Equality

In ‘Are Citizenship Tests Necessarily Illiberal?’, Michael Blake argues that difficult citizenship tests are not necessarily illiberal, so long as they test for the right things. In this paper, I argue that Blake’s attempt to square citizenship tests with liberalism fails. Blake underestimates the burdens citizenship tests impose on immigrants, ignoring in particular the egalitarian claims immigrants have on equal social membership. Moreover, Blake’s positive justification of citizenship tests – that they help justify immigrants’ coercive voting power – both neglects (...) the fact that such tests are coercively imposed on immigrants and that the citizenship test Blake envisions does little to help ensure immigrants’ votes are legitimate. Citizenship tests thus aren’t, even in principle, a way of protecting citizens from unjustified coercive power. They are, even under favourable circumstances, an illiberal way of obstructing immigrants’ quest for social equality. (shrink)

I explore how Vivekananda and Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan’s development of Advaita Vedānta has an enormous impact on Neo-Hindu, and indeed, Indian, self-understandings of ethics and politics. I contend that Vivekananda and Radhakrishnan both conceive of the spirit of Hinduism as a radical form of equality that lies at the heart of an Advaitic (monistic) interpretation of the Upaniṣads. This metaphysical monism of consciousness of self and other in Advaita paves a solid conceptual road to an ethic of radical equality in both (...) the personal and the political spheres. (shrink)

Engaging citizens and patients in research has become a truism in many fields of health research. It is now seen as a laudable—if not compulsory—activity in research for yielding more impactful and...

This work, entitled “Justice and Liberation: A Tribute to John Rawls”, brings together 25 works in Portuguese, Spanish and English presented at the 9th International Symposium on Justice. The articles bring contributions around three major themes: i) analyzes and interpretations of concepts in Rawls' work, such as constructivism, democracy, education, the inclusion of people with disabilities, issues related to genetic inequalities, the environment, public reason, and the role of reconciliation; ii) analysis of criticisms directed at Rawls by Dupuy, Dussel, Fraser, (...) Mouffe, and contemporary continental philosophy; iii) analysis of issues related to justice and liberation based on the debate on themes such as climate injustice and colonialism, social justice and gender, justice and progress, justice and recognition, and critical thinking in Latin America. Edited by Nythamar de Oliveira, Cristina Foroni Consani, and Julia Sichieri Moura. (shrink)

In this paper, I argue that sportspersonship is a means of performing fundamental sociality; it is about the conversion of a foe (inimicus) into an enemy (hostis). Drawing on Carl Schmitt’s distinction between enemy and foe – inimicus and hostis – as well as his discussion of the ius publicum Europaeum, I suggest a model of sportspersonship that sees it as expressing the competitive relations between equals that undergird the most minimal form of sociality; relations that any deeper union takes (...) as its foundation. It is the performance of this fundamental sociality, I argue, that grounds the value of sport in general (though this does not mean that there cannot be other, contingent values in sport). (shrink)

How many questions could you answer in a pub quiz about British values? Designed to ensure new migrants have accepted British values and integrated, the UK's citizenship test is often portrayed as a bad pub quiz with answers few citizens know. With the launch of a new post-Brexit immigration system, this is a critical time to change the test. Thom Brooks draws on first-hand experience of taking the test, and interviews with key figures including past Home Secretaries, to expose the (...) test as ineffective and a barrier to citizenship. This accessible guide offers recommendations for transforming the citizenship test into a 'bridge to citizenship' which fosters greater inclusion and integration. (shrink)

Trust is essential for our democracy. We trust our political leaders and institutions to put the public interest before their personal or partisan advantage. We trust each other to work and live together. No system is perfect and there is rarely one right answer to the big challenges faced, but we expect leaders to be honest, competent and compassionate – and punish any breaches harshly in the polls or the ballot box. But not any longer. Now is a time of (...) political crisis that’s fuelled by a lack of trust in government and the mainstream. This carries significant and damaging consequences for the future of our democracy fragmenting and polarising our communities. While election results from Brexit to Trump shocked political pundits on both sides of the Atlantic, the roots of an alienated and divided public who increasingly do not trust public figures to put the public interest first have root causes that run deep. The absence of trust creates a political shift akin to a new kind of revolution putting at risk our democracy’s future health. Awareness and action have never been needed more urgently. For over two decades, Thom Brooks has been a leading voice in exposing this crisis in trust and challenging its foundations. This provocative collection of new and recent reflections brings together his work as a freelance columnist and essayist covering Brexit, British values, citizenship and immigration, Scotland’s independence referendum, tackling the Covid-19 pandemic, education policy and legal reform. These essays highlight his substantial contributions to some of the leading political issues of our day. How deep is our current crisis – and what can we do about it to rebuild trust in our politicians, public institutions and each other? Brooks provides clear insights into these issues and more with his ‘realistic optimism’ for the future and why we can be the solution to our political crisis. (shrink)

Climate change confronts us with our most pressing challenges today. The global consensus is clear that human activity is mostly to blame for its harmful effects, but there is disagreement about what should be done. While no shortage of proposals from ecological footprints and the polluter pays principle to adaptation technology and economic reforms, each offers a solution – but is climate change a problem we can solve? In this provocative new book, these popular proposals for ending or overcoming the (...) threat of climate change are shown to offer no easy escape and each rest on an important mistake. Thom Brooks argues that a future environmental catastrophe is an event we can only delay or endure, but not avoid. This raises new ethical questions about how we should think about climate change. How should we reconceive sustainability without a status quo? Why is action more urgent and necessary than previously thought? What can we do to motivate and inspire hope? Many have misunderstood the kind of problem that climate change presents – as well as the daunting challenges we must face and overcome. Climate Change Ethics for an Endangered World is a critical guide on how we can better understand the fragile world around us before it is too late. This innovative book will be of great interest to students and scholars of climate change, climate justice, environmental policy and environmental ethics. "This book offers a rare combination of tough-mindedness, analytic rigor, and passion as it tackles the greatest challenge of our time―climate change. For Brooks, it’s past time to acknowledge that climate change cannot be solved though the careful selection of good polices. Climate change is an unavoidable tragedy that we must endure but may be able to survive. Offering a program that emphasizes flexibility and adaptation, Brooks brings original insights to a debate that too long has been bogged down in wishful thinking and empty scholasticism." Professor Eric Posner, Kirkland & Ellis Distinguished Service Professor of Law at the University of Chicago's Law School. (shrink)

The set of identities provable in primitive recursive arithmetic without induction (PRE), with or without standard quantifier free successor axioms, is recursive. A finite number of identities can be added to PRE such that the set of identities provable become complete r.e. (with or without successor axioms). If the successor axiom y≠0 → gx(S(x) = y) is added to PRE, then the set of identities provable become complete r.e. (with or without 1≠0). If PRE is augmented by definition by cases, (...) then the set of identities provable become complete r.e. (with or without successor axioms). Equivalents of primitive recursive arithmetic (PRA) are given, involving the rule of induction restricted to identities. (shrink)

A number of widely discussed court decisions on cases of insults against religious feelings in Russia, such as the relatively recent “Pokemon Go” case of blogger Ruslan Sokolovsky or the lawsuit filed against an Orthodox priest by Nikolai Ryabchevsky in Yekaterinburg for comparing Lenin with Hitler, make pertinent the question of why toleration becomes so difficult in matters concerning religion. In this paper, I revise the classical liberal concept of toleration (David Heyd, Peter Nicholson, and John Horton), arguing that it (...) is challenged by contemporary philosophers, who see no room for applying this concept in the “domain of identities”. The most prominent case of “primordial” identity, that is, the notion of identity as a given, is the claim of devoted believers for recognition. Should we replace the principle of toleration by the principle of recognition since the latter better corresponds to identity claims? To address this question, in the first part of the article I describe the mechanism of tolerant attitude (Nicholson, Heyd) and in the second part, I analyze the debates about the possibility or impossibility of inner religious toleration (Avishai Margalit, Cary Nederman, and Maxim Khomyakov) and further compare toleration and recognition as normative principles. In the light of the debates I took part in the conference hosted by the University of Southern Denmark in October 2019 as part of the project “Religious Majority/Minority in Public Space in Russia and Northern Europe: Historical-Cultural Analysis”, I come to the conclusion that the principle of toleration is preferable to the principle of recognition because the “second-order” arguments for toleration in a secular state will be universally acceptable (pragmatic argument) and, therefore, the principle of toleration is more logical (analytical argument). Following Peter John’s thesis about minimal recognition embedded in toleration, it may also be concluded that we need a normatively charged idea of citizenship, which could provide us with universal “second-order” foundation. (shrink)

Generally, anthropologists are not thought of as contributing to utopian thought and, really, there are few anthropological monographs or articles with even the word "utopia" in the title. As the late anthropological futurist Robert Textor pointed out, this is due to earlier orientations: cultural evolutionism and culture history in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, and an emphasis on the "ethnographic present" in the mid-twentieth that tended to represent other people as existing in a "timeless" present. Nevertheless, anthropologists have explored (...) utopian possibility. Margaret Mead, for example, drew on her... (shrink)

The executive branch is often conceptualised as a hierarchy in which one official has ultimate authority to carry out the law. In American public law, this is referred to as the ‘unitary’ theory of...

Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, EarlyView.

Review of Van Parijs and Vanderborght's book, Basic Income: A Radical Proposal for a Free Society and a Sane Economy. Van Parijs refers to this book as not only a "toolkit for the people advocating Basic Income around the world, but also for people criticizing it." This book is a must-read for anyone interested in Basic Income.

Research Ethics, Ahead of Print. Engaging citizens and patients in research has become a truism in many fields of health research. It is now seen as a laudable—if not compulsory—activity in research for yielding more impactful and meaningful citizen/patient outcomes and steering research in the right direction. Although this research approach is increasingly common and commendable, we recently encountered a major obstacle in obtaining an ethics certificate from an institutional review board to conduct a study that places citizen/patient perspectives on (...) equal footing with those of academic/policy experts. The obstacle was the interpretation of fairness in terms of compensation for research participation. In terms of research ethics, this raised an important question: Should all types of participants be compensated equally, or should exceptions be made for citizen/patient participants? We argue that there are good reasons for exceptionalism and that clearer guidance on citizen/patient engagement in research should be embedded into research ethics doctrine. (shrink)

This book intends to make known, in a detailed but accessible way to the general public, an old idea, but which has had a renewed interest in recent years: the proposal of attributing an unconditional basic income for all. This idea, often discarded and disqualified for allegedly belonging to the mere domain of utopia, understood in a pejorative sense as something unrealizable, has been the target of the interest of many people (academics, politicians, businesspeople, activists and, of course, all citizens (...) concerned with the common good) is presented as being feasible through several concrete experiences and pilot projects. (shrink)

The inclusion of girls and women in sport at all levels depends on single sex categories for most sports from puberty onwards, because of the biological differences between the sexes. Most sport is, by definition, competitive; involving invasion games, teams, leagues, races, competitions and sometimes rankings, from foundation to excellence. Girls and women are underrepresented, particularly in traditional sport, as recognised by the UK Sports Councils and most governing bodies of sport. This paper uses feminist philosophy: Lister on androcentric citizenship, (...) and Fraser on justice as balance, framing, recognition, representation and redistribution. It investigates the impact on the inclusion of girls and women, of eligibility policies adopting ‘self-identification of gender’ guidelines for the inclusion of transgender people in sport, at participation rather than elite levels. It explores fairness and equality as incorporated in law in the 2010 Equality Act in Britain, and contributes to ‘equality evidence’ available to the UK Sports Councils and GBS. These bodies are charged with developing fair and inclusive evidence-based eligibility criteria, in sports participation settings, for both girls and women, and transgender people. (shrink)

In ethics and political philosophy, the concepts of equity, equality, need satisfaction, and justice are significant for the fulfilment of underlying requirements of human rights, and the attainment of peace in societies. Studies show these as potential frames for defining processes, distributing resources, sharing responsibilities, allocating rewards, demonstrating respect and dispensing with unequal treatments. Justice, as the ideal that impels us to impartially adjudicate between competent claims, is linked to equality. But as the moral force that propels actions for needs’ (...) satisfaction, it is linked to equity. Hence, equality and equity are two elements of the theory of justice: both are grounded on the principles of distributive justice. This ‘common grounding’ apparently obfuscates their distinctive features, and over time, has elicited their equiparation. This essay highlights the archetypal frames of the notions of equity and equality as indispensable principles of social justice. It identifies the skewed distribution of resources in Nigeria as arising from a legal framework that removes the power of personal/group autonomy from the people. The essay notes the misleading tendency in the insulated use of equality for justice, and accepts the primacy of distributive justice amongst rival pathways to national cohesive living. (shrink)

Some of Dave Chappelle’s uses of storytelling about seemingly mundane events, like his experiences with his “white friend Chip” and the police, are examples of what W.E.B. Du Bois calls “Positive Propaganda.” This is in contrast to “Demagoguery,” the sort of propaganda described by Jason Stanley that obstructs empathic recognition of others, and undermines reasonable debate among citizens regarding policies that matter: the justice system, welfare, inequality, and race, for example. Some of Chappelle’s humor, especially in his most recent Netflix (...) specials, but also in his earlier standup performances and his series The Chappelle Show, is akin to art that appeals to emotion in the ways suggested by Du Bois in “Criteria of Negro Art” (1926). Beauty is essential to art, but, “I do not care a damn for any art that is not used for propaganda. But I do care when propaganda is confined to one side while the other is stripped and silent” (p. 22). The “one side” is that which appears to extoll American ideals, but in reality undermines them, perpetuating the subordinate status of “the other”--black citizens. Replace “beauty” with “humor” or “funny”, and we see striking parallels between Chappelle’s socio-political performances and Du Bois’ call for positive propaganda, each of which constitute “civic rhetoric” broadly construed. We no longer live in Du Bois’ America of explicit denial of rights. In many ways our situation is worse, as the mechanisms of exclusion are implicit, difficult to dislodge, because they are invisible. Chappelles’ humor draws attention to subtle undermining-propaganda in our liberal democracy, transforming it through his counter-propaganda into the spectacle that it should be; ubiquitous democracy-denying propaganda should be as obvious to whites as it is to minorities. In his words, we should all see that “that shit is fucking incredible” (Killin’ Them Softly). (shrink)

Relationship and sex counseling are pivotal components of the “therapeutization of society,” which has been identified and widely examined as a key transformation of 21st-century modern Western societies. The particular understandings of gender and sexuality that circulate in those practices contribute to the wider everyday conceptions of intimate life and are thus important to investigate from a feminist perspective. Combining insights from studies on therapeutic cultures, research on intimate relationships, scholarship on postfeminism, and affect theory, this article taps into the (...) often ambivalent ways in which gender equality and sexual rights are articulated in relationship and sex counseling practices. My data are derived from an ethnographic investigation of relationship enhancement events in Finland. Equality was widely supported at these events, but there was no consensus regarding what desirable equality actually looked like. My analysis identifies several contradictory patterns in the data. First, there are statements to the effect that equality has “gone too far.” Second, many experts express tokenized critiques yet remain invested in depoliticizing views. Third, there are acts of resistance that embrace diversity and expand everyday understandings of gender and sexuality. I argue that these patterns constitute a postfeminist sensibility, thus complicating the belief that Nordic countries are exceptionally supportive of equality. (shrink)

Greater numbers of women are entering workplaces in Saudi Arabia and other Middle Eastern countries. Structural features of patriarchy are changing in Middle Eastern societies and workplaces, but women’s experiences of gendered segregation, under-representation and exclusion raise questions around the feminist politics and ethics mobilized to respond to them. Building on and extending emerging research on feminism, gender, resistance, feminist ethics and the Middle East, we use data from an interview study with 58 Saudi Arabian women to explore their attitudes (...) toward gender-segregated and mixed workplaces. We develop a novel conceptualization of how gender is experienced through patternings of resistance and conformity shaped by the ethicopolitical, religiopolitical and sociocultural webs of meaning in Saudi society that permeate workplaces. Saudi women’s attitudes and actions in the workplace are neither entirely individual and private nor entirely collective and public, but made up of nuanced commitments and resistances to context-relevant identity issues. We discuss implications of our findings for the feminist ethics and politics of gendered resistance and conformity to working practices and norms in Islamic and Middle Eastern settings. (shrink)

Blake Hereth has recently argued for zootheism, the view that God has incarnated as a non-human animal. I argue that zootheism is compatible with orthodox Christianity, and that at least one argument for it has some force. But I also argue that Hereth’s version of zootheism conflicts with orthodox Christianity, as do some of the arguments Hereth uses to motivate it. And then I argue that the elements of Hereth’s view which conflict with orthodox Christianity are independently implausible anyway: the (...) conflicting details are better filled in in other ways, and the conflicting arguments fail. Recognizing this yields a version of zootheism which is in harmony with orthodox Christianity while still having a philosophical motivation. (shrink)

In ethics and political philosophy, the concepts of equity, equality, need satisfaction, and justice are significant for the fulfilment of underlying requirements of human rights, and the attainment of peace in societies. Studies show these as potential frames for defining processes, distributing resources, sharing responsibilities, allocating rewards, demonstrating respect and dispensing with unequal treatments. Justice, as the ideal that impels us to impartially adjudicate between competent claims, is linked to equality. But as the moral force that propels actions for needs’ (...) satisfaction, it is linked to equity. Hence, equality and equity are two elements of the theory of justice: both are grounded on the principles of distributive justice. This ‘common grounding’ apparently obfuscates their distinctive features, and over time, has elicited their equiparation. This essay highlights the archetypal frames of the notions of equity and equality as indispensable principles of social justice. It identifies the skewed distribution of resources in Nigeria as arising from a legal framework that removes the power of personal/group autonomy from the people. The essay notes the misleading tendency in the insulated use of equality for justice, and accepts the primacy of distributive justice amongst rival pathways to national cohesive living. (shrink)

According to relational egalitarians, equality is not primarily about the distribution of some good but about people relating to one another as equals. However, compared with other theorists in political philosophy – including other egalitarians – relational egalitarians have said relatively little on what role personal responsibility should play in their theories. For example, is equality compatible with responsibility? Should economic distributions be responsibility-sensitive? This article fills this gap. I develop a relational egalitarian framework for personal responsibility and show that (...) relational equality commits us to responsibility. I develop two sets of arguments. First, I draw on relational theories of moral responsibility – particularly Strawsonian views – to show that valuable egalitarian relationships require responsibility. Second, I show why relational equality sometimes requires that economic distributions be sensitive to responsibility and choice. I also defend a seemingly paradoxical result: being committed to responsibility, relational egalitarianism not only justifies some distributive inequalities but some relational inequalities too. Overall, relational egalitarianism gives a nuanced and coherent answer as to why and how responsibility matters from within egalitarianism. That it does should be an important argument in its favour. (shrink)

For more than a century now, the automation of the means of work has created great apprehension among us. After all, will we all be replaced by machines in the future? Will all forms of labor be automatable? Such questions raise several criticisms in the literature concerned with machine ethics. However, in this study, I will approach this problem from another angle. After all, we can criticize the automation of the means of work in several ways. I invite the reader (...) to entertain the following hypothesis: What if the automation of the means of labor is something beneficial? What if human emancipation does come through our technological development? If the answer is yes, why do we still work so much? I conclude that if automation processes are applied to key points in our social structure, we can emancipate the individual from a reality where we work for no reason. (shrink)

This article is a critical interrogation of how gender and power figure in Swedish child welfare policy and the discourses on violence in intimate relationships vis-à-vis children exposed to violence. Drawing on feminist violence research, critical childhood studies, and intersectional perspectives, we identify a differentiation with racialised undertones in the understanding of violence as a social problem when related to children’s exposure. While predominately gender-neutral discourses of social heredity and epidemiology run through the material for the seemingly ‘universal’ child, forms (...) of violence ascribed to the presumed cultural Others link to gender, structural power and sexuality. The article concludes that gendered articulations of violence are restricted yet pivotal if children’s exposure is to be linked to issues of inequality and power. However, when gendering interlinks with racialisation, problematic differentiations of violence, childhoods and children are produced. (shrink)

ABSTRACT As the most famous critic of John Stuart Mill, James Fitzjames Stephen has often been assumed to have been a religious conservative or even reactionary. In contrast to these assessments, this article shows that Stephen's most consistent enemies were what he took to be the two most significant religious forces of the modern world: Ultramontane Catholicism and Comtean Positivism. The article explores his objections to these two religious ideologies, which he saw as sharing certain harmful features. It then shows (...) that his famous critiques of John Stuart Mill and liberalism had much in common with his attacks on Ultramontanism and Positivism; for example, he charged that they rested on an implausible philosophical anthropology and that they degraded the state. (shrink)

平等是现代社会的主要理想价值之一。我们必须认识到，平等有不同的形式。而且任何形式的平等都有随之而来的其他形式的不平等。本文考察儒家思想传统在经济、伦理和政治维度的平等和不平等观念。认为儒家平等观念的主 要特征是比例平等以及随之而来的相关方方面的不平等。儒家的平等思想是其理想社会的重要部分，并试图探究这一观念的当代意涵。.

In this essay I attempt to articulate a Confucian idea of gender equality from a perspective of yin-yang philosophy.

In three essays I consider how American constitutional law might be refashioned according to status egalitarian principles. In “In Defense of Immutability,” I take up the immutability criterion in 14th Amendment jurisprudence. In short, under the immutability criterion, social groups defined by the possession of an immutable trait receive heightened legal protection. Yet the Court has never clearly or persuasively defined “immutable,” and most legal scholars now reject the immutability criterion as descriptively inadequate and morally implausible. In this chapter I (...) offer a defense of the immutability criterion. In my view, the immutability criterion accurately captures an essential feature of unjust status hierarchies, namely, that dominant groups in a status hierarchy will tend to identify subordinate groups on the basis of stigmatized traits that possess a fixed social meaning. Equal Protection therefore requires the Court to look not to immutable physical or psychological traits but to the existence of immutable, stigmatized social identities. I conclude this Chapter by showing how my account of “social immutability” extends legal protection to traits such as language, hair, and gender presentation. In “The Badges of Slavery Revisited,” I consider Congress’s authority under Section 2 of the 13th Amendment to abolish racial status hierarchy. Since at least the late 19th century Section 2 has been understood as granting Congress the authority to abolish the “badges and incidents” of slavery. Surprisingly, however, there has been little historical inquiry into the meaning of the badges metaphor. Recently, legal historians have argued that Congressional authority to remove the badges of slavery should extend only to practices that mirror chattel slavery. In fact, as I argue in this Chapter, the badges metaphor was widely used in the antebellum period to condemn political subordination of many sorts, including misogynistic gender norms, exploitative labor relations, and segregation. Contemporary legal scholars who invoke the badges metaphor to condemn a wide variety of injustices, and not just those due to the legacy of chattel slavery, are thus correct in thinking that Section 2 remains an untapped font of legislative authority. Finally, in “The Case for Unconditional Birthright Citizenship,” I examine the moral justification for unconditional birthright citizenship. Contemporary egalitarians increasingly dismiss the practice as arbitrary and unjust; yet, in this essay I demonstrate that in multi-ethnic liberal democracies characterized by relatively high levels of immigration, unconditional birthright citizenship is necessary for creating a non-racialized, egalitarian national identity. Birthright citizenship expresses a fundamental legal commitment to incorporating, on equal terms, potentially vast demographic change into the body politic. Overall, I conclude that birthright citizenship has proven to be a deeply effective means by which to eliminate inherited status hierarchies and so deserves the support of contemporary egalitarians. (shrink)

The article deals with the conceptual vision of gender content in its relation to sex taking into account the extremes to which researchers of gender issues and social movements have resorted to and considering the role and place of men and women in social and cultural life. On this background wrongfulness of such approaches is justified, according to which gender and sex are identified. It is shown in this article that these notions have different meanings and represent different dimensions of (...) human existence. Thus, in contrast to sex, which reveals the physiological differences between men and women, gender is a socio cultural construct which sets the «matrix» of gender interaction at every historical stage of social and cultural life by offering their own vision of gender equality. Alongside with other ideas we substantiate the idea that gender equality is possible only in the social aspect. (shrink)

The founders of Greek scientific thought believed justice in terms of equality. Cosmic equality, in fact, was conceived as the guaranty of cosmic justice: the order of nature is maintained because it is an order of equals. That the main components of the universe are equal was an old tradition in popular cosmology. In Hesiod earth and sky are declared equal ; and the distance between sky and earth is equal to that between earth and Tartarus. Anaximander’s own cosmology is (...) designed with just such a sense of aesthetic symmetry, with equality as the main motif: the intervals between each of the infinite worlds are equal; the intervals between earth, fixed stars, moon, and sun are also equal; earth and sun are equal. This is exactly the sense in which equality figures in the whole development of early cosmological theory from Anaximander to Empedocles: powers are equal if they can hold another in check, in a way that no one of them is more powerful than any other. The objective of this paper is to propose a cosmological interpretation of the term díkē in ancient Greek according to Aristotle, who establishes synonymy between justice and equality through the use of the «dividing line» paradigm. Aristotle reveals, in effect, that the words diksastḗs «judge» and dikaion «just» come from the root díkē, «judgment or sentence», which in their turn are derived from the adverb dīksā, «division into two equal parts». Moreover, the adverb dīksā comes from the Greek root dís-, «divided into two parts, dichotomous», which in its turn is derived from the Sanskrit root *diś- whose meaning indicates the astronomical concept of the «horizon line», — i.e. the boundary line that divides apparently the cosmos in two equal parts, the Earth and the Sky. As said by Palmer and Gagarin, in effect, the meaning of the word Díkē is associated with making a «judgment or decision» between two contestants, that is, placing a «dividing line» between them. Furthermore, this original conception representing justice as a division of the cosmos into two equal parts, or cosmic dasmós, has its roots in ancient cosmogony not only Greek but also Indo-Iranian, Hindus, Old Persian, Egyptian, Babylonian and Chinese. To conclude, according to my research, also Plato could have used the paradigm of the «Line of the horizon» to explain his cosmological Doctrine of Ideas. (shrink)

In ‘Justice and Natural Resources,’ Chris Armstrong offers a rich and sophisticated egalitarian theory of resource justice, according to which the benefits and burdens flowing from natural resources are ideally distributed with a view to equalize people’s access to wellbeing, unless there are compelling reasons that justify departures from that egalitarian default. Armstrong discusses two such reasons: special claims from ‘improvement’ and ‘attachment.’ In this paper, I critically assess the account he gives of these potential constraints on global equality. I (...) argue that his recognition of them has implications that Armstrong does not anticipate, and which challenge some important theses in his book. First, special claims from improvement will justify larger departures from the egalitarian default than Armstrong believes. Second, a consistent application of Armstrong’s life plan-foundation for special claims from attachment implies that nation-states may move closer to justify ‘permanent sovereignty’ over the resources within their territories than what his analysis suggests. (shrink)

Most online platforms are becoming increasingly algorithmically personalized. The question is if these practices are simply satisfying users preferences or if something is lost in this process. This article focuses on how to reconcile the personalization with the importance of being able to share cultural objects - including fiction – with others. In analyzing two concrete personalization examples from the streaming giant Netflix, several tendencies are observed. One is to isolate users and sometimes entirely eliminate shared world aspects. Another tendency (...) is to blur the boundary between shared cultural objects and personalized content, which can be misleading and disorienting. A further tendency is for personalization algorithms to be optimized to deceptively prey on desires for content that mirrors one’s own lived experience. Some specific - often minority targeting -“clickbait” practices received public blowback. These practices show disregard both for honest labeling and for our desires to have access and representation in a shared world. The article concludes that personalization tendencies are moving towards increasingly isolating and disorienting interfaces, but that platforms could be redesigned to support better social world orientation. (shrink)

After the 2008 crisis, there were several debates on the bail-out and the lack of accountability of financial institutions; this supposedly affects politica l values such as equality and responsibility: it implies transferring resources from the public (for instance, poor people) to specific economic agents who have chosen to incur certain risks. On the other hand, it is arguable that it would not be up to the regulators to protect investors’ interests, and that there would be more efficient and less (...) burdensome instruments associated with prudential regulation. Our goal is to provide a justification for the bail-out and for holding bankers accountable. In section 2, we present a brief description of the problem in the context of the crisis, followed by a justification for the bail-out through the incentives argument, based on Rawls’s difference principle. In section 3, we provide an ethical discussion over the corresponding moral hazards, and investigate how to mitigate it through coercive measures. (shrink)

Under which conditions are social relationships hierarchical, and under which conditions are they not? This article has three main aims. First, I will explain what this question amounts to by providing a more detailed description of the general phenomenon of social hierarchy. Second, I will provide an account of what social hierarchy is. Third, I will provide some considerations in favour of this account by discussing how it improves upon three alternative ways of thinking about social hierarchy that are sometimes (...) explicitly endorsed and sometimes suggested or presupposed in writings in philosophy and elsewhere. (shrink)

Is the feminist project to bring about parity for women and men in traditionally male fields doomed? Recent headlines trumpet that "The more gender equality, the fewer women in STEM." The American Enterprise Institute proposes that it is futile to fund efforts to increase women in STEM fields, given that, “as paradoxical and counter-intuitive as it seems, female underrepresentation in STEM may actually be the result of the great advances in female empowerment, progress, and advancement that have taken place in (...) recent decades, and not the result of systemic gender discrimination.” Meanwhile, men's rights activists exalt new findings as evidence that women just naturally don’t prefer science. These bold claims stem from the “Gender Equality Paradox” hypothesis, which is simply this: Some of the countries with the highest gender equity scores on internationally-comparable indices also show the largest average sex differences in prefrences for STEM careers. In other words, in countries with more gender equality, like Norway and Sweden, fewer women choose to enter STEM fields than in countries like Algeria or Turkey. Over the past year, the GenderSci Lab has been engaged in a critical analysis of the “Gender Equality Paradox” hypothesis and its accompanying assumptions and implications. In this paper, we share our reanalysis of some of the data used by Stoet and Geary (2018) and argue that their findings are likely spurious. (shrink)

This paper examines two strands of literature regarding economic models of cooperation. First, payoff transformation theories assume that people may not be exclusively motivated by self-interest, but also care about equality and fairness. Second, team reasoning theorists assume that people might reason from the perspective of the team, rather than an individualistic perspective. Can these two theories be unified? In contrast to the consensus among team reasoning theorists, I argue that team reasoning can be viewed as a particular type of (...) payoff transformation. However, I also demonstrate that many payoff transformations yield actions that team reasoning rules out. (shrink)

For more than twenty years, Peter Vanderschraaf’s work has combined rigorous game-theoretic analysis, innovative use of (social) scientific method, and normative analysis in the context of the social contract. Vanderschraaf’s work has influenced a significant interdisciplinary field of study and culminated in the publication of his book, Strategic Justice: Convention and Problems of Balancing Divergent Interests (OUP, 2019). Building upon his previous work, Vanderschraaf developed a new theory of justice (justice-as-convention) that, despite a mutual advantage approach, considers the most vulnerable (...) members of society and defends the egalitarian bargaining solution. To advance his theory, Vanderschraaf proposes an account of conventions that updates and systematizes David Lewis’s account of conventions, drawing on contemporary developments in game theory and economics. This topical collection brings together game theorists, philosophers, economists, and political scientists to discuss themes from Vanderschraaf’s work. The collection bridges a gap among disjoint but closely related literatures in game theory, bargaining theory, formal philosophy, rationality, equality, justice, and the social contract in order to advance dialogue among scholars in this rich and growing field of study. (shrink)

This article argues that citizens have a basic right to invite family members and spouses into their society on the basis of Rawlsian egalitarian premises. This right is argued to be just as basic as other recognized basic rights, such as freedom of speech. The argument suggests further that we must treat immigration and family reunification, in particular, as central issues of domestic justice. The article also examines the implications of these points for the importance of immigration in liberal domestic (...) justice and suggests avenues for further research on the interplay of considerations of justice towards citizens and non-citizens. (shrink)

The Rawlsian institutional approach holds that distributive principles apply to socioeconomic institutions rather than transactions within the institutional framework. Critics claim that the approach is baseless. I defend Rawls’s institutionalism by showing that it has a rational basis: Rawls “constructs” a theory of justice from considered judgments, especially ideas found in the political culture and historical conditions of democracy, including the fact of reasonable pluralism, which supports his institutionalism. I use Rawls’s “fact-sensitive constructivism” to interpret his claim that “utilitarianism does (...) not take seriously the distinction between persons.” Rawls’s claim refers to his contrast between impartial spectator reasoning for the classical principle of utility and his original position, which aims to motivate the original position’s use of mutually disinterested parties to an agreement as more accurately reflecting democracy’s fact of reasonable pluralism. Rawls then shows that these original position conditions, meant to reflect separate persons in democracy, justify his egalitarian principles over classical utility. I extend his contrast to act-egalitarianism to show that Rawls’s fact-sensitive constructivism supports his institutionalism. I argue that the original position, which reflects separate persons, only justifies the institutional difference principle and that the natural reasoning for act-egalitarianism does not take seriously the separateness of persons. (shrink)

The majoritarian conception of democracy implies that counter-majoritarian institutions such as federalism—and even representative institutions—are derogations from democracy. The majoritarian conception is mistaken for two reasons. First, it is incoherent: majoritarianism ultimately stands against one of democracy’s core normative commitments—namely, political equality. Second, majoritarianism is premised on a mistaken view of power, which fails to account for the power of numbers and thereby fails to explain the inequality faced by members of persistent minorities. Although strict majority rule serves the democratic (...) values of political agency and equality as interpreted by a set of formal conditions, an adequate conception of power shows why in real-world conditions formal-procedural inequalities, instantiated by counter-majoritarian institutions such as federalism, are sometimes required to serve democratic equality. (shrink)