Kyle Johannsen | Trent University (original) (raw)
Books by Kyle Johannsen
Routledge, 2021
Though many ethicists have the intuition that we should leave nature alone, Kyle Johannsen argues... more Though many ethicists have the intuition that we should leave nature alone, Kyle Johannsen argues that we have a duty to research safe ways of providing large-scale assistance to wild animals. Using concepts from moral and political philosophy to analyze the issue of wild animal suffering (WAS), Johannsen explores how a collective, institutional obligation to assist wild animals should be understood. He claims that with enough research, genetic editing may one day give us the power to safely intervene without perpetually interfering with wild animals’ liberties.---------------Questions addressed include: In what way is nature valuable and is interference compatible with that value? Is interference a requirement of justice? What are the implications of WAS for animal rights advocacy? What types of intervention are promising?---------------Expertly moving the debate about human relations with wild animals beyond its traditional confines, Wild Animal Ethics is essential reading for students and scholars of political philosophy and political theory studying animal ethics, environmental ethics, and environmental philosophy. -------------------For an interview I had about this book, with the New Books Network, go to https://newbooksnetwork.com/wild-animal-ethics. For an interview about it on the Knowing Animals podcast, go to https://iroarpod.com/episode-162-reducing-wild-animal-suffering-with-kyle-johannsen/.
Routledge, 2018
Conceptual analysis has fallen out of favor in political philosophy. The influence of figures lik... more Conceptual analysis has fallen out of favor in political philosophy. The influence of figures like John Rawls and Ronald Dworkin has led political philosophy to focus on questions about what should be done, and to ignore questions about the usage of words. As a result, contemporary political philosophy lacks a shared understanding of the concept of justice, and a considerable amount of disagreement between political philosophers is, upon reflection, traceable to this. In my book, I call for renewed attention to the manner in which the word ‘justice’ is and should be used. Focusing on the late work of G.A. Cohen, I argue that two major debates in contemporary political philosophy: the debate over luck-egalitarianism and the debate over whether justice imposes demands on citizens’ personal lives; are really just conceptual. Whereas some philosophers have been using the term ‘justice’ to refer to one among a plurality of values, others have been using it to refer to institutional rightness. Though the latter use of ‘justice’ is presently more dominant, I argue that much is to be gained from thinking of justice as one value among many. Doing so sheds light on the nature of both democracy and legitimacy, and, paradoxically, makes better sense of the idea that justice is ‘the first virtue of institutions’. https://www.routledge.com/A-Conceptual-Investigation-of-Justice/Johannsen/p/book/9781138736009
Queen's University, Jun 2015
In contemporary debates about justice, political philosophers take themselves to be engaged with ... more In contemporary debates about justice, political philosophers take themselves to be engaged with a subject that’s narrower than the whole of morality. Many contemporary liberals, notably John Rawls, understand this narrowness in terms of context specificity. On their view, justice is the part of morality that applies to the context of a society’s institutions, but only has indirect application to the context of citizens’ personal lives (unlike the rest of morality). In contrast, many value pluralists, notably G.A. Cohen, understand justice’s narrowness in terms of singularity against a plural background. On their view, justice is one fundamental value amongst a plurality of fundamental values. The purpose of my thesis is to establish that the pluralist conception of justice’s narrowness is (a) theoretically significant and (b) true. To establish its theoretical significance, I argue that proper attention to the ways in which different understandings of narrowness inform the work of contemporary egalitarians explains a considerable amount of disagreement between them concerning the content and scope of distributive justice. On the one hand, I’ll argue that if we understand justice’s narrowness in the manner Cohen and other pluralists do, i.e., understand a conception of justice to be a conception of a particular fundamental value, then both luck-egalitarianism and the claim that justice extends to the personal context are compelling. On the other hand, I’ll argue that if we understand justice’s narrowness in a contextual manner, i.e., understand justice to comprise one or more all-things-considered principles adopted for the institutional context, then both luck-egalitarianism and the claim that justice extends to the personal context prove implausible. To establish the truth of the pluralist conception of narrowness, I argue first, that the contextual understanding is only plausible if fairness should be understood procedurally instead of substantively; and second, that substantive fairness cannot be eliminated, as specifying the content of procedural fairness requires a substantive criterion. The upshot is that justice’s narrowness is best understood in terms of singularity against a plural background, rather than in terms of context specificity.
Articles by Kyle Johannsen
Ethics, Policy and Environment, 2023
This paper is the introduction to a collection I guest-edited called Positive Duties to Wild Anim... more This paper is the introduction to a collection I guest-edited called Positive Duties to Wild Animals. The collection contains single-authored contributions from Catia Faria, Josh Milburn, Eze Paez, and Jeff Sebo; and co-authored contributions from Mara-Daria Cojocaru and Alasdair Cochrane, and Oscar Horta and Dayrón Terán. It was published as a special issue of Ethics, Policy and Environment.
Philosophia, 2022
The purpose of this paper is to respond to the thoughtful commentaries contained in the Wild Anim... more The purpose of this paper is to respond to the thoughtful commentaries contained in the Wild Animal Ethics book symposium. The published version of the paper can be accessed for free via the following link: https://rdcu.be/cyzbi
Philosophia, 2022
This paper is a summary of my book 'Wild Animal Ethics'. The published version of the paper can b... more This paper is a summary of my book 'Wild Animal Ethics'. The published version of the paper can be accessed for free via the following link: https://rdcu.be/cyzbj
The Journal of Value Inquiry, 2021
The name ‘pluralism’ frequently rears its head in political philosophy, but theorists often have ... more The name ‘pluralism’ frequently rears its head in political philosophy, but theorists often have different things in mind when using the term. Whereas ‘reasonable pluralism’ refers to the fact of moral diversity among citizens of a liberal democracy, ‘value pluralism’ is a metaethical view about the structure of moral practical reasoning. In this paper, I argue that value pluralism is part of the best explanation for reasonable pluralism. However, I also argue that embracing this explanation is compatible with political liberalism’s commitment to avoiding controversial premises. According value pluralism an explanatory role does not entail according it a justificatory one. What’s more, explaining reasonable disagreement in terms of reasonable disagreement about value weights opens up space for direct appeal to substantive values within political liberalism. In particular, promoting a substantive political value when doing so does not conflict with other values is unproblematic. Full text available at: https://rdcu.be/b5vWv
The Philosophers' Magazine, 2021
I argue that most wild animals live bad lives, and that we should intervene in nature to improve ... more I argue that most wild animals live bad lives, and that we should intervene in nature to improve their wellbeing.
Environmental Values, 2020
In light of the extent of wild animal suffering, some philosophers have adopted the view that we ... more In light of the extent of wild animal suffering, some philosophers have adopted the view that we should cautiously assist wild animals on a large scale. Recently, their view has come under criticism. According to one objection, even cautious intervention is unjustified because fallibility is allegedly intractable. By contrast, a second objection states that we should abandon caution and intentionally destroy habitat in order to prevent wild animals from reproducing. In my paper, I argue that intentional habitat destruction is wrong because negative duties are more stringent than positive duties. However, I also argue that the possible benefits of ecological damage; combined with the excusability of unintended, unforeseeable harm; suggest that fallibility should not paralyze us. URL: https://doi.org/10.3197/096327119X15579936382644
Dialogue: Canadian Philosophical Review, 2019
In this paper, I explain the arguments my critics target and I respond to their criticisms. Some ... more In this paper, I explain the arguments my critics target and I respond to their criticisms. Some of my replies further expand upon the ideas covered in my book - 'A Conceptual Investigation of Justice' - and some cover matters that weren't discussed there. This paper thus substantially contributes to the arguments made in my book.
Dialogue: Canadian Philosophical Review, 2019
In this paper, I introduce the articles contained in this special issue, and I briefly explain so... more In this paper, I introduce the articles contained in this special issue, and I briefly explain some of the main arguments presented in my book 'A Conceptual Investigation of Justice'. A central claim in my book is that a verbal and yet also philosophically substantial disagreement over the word 'justice' lies at the heart of a number of issues in contemporary political philosophy. Over the course of introducing my book's arguments and the commentaries in this issue, I also offer an account of what it means for a dispute to be verbal, but not merely verbal.
Ethical Theory and Moral Practice, 2017
Wild animal reproduction poses an important moral problem for animal rights theorists. Many wild ... more Wild animal reproduction poses an important moral problem for animal rights theorists. Many wild animals give birth to large numbers of uncared-for offspring, and thus child mortality rates are far higher in nature than they are among human beings. In light of this reproductive strategy – traditionally referred to as the ‘r-strategy’ – does concern for the interests of wild animals require us to intervene in nature? In this paper, I argue that animal rights theorists should embrace fallibility-constrained interventionism: the view that intervention in nature is desirable but should be constrained by our ignorance of the inner workings of ecosystems. Though authors sometimes assume that large-scale intervention requires turning nature into an enormous zoo, I suggest an alternative. With sufficient research, a new form of gene editing called CRISPR (Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats) promises to one day give us the capacity to intervene without perpetually interfering with wild animals’ liberties. Full text available at: http://rdcu.be/ncDl
Res Publica, 2017
G. A. Cohen’s claim that fundamental principles are ‘fact-insensitive’ has not received an especi... more G. A. Cohen’s claim that fundamental principles are ‘fact-insensitive’ has not received an especially warm welcome from the philosophical community. While some philosophers have expressed doubts about the plausibility of his claim, others have complained that even if his thesis is true, it is also relatively insignificant. In my paper, I argue that the fact-insensitivity thesis, if true, provides considerable support for value pluralism, and is thus of interest for that reason. Though Cohen himself assumes a plurality of fundamental principles, he never argues that the fact-insensitivity thesis supports this assumption. One of my paper’s aims, then, is to fill an argumentative gap in Cohen’s meta-ethical framework.
Full text available at: http://rdcu.be/kwlf
Ethical Perspectives, 2016
G.A. Cohen is famous for his critique of John Rawls’s view that principles of justice are restric... more G.A. Cohen is famous for his critique of John Rawls’s view that principles of justice are restricted in scope to institutional structures. In recent work, however, Cohen has suggested that Rawlsians get more than just the scope of justice wrong: they get the concept wrong too. He claims that justice is a fundamental value, i.e., a moral input in our deliberations about the content of action guiding regulatory principles, rather than the output. In this paper, I argue that Cohen’s arguments for extending the scope of justice equivocate across his distinction between fundamental principles of justice, i.e., principles that tell us what justice is; and regulatory principles of justice, i.e., principles that tell us what is required of us all things, including justice, considered. Though Cohen initially had the regulatory sense of the word ‘justice’ in mind when critiquing the basic structure restriction, his replies to the problem of demandingness presuppose his own, fundamental sense of the word ‘justice’. The upshot is that he escapes demandingness at the cost of sacrificing regulatory justice’s capacity to provide clear guidance. I conclude the paper by considering Peter Singer’s efforts to deal with demandingness in his own work on global poverty. Since Singer manages to deal with demandingness without giving up clarity, his work is a good a place to start in the search for regulatory principles that are suitable for the context of personal choice.
Socialist Studies, 2016
In recent work, Andrew T. Forcehimes and Robert B. Talisse correctly note that G.A. Cohen's fact-... more In recent work, Andrew T. Forcehimes and Robert B. Talisse correctly note that G.A. Cohen's fact-insensitivity thesis, properly understood, is explanatory. This observation raises an important concern. If fact-insensitive principles are explanatory, then what role can they play in normative deliberations? The purpose of my paper is, in part, to address this question. Following David Miller, I indicate that on a charitable understanding of Cohen's thesis, an explanatory principle explains a justificatory fact by completing an otherwise logically incomplete inference. As a result, the explanatory role such a principle plays is inseparable from its status as a (not necessarily successful) justificatory reason. With this interpretation in hand, I then proceed to argue that Lea Ypi's and Robert Jubb's recent criticisms fail to undermine Cohen's thesis, and that fact-insensitive principles, once discovered, are especially helpful for purposes of deliberation in circumstances characterized by changing and changeable feasibility constraints.
Social Philosophy Today, 2013
G.A. Cohen is well known within contemporary political philosophy for claiming that the scope of ... more G.A. Cohen is well known within contemporary political philosophy for claiming that the scope of principles of justice extends beyond the design of institutions to citizens’ personal choices. More recently, he’s also received attention for claiming that principles of justice are normatively ultimate, i.e., that they’re necessary for the justification of action guiding principles (regulatory rules) but are unsuitable to guide political practice themselves. The purpose of this paper is to explore the relationship between these claims as they’re applied in criticism of John Rawls. It argues that ascribing normative ultimacy to justice entails its application to personal choice. However, it also argues that if Cohen’s right about Rawls’s difference principle being regulatory rather than ultimate, then his earlier claim that Rawls must extend it to personal choice on pain of inconsistency is refuted.
Case Studies by Kyle Johannsen
Business Cases in Ethical Focus (Broadview Press), 2019
This case study analyzes precarious employment from the perspective of different theories of dist... more This case study analyzes precarious employment from the perspective of different theories of distributive justice. Its purpose is to serve as a learning tool for students in business ethics courses.
Business in Ethical Focus, 2nd Edition (Broadview Press), 2016
This case study analyzes the Fair Trade coffee label "Café Feminino" (as well as Fair Trade more ... more This case study analyzes the Fair Trade coffee label "Café Feminino" (as well as Fair Trade more generally) from the perspective of different theories of distributive justice. Its purpose is to serve as a learning tool for students in business ethics courses.
Discussion Pieces by Kyle Johannsen
Animal Sentience, 2019
Animal rights philosophers have traditionally accepted the claim that human beings are unique, bu... more Animal rights philosophers have traditionally accepted the claim that human beings are unique, but rejected the claim that our uniqueness justifies denying animals moral rights. Humans were thought to be unique specifically because we possess moral agency. In this commentary, I explore the claim that some nonhuman animals are also moral agents, and I take note of its counter-intuitive implications.
Animal Sentience, 2016
In recent work, economist Yew-Kwang Ng suggests strategies for improving animal welfare within th... more In recent work, economist Yew-Kwang Ng suggests strategies for improving animal welfare within the confines of institutions such as the meat industry. Although I argue that Ng is wrong not to advocate abolition, I do find his position concerning wild animals to be compelling. Anyone who takes the interests of animals seriously should also accept a cautious commitment to intervention in the wild.
Routledge, 2021
Though many ethicists have the intuition that we should leave nature alone, Kyle Johannsen argues... more Though many ethicists have the intuition that we should leave nature alone, Kyle Johannsen argues that we have a duty to research safe ways of providing large-scale assistance to wild animals. Using concepts from moral and political philosophy to analyze the issue of wild animal suffering (WAS), Johannsen explores how a collective, institutional obligation to assist wild animals should be understood. He claims that with enough research, genetic editing may one day give us the power to safely intervene without perpetually interfering with wild animals’ liberties.---------------Questions addressed include: In what way is nature valuable and is interference compatible with that value? Is interference a requirement of justice? What are the implications of WAS for animal rights advocacy? What types of intervention are promising?---------------Expertly moving the debate about human relations with wild animals beyond its traditional confines, Wild Animal Ethics is essential reading for students and scholars of political philosophy and political theory studying animal ethics, environmental ethics, and environmental philosophy. -------------------For an interview I had about this book, with the New Books Network, go to https://newbooksnetwork.com/wild-animal-ethics. For an interview about it on the Knowing Animals podcast, go to https://iroarpod.com/episode-162-reducing-wild-animal-suffering-with-kyle-johannsen/.
Routledge, 2018
Conceptual analysis has fallen out of favor in political philosophy. The influence of figures lik... more Conceptual analysis has fallen out of favor in political philosophy. The influence of figures like John Rawls and Ronald Dworkin has led political philosophy to focus on questions about what should be done, and to ignore questions about the usage of words. As a result, contemporary political philosophy lacks a shared understanding of the concept of justice, and a considerable amount of disagreement between political philosophers is, upon reflection, traceable to this. In my book, I call for renewed attention to the manner in which the word ‘justice’ is and should be used. Focusing on the late work of G.A. Cohen, I argue that two major debates in contemporary political philosophy: the debate over luck-egalitarianism and the debate over whether justice imposes demands on citizens’ personal lives; are really just conceptual. Whereas some philosophers have been using the term ‘justice’ to refer to one among a plurality of values, others have been using it to refer to institutional rightness. Though the latter use of ‘justice’ is presently more dominant, I argue that much is to be gained from thinking of justice as one value among many. Doing so sheds light on the nature of both democracy and legitimacy, and, paradoxically, makes better sense of the idea that justice is ‘the first virtue of institutions’. https://www.routledge.com/A-Conceptual-Investigation-of-Justice/Johannsen/p/book/9781138736009
Queen's University, Jun 2015
In contemporary debates about justice, political philosophers take themselves to be engaged with ... more In contemporary debates about justice, political philosophers take themselves to be engaged with a subject that’s narrower than the whole of morality. Many contemporary liberals, notably John Rawls, understand this narrowness in terms of context specificity. On their view, justice is the part of morality that applies to the context of a society’s institutions, but only has indirect application to the context of citizens’ personal lives (unlike the rest of morality). In contrast, many value pluralists, notably G.A. Cohen, understand justice’s narrowness in terms of singularity against a plural background. On their view, justice is one fundamental value amongst a plurality of fundamental values. The purpose of my thesis is to establish that the pluralist conception of justice’s narrowness is (a) theoretically significant and (b) true. To establish its theoretical significance, I argue that proper attention to the ways in which different understandings of narrowness inform the work of contemporary egalitarians explains a considerable amount of disagreement between them concerning the content and scope of distributive justice. On the one hand, I’ll argue that if we understand justice’s narrowness in the manner Cohen and other pluralists do, i.e., understand a conception of justice to be a conception of a particular fundamental value, then both luck-egalitarianism and the claim that justice extends to the personal context are compelling. On the other hand, I’ll argue that if we understand justice’s narrowness in a contextual manner, i.e., understand justice to comprise one or more all-things-considered principles adopted for the institutional context, then both luck-egalitarianism and the claim that justice extends to the personal context prove implausible. To establish the truth of the pluralist conception of narrowness, I argue first, that the contextual understanding is only plausible if fairness should be understood procedurally instead of substantively; and second, that substantive fairness cannot be eliminated, as specifying the content of procedural fairness requires a substantive criterion. The upshot is that justice’s narrowness is best understood in terms of singularity against a plural background, rather than in terms of context specificity.
Ethics, Policy and Environment, 2023
This paper is the introduction to a collection I guest-edited called Positive Duties to Wild Anim... more This paper is the introduction to a collection I guest-edited called Positive Duties to Wild Animals. The collection contains single-authored contributions from Catia Faria, Josh Milburn, Eze Paez, and Jeff Sebo; and co-authored contributions from Mara-Daria Cojocaru and Alasdair Cochrane, and Oscar Horta and Dayrón Terán. It was published as a special issue of Ethics, Policy and Environment.
Philosophia, 2022
The purpose of this paper is to respond to the thoughtful commentaries contained in the Wild Anim... more The purpose of this paper is to respond to the thoughtful commentaries contained in the Wild Animal Ethics book symposium. The published version of the paper can be accessed for free via the following link: https://rdcu.be/cyzbi
Philosophia, 2022
This paper is a summary of my book 'Wild Animal Ethics'. The published version of the paper can b... more This paper is a summary of my book 'Wild Animal Ethics'. The published version of the paper can be accessed for free via the following link: https://rdcu.be/cyzbj
The Journal of Value Inquiry, 2021
The name ‘pluralism’ frequently rears its head in political philosophy, but theorists often have ... more The name ‘pluralism’ frequently rears its head in political philosophy, but theorists often have different things in mind when using the term. Whereas ‘reasonable pluralism’ refers to the fact of moral diversity among citizens of a liberal democracy, ‘value pluralism’ is a metaethical view about the structure of moral practical reasoning. In this paper, I argue that value pluralism is part of the best explanation for reasonable pluralism. However, I also argue that embracing this explanation is compatible with political liberalism’s commitment to avoiding controversial premises. According value pluralism an explanatory role does not entail according it a justificatory one. What’s more, explaining reasonable disagreement in terms of reasonable disagreement about value weights opens up space for direct appeal to substantive values within political liberalism. In particular, promoting a substantive political value when doing so does not conflict with other values is unproblematic. Full text available at: https://rdcu.be/b5vWv
The Philosophers' Magazine, 2021
I argue that most wild animals live bad lives, and that we should intervene in nature to improve ... more I argue that most wild animals live bad lives, and that we should intervene in nature to improve their wellbeing.
Environmental Values, 2020
In light of the extent of wild animal suffering, some philosophers have adopted the view that we ... more In light of the extent of wild animal suffering, some philosophers have adopted the view that we should cautiously assist wild animals on a large scale. Recently, their view has come under criticism. According to one objection, even cautious intervention is unjustified because fallibility is allegedly intractable. By contrast, a second objection states that we should abandon caution and intentionally destroy habitat in order to prevent wild animals from reproducing. In my paper, I argue that intentional habitat destruction is wrong because negative duties are more stringent than positive duties. However, I also argue that the possible benefits of ecological damage; combined with the excusability of unintended, unforeseeable harm; suggest that fallibility should not paralyze us. URL: https://doi.org/10.3197/096327119X15579936382644
Dialogue: Canadian Philosophical Review, 2019
In this paper, I explain the arguments my critics target and I respond to their criticisms. Some ... more In this paper, I explain the arguments my critics target and I respond to their criticisms. Some of my replies further expand upon the ideas covered in my book - 'A Conceptual Investigation of Justice' - and some cover matters that weren't discussed there. This paper thus substantially contributes to the arguments made in my book.
Dialogue: Canadian Philosophical Review, 2019
In this paper, I introduce the articles contained in this special issue, and I briefly explain so... more In this paper, I introduce the articles contained in this special issue, and I briefly explain some of the main arguments presented in my book 'A Conceptual Investigation of Justice'. A central claim in my book is that a verbal and yet also philosophically substantial disagreement over the word 'justice' lies at the heart of a number of issues in contemporary political philosophy. Over the course of introducing my book's arguments and the commentaries in this issue, I also offer an account of what it means for a dispute to be verbal, but not merely verbal.
Ethical Theory and Moral Practice, 2017
Wild animal reproduction poses an important moral problem for animal rights theorists. Many wild ... more Wild animal reproduction poses an important moral problem for animal rights theorists. Many wild animals give birth to large numbers of uncared-for offspring, and thus child mortality rates are far higher in nature than they are among human beings. In light of this reproductive strategy – traditionally referred to as the ‘r-strategy’ – does concern for the interests of wild animals require us to intervene in nature? In this paper, I argue that animal rights theorists should embrace fallibility-constrained interventionism: the view that intervention in nature is desirable but should be constrained by our ignorance of the inner workings of ecosystems. Though authors sometimes assume that large-scale intervention requires turning nature into an enormous zoo, I suggest an alternative. With sufficient research, a new form of gene editing called CRISPR (Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats) promises to one day give us the capacity to intervene without perpetually interfering with wild animals’ liberties. Full text available at: http://rdcu.be/ncDl
Res Publica, 2017
G. A. Cohen’s claim that fundamental principles are ‘fact-insensitive’ has not received an especi... more G. A. Cohen’s claim that fundamental principles are ‘fact-insensitive’ has not received an especially warm welcome from the philosophical community. While some philosophers have expressed doubts about the plausibility of his claim, others have complained that even if his thesis is true, it is also relatively insignificant. In my paper, I argue that the fact-insensitivity thesis, if true, provides considerable support for value pluralism, and is thus of interest for that reason. Though Cohen himself assumes a plurality of fundamental principles, he never argues that the fact-insensitivity thesis supports this assumption. One of my paper’s aims, then, is to fill an argumentative gap in Cohen’s meta-ethical framework.
Full text available at: http://rdcu.be/kwlf
Ethical Perspectives, 2016
G.A. Cohen is famous for his critique of John Rawls’s view that principles of justice are restric... more G.A. Cohen is famous for his critique of John Rawls’s view that principles of justice are restricted in scope to institutional structures. In recent work, however, Cohen has suggested that Rawlsians get more than just the scope of justice wrong: they get the concept wrong too. He claims that justice is a fundamental value, i.e., a moral input in our deliberations about the content of action guiding regulatory principles, rather than the output. In this paper, I argue that Cohen’s arguments for extending the scope of justice equivocate across his distinction between fundamental principles of justice, i.e., principles that tell us what justice is; and regulatory principles of justice, i.e., principles that tell us what is required of us all things, including justice, considered. Though Cohen initially had the regulatory sense of the word ‘justice’ in mind when critiquing the basic structure restriction, his replies to the problem of demandingness presuppose his own, fundamental sense of the word ‘justice’. The upshot is that he escapes demandingness at the cost of sacrificing regulatory justice’s capacity to provide clear guidance. I conclude the paper by considering Peter Singer’s efforts to deal with demandingness in his own work on global poverty. Since Singer manages to deal with demandingness without giving up clarity, his work is a good a place to start in the search for regulatory principles that are suitable for the context of personal choice.
Socialist Studies, 2016
In recent work, Andrew T. Forcehimes and Robert B. Talisse correctly note that G.A. Cohen's fact-... more In recent work, Andrew T. Forcehimes and Robert B. Talisse correctly note that G.A. Cohen's fact-insensitivity thesis, properly understood, is explanatory. This observation raises an important concern. If fact-insensitive principles are explanatory, then what role can they play in normative deliberations? The purpose of my paper is, in part, to address this question. Following David Miller, I indicate that on a charitable understanding of Cohen's thesis, an explanatory principle explains a justificatory fact by completing an otherwise logically incomplete inference. As a result, the explanatory role such a principle plays is inseparable from its status as a (not necessarily successful) justificatory reason. With this interpretation in hand, I then proceed to argue that Lea Ypi's and Robert Jubb's recent criticisms fail to undermine Cohen's thesis, and that fact-insensitive principles, once discovered, are especially helpful for purposes of deliberation in circumstances characterized by changing and changeable feasibility constraints.
Social Philosophy Today, 2013
G.A. Cohen is well known within contemporary political philosophy for claiming that the scope of ... more G.A. Cohen is well known within contemporary political philosophy for claiming that the scope of principles of justice extends beyond the design of institutions to citizens’ personal choices. More recently, he’s also received attention for claiming that principles of justice are normatively ultimate, i.e., that they’re necessary for the justification of action guiding principles (regulatory rules) but are unsuitable to guide political practice themselves. The purpose of this paper is to explore the relationship between these claims as they’re applied in criticism of John Rawls. It argues that ascribing normative ultimacy to justice entails its application to personal choice. However, it also argues that if Cohen’s right about Rawls’s difference principle being regulatory rather than ultimate, then his earlier claim that Rawls must extend it to personal choice on pain of inconsistency is refuted.
Business Cases in Ethical Focus (Broadview Press), 2019
This case study analyzes precarious employment from the perspective of different theories of dist... more This case study analyzes precarious employment from the perspective of different theories of distributive justice. Its purpose is to serve as a learning tool for students in business ethics courses.
Business in Ethical Focus, 2nd Edition (Broadview Press), 2016
This case study analyzes the Fair Trade coffee label "Café Feminino" (as well as Fair Trade more ... more This case study analyzes the Fair Trade coffee label "Café Feminino" (as well as Fair Trade more generally) from the perspective of different theories of distributive justice. Its purpose is to serve as a learning tool for students in business ethics courses.
Animal Sentience, 2019
Animal rights philosophers have traditionally accepted the claim that human beings are unique, bu... more Animal rights philosophers have traditionally accepted the claim that human beings are unique, but rejected the claim that our uniqueness justifies denying animals moral rights. Humans were thought to be unique specifically because we possess moral agency. In this commentary, I explore the claim that some nonhuman animals are also moral agents, and I take note of its counter-intuitive implications.
Animal Sentience, 2016
In recent work, economist Yew-Kwang Ng suggests strategies for improving animal welfare within th... more In recent work, economist Yew-Kwang Ng suggests strategies for improving animal welfare within the confines of institutions such as the meat industry. Although I argue that Ng is wrong not to advocate abolition, I do find his position concerning wild animals to be compelling. Anyone who takes the interests of animals seriously should also accept a cautious commitment to intervention in the wild.
AJOB Neuroscience, 2013
This article is a short commentary on Veljko Dubljevic's "Autonomy in Neuroethics: Political and ... more This article is a short commentary on Veljko Dubljevic's "Autonomy in Neuroethics: Political and Not Metaphysical."
Contemporary Political Theory, 2017
This essay reviews two books by Rainer Forst: "The Right to Justification: Elements of a Construc... more This essay reviews two books by Rainer Forst: "The Right to Justification: Elements of a Constructivist Theory of Justice"; and "Justice, Democracy and the Right to Justification: Rainer Forst in Dialogue". Full text available at: http://rdcu.be/mMOQ
Journal of Applied Philosophy, 2024
Journal of Moral Philosophy, 2023
Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews, 2022
Between the Species, 2021
Lorraine Daston's "Against Nature" seeks to explain why, in spite of compelling objections to the... more Lorraine Daston's "Against Nature" seeks to explain why, in spite of compelling objections to the contrary, human beings continue to invest nature with moral authority. More specifically, she claims that our propensity to moralize nature is traceable in part to human nature. Though I criticize Daston for not paying adequate attention to John Stuart Mill's narrow sense of 'nature', I also highly recommend her book.
Journal of Moral Philosophy, 2020
Philosophy in Review, 2019
Philosophy in Review, 2019
The Philosophical Quarterly, 2018
The Philosophical Quarterly, 2017
Dialogue: Canadian Philosophical Review, 2014
Dialogue: Canadian Philosophical Review, 2011