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Papers by Christine Sypnowich

Oxford University Press eBooks, Jan 24, 1990

Oxford University Press eBooks, Jan 24, 1990

Oxford University Press eBooks, Mar 1, 2006

... See Kramer, Simmonds, and Steiner (1998) for a discussion. ... Because each domino is the imm... more ... See Kramer, Simmonds, and Steiner (1998) for a discussion. ... Because each domino is the immediate cause of its successor's falling, it both owes its successor compensation and is, in turn, owed at least that amount of compensation by its predecessor. ...

Harvard University Press eBooks, Jan 30, 2011

My dissertation asks whether there is a human right to democracy. This is a difficult question, n... more My dissertation asks whether there is a human right to democracy. This is a difficult question, not least because there is no consensus about either what democracy requires or how to interpret human rights. The introduction aims to alleviate these sources of confusion about the question itself, in addition to presenting the main arguments in favor of a human right to democracy, and my rationale to focus more narrowly on a question of toleration. The main discussions are organized around the idea that if democratic peoples should tolerate undemocratic peoples, then a human right to democracy does not exist. Part 1 uses discussions about corporate agency and the conditions of corporate responsibility to argue that a group's capacity for responsible collective agency depends on four things: its ability to form collective intentions, an internal culture that orients the formation of personal intentions to act in accordance with those collective intentions, agents authorized to act (vicariously) for the group, and an effective internal practice of public accountability. I also suggest reasons why it is sometimes appropriate for a collective entity to authorize the agents acting on its behalf to use coercion. Part 2 uses these ideas of responsible collective agency and the grounds of legitimate coercion to interpret Rawls's idea of a people as a normative conception of collective selfdetermination. I explain why a people (in Rawls's sense) meets the four conditions of responsible collective agency, why democracy is not necessarily required for collective self-determination, and also why a people's government should possess coercive authority. Part 3 addresses directly whether democratic peoples should tolerate undemocratic peoples. Traditionally, theorizing about toleration tends to focus on the domestic relations of a given society, and is thus not clearly relevant to questions of toleration among peoples. Therefore, the bulk of Part 3 is devoted to developing an idea of international toleration. Based on this idea of international toleration, and the value of the self-determination of peoples, I argue that democratic peoples should tolerate undemocratic peoples. I conclude that a human right to democracy does not exist.

Routledge eBooks, Apr 28, 2020

Philosophical Topics, 2020

How do we know if people are equal? Contemporary philosophers consider a number of issues when de... more How do we know if people are equal? Contemporary philosophers consider a number of issues when determining if the goals of egalitarian distributive justice have been achieved: defining the metric of equality; determining whether the goal is equality, or simply priority or sufficiency; establishing whether there should be conditions, e.g. bad brute luck, for the amelioration of inequality. In all this, most egalitarians contend that what is to be equalized is not people’s actual shares of the good in question, but rather, the opportunities to have such shares. I counter this view with an ‘egalitarian flourishing’ approach that, in seeking to make people equal in actual well-being, takes exception to the role of opportunity in contemporary argument. The flourishing view means a focus on outcomes, on how people live, in order to enable people to live equally flourishing lives. I argue that if we consider the complex dynamics of choice and circumstance, the role of nonmaterial considerations and the ideal of an egalitarian community, equality of opportunity proves to be an inadequate approach to the realization of the egalitarian ideal.

Research Handbook on Law and Marxism

Explorations in Difference, 2021

Philosophy in review, 1992

Philosophy in review, 2007

... Kwame Anthony Appiah, The Ethics of Identity Reviewed by. Christine Sypnowich. Bookmark and S... more ... Kwame Anthony Appiah, The Ethics of Identity Reviewed by. Christine Sypnowich. Bookmark and Share. Philosophy in Review EISSN 1920-8936 © University of Victoria. This journal is published under the terms of the Creative ...

Philosophy in review, 2005

Introduction - David Bakhurst and Christine Sypnowich Problems of the Social Self Meaning and Sel... more Introduction - David Bakhurst and Christine Sypnowich Problems of the Social Self Meaning and Self in Cultural Perspective - Jerome Bruner Wittgenstein and Social Being - David Bakhurst What a Vygotskian Perspective Can Contribute to Contemporary Philosophy of Language - Ellen Watson The Soviet Self - Felix Mikhailov A Personal Reminiscence Death in Utopia - Christine Sypnowich Marxism and the Mortal Self The Social Self in Political Theory - Stephen Mulhall and Adam Swift The Communitarian Critique of the Liberal Subject The Gendered Self - Diana Coole Becoming Women/Women Becoming - Helene Keyssar Film and the Social Construction of Gender Why Multiple Personality Tells Us Nothing about the Self/Mind/Person/Subject/Soul/Consciousness - Ian Hacking

Philosophy in review, 1986

Is a socialist jurisprudence possible? Many thinkers on the Left, especially Marxists, would answ... more Is a socialist jurisprudence possible? Many thinkers on the Left, especially Marxists, would answer no. Radical thought has long been committed to the view that law will "wither away" under socialism, that is, that political and legal institutions will cease to exist with the emergence and development of socialist society. As a consequence of this view, thinkers on the Left tend to limit their interests to law's role in reinforcing capitalist exploitation, or, less typically, its potential for yielding short-term gains for the exploited. Thus Marxists do not consider the role law might play in post-capitalist society, and a socialist jurisprudence is virtually non-existent. This paper examines the withering away thesis, as it was originally articulated in the works of Marx and Engels, and as it has since been interpreted by Soviet and Western thinkers in the Marxist tradition. The purpose of this examina tion is twofold: first, to understand the nature of the obstacles to a radical contribution to legal theory; and second, to discover whether these obstacles are irremovable, or whether there is in fact room for a socialist theory of law. I will suggest that legal institutions could exist under socialism, and thus that a socialist jurisprudence is possible. Perhaps the most perspicuous statement of the withering away thesis is that made by Engels: State interference in social relations becomes, in one domain after another, superfluous, and then dies out of itself; the government of persons is replaced by the administration of things, and by the conduct of processes of production. The state is not "abolished". // dies out. ' This suggests that the way the legal and political institutions of capitalism meet their end is to be distinguished from the actual overthrow of capitalist relations of production. While capitalist economic structures will be removed either by violent revolution or deliberate public policy, the state and its laws will automatically disappear once the conditions for their existence have been removed. This is because law and state are Studies in Soviet Thought^ (1987) 305-332.

Introduction: G.A. Cohen's Egalitarian Conscience 1. Left-Liberalism Revisited 2. Throwing a ... more Introduction: G.A. Cohen's Egalitarian Conscience 1. Left-Liberalism Revisited 2. Throwing a Veil Over Equality: Equality and Hypocrisy in the Revolutionary Era 3. Kant's Arguments for his Formula of Universal Law 4. Justice, Responsibility, and the Demands of Equality 5. Self-Ownership and Conscription 6. Is the Basic Structure Basic? 7. Choice and Incentive Equality 8. Mr. Morgan's Yacht 9. Begging 10. Impartiality, Solidarity, and Distributive Justice 11. Is There a Human Right to Democracy? 12. Thanks

Oxford University Press eBooks, Jan 24, 1990

Oxford University Press eBooks, Jan 24, 1990

Oxford University Press eBooks, Mar 1, 2006

... See Kramer, Simmonds, and Steiner (1998) for a discussion. ... Because each domino is the imm... more ... See Kramer, Simmonds, and Steiner (1998) for a discussion. ... Because each domino is the immediate cause of its successor's falling, it both owes its successor compensation and is, in turn, owed at least that amount of compensation by its predecessor. ...

Harvard University Press eBooks, Jan 30, 2011

My dissertation asks whether there is a human right to democracy. This is a difficult question, n... more My dissertation asks whether there is a human right to democracy. This is a difficult question, not least because there is no consensus about either what democracy requires or how to interpret human rights. The introduction aims to alleviate these sources of confusion about the question itself, in addition to presenting the main arguments in favor of a human right to democracy, and my rationale to focus more narrowly on a question of toleration. The main discussions are organized around the idea that if democratic peoples should tolerate undemocratic peoples, then a human right to democracy does not exist. Part 1 uses discussions about corporate agency and the conditions of corporate responsibility to argue that a group's capacity for responsible collective agency depends on four things: its ability to form collective intentions, an internal culture that orients the formation of personal intentions to act in accordance with those collective intentions, agents authorized to act (vicariously) for the group, and an effective internal practice of public accountability. I also suggest reasons why it is sometimes appropriate for a collective entity to authorize the agents acting on its behalf to use coercion. Part 2 uses these ideas of responsible collective agency and the grounds of legitimate coercion to interpret Rawls's idea of a people as a normative conception of collective selfdetermination. I explain why a people (in Rawls's sense) meets the four conditions of responsible collective agency, why democracy is not necessarily required for collective self-determination, and also why a people's government should possess coercive authority. Part 3 addresses directly whether democratic peoples should tolerate undemocratic peoples. Traditionally, theorizing about toleration tends to focus on the domestic relations of a given society, and is thus not clearly relevant to questions of toleration among peoples. Therefore, the bulk of Part 3 is devoted to developing an idea of international toleration. Based on this idea of international toleration, and the value of the self-determination of peoples, I argue that democratic peoples should tolerate undemocratic peoples. I conclude that a human right to democracy does not exist.

Routledge eBooks, Apr 28, 2020

Philosophical Topics, 2020

How do we know if people are equal? Contemporary philosophers consider a number of issues when de... more How do we know if people are equal? Contemporary philosophers consider a number of issues when determining if the goals of egalitarian distributive justice have been achieved: defining the metric of equality; determining whether the goal is equality, or simply priority or sufficiency; establishing whether there should be conditions, e.g. bad brute luck, for the amelioration of inequality. In all this, most egalitarians contend that what is to be equalized is not people’s actual shares of the good in question, but rather, the opportunities to have such shares. I counter this view with an ‘egalitarian flourishing’ approach that, in seeking to make people equal in actual well-being, takes exception to the role of opportunity in contemporary argument. The flourishing view means a focus on outcomes, on how people live, in order to enable people to live equally flourishing lives. I argue that if we consider the complex dynamics of choice and circumstance, the role of nonmaterial considerations and the ideal of an egalitarian community, equality of opportunity proves to be an inadequate approach to the realization of the egalitarian ideal.

Research Handbook on Law and Marxism

Explorations in Difference, 2021

Philosophy in review, 1992

Philosophy in review, 2007

... Kwame Anthony Appiah, The Ethics of Identity Reviewed by. Christine Sypnowich. Bookmark and S... more ... Kwame Anthony Appiah, The Ethics of Identity Reviewed by. Christine Sypnowich. Bookmark and Share. Philosophy in Review EISSN 1920-8936 © University of Victoria. This journal is published under the terms of the Creative ...

Philosophy in review, 2005

Introduction - David Bakhurst and Christine Sypnowich Problems of the Social Self Meaning and Sel... more Introduction - David Bakhurst and Christine Sypnowich Problems of the Social Self Meaning and Self in Cultural Perspective - Jerome Bruner Wittgenstein and Social Being - David Bakhurst What a Vygotskian Perspective Can Contribute to Contemporary Philosophy of Language - Ellen Watson The Soviet Self - Felix Mikhailov A Personal Reminiscence Death in Utopia - Christine Sypnowich Marxism and the Mortal Self The Social Self in Political Theory - Stephen Mulhall and Adam Swift The Communitarian Critique of the Liberal Subject The Gendered Self - Diana Coole Becoming Women/Women Becoming - Helene Keyssar Film and the Social Construction of Gender Why Multiple Personality Tells Us Nothing about the Self/Mind/Person/Subject/Soul/Consciousness - Ian Hacking

Philosophy in review, 1986

Is a socialist jurisprudence possible? Many thinkers on the Left, especially Marxists, would answ... more Is a socialist jurisprudence possible? Many thinkers on the Left, especially Marxists, would answer no. Radical thought has long been committed to the view that law will "wither away" under socialism, that is, that political and legal institutions will cease to exist with the emergence and development of socialist society. As a consequence of this view, thinkers on the Left tend to limit their interests to law's role in reinforcing capitalist exploitation, or, less typically, its potential for yielding short-term gains for the exploited. Thus Marxists do not consider the role law might play in post-capitalist society, and a socialist jurisprudence is virtually non-existent. This paper examines the withering away thesis, as it was originally articulated in the works of Marx and Engels, and as it has since been interpreted by Soviet and Western thinkers in the Marxist tradition. The purpose of this examina tion is twofold: first, to understand the nature of the obstacles to a radical contribution to legal theory; and second, to discover whether these obstacles are irremovable, or whether there is in fact room for a socialist theory of law. I will suggest that legal institutions could exist under socialism, and thus that a socialist jurisprudence is possible. Perhaps the most perspicuous statement of the withering away thesis is that made by Engels: State interference in social relations becomes, in one domain after another, superfluous, and then dies out of itself; the government of persons is replaced by the administration of things, and by the conduct of processes of production. The state is not "abolished". // dies out. ' This suggests that the way the legal and political institutions of capitalism meet their end is to be distinguished from the actual overthrow of capitalist relations of production. While capitalist economic structures will be removed either by violent revolution or deliberate public policy, the state and its laws will automatically disappear once the conditions for their existence have been removed. This is because law and state are Studies in Soviet Thought^ (1987) 305-332.

Introduction: G.A. Cohen's Egalitarian Conscience 1. Left-Liberalism Revisited 2. Throwing a ... more Introduction: G.A. Cohen's Egalitarian Conscience 1. Left-Liberalism Revisited 2. Throwing a Veil Over Equality: Equality and Hypocrisy in the Revolutionary Era 3. Kant's Arguments for his Formula of Universal Law 4. Justice, Responsibility, and the Demands of Equality 5. Self-Ownership and Conscription 6. Is the Basic Structure Basic? 7. Choice and Incentive Equality 8. Mr. Morgan's Yacht 9. Begging 10. Impartiality, Solidarity, and Distributive Justice 11. Is There a Human Right to Democracy? 12. Thanks