Articles by Justin Weinberg

CALL FOR PAPERS

“Science, Knowledge, and Democracy”

TRiP 2011 - Three Rivers Philosophy Conference

University of South Carolina, Columbia, SC  USA

April 1st - April 3rd, 2011

PDF flyer here.

Keynote Speakers:

Elizabeth Anderson (University of Michigan)

Miranda Fricker (Birkbeck, University of London)

Henry Richardson (Georgetown University)

Miriam Solomon (Temple University)

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It seems that governments sometimes act in ways that are good, but not required by any plausible conception of justice.  Think of the lovely flowers on the highway median, or the block party thrown in your town each year, or the grant you received last summer.  Or, more controversially, consider the victim compensation fund set up by the U.S. Congress after the September 11th attacks, or maybe even the $700 billion bailout of the U.S. financial industry going on right now.

When the government provides for these things, it may be engaging in what we can call government supererogation.  Which acts we’d label as examples of government supererogation will depend on which theories of justice and goodness we accept.  While there is disagreement over these theories, and thus disagreement over which specific acts are supererogatory, I believe most people would identify some acts as fitting into the category.  Taken together, these acts may consume a substantial amount of public resources and attention.

In my contribution to the Political Philosophy Podcast Symposium, I argue that the kinds of acts that seem to be examples of government supererogation are only apparently supererogatory.  Because of the kind of agent government is, the category of supererogation is unavailable to it.  Acts of apparent government supererogation, I argue, are instead either wrong or required by justice, and for most such acts the latter option is implausible.

This paper is related to a larger project of mine on questions about the agency of justice.  Some of these questions have to do with the agency of the state, since the state is typically thought of as the prime agent of justice.  Other questions concern other possible agents of justice, such as private citizens and voluntary associations.

I look forward to getting your thoughts on the paper.  Thanks for listening / reading.  Thanks also to Simon for setting up the Symposium, and to Helena de Bres for her very helpful comments.

Click here to read the paper.

Click here to read Helena de Bres’s comments on the paper.

 

 Is Government Supererogation Possible?: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

ECPR: 11-16 April 2008 | CFP: 1 December 2007

The European Consortium for Political Research (ECPR) will be having its joint sessions April 11-16, 2008, at the University of Rennes, France. The joint sessions are a series of concurrent week-long workshops, each with about 20 participants and focused on a very specific topic in political science. Occasionally a more theory-oriented workshop is included during the joint sessions. Looking over this year’s list of workshops, a few of them seem theory-friendly. Applications to participate in the workshops are due December 1, 2007. I believe that your chances of getting accepted are much lower if your institution is not a member of the ECPR, but perhaps the workshop directors will know more about that. I participated in one of these workshops this past May and found it a very valuable experience.