This book aims to help answer two questions that Western philosophy has paid relatively little attention to - what is injustice and what does justice require when injustice occurs? Injustice and Rectification offers a taxonomy of justice, which sets forth an initial framework for a moral theory of justice and focuses on framing a conception of rectificatory justice. The taxonomy is ground for this book's eleven other essays, in which a diverse group of authors brings philosophical analysis to bear on (...) the idea of injustice itself and on some important conceptual and normative issues concerning the rectification of injustice. (shrink)

This paper provides a philosophical analysis of some of the things faculty do to maximize their Student Evaluation of Teachers scores. It examines 28 practices that are claimed to be unethical methods for maximizing SET scores. The paper offers an argument concerning the morality of each behavior and concludes that 13 of the 28 practices suggest unethical behavior. The remaining 15 behaviors are morally permissible.

This paper addresses the question of whether astatute of limitations on injustice is morallyjustified. Rectificatory justice calls for theascription of a right to rectification once aninjustice has been perpetrated. To claim amoral statute of limitations on injustice is toclaim a temporal limit on the moral legitimacyof rights to rectification. A moral statute oflimitations on injustice establishes an amountof time following injustice after which claimsof rectification can no longer be valid. Such astatute would put a time limit on the life ofall (...) moral rights to rectification. Sinceascribing a right to rectification for aninjustice is a requirement of justice, andsince the temporal limit called for by astatute of limitations on injustice is aconstraint on that requirement, the idea of astatute of limitations on injustice is morallyjustified only if we have good reasonsfor accepting this constraint. I argue that theidea of a moral statute of limitations oninjustice is not justified, since we lackgood reasons for imposing the constrainton justice it requires. (shrink)

: My aim in this essay is to remove some of the rubbish that lies in the way of an appropriate understanding of rectificatory compensation, by arguing for the rejection of the counterfactual conception of compensation. Although there is a significant extent to which contemporary theorists have relied upon this idea, the counterfactual conception of compensation is merely a popular assumption, having no positive argument in support of it. Moreover, it can make rendering compensation impossible, and absurd notions of compensation (...) can result from its use, results that may themselves constitute injustices. This latter difficulty is most troubling when the CCC is employed in large compensatory cases like the case of rectificatory compensation for the descendants of American slaves. I want to suggest that, taken together, the difficulties with the CCC yield sufficient reason for rejecting it as an acceptable rectificatory notion. (shrink)

This paper gives a brief history of the idea of an age of majority and argues that no age of majority should exceed the fighting age, i.e., the age at which a person becomes eligible to serve in a military unit. Several objections to the proposed constraint on ages of majority are raised and answered.

This paper gives a brief history of the idea of an age of majority and argues that no age of majority should exceed the fighting age, i.e., the age at which a person becomes eligible to serve in a military unit. Several objections to the proposed constraint on ages of majority are raised and answered.

This paper addresses the question of whether a statute of limitations on injustice is morally justified. Rectificatory justice calls for the ascription of a right to rectification once an injustice has been perpetrated. To claim a moral statute of limitations on injustice is to claim a temporal limit on the moral legitimacy of rights to rectification. A moral statute of limitations on injustice (hereafter MSOL) establishes an amount of time following injustice after which claims of rectification can no longer be (...) valid. Such a statute would put a time limit on the life of moral rights to rectification. Since ascribing a right to rectification for an injustice is a requirement of justice, and since the temporal limit called for by a moral statute of limitations on injustice is a constraint on that requirement, the idea of a statute of limitations on injustice is morally jutified only if we have good reasons for accepting this constraint. In “The Morality of a Moral Statute of Limitations on Injustice” I argued that neither the best arguments then extant in the philosophical literature, nor the arguments I proposed in favor of a MSOL, succeed in providing good reasons for accepting the idea as morally legitimate. I concluded, therefore, that a MSOL is not justified. Several discussions that have emerged since then suggest some support for a MSOL. My aim in this paper is to show that a MSOL remains unjustified by showing that none of the arguments arising from these discussions succeed. (shrink)

Most philosophers who advance an ethics of care do not claim that their theories are meant to account for all of morality, or that they can, or should, replace the traditional Western philosophical approaches to moral theory. However, one care ethicist, Michael Slote, holds that his theory can be used to understand all of individual and political morality. Moreover, while Kantianism, utilitarianism, and both ancient and contemporary Aristotelian ethics are all uncomfortable with supererogation and are typically committed to assumptions that (...) rule out the possibility of someone acting beyond the call of duty, Slote claims that the way in which his theory accommodates supererogation constitutes a real advantage over other approaches to ethics. My aim in this paper is to cast doubt on the truth of this claim by showing that Slote’s theory has considerable difficulty accommodating supererogation. (shrink)

Tens of thousands of U.S. military personnel remain missing in action (MIA). U.S. law requires that our MIAs be accounted for and that the government maintain a comprehensive, coordinated, integrated and fully resourced program dedicated to accomplishing this enormous task. The aim of this paper is to show that there is also a moral requirement. There is a moral duty to repatriate U.S. military personnel, a duty that is grounded in our individual right to self-defense.

It is fairly well known that Hume added a footnote to his essay ‘Of National Characters’ in which he asserts that all non-white peoples are naturally inferior to white people. Subsequently, he revised the note to assert only that black people are naturally inferior to white people. But while the view expressed in this footnote has been described as ‘shockingly bigoted’, and even as his ‘racial law,’ it is still commonly thought that in Hume's voluminous writings it is apparently just (...) this single passage which is definitely racist in its import. My aim in this paper is to show how American Indians are thought to be naturally inferior to white people in An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals. There are, therefore, passages in Hume's second Enquiry which are also definitely racist in their import. (shrink)

The journal articles in the extant philosophical literature which argue in favor of carrying handguns for self-defense tend to assume that these weapons will be concealed and make no mention of carrying them openly. This paper aims to show that, since open-carry can be more effective for self-defense than concealed-carry, any argument for a moral right to carry a handgun for self-defense which relies on a claim of their effectiveness and which assumes concealed-carry, entails the moral right to carry them (...) openly in public. (shrink)

In this dissertation I argue for a theory of rectificatory justice, and apply that theory to circumstances involving two social groups generally thought to have been historically wronged, viz., Native Americans and African Americans. ;Development of a conception of rectificatory justice is begun in Chapter 1 by examining the distinction between distributive justice and rectificatory justice, and by suggesting a theory of compensation. It is argued that the notion of compensation cannot provide an adequate ground for a species of justice. (...) ;I argue in Chapter 2 that a taxonomy of justice ought to consist of only two species, viz., distributive justice and rectificatory justice. In addition to compensation, the view of rectification argued for includes accounts of restoration, apology, and punishment. Some theories of so-called corrective justice are examined, and are found to be morally inadequate. ;In Chapter 3, I examine several views of a right to compensation, including those of Joel Feinberg and Judith Jarvis Thomson. Jules Coleman's claim that a requirement in justice for compensation can arise without the transgression of rights is examined and then rejected. ;After suggesting a theory of social groups, and adopting Allen Buchanan's account of groups rights, I argue in Chapter 4 that rectification rights can be legitimately ascribed to social groups. I assess the practical implications of my theory of rectificatory justice by applying it to two cases. In the first case, I argue that the fishing rights that were restored to Native American tribes of the Northwest as a result of U.S. v. Washington are justified when grounded on their right to rectification; hence, the claim that the restoration of these rights constituted an injustice to non-Native American fishing interests is mistaken. In the second case, I show how a right to rectification can legitimately be ascribed to African Americans as a group. ;The dissertation concludes with Chapter 5, where I consider several justificatory arguments for a moral statute of limitations on injustice. I conclude that a significant part of any such argument must ultimately rest on our judgements about competing claims. (shrink)

The term “Native Hawaiian” is often used to refer to the indigenous people of the Hawaiian islands; however, the term is itself non-Hawaiian, as is its pronunciation. The Kānaka Maoli, the “true or real persons,” are the indigenous people of Ka Pae ‘Āina O Hawai‘i (the Hawaiian archipelago). After living for centuries in these islands as a sovereign people, with a relationship to the land that is both familial and reciprocal, the last Hawaiian government was overthrown in 1893 with the (...) help of military personnel from the United States of America. Five years after the overthrow the USA annexed the islands, in spite of clear and overwhelming opposition by the Kānaka Maoli. In 1959 the majority of non-Hawaiian residents of Hawai‘i voted in the affirmative for statehood. The aim of this article is to show that the overthrow of the sovereign Hawaiian nation, the annexation of Hawai‘i by the USA, and the incorporation of these islands into the USA as its fiftieth state, are both illegal and unjust. Moreover, justice requires the restoration of a sovereign Hawaiian nation. (shrink)

A number of colleges and universities offer writing intensive courses that emphasize writing as a primary means of learning. This paper presents an approach to teaching undergraduate philosophy courses that makes an effective use of writing as a means to teach students philosophy. The paper begins by discussing the aims and requirements of writing intensive philosophy courses and the nature of philosophical writing. In addition, five course activities (classroom discussion, in-class writing assignments, paper assignments, in-class peer review, tutorials) are discussed (...) along with a summary of the work required by both the student and the instructor. (shrink)

Don Scheid is rightly concerned with finding a way to address the sort of attacks that occurred in the U.S. on September 11, 2001.1 He thinks that “the most important feature that distinguishes al-...