrated perspective on democratic theory and practice after the deliberative turn.

Bracket out the wrong of committing a wrong, or conspiring or colluding or conniving with others in their committing one. Suppose you have done none of those things, and you find yourself merely benefiting from a wrong committed wholly by someone else. What, if anything, is wrong with that? What, if any, duties follow from it? If straightforward restitution were possible — if you could just ‘give back’ what you received as a result of the wrongdoing to its rightful owner (...) — then matters are morally more straightforward. But in real-world cases that is often impossible, and questions of ‘how much, from whom and to whom?’ become far more vexing. The beneficiary disgorging all benefits of the wrong is part of the story, but where that is not possible or will not suffice to compensate the victim of wrongdoing we discuss various ways of allocating the cost of making the victim whole, including supplementation from public coffers. (shrink)

Democracy used to be seen as a relatively mechanical matter of merely adding up everyone's votes in free and fair elections. That mechanistic model has many virtues, among them allowing democracy to 'track the truth', where purely factual issues are all that is at stake. Political disputes invariably mix facts with values, however, and then it is essential to listen to what people are saying rather than merely note how they are voting. The great challenge is how to implement that (...) deliberative ideal among millions of people at once. In this strikingly original book, Goodin offers a solution: 'democratic deliberation within'. Building on models of ordinary conversational dynamics, he suggests that people simply imagine themselves in the position of various other people they have heard or read about and ask, 'What would they say about this proposal?' Informing the democratic imaginary then becomes the key to making deliberations more reflective - more empathetic, more considered, more expansive across time and distance. (shrink)

Foucault famously claimed that in political theory the king’s head still needs to be cut off, proclaiming the imperative to move beyond a centralized and prohibitive conception of power and toward a more distributed, relational and productive understanding of power in political society. Ironically, Edmund Burke, famous for criticizing an actual revolutionary regicide in France, can be read as an ally in Foucault’s project of theoretical regicide and conceptual revolution. For although he staunchly defended existing monarchies in France and Britain, (...) Burke’s political theory in many ways encapsulates the kind of approach that Foucault sought to call forth. In this article, I argue for three particular resonances between Burke’s and Foucault’s views on power’s place and role in political society: one, power precedes subjects; two, power exceeds subjects; and three, subjects must negotiate with existing power relations (as opposed to ignoring or destroying them). Combined, these resonances remind us that political practice, reform and resistance are (almost) always situated in an unchosen context, thus happening in the middle of things rather than on a blank social canvas. Recognizing Burke’s interest in reform conditioned by the socio-cultural and historical circumstances and Foucault’s concern for resistance even though we can never be outside power allows us to appreciate the unchosen constraints that shape political practice of individual and collective subjects alike. (shrink)

Discusses the justification for a minimal welfare state independent of political rhetoric from the right or the left.

In this strikingly original book, one of the leading scholars in the field focuses on the influential idea of deliberative democracy. Goodin examines the great challenge of how to implement the deliberative ideal among millions of people at once and comes up with a novel solution: 'democratic deliberation within'.

Philosophers who complain about the ‹demandingness’ of morality forget that a morality can make too few demands as well as too many. What we ought be seeking is an appropriately demanding morality. This article recommends a ‹moral satisficing’ approach to determining when a morality is ‹demanding enough’, and an institutionalized solution to keeping the demands within acceptable limits.

A healthy work-life balance has become increasingly important to people trying to cope with the pressures of contemporary society. This trend highlights the fallacy of assessing well-being in terms of finance alone; how much time we have matters just as much as how much money. The authors of this book have developed a novel way to measure 'discretionary time': time which is free to spend as one pleases. Exploring data from the US, Australia, Germany, France, Sweden and Finland, they show (...) that temporal autonomy varies substantially across different countries and under different living conditions. By calibrating how much control people have over their time, and how much they could have under alternative welfare, gender or household arrangements, this book offers a new perspective for comparative cross-national enquiries into the temporal aspects of human welfare. (shrink)

The democratic egalitarian ideal requires that everyone should enjoy equal power over the world through voting. If it is improper to vote twice in the same election, why should it be permissible for dual citizens to vote in two different places? Several possible excuses are considered and rejected.

With their remarkable electoral successes, Green parties worldwide seized the political imagination of friends and foes alike. Mainstream politicians busily disparage them and imitate them in turn. This new book shows that 'greens' deserve to be taken more seriously than that. This is the first full-length philosophical discussion of the green political programme. Goodin shows that green public policy proposals are unified by a single, coherent moral vision - a 'green theory of value' - that is largely independent of the (...) `green theory of agency' dictating green political mechanisms, strategies and tactics on the one hand, and personal lifestyle recommendations on the other. The upshot is that we demand that politicians implement green public policies, and implement them completely, without committing ourselves to the other often more eccentric aspects of green doctrine that threaten to alienate so many potential supporters. (shrink)

"How do we experience time? What do we use to experience it?In a series of remarkable experiments, Robert Ornstein shows that it is difficult to maintain an “inner clock” explanation of the experience".

With their remarkable electoral successes, Green parties worldwide seized the political imagination of friends and foes alike. Mainstream politicians busily disparage them and imitate them in turn. This new book shows that 'greens' deserve to be taken more seriously than that. This is the first full-length philosophical discussion of the green political programme. Goodin shows that green public policy proposals are unified by a single, coherent moral vision - a 'green theory of value' - that is largely independent of the (...) `green theory of agency' dictating green political mechanisms, strategies and tactics on the one hand, and personal lifestyle recommendations on the other. The upshot is that we demand that politicians implement green public policies, and implement them completely, without committing ourselves to the other often more eccentric aspects of green doctrine that threaten to alienate so many potential supporters. (shrink)

Introduction -- Modes of settling: settling down, settling in, settling up, settling for, settling one's affairs, settling on -- The value of settling: settling as an aid to planning and agency, settling, commitment, trust, and confidence, settling the social fabric -- What settling is not: settling is not just compromising, settling is not just conservatism, settling is not just resignation -- Settling in aid of striving: settling in order to strive, what strivings require settling, and why, when to switch between (...) one and the other, and why -- Conclusions. (shrink)

Presentism states that everything is present. Crucial to our understanding of this thesis is how we interpret the ‘is’. Recently, several philosophers have claimed that on any interpretation presentism comes out as either trivially true or manifestly false. Yet, presentism is meant to be a substantive and interesting thesis. I outline in detail the nature of the problem and the standard interpretative options. After unfavourably assessing several popular responses in the literature, I offer an alternative interpretation that provides the desired (...) result. This interpretation is then used to clarify the distinction between ‘real change’ from mere variation and temporal relativisation. Reflecting on my solution, I try to diagnose the source of confusion over these issues. Then, building upon Fine’s distinction between ontic and factive presentism, I elucidate what the presentist thesis specifically concerns and how best to formalise it. In the process I distinguish a weak and strong version of the presentist thesis. Finally, I end by drawing out some limitations of the paper. (shrink)

Robert Abrams argues that new concepts of space and landscape emerged in mid-nineteenth-century American writing, marking a linguistic and interpretative limit to American expansion. Abrams supports the radical elements of antebellum writing, where writers from Hawthorne to Rebecca Harding Davis disputed the naturalizing discourses of mid-nineteenth century society. Whereas previous critics find in antebellum writing a desire to convert chaos into an affirmative, liberal agenda, Abrams contends that authors of the 1840s and 50s deconstructed more than they constructed.

This paper firstly distinguishes between principles of “global justice” that apply the same anywhere and everywhere – Tännsjö’s utilitarianism, egalitarianism, prioritarianism and such like – and principles of “local justice” that apply within the specific sphere of health-care. Sometimes the latter might just be a special case of the former – but not always. Secondly, it discusses reasons, many psychological in nature, why physicians might devote excessive resources to prolonging life pointlessly, showing once again that those reasons might themselves be (...) morally significant. (shrink)

An interesting fact about customary international law is that the only way you can propose an amendment to it is by breaking it. How can that be differentiated from plain law-breaking? What moral standards might apply to that sort of international conduct? I propose we use ones analogous to the ordinary standards for distinguishing civil disobedients from ordinary law-breakers: would-be law-makers, like civil disobedients, must break the law openly; they must accept the legal consequences of doing so; and they must (...) be prepared to have the same rules applied to them as everyone else. (shrink)