In both co-authored and solo-authored work over the past decade, we have developed the idea of “metalinguistic negotiation”. On our view, metalinguistic negotiation is a type of dispute in which speakers appear to use (rather than explicitly mention) a term in conflicting ways to put forward views about how that very term should be used. In this paper, we explore four possible dimensions of variation among metalinguistic negotiations, and the interactions among those dimensions. These types of variation matter for understanding (...) the nature, and the potential range, of the phenomenon of metalinguistic negotiation. As an illustration of the latter, we argue in our concluding section that understanding the full range of forms that metalinguistic negotiations can take has implications for debates about the “implementation” of conceptual engineering proposals. (shrink)

This paper introduces and defends a new position regarding the question of whether it is possible to have conflicting moral obligations. In doing so, it focuses on what I call a moral pickle. By “moral pickle” I mean a set of actions such that you ought to perform each and cannot perform all. Typically, when people discuss conflicting moral obligations, they focus on the notion of a moral dilemma, which is a type of moral pickle involving two conflicting actions. In (...) other words, a moral dilemma is a pair of actions such that you ought to perform each and cannot perform both. As of yet, there is no debate about the possibility of moral pickles over and above the possibility of moral dilemmas. But as I show, there is good reason to think that moral pickles are possible and moral dilemmas are not. (shrink)

Do unknown and unrealized risks of harm diminish an individual’s well-being? The traditional answer is no: that the security of prudential goods benefits an individual only instrumentally or by virtue of their subjective sense of security. Recent work has argued, however, that the security of prudential goods non-instrumentally benefits an individual regardless of whether or not they enjoy subjective security. In this paper, I critically examine three claims about the way in which unknown and unrealized risks of harm might diminish (...) individual well-being: it frustrates a desire to be secure, it frustrates the enjoyment of modally-robust goods, and it undermines the ability to make reasonable plans. Ultimately, I argue that all three of these hypotheses are mistaken, but that they deepen our understanding of the ways in which subjective security is an important constituent of individual well-being. (shrink)

I argue social and political freedom is not primarily about the absence of constraints, whether those constraints be in the form of interference or domination. Instead, social freedom is centrally about what makes us free. That is, the question of social freedom is first and foremost about determining the positive preconditions of being a free person within society. Social freedom is about what I call the social bases of freedom, or those features of our social world that we have a (...) reason to rely on in making plans or going about our business. (shrink)

A defining feature of democracy is the inclusion of members of the political association. However, the corresponding right to exclusion has attracted undeservedly scant attention in recent debates. In this paper, the nature of the right to exclusion is explored. On the assumption that inclusion requires the allocation of legal power-rights to the people entitled to participate in the making of collective decisions, two conceptions of the right to exclusion are identified: the liberty-right to exclude and the claim-right to exclude. (...) The choice between them depends on the nature of the interests that justifies the power-rights of people included. The position is defended that if rights to democratic participation are power-rights, we must also accept that the people included have claim-rights to the exclusion of non-members. (shrink)

Pettit (2006) argues that deferring to majority testimony is not generally rational: it may lead to inconsistent beliefs. He suggests that “another ... approach will do better”: deferring to supermajority testimony. But this approach may also lead to inconsistencies. In this paper, I describe conditions under which deference to supermajority testimony ensures consistency, and conditions under which it does not. I also introduce the concept of “consistency of degree k”, which is weaker than full consistency by ruling out only “blatant” (...) inconsistencies in an agent’s beliefs while permitting less blatant ones, and show that, while super-majoritarian deference often fails to ensure full consistency, it is a route to consistency in this weaker sense. (shrink)