This article advances what it calls the ‘Impossibility Result’: it is impossible to claim that the reduction of exploitation leads to the improvement of efficiency. The Impossibility Result is the inevitable result of the proposed conceptual difference between ‘injustice’ and ‘exploitation’. Injustice occurs when one member of a society deviates from the norms and the legal rules concerning how one should treat other members of that society. Exploitation occurs when one member of a society takes advantage of entities such wild (...) animals, cattle, a field of vegetables, or other people that lie outside the boundary of that society. In many cases of exploitation, the exploited may derive some benefit, as in the case when enslavement is better than death. In other cases of exploitation, the exploited may derive zero benefit, called here ‘harm’, as in the case when a deer is hunted. (shrink)

Any plausibly just market exchange must balance two conflicting moral considerations: non-worseness (Wertheimer, 1999) and euvoluntariness (true voluntariness; Munger, 2011). We propose an analytical theory of just market exchange that partly resolves this conflict.

SARS-CoV-2 has unleashed an unprecedented global crisis that has caused the demand for essential goods, such as medical and sanitation products, to soar while simultaneously disrupting the very supply chains that allow individuals and institutions to obtain those essential goods. This has resulted in stark price increases and accusations of price gouging. We survey the existing philosophical literature that examines price gouging and identify the key arguments for regulators permitting such behavior and for regulators restricting such behavior. We demonstrate how (...) the existing accounts are designed for localized emergencies rather than global persistent crises such as the coronavirus pandemic. In light of this, we highlight an understudied justification for price gouging that is much more salient during global crises: incentivizing increased production of essential goods. Furthermore, we pinpoint three conditions that help determine whether authorities should restrict price gouging during the coronavirus pandemic and similar global crises. (shrink)

A growing literature has explored the workability and efficacy of governance without the state. The difficulties typically raised in the context of these studies concern under which conditions cooperation or Hobbesian chaos would arise in the absence of a monopolist of coercion. This paper challenges the idea of the stateless society from another vantage point, arguing the institutions articulated by proponents of the stateless society would struggle at reconciling heterogeneous views regarding the rights of third parties. This is relevant for (...) many of the most contentious policy debates, such as abortion and animal rights. (shrink)

This paper aims to address two seemingly independent issues in the field of moral and political philosophy, namely the problem of global justice with elements regarding research ethics. The first section of the paper will be concerned with a short overview of the problem at hand, highlighting the particular way in which research is carried out in the 21st century. While admitting that the matrix of moral issues linked to the current topic is more diverse, I will limit the scope (...) of my analysis to only two elements. First of all, in the second section of my paper I will try to identify an answer to the following question: are researchers from non-native English speaking countries who seek to publish in academic journals from abroad in a position of inequality in relation to their peers from Australia, Great Britain or USA? I will explore the moral relevance of this question at a global level by presenting Philippe Van Parijs’ conception of linguistic justice. My argument will rest upon the fact that the emergence of English as a lingua franca in research publishing has had more positive than negative externalities in relation to researchers from developing countries. The third and final part of my paper will be a critique of the current Intellectual Property system which, in my opinion, hinders the access of researchers from developing countries to new research available in journals indexed in international databases like Wiley-Blackwell, SAGE or JSTOR. (shrink)