Journal of Political Philosophy, Volume 30, Issue 3, Page 273-297, September 2022.

A recent development in philosophical scholarship on reparations for black chattel slavery and Jim Crow segregation is reliance upon social science in normative arguments for reparations. Although there are certainly positive things to be said in favor of an empirically informed normative argument for black reparations, given the depth of empirical disagreement about the causes of persistent racial inequalities, and the ethos of 'post-racial' America, the strongest normative argument for reparations may be one that goes through irrespective of how we (...) ultimately explain the causes of racial inequalities. By illuminating the interplay between normative political philosophy and social scientific explanations of racial inequality in the prevailing corrective justice argument for black reparations, I shall explain why an alternative normative argument, which is not tethered to a particular empirical explanation of racial inequality, may be more appealing. (shrink)

What is the source of rights? Rights have been grounded in divine agency, human nature, and morally justified claims, and have been used to assess the moral status of legal and customary social practices. The orthodoxy is that some of our rights are a species of unrecognized or natural rights. For example, black slaves in antebellum America were said to have such rights, and this was taken to provide a basis for establishing the immorality of slavery. Derrick Darby exposes the (...) main shortcomings of the orthodox conception of the source of rights and proposes a radical alternative. He draws on the legacy of race and racism in the USA to argue that all rights are products of social recognition. This bold, lucid and meticulously argued book will inspire readers to rethink the central role assigned to rights in moral, political, and legal theory as well as in everyday evaluative discourse. (shrink)

Journal of Political Philosophy, Volume 30, Issue 3, Page 273-297, September 2022.

Rights externalism, a view I defend in Rights, Race, and Recognition, takes social recognition to be a condition for being a rights bearer. I vindicate this view by answering two recent critics. I concede some ground, particularly with respect to their reservations about what we gain, but argue that claims about what we stand to lose are overblown. I conclude that rights externalism is not detrimental to the critique of racial injustice, and that embracing it has noteworthy virtues. The most (...) significant is that it affords us a conception of rights that takes the realities of lived experiences seriously. (shrink)

Drawing on social psychological evidence showing that the perspective from which the economically advantaged and disadvantaged view economic inequalities matters a great deal for how they are appraised, for when they are considered unfair, and for what evidentiary standards individuals rely upon to reach their conclusions, we argue that choice egalitarianism is unsuitable for articulating the demands of justice when people not only disagree about the causes of inequality but also have motivated reasons to adopt different standards for appraising its (...) fairness. Because choice egalitarianism requires us to take a stand on the causes of inequality it is an unsuitable ideal. This is a serious shortcoming when we are interested in getting people to assume collective responsibility for doing something about inequality in the real world. (shrink)

all the violence in hip hop? Does po-po wield legit authority in the hood? Where does the real Kimberly Jones end and the persona Lil' Kim begin? Is hip-hop culture a "black" thang?

Journal of Social Philosophy, EarlyView.

Some political philosophers have recently argued that providing K–12 students with an adequate education suffices for social justice in education provided that the threshold of educational adequacy is properly understood. Others have argued that adequacy is insufficient for social justice. In this article I side with the latter group. I extend this debate to racial inequality in education by considering the controversial practice of paying students cash for grades to close the racial achievement gap. I then argue that framing the (...) demand for racial justice in education solely in terms of educational adequacy leaves us unable to take issue with the cash for grades policy as a matter of principle. While this does not entail that educational adequacy is unimportant, it adds to the general case for why adequacy does not suffice for social justice. (shrink)

This paper defends a social practiceconception of moral rights possession againstwhat many of its critics take to be a decisiveobjection, namely that such a conceptionprevents us from using moral rights forcritical purposes.

Rights externalism is the thesis that a subject's status as a rightholder is secured not on account of it having a certain nature, but on account of it being afforded a certain sort of social recognition. I believe that rights externalism has been given short shrift, largely because a certain objection is widely taken to be a compelling reason for rejecting it. This objection goes roughly as follows. Both in theory and in practice we commonly appeal to the fact that (...) subjects possess certain nonconventional rights (independently of whether these rights have been socially recognized) to criticize immoral social practices, arrangements, and institutions. But if being a rightholder is directly determined by whether subjects have been afforded a certain sort of social recognition, then we cannot appeal to the fact that subjects possess certain nonconventional rights for critical purposes in some instances, namely, in those instances where the relevant social recognition has not been extended. Although this objection is taken by some rights internalists to justify favoring rights internalism over rights externalism, I argue that it does not. (shrink)

Rights externalism is the thesis that a subject's status as a rightholder is secured not on account of it having a certain nature, but on account of it being afforded a certain sort of social recognition. I believe that rights externalism has been given short shrift, largely because a certain objection is widely taken to be a compelling reason for rejecting it. This objection goes roughly as follows. Both in theory and in practice we commonly appeal to the fact that (...) subjects possess certain nonconventional rights (independently of whether these rights have been socially recognized) to criticize immoral social practices, arrangements, and institutions. But if being a rightholder is directly determined by whether subjects have been afforded a certain sort of social recognition, then we cannot appeal to the fact that subjects possess certain nonconventional rights for critical purposes in some instances, namely, in those instances where the relevant social recognition has not been extended. Although this objection is taken by some rights internalists to justify favoring rights internalism over rights externalism, I argue that it does not. (shrink)

I was in bondage in Missouri, too. I can't say that my treatment was bad. In one respect I say it was not bad, but in another I consider it was as bad as could be. I was a slave. That covers it all. I had not the rights of a man. It cannot be too often repeated: peasants and workmen have no natural rights, not one. Only we ought instantly to add, that kings and nobles have none either.