March 2009

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PPPS: Just Procedures with Controversial Outcomes

Friday, 27 March 2009 in Podcast, Posts, Symposia by Emanuela Ceva | 4 comments

Hello everyone!

My name is Emanuela Ceva and I’m a political philosopher based at the University of Pavia (Italy). The paper I’d like to discuss with you is an attempt to address (and hopefully provide an answer to) a well-known challenge to proceduralism about justice: if procedural theories of justice were genuinely open-ended, they might lead to controversial outcomes which, by definition, could not be disputed, because they had been produced by a just procedure. On the other hand, if they were committed to ruling out some outcomes by virtue of their inherent qualities, their very procedural nature would be jeopardised.

Those who endorse this position also think that it could be used to declare the implausibility of entirely procedural theories of justice.

As someone who has spent a few years trying to argue that proceduralism is at least a plausible (if not necessary, under certain conditions) alternative to substantivism, I have decided to take up this challenge, and devote this paper to showing that a qualified version of proceduralism may be developed, which is equipped to rebut the critique above.

To this aim, I shall unpack the first horn of the dilemma presented above into a twofold challenge, according to which proceduralism risks (i) fostering an “anything-goes” attitude towards justice and (ii) condemning agents to a “deaf and blind” acceptance of any outcome. In order to refute (i), I shall show that it is possible to construct a version of proceduralism that combines open-endedness with cogent prescriptions on justice. Addressing (ii), I shall concede that, for proceduralists, the outcomes of a just procedure cannot be disputed as unjust. However, this does not imply that a genuine procedural theory of justice may not allow some (admittedly limited, but still significant) space for contesting the substance of outcomes on the ground of values other than justice.

I should mention that I shall not offer an argument here explaining why a theory of justice should go procedural in the first place (a task which I’ve tried to carry out elsewhere – see E. Ceva, ‘Plural Values and Heterogeneous Situations. Considerations on the Scope for a Political Theory of Justice‘, European Journal of Political Theory, vol.6 (3), 2007, pp. 359-375). I shall, rather, focus on a more restricted defence of the plausibility of proceduralism against the dilemma outlined above.

For those who cannot cope with my dodgy accent, the pdf of the paper is available here.

David Lefkowitz’s discussion of the paper may be found here.  I thank David for his thoughtful comments, to which I shall post replies by Monday at the latest.

In the podcast (below), I read the full paper (and have added a brief commentary on the tables) but not the footnotes – which I have kept to a minumun, anyway.

Last but not least, I’d like to thank Simon for setting up this great virtual venue for seminars. I hope you’ll enjoy the paper and I very much look forward to any comments or suggestions on it.

Best, emanuela

What is a Means of Production?

Tuesday, 24 March 2009 in Discussion, Posts, Problems, Teaching by Matt Zwolinski | 15 comments

Though I’m a political philosopher, Marxism/Socialism is not my area of expertise.  Still, I was surprised when, while teaching an essay by Kai Nielsen the other day, I discovered that I really don’t know what a means of production is supposed to be.

The claim that the means of production ought to be owned publicly, rather than privately, seems to be one of if not the defining characteristics of socialism.  So it seems pretty important to be clear on what it refers to.

On the most natural reading, a “means of production” would be anything that’s used to produce.  But that seems very, very broad.  Sure, factories are means of production, but so are muffin trays.  So is my brain, and my muscles.

Do socialists hold that even these things should be publicly owned?  Does it depend on how we use them?  Nielsen says that a socialist will allow for personal private property – and muffin trays seem about as personal as one could get.  Does this mean that we’re allowed to bake muffins for ourselves?  For our neighbors?  For our neighbors in exchange for wine?

How, in other words, does a socialist (Marxist or otherwise) demarcate legitimate personal property from means of production?  Or can the two be reconciled in a principled way?  If public ownership of the means of production can be reconciled with private personal property, can it also be reconciled with some notion of self-ownership?

Final Call For Papers – 14th Brave New World Graduate Conference in Political Theory

Monday, 23 March 2009 in Calls for Papers, Grad Conferences, Notices by Rebecca Reilly-Cooper | No comments

Brave New World 2009, the Fourteenth Annual Postgraduate Conference organised under the auspices of the Manchester Centre for Political Theory (MANCEPT), will take place on Tuesday 23rd and Wednesday 24th June 2009 at the University of Manchester.

We are pleased to announce that our guest speakers this year are:
Professor Chandran Kukathas (London School of Economics)
Dr Kasper Lippert-Rasmussen (University of Copenhagen)

Deadline for submission of abstracts: March 31st 2009

The Brave New World conference series is now established as a leading international forum exclusively dedicated to the discussion of postgraduate research in political theory. The conference offers a great opportunity for postgraduates from many different countries and universities to share experiences, concerns and research interests, to exchange stimulating ideas and to make new friends – all in a financially accessible and highly informal setting.

Participants will also have the chance to meet and talk about their work with eminent academics, including members of faculty from the University of Manchester as well as our guest speakers, who will deliver keynote addresses at the event. Guest speakers in previous years have included Brian Barry, Simon Caney, G.A. Cohen, Cecile Fabre, Jerry Gaus, Peter Jones, Susan Mendus, David Miller, Onora O’Neill, Michael Otsuka, Bhikhu Parekh, Carole Pateman, Anne Philips, Thomas Pogge, Henry Shue, Quentin Skinner, Adam Swift, Philippe Van Parijs, Andrew Williams, and Jonathan Wolff.

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Topics and Issues in Voting Ethics

Saturday, 21 March 2009 in Discussion, Notices, Posts by Jason Brennan | 4 comments

Hi everyone,I’m currently writing a book called The Ethics of Voting, and thought I’d ask you for advice and comments about what you’d like to see and what you think is important.  The book will cover the personals ethics of voting (questions concerning how individuals should behave) but not, for the most part, the political philosophy of voting (e.g., questions concerning who has the right to vote or how best to structure government institutions).

So, the basic questions of voting ethics that I plan to respond to are 1) Do I have an obligation to vote?  2)  If I do vote, do I have obligations to vote in particular ways?  3)  Is it acceptable to buy, trade, or sell my vote (not my right to vote, but my how I will vote)?  Related questions concern the source of any obligations, epistemic or other justificatory requirements, issues concerning whether citizens should be directed toward the common good or some other end, and so on.

As I’m envisioning it now, the chapters will roughly go something like this.  The introduction explains why voting is morally important.  Chapter 1 articulates various arguments in favor of a duty to vote and shows why they fail.  However, it also produces three arguments that seem pretty plausible and don’t look like they fail.  Chapter 2 articulates a theory of civic virtue and of citizens duties which refutes these remaining three arguments.  So the conclusion is that citizens don’t have an obligation to vote.  Chapter 3 discusses cases where citizens should refrain from voting rather than vote.  My view is that citizens have duties regulating how they vote if they do vote, but not a duty to vote.  In particular, a necessary but not sufficient condition for good voting is that citizens must be justified in the beliefs they base their votes upon.  Chapter 4 considers a wide range of objections and issues having to do with deference, autonomy, and abstention.  For instance, it considers issues about whether abstention involves a loss of autonomy, or whether one should always defer to known epistemic and moral superiors.  Chapter 5 argues that citizens have an obligation to vote for the common good rather than narrow self-interest, at least under normal circumstances.  It also gives a liberal account of the common good.  Chapter 6 argues that there is no special ethics of vote buying, trading, or selling.  Instead, what determines whether these things are right and wrong is specified by the obligations we have not to vote badly and to vote for the common good when we do vote.  So long as we don’t violate these rules, we don’t do anything wrong by buying, trading, or selling votes, though doing so may not be admirable.  (For what it’s worth, I haven’t written chapter 6 yet, so I might change my mind about these conclusions once I sit down to defend them at length.)   Chapter 7 will discuss relevant social scientific research to ask, in light of this research and my theory, how good are actual voters.  Finally, I might have a chapter 8, which will go over some issues of policy, such as compulsory voting.  I’ve written drafts of the introduction and chapters 1-4 at this point.So, that’s roughly what I expect to do.

 My question for you, if you’re interested in helping me shape the project, is what do you think I should cover?  What are some important issues or questions?  Obviously I didn’t specify everything that will go in the book (e.g., I will cover tactical/strategic voting), so if I didn’t list it, it doesn’t mean I haven’t thought of it.  However, there’s no doubt that there’s at least one obvious thing that I’ve overlooked. If you were writing the book, what would you talk about? How would you organize it?  So, I’m open to any and all suggestions.

Thanks!  -J

PS. For what it’s worth, I’m already spending a few pages in the current draft responding to an objection from Aaron Maltais that he posted here in response to my “Polluting the Polls” post. So, I really do find your suggestions helpful.

Final CFP: Évaluations morales des technologies controversées dans les conférences citoyennes

Tuesday, 17 March 2009 in Calls for Papers, Conferences, Notices by Roberto Merrill | No comments

Appel à participations : Évaluations morales des technologies controversées dans les conférences citoyennes

Le CEHUM (Université du Minho) organise un colloque de deux jours ayant pour thème les « évaluations morales des technologies controversées dans les conférences citoyennes» qui aura lieu les 14 et 15 mai 2009, à Lisbonne (Instituto de Ciências Sociais da Universidade de Lisboa). Les chercheurs participant à ce colloque incluent :

Joana Baguenier (CEHUM, Université du Minho – Université Paris IV, Sorbonne)
João Cardoso Rosas (CEHUM, Université du Minho)
Anca Gheaus (Equality Studies Centre, University College Dublin)
Simon Joss (SSHL, University of Westminster)
Roberto Merrill (CEHUM, Université du Minho)
Florence Quinche (Université de Nancy)
Bernard Reber (CERSES, CNRS-Université Paris Descartes)
Sabine Roeser (Faculty of Technology, Policy and Management, Delft University of Technology)
Daniel Weinstock (CRÉUM, Université de Montréal)

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PPPS: On Gutmann and Thompson’s Arguments that Deliberative Democrats Shouldn’t be Pure Proceduralists

Friday, 13 March 2009 in Podcast, Posts, Symposia by Jordan Dodd | 4 comments

This paper concerns the prospects of pure proceduralist deliberative democratic theories. Amy Gutmann and Dennis Thompson give what seems to be the most prominent set of arguments against such pure proceduralisms in their “Deliberative Democracy Beyond Process”.* Briefly put, they argue that deliberative democrats must not be pure proceduralists because pure proceduralisms cannot seriously endorse a principle that all deliberative democrats aim to seriously endorse: the principle of reciprocity. I argue that their arguments are unsuccessful. If my arguments work they also have the positive value of indicating where debates over the prospects of pure proceduralist deliberative democratic theory should head.

I’m interested developing a novel pure procedualist deliberative democratic theory. So I wrote this paper as part of a general interest in tackling extant objections in the literature. The same general interest got me involved in responding to some of Corey Brettschneider’s arguments against pure proceduralisms in the reading group (on his book) on this blog last semester.

*in Journal of Political Philosophy, 2002, 10: p.153-174 – and subsequently anthologized widely.

C’mon out and join the discussion!

Paper: Jordan Dodd. On Gutmann and Thompson’s Arguments…’

Comments: Simon May. Comments on Dodd’s ‘On Gutmann and Thompson’s Arguments…’

Final CFP : Le multiculturalisme a-t-il un avenir ?

Wednesday, 11 March 2009 in Calls for Papers, Conferences, Notices by Roberto Merrill | No comments

Appel à contributions : Le multiculturalisme a-t-il un avenir ?

Le centre Nosophi (Sorbonne-Paris 1), LNS-IUF (Michel de Montaigne-Bordeaux 3) et le CEHUM (Université du Minho) organisent un colloque de deux jours sur le multiculturalisme qui aura lieu à l’Université de Paris 1-Panthéon Sorbonne, les 26 et 27 février 2010. Les chercheurs invités participant à ce colloque incluent :

Catherine Audard (London School of Economics)

João Cardoso Rosas (Université du Minho)

Will Kymlicka (Université de Queen’s)

Cécile Laborde (University College London)

Justine Lacroix (Université libre de Bruxelles)

Catherine Larrère (Sorbonne-Paris I)

Alain Renaut (Sorbonne-Paris IV)

Daniel Weinstock (Université de Montréal)

Michel Wieviorka (EHESS)

Si le multiculturalisme a toujours été un projet politique controversé, il a aussi su rallier ces dernières années différents types de partisans, des défenseurs radicaux d’une politique de la différence, aux avocats de la lutte pour la reconnaissance, en passant par la défense d’un libéralisme de gauche, ou encore par celle d’un républicanisme critique.

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Call for Papers – 7th Pavia Graduate Conference in Political Philosophy

Wednesday, 11 March 2009 in Calls for Papers, Grad Conferences, Notices by Emanuela Ceva | No comments

On the 24th and 25th of September 2009, the Human Development, Capability and Poverty International Research Centre at the Institute for Advanced Study of Pavia (Italy), under the joint patronage of the Italian Society for Political Philosophy and the Italian Society for Analytic Philosophy, will host the seventh edition of the Pavia Graduate Conference in Political Philosophy.

This two-day conference is meant to offer graduate students an opportunity to present papers, get helpful feedback in a friendly atmosphere, and exchange ideas both with peers and with leading academics in the field of political philosophy. In addition to parallel sessions devoted to students’ presentations, there will also be two plenary sessions. Plenary speakers in past editions have been: Hillel Steiner, Anna Elisabetta Galeotti, Peter Jones, Gianfrancesco Zanetti, Jonathan Wolff, Michele Nicoletti, Philippe Van Parijs, Sebastiano Maffettone, Giovanni Giorgini, Andrew Williams, David Miller and Alessandro Ferrara. This year’s keynote speakers will be:

Nadia Urbinati (Columbia University), speaking on “Unpolitical Democracy”
Michael Otsuka (University College of London), speaking on “Risking Life and Limb”

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Fact Sensitivity of Principles – Something to get folks talking

Monday, 2 March 2009 in Books, Discussion, Posts by Matthew Smith | 9 comments

Hi public reasoners. So, as you all know, GA Cohen let rip an attack against the fact-sensitivity of fundamental political principles in his 2003 PPA article, “Facts and Principles,” and then in his book Rescuing Justice and Equality.  People have responded to this in a number of ways (e.g., Thomas Pogge’s essay in response to Cohen, found in a special issue of Ratio dedicated to Cohen’s book is both excellent and hilarious).

Well, I am going to throw my hat in the ring. What I’ve appended here is a thought-piece – something I am just throwing out there – for discussion.   It’s a little long for a blog post, so it’s in paper format.  I’d like to get people’s take on this stuff.  So, I hope that people will read it and start commenting. The basic idea is this: As a conceptual matter, it could be the case that political principles are fact-sensitive.  Cohen never considers this option.  So his argument fails pretty badly – more or less right out of the gate.  I hope folks will be interested enough in this to read it and offer some discussion pointers.

Thanks,Matt.

fact-sensitivity.pdf