Contemporary Debates in Political Philosophy

469 Pages·2009·2.986 MB·English

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Contemporary Debates in Political Philosophy
Contemporary Debates in Political Philosophy Edited by Thomas Christiano and John Christman
© 2009 Blackwell Publishing Ltd. ISBN: 978-1-405-13321-0
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Contemporary Debates in Philosophy
In teaching and research, philosophy makes progress through argumentation and
debate. Contemporary Debates in Philosophy provides a forum for students and
their teachers to follow and participate in the debates that animate philosophy
today in the western world. Each volume presents pairs of opposing viewpoints
on contested themes and topics in the central subfields of philosophy. Each
volume is edited and introduced by an expert in the field, and also includes an
index, bibliography, and suggestions for further reading. The opposing essays,
commissioned especially for the volumes in the series, are thorough but accessible
presentations of opposing points of view.
1. Contemporary Debates in Philosophy of Religion edited by Michael L. Peterson
and Raymond J. Vanarragon
2. Contemporary Debates in Philosophy of Science edited by Christopher
Hitchcock
3. Contemporary Debates in Epistemology edited by Matthias Steup and Ernest
Sosa
4. Contemporary Debates in Applied Ethics edited by Andrew I. Cohen and
Christopher Heath Wellman
5. Contemporary Debates in Aesthetics and the Philosophy of Art edited by
Matthew Kieran
6. Contemporary Debates in Moral Theory edited by James Dreier
7. Contemporary Debates in Cognitive Science edited by Robert Stainton
8. Contemporary Debates in Philosophy of Mind edited by Brian McLaughlin and
Jonathan Cohen
9. Contemporary Debates in Social Philosophy edited by Laurence Thomas
10. Contemporary Debates in Metaphysics edited by Theodore Sider, John
Hawthorne, and Dean W. Zimmerman
11. Contemporary Debates in Political Philosophy edited by Thomas Christiano and
John Christman
Forthcoming Contemporary Debates are in:
Philosophy of Biology edited by Francisco J. Ayala and Robert Arp
Philosophy of Language edited by Ernie Lepore
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Contemporary
Debates in
Political Philosophy
Edited by
Thomas Christiano and John Christman
A John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., Publication
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This edition first published 2009
© 2009 Blackwell Publishing Ltd
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Contemporary debates in political philosophy / edited by Thomas Christiano and John Christman.
p.cm. – (Contemporary debates in philosophy)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-1-4051-3321-0 (hardback : alk. paper) – ISBN 978-1-4051-3322-7 (pbk. : alk. paper)
1. Political science–Philosophy. I. Christiano, Thomas. II. Christman, John Philip.
JA71.C5773 2009
320.01–dc22
2008044641
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
Set in 10 on 12.5 pt Rotis Serif by Graphicraft Limited, Hong Kong
Printed in Malaysia
1 2009
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Contents
Acknowledgments vii
Notes on Contributors viii
1 Introduction Thomas Christiano and John Christman 1
QUESTIONS OF METHOD 21
2 Facts and Principles G.A. Cohen 23
3 Constructivism, Facts, and Moral Justification Samuel Freeman 41
4 Reason and the Ethos of a Late-Modern Citizen Stephen White 61
LIBERALISM 79
Political Neutrality 79
5 The Moral Foundations of Liberal Neutrality Gerald F. Gaus 81
6 Perfectionism in Politics: A Defense Steven Wall 99
Liberty and Distributive Justice 119
7 Individualism and Libertarian Rights Eric Mack 121
8 Left-Libertarianism and Liberty Peter Vallentyne 137
Equality 153
9 Illuminating Egalitarianism Larry S. Temkin 155
10 A Reasonable Alternative to Egalitarianism John Kekes 179
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DEMOCRACY AND ITS LIMITS 195
The Value of Democracy 195
11 The Supposed Right to a Democratic Say Richard J. Arneson 197
12 Democracy: Instrumental vs. Non-Instrumental Value
Elizabeth Anderson 213
Deliberative Democracy 229
13 Deliberative Democracy Russell Hardin 231
14 Reflections on Deliberative Democracy Joshua Cohen 247
Constitutionalism 265
15 Constitutionalism – A Skeptical View Jeremy Waldron 267
16 Constitutionalism Larry Alexander 283
PERSONS, IDENTITY AND DIFFERENCE 301
Individualism and Community 301
17 Individualism and the Claims of Community Richard Dagger 303
18 Liberalism, Communitarianism, and the Politics of Identity
Margaret Moore 322
Identity and the Politics of Difference 343
19 Relational Liberalism and Demands for Equality, Recognition,
and Group Rights Anthony Simon Laden 345
20 Structural Injustice and the Politics of Difference Iris M. Young 362
GLOBAL JUSTICE 385
Cosmopolitanism 385
21 Cosmopolitanism and Justice Simon Caney 387
22 Distributive Justice at Home and Abroad Jon Mandle 408
Human Rights 423
23 The Dark Side of Human Rights Onora O’Neill 425
24 A Defense of Welfare Rights as Human Rights James W. Nickel 437
Index 457
vi Contents
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Acknowledgments
A longer version of Chapter 2 appeared as an article by Prof. Cohen, “Facts and Principles,”
in Philosophy and Public Affairs31(3) (Summer 2003): 211–45. Chapter 20 is a revised
version of a paper by Prof. Young which appeared in Multiculturalism and Political
Theory, ed. Anthony Laden and David Owen (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
2007). Chapter 24 is a revised and expanded version of Prof. Nickel’s “Poverty and
Rights,” The Philosophical Quarterly 55 (2005). Chapter 23 is reprinted with permission
from International Affairs 81 (2) (2005): 427–39. All previously published material
used by permission with the gratitude of the editors. We would also like to thank
our indexers, Daniel M. Silvermint and Justin Tosi.
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Notes on Contributors
Larry Alexander is a Warren Distinguished Professor of Law at the University of San
Diego School of Law. He is the author of Is There a Right of Freedom of Expression?
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005); (with Emily Sherwin) The Rule of Rules:
Morality, Rules and the Dilemmas of Law(Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2001);
Constitutionalism: Philosophical Foundations (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
1998); (with Paul Horton) Whom Does the Constitution Command?(New York: Green-
wood Press, 1988); several anthologies; and more than 160 articles, book chapters
and review essays in jurisprudence, constitutional law, criminal law, and normative
ethics. He has been a member of the faculty at the University of San Diego School
of Law since 1970. He is the co-editor of the journal Legal Theory, and he serves on
the editorial boards of Ethics, Law and Philosophy and Criminal Law and Philosophy.
He is co-executive director of the Institute for Law and Philosophy at the University
of San Diego and he is past president of AMINTAPHIL.
Elizabeth Anderson is John Rawls Collegiate Professor of Philosophy and Women’s
Studies at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. Her research has focused on
democratic theory, egalitarianism, the ethical limits of markets, theories of value and
rational choice, the philosophies of John Stuart Mill and John Dewey, and feminist
epistemology and philosophy of science. She is the author of Value in Ethics and
Economics (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1993). She is currently
writing a book on the ideal of ethno-racial integration in democratic theory.
Richard J. Arneson is professor of philosophy at the University of California, San
Diego, where he has been employed since 1973. His current rank there is Professor,
Above Scale (Distinguished Professor). In winter, 2006 he held a visiting appoint-
ment at the Centre for Public Philosophy and Applied Ethics at Australian National
University. His works mainly concern political and moral philosophy. Several of his
recent essays explore one of two topics: (1) how best to integrate sensible accounts
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of individual responsibility and human well-being into an egalitarian theory of social
justice; and (2) how best to defend act consequentialism in the light of the most
serious recent criticisms this doctrine has attracted.
Simon Caney is Professor in Political Theory and Tutorial Fellow in Politics at Magdalen
College, Oxford. He has published articles on justice, rights, perfectionism, and global
justice, in philosophy, politics and law journals. He is the author of Justice Beyond
Borders (New York: Oxford University Press, 2005). He is working on a book entitled
On Cosmopolitanism (for Oxford University Press) and a book entitled Global Justice
and Climate Change (co-authored with Dr Derek Bell and also for Oxford University
Press). He currently holds a three-year ESRC Leadership Fellowship on Climate Change.
Thomas Christiano is Professor of Philosophy and Law at the University of Arizona.
He is also the co-director of the Rogers Program in Law and Society in the College
of Law. He has been a fellow at the National Humanities Center, a visiting fellow of
All Souls College, Oxford, and a visiting fellow in the Research School of the Social
Sciences at the Australian National University. He has published widely in the areas
of moral and political philosophy and is the author of The Constitution of Equality:
Democratic Authority and Its Limits(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008), The Rule
of the Many: Fundamental Issues in Democratic Theory(Boulder, CO: Westview Press,
1996). He is currently finishing a book on the foundations of equality.
John Christman is Associate Professor of Philosophy, Political Science and Women’s
Studies at Pennsylvania State University, where he specializes in contemporary social
and political philosophy. He is the author of The Myth of Property(New York: Oxford
University Press, 1994), Social and Political Philosophy: A Contemporary Introduction
(London: Routledge, 2002), and The Politics of Persons: Individual Autonomy and
Socio-historical Selves (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009).
G. A. Cohen was educated at McGill and Oxford Universities where he obtained, respec-
tively, the degrees of B. A. in Philosophy and Politics in 1961 and B. Phil. in Philosophy
in 1963. For twenty-two years he was a Lecturer and then a Reader in Philosophy
at University College, London. In 1985 he became Chichele Professor of Social and
Political Theory and a Fellow of All Souls College, Oxford. Professor Cohen is the
author of Karl Marx’s Theory of History: A Defence (1978; expanded edn, New York:
Oxford University Press, 2000), History, Labour, and Freedom(New York: Oxford University
Press, 1988), Self-Ownership, Freedom, and Equality(New York: Cambridge University
Press, 1995), If You’re an Egalitarian, How Come You’re So Rich? (Cambridge, MA:
Harvard University Press, 2000) and Rescuing Justice and Equality (Harvard
University Press, 2008). Cohen has given lectures all over the world, including the
Tanner Lectures at Stanford University in 1991 and the Gifford Lectures at Edinburgh
University in 1996. He was made a Fellow of the British Academy in 1985.
Joshua Cohen is professor of political science, philosophy, and law at Stanford University,
where he directs the Program on Global Justice. He has been editor of the Boston
Review since 1991. A collection of his papers on issues of democratic theory will be
published by Harvard University Press in 2009.
Notes on Contributors ix
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Richard Dagger is Professor of Political Science at Rhodes College, where he also
directs the Search for Values Program. He is the author of Civic Virtues: Rights,
Citizenship, and Republican Liberalism (New York: Oxford University Press, 1997)
and co-author, with Terence Ball, of Political Ideologies and the Democratic Ideal
(7th edn, New York: Longman, 2008). His recent essays in political and legal philo-
sophy include: “Republican Punishment: Consequentialist or Retributivist?” in C. LaBorde
and J. Maynor, eds., Republicanism and Political Theory(Malden, MA: Blackwell, 2008);
“Punishment as Fair Play,” Res Publica (2009); and “Republicanism and Crime,” in
S. Besson and J.-L. Marti, eds., Legal Republicanism (New York: Oxford University
Press, 2009).
Samuel Freeman is Professor of Philosophy and Law at the University of
Pennsylvania. He is the author of Justice and the Social Contract (New York: Oxford
University Press, 2006) and Rawls (New York: Routledge, 2007), and has edited The
Cambridge Companion to Rawls (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2002), as
well as John Rawls’s Collected Papers(Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2001)
and his Lectures on the History of Political Philosophy (Cambridge, MA: Harvard
University Press, 2007).
Gerald F. Gaus is James E. Rogers Professor of Philosophy at the University of Arizona.
Among his books are On Philosophy, Politics, and Economics(Belmont, CA: Wadsworth,
2008), Contemporary Theories of Liberalism: Public Reason as a Post-Enlightenment
Project (New York: Sage, 2003), Justificatory Liberalism (New York: Oxford University
Press, 1996), and Value and Justification(New York: Cambridge University Press, 1990).
He and Chandran Kukathas edited the Handbook of Political Theory (New York: Sage,
2004). Along with Jonathan Riley, he is a founding editor of Politics, Philosophy and
Economics. He is currently completing a book on The Order of Public Reason (New
York: Cambridge University Press) and, with Julian Lamont, is writing a book on
Economic Justice (Malden, MA: Blackwell).
Russell Hardin is professor of Politics at New York University. He is the author of
many books, including How Do You Know?(Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press,
forthcoming), Indeterminacy and Society (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press,
2003), Trust (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2006), and Liberalism, Constitutionalism, and
Democracy (New York: Oxford University Press, 1999).
John Kekes has retired after many years, first as Professor of Philosophy, and then
as Research Professor, and now works as an independent author. His many books
include Against Liberalism (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1997), A Case for
Conservatism (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1998), and most recently
Enjoyment (New York: Oxford University Press, 2008). He is at work on The Human
Condition: A Secular View. His email address is [email protected].
Anthony Simon Ladenis Professor of Philosophy at the University of Illinois at Chicago,
where he has taught since 1996. He is the author of Reasonably Radical (Ithaca, NY:
Cornell University Press, 2001) and co-editor, with David Owen, of Multiculturalism
and Political Theory(New York: Cambridge University Press, 2007). His research focuses
x Notes on Contributors