Should facts about motivation play a role in the justification of political ideals? Many theorists argue that political ideals should be tailored to the limitations of human nature—‘taking people as they are’—while others maintain that facts about motivation should be excluded. This article offers a critical intervention in this debate: the important question is not so much whether people can motivate themselves, or whether they are capable of being motivated, but what social mechanisms would be required to motivate them, and (...) whether these mechanisms are legitimate. Reframing the question of motivation as a political question of legitimacy, I argue that if people could only be motivated to act through illegitimate use of power, the ideal in question cannot be fully justified. (shrink)

The Global Financial Crisis of 2007–2009 exacerbated two distinct concerns about the independence of central banks: a concern about legitimacy and a concern about economic justice. This paper explores the legitimacy of independent central banks from the perspective of these two concerns, by presenting two distinct models of central banking and their different claims to political legitimacy and distributive justice. I argue primarily that we should avoid construing central bank independence in binary terms, such that central banks either are, or (...) are not, independent. I will argue that we should instead construe central bank independence in scalar terms, so that independence admits of degree, thus allowing us to develop an account of independence in which central banks can retain it to the extent necessary for economic efficiency, while meeting reasonable concerns regarding democratic legitimacy and economic justice. (shrink)

Sexual abuse by clergymen, poisoned water, police brutality—these cases each involve two wrongs: the abuse itself and the attempt to avoid responsibility for it. Our focus is this second wrong—the cover up. Cover ups are accountability failures, and they share common strategies for thwarting accountability whatever the abuse and whatever the institution. We find that cover ups often succeed even when accountability mechanisms are in place. Hence, improved institutions will not be sufficient to prevent accountability failures. Accountability mechanisms are tools (...) that people must be willing to use in good faith. They fail when people are complicit. What explains complicity? We identify certain human proclivities and features of modern organizations that lead people to become complicit in the wrongdoing of others. If we focus exclusively on the design of institutions, we will fail to constrain the perpetrators of wrongdoing. Understanding complicity is key to understanding accountability failures. (shrink)

In this paper, I describe a conservative disposition to change which is capable of operating alongside three other dispositions: First, a disposition to accept a degree of epistemic humility with respect to the kinds of change that count as an ‘intimation’ or continuation of the value contained in some given situation. Second, a disposition to acknowledge the legitimacy of democratic majorities, even when these are not always expressions of those ‘intimations’ or continuations. Third, the disposition to help alleviate recognizable injustices (...) as these might be suffered—and understood—by minorities. A conservative disposition to preserve the value of some given status quo operates in tension with these other three, and can sometimes give way to those other dispositions. An important part of managing tensions between these dispositions is an additional practice of reconciliation, one that helps conservatives treat change in properly conservative ways. I develop an account of this practice through a reading of Junichiro Tanizaki’s _In Praise of Shadows_ and the Japanese concept of _mono no aware_. I argue Tanizaki’s work offers an approach to change that is conservative in spirit while still being capable of accommodating itself to change which will reduce—and even eliminate—things of value that were possible prior to that change. (shrink)

How should political power and influence be allocated in democratic systems? That is, roughly, the core of the boundary problem in democratic theory. As of late, some authors have begun paying increased attention to the methodological aspects of this dispute. This paper attempts to make a twofold contribution to this ‘methodological turn’. On the one hand, it identifies and analyzes five desiderata of a successful principle of democratic inclusion. Any such principle, I argue, must be grounded in a clearly identifiable (...) set of values, must provide a clear standard of inclusion, must specify the relevant modalities of inclusion, must provide sound bridging principles, and must be extensionally adequate. In the first half of the paper, these desiderata are developed and critically scrutinized. On the other hand, I also extract three lessons from the previous discussion. First, that a unique answer to the boundary problem (i.e. one grounded in one single principle) is unlikely. Second, that a satisfactory answer to the boundary problem need not necessarily appeal, as some have argued, to distinctively democratic values. And third, that intuitions about political exclusion (i.e. those requiring or permitting the exclusion of some individuals) should be treated with special caution. (shrink)

The problem of the individuation of laws, identified by Bentham, is dismissed as irrelevant to legal philosophy by some commentators. This paper presents individuation as crucial for understanding the cognitive processes underlying legal interpretation. It draws on the work of Maciej Zieliński and Teun van Dijk to show that legal interpretation is based on deriving legal rules qua semantic macrostructures from a legal text treated as a complex discourse. The Zieliński/van Dijk model also lends theoretical support to the interpretation-construction distinction (...) by explaining, in linguistic terms, the processes that take place during construction. (shrink)

Philanthropy is a contentious and often polarising topic within egalitarian social movements. There are good reasons for this. Philanthropy is reliant on the inequalities inherent in the capitalist system, is fundamentally at odds with democratic relationships, and can moderate or control the activities of recipients. This article therefore starts from the premise that philanthropy violates egalitarian ideals in very significant ways. However, it goes on to suggest that, absent a ruptural change that would drastically weaken the bases of philanthropic wealth, (...) there is a strategic and contingent case for its selective use so long as it pushes existing configurations of power in more egalitarian directions. In making this case, the article draws primarily on the work of Wright ( 2010 ) but also on recent developments in the political theory of philanthropy. It calls for a critical literacy around philanthropy that combines an openness to experimentation with a clear-eyed sense of its significant risks. In this respect, it outlines specific conditions and strategies that movements should adopt if they pursue or accept philanthropic funding. Firstly, movements must deliberately articulate and actively defend their transformative vision, clarifying in the process the tactical place of philanthropy within this. Secondly, they must resist funder conditionalities, and preserve egalitarian modes of organising in the face of practices which undermine participatory ideals and threaten relations of care and solidarity. The article’s chief contribution is to integrate normative insights with lessons from the sociological literature on movement-philanthropy relations, for the sake of systematically untangling a live and troublesome issue within the praxis of radical movements. (shrink)

What role does our knowledge about the ideal society play in guiding policymaking in the real world? One intuitive answer is to approximate. Namely, we have a duty to approximate the ideal within the relevant constraints of feasibility. However, political philosophers seem to have what might be called ‘approximatophobia'. Many philosophers, including idealists such as David Estlund, warn against approximation. Their criticism is chiefly motivated by ‘the problem of second best’, which points out that your second-best option may not be (...) closest to your best option. This paper aims to dispel ‘approximatophobia'. The difficulty posed by the problem of second best is often overstated. More positively, I present a novel defence of approximation, arguing that approximation of an ideal can be a reasonably reliable default strategy of action guidance in the real world. Difficulties that may afflict the project of approximation can be mitigated by sophistication of the project of approximation. After showing that critics of approximation overstep their mark in issuing the strong or moderate warning against approximation, I propose an account of sophisticated approximation. It seeks a series of reforms that make existing social institutions closer to the ideal based on careful selection of frame of analysis. Three virtuous correlations are identified as indicators for successful project of approximation, linking descriptive similarity to desirability, feasibility and knowledge of the ideal. I also explain a two-staged strategy of sophisticating the way you approximate the ideal, with an expected positive feedback effect. (shrink)

Addiction is a widespread problem affecting people from different regions, generations, and classes. It is often analysed as a problem consisting in compulsion or poor choice-making. Recently, however, integrated analyses of compulsion and choice have been called for. In this paper, I argue that the capability approach highlights the well-being loss at stake in cases of addiction, whether they are described as stemming from compulsion, poor choice-making, or some combination thereof. The relevant capabilities obtain when combinations of individual, socio-political, and (...) environmental factors jointly facilitate abstention. On this complementary evaluative analysis, people’s capabilities to abstain are shown to be undermined by how different kinds of factors interact with each other. The upshot is that without committing to an empirical view of the nature of addiction that must capture each case, the capabilitarian analysis helps highlight a central goal of addiction-related well-being policy-work, namely to promote people’s genuine opportunities to abstain. (shrink)

The discussion on mandatory turnout, which controversially introduces coercion at the heart of the electoral process, illustrates a dilemma between increasing voter turnout on the one hand and avoiding coercion on the other. If successful, a recent proposal by Elliott solves this dilemma as it removes the compulsory element of mandatory turnout. Specifically, Elliot reinterprets the policy’s purpose as (a) a pre-commitment device for those who believe that they have a duty to vote and (b) a nudge to the surveillance (...) of politics for those who do not believe this. We critically evaluate Elliott’s novel intervention in the debate and argue that it is ultimately unsuccessful. Mandatory turnout can be interpreted as neither a pre-commitment device nor a nudge. Moreover, we present a more promising and novel solution to the dilemma: a genuine state-administered pre-commitment device with respect to voting that also nudges citizens to vote and seems _prima facie_ attractive. (shrink)

Contemporary accounts of the concept of exploitation can be grouped into camps that tie the wrongness of taking advantage of another person to: (1) the unfair division of benefits resulting from an interaction; (2) excessive benefits resulting from structural injustice; and (3) a failure of respect for others’ humanity. In practice, accounts of exploitation that focus on the fairness of benefits resulting from individual transactions and, to a lesser degree, unjust social and economic institutions have dominated the applied ethics literature (...) using the concept of exploitation. However, fairness-based accounts of exploitation have a difficult time explaining a common dimension of purportedly exploitative cases in the press and academic literature—namely the absolute deprivation of and/or experience of injustice by victims of exploitation. In this paper, I argue that a respect-based account can explain how exploitation arises both from individual interactions and against a backdrop of injustice. Specifically, our connections with one another and social and economic institutions specify the duty of beneficence and political responsibility to promote just institutions. Exploitation takes place when people fail to act on these specified obligations in favor of their own benefit. (shrink)

Whether or not there is such a thing as moral expertise, and, if so, what constitutes it, is much debated. Empirical expertise bestows epistemic authority over propositional content; that is not the case in moral domains, technical expertise notwithstanding. This article identifies three types of agencies with some authority over decisions in moral matters. It shows that the source of the authority wielded by such agencies, while varying across the three forms identified, is based on empirical and technical knowledge and (...) does not derive solely from any moral expertise of its members. The article examines, and finds wanting, two recent arguments for giving others authority over moral content. (shrink)

The involvement of ethicists, philosophers or others who might qualify as ‘moral experts’ in policy-development, where they are sometimes, typically as members of a committee, given an advisory role, is often seen as problematic, for several reasons. First, there may be doubts as to the very existence of moral experts, and it may be hard to know who the moral experts are. Next, even if these problems are solved, giving experts a special role in policy-making might be problematic from a (...) democratic point of view, if it involves politicians deferring to the moral judgements of experts. The paper considers possible replies to this problem of moral deference. One reply is that moral deference is unnecessary, because even moral non-experts are well equipped to assess the arguments offered by moral experts; I argue that this reply underestimates the complexity of moral arguments. Another reply is that if moral experts are simply given the ‘technical’ role of clarifying which concrete positions that follow from the values which decision-makers already accept, deference is not problematic. I will argue that this reply underestimates how a given set of moral values underdetermines which concrete positions follow from it. Finally, I will consider and defend the reply that since policy decisions are subject to a requirement that they be justified within the limits of public reason, and since these limits include a requirement that the justification be accessible, moral experts are barred from providing policy advice which rests on too complex moral arguments. (shrink)

Well-functioning modern democracies depend largely on expert knowledge and expert arrangements, but this expertise reliance also causes severe problems for their legitimacy. Somewhat surprisingly, moral and political philosophers have come to play an increasing role as experts in contemporary policymaking. The paper discusses different epistemic and democratic worries raised by the presence of philosopher experts in contemporary governance, relying on a broad review of existing studies, and suggests measures to alleviate them. It is argued that biases philosophers are vulnerable to (...) may contribute to reducing the quality of their advice, and that the characteristics of philosophers’ expertise, and controversies around what their competences amount to, make it hard to distinguish proper from less proper philosopher experts. Reliance on philosopher experts may also intensify democratic worries not least due to the depoliticization pressures that the introduction of ethics expertise tends to give rise to. Still, philosophers have competences and orientations that policy discussions and democratic deliberations are likely to profit from. Worries about philosopher experts may moreover be mitigated by means of a proper design of expert arrangements. Confronted with the genuine epistemic risks and democratic challenges of contemporary governance any quick fix is obviously unavailable, but when institutionalized in the right way philosophers’ involvement in present-day policymaking bears significant promise. (shrink)

This paper examines how science advice can provide policy recommendations in a trustworthy manner. Despite their major political importance, expert recommendations are understudied in the philosophy of science and social epistemology. Matthew Bennett has recently developed a notion of what he calls recommendation trust, according to which well-placed trust in experts’ policy recommendations requires that recommendations are aligned with the interests of the trust-giver. While interest alignment might be central to some cases of public trust, this paper argues against the (...) significance of interest-alignment to meritorious public trust. First, political bodies and citizens can have a basic kind of well-placed recommendation trust in science advice based on an all-things-considered judgement regarding the possession of relevant competencies, responsible conduct, and a proper institutional design. Moreover, scientists’ policy recommendations can be seen as open-ended and as dynamic proposals that enable inter-institutional reasoning and political deliberation. Finally, by providing conditional recommendations, scientists can expand the scope of feasible policy options from which political bodies can choose, thus making the condition of interest alignment even less significant to the trustworthy provision of recommendations. (shrink)

Ethicisation refers to the tendency to frame issues in ethical terms and can be observed in different areas of society, particularly in relation to policy-making on emerging technologies. The turn to ethics implies increased use of ethics expertise, or at least an expectation that this is the case. Calling for experts on ethics when ethically complicated questions need to be handled helps us to uphold central virtues, but there are also problems connected with ethicisation. In policy-making processes, the turn to (...) ethics may not always be a sign of a sincere aspiration to moral performance, but a strategic move to gain acceptance for controversial or sensitive activities, and ethicisation may depoliticise questions and constrain room for democratic participation. Nevertheless, ethicisation, and the ensuing call for ethics experts, suggests an expectation of confidence in ethics and ethics expertise, and that ethical guidance is an effective way of governing people’s behaviour in a morally desirable way. The purpose of this article is to explore democratic and epistemic challenges of ethicisation in the context of emerging technologies, with a specific focus on how the notions of _under-reliance_ and _over-reliance_ of ethics expertise can unpack the processes at play. By using biotechnology and the EU process of bio-patents and the publication of ethical guidelines for AI development as illustrations, it is demonstrated how ethicisation may give rise to democratic and epistemic challenges that are not explicitly addressed in discussions on the political use of ethics expertise. (shrink)

Ethics commissions are government advisory commissions mandated to give expert advice on contentious moral issues. As this requires making explicit value judgments, members with expert knowledge of ethics have a natural place as members of such commissions. Apart from these commissions being widespread, their recommendations assume a special normative authority within the legislative process. This raises many fundamental questions concerning the nature of moral expertise and how such commissions should deal with the political contexts in which they operate. Through a (...) reading of the relevant discussions in the literature in which the underlying normative ideals are located, this article reconstructs four normative models of the proper role of ethics commissions. This reconstruction seeks to contribute to analytical clarity and to elucidate the underlying disagreements concerning our expectations of ethics commissions. The four models, labeled ‘commission consensus model’, ‘society-proxy model’, ‘correctness model’, and ‘deep pluralism model’, differ from one another in terms of two main dimensions: the expertise and the public/political dimensions. After describing the models, giving examples from the literature on how they can be explicated, and describing an empirical example of a commission that has approximated the ideals, the strengths and weaknesses of the four models are discussed before the article concludes by asking whether there is one correct model of ethics commissions. (shrink)

Well-functioning modern democracies depend largely on expert knowledge and expert arrangements, but this expertise reliance also causes severe problems for their legitimacy. Somewhat surprisingly, moral and political philosophers have come to play an increasing role as experts in contemporary policymaking. The paper discusses different epistemic and democratic worries raised by the presence of philosopher experts in contemporary governance, relying on a broad review of existing studies, and suggests measures to alleviate them. It is argued that biases philosophers are vulnerable to (...) may contribute to reducing the quality of their advice, and that the characteristics of philosophers’ expertise, and controversies around what their competences amount to, make it hard to distinguish proper from less proper philosopher experts. Reliance on philosopher experts may also intensify democratic worries not least due to the depoliticization pressures that the introduction of ethics expertise tends to give rise to. Still, philosophers have competences and orientations that policy discussions and democratic deliberations are likely to profit from. Worries about philosopher experts may moreover be mitigated by means of a proper design of expert arrangements. Confronted with the genuine epistemic risks and democratic challenges of contemporary governance any quick fix is obviously unavailable, but when institutionalized in the right way philosophers’ involvement in present-day policymaking bears significant promise. (shrink)

I argue that monarchies, in any possible form (absolute or constitutional), should be abolished once and for all. This is because of the deeply immoral presuppositions such a system of government upholds (implicitly or explicitly). Call this _‘the moral argument against monarchy’_. I identify three basic moral principles that monarchy by definition breaches: ‘the basic moral equality principle’, ‘the basic dignity principle’ and ‘the basic moral desert principle’. Finally, I examine and reply to three objections, including the common objection that (...) constitutional monarchy should not be abolished because it is pragmatically useful. (shrink)

This paper looks at Alexander Guerrero’s epistemic case for ‘lottocracy’, or government by randomly selected citizen assemblies. It argues that Guerrero fails to show that citizen expertise is more likely to be elicited and brought to bear on democratic politics if we replace elections with random selection. However, randomly selected citizen assemblies can be valuable deliberative and participative additions to elected and appointed institutions even when citizens are not bearers of special knowledge or virtue individually or collectively.

This paper looks at Alexander Guerrero’s epistemic case for ‘lottocracy’, or government by randomly selected citizen assemblies. It argues that Guerrero fails to show that citizen expertise is more likely to be elicited and brought to bear on democratic politics if we replace elections with random selection. However, randomly selected citizen assemblies can be valuable deliberative and participative additions to elected and appointed institutions even when citizens are not bearers of special knowledge or virtue individually or collectively.

This short piece discusses Hélène Landemore’s proposal of an ‘open democracy’, as outlined in her recent book _Open Democracy: Reinventing Popular Rule for the Twenty-First Century_. Acknowledging the value of Landemore’s radical and ambitious proposals, I draw attention to a number of shortcomings and blind spots that have to do with how the case for an ‘open democracy’ is made: through an unduly brief and dismissive treatment of political parties; a methodological insensitivity to empirical variations of democratic performance and citizens’ (...) evaluations of the latter; a failure to distinguish between higher and ordinary law-making in the discussion of the central Icelandic case; and, finally, a surprising concession that realising an open democracy is all but infeasible in established constitutional democracies. If open democracy is to be an attractive ideal, these issues must arguably be addressed. (shrink)

It is often argued that relational egalitarianism has a fundamental problem with intergenerational justice when compared to other theories of justice such as utilitarianism, prioritarianism, and luck egalitarianism. Recently, Timothy Sommers argued that there is no such comparative disadvantage for relational egalitarianism. His argument is quite modest: it merely aims to reject the claim that there could be no way to extend relational egalitarianism to intergenerational justice. This may be called the ‘No Comparative Disadvantage Thesis’. The present article challenges Sommers’s (...) argument in two ways. First, I show that Sommers fails to provide a reasonable constraint on causal efficacy, which is crucial to his argument for our relation (not relationship) to future generations. Second, I show that the chain-relatedness problem casts a shadow over Sommers’s argument for the No Comparative Disadvantage Thesis. More specifically, compared to the other theories of justice, relational egalitarianism (as it stands) can less easily justify that present persons have duties to future others. This is because relational egalitarianism cannot appeal to a specific principle in regard to the duties in question, because its principle is sensitive to current context and practice. I conclude that the No Comparative Disadvantage Thesis does not hold much promise. (shrink)