Alexandra Oprea | University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (original) (raw)
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Papers by Alexandra Oprea
Cambridge University Press eBooks, Feb 22, 2024
Economics and philosophy, Mar 6, 2024
The American political science review, Feb 1, 2024
The Journal of Politics, 2021
How should the ordinary citizens of commercial societies navigate increasingly complex political ... more How should the ordinary citizens of commercial societies navigate increasingly complex political landscapes characterized by global markets, specialization, and manipulation by special interests? In this article, I refer to the gap between the demands of political judgment and the capacities of ordinary citizens as the “political judgment problem,” and I argue, drawing on Adam Smith’s Wealth of Nations, that versions of this problem have existed since the early days of commercial society. By reconstructing Smith’s account of collective action by ordinary citizens, we can better understand the importance of political judgment to Smith’s political theory. Attending to it uncovers both classical solutions to the political judgment problem and a series of underappreciated modern answers focused on lowering the cognitive burdens of political judgment such as creating alternatives to partisan cues in public deliberation, reforming ideological shortcuts, and simplifying the multidimensional political space.
The papers by Keith Dowding and Adrian Walsh debate whether political philosophy belongs within p... more The papers by Keith Dowding and Adrian Walsh debate whether political philosophy belongs within political science or whether it belongs within philosophy. It is my contention that the two contributions largely agree about the descriptive level, but disagree at the prescriptive and potentially at the institutional level. I conclude with a brief argument in favour of a pluralist approach to the big questions in political philosophy. By ‘pluralist approach’, I mean that (i) political philosophers belong in both political science and philosophy departments and that (ii) the intellectual community of political philosophy would be better off if it included representatives and methods from both philosophy and political science.
Philosophical Perspectives, 2020
European Journal of Political Theory, 2021
Ryan Patrick Hanley makes two original claims about François Fénelon: (1) that he is best regarde... more Ryan Patrick Hanley makes two original claims about François Fénelon: (1) that he is best regarded as a political philosopher, and (2) that his political philosophy is best understood as “moderate and modern.” In what follows, I raise two concerns about Hanley’s revisionist turn. First, I argue that the role of philosophy in Fénelon’s account is rather as a handmaiden of theology than as an autonomous area of inquiry—with implications for both the theory and practice of politics. Second, I use Fénelon’s writings on the education of women as an illustration of the more radical and reactionary aspects of his thought. Despite these limits, the book makes a compelling case for recovering Fénelon and opens up new conversations about education, religion, political economy, and international relations in early modern political thought.
British Journal of Political Science
Nudge advocates contend that nudges are liberty preserving, while government regulations are not.... more Nudge advocates contend that nudges are liberty preserving, while government regulations are not. We interrogate that assumption by considering negative liberty in the forms suggested by the proponents of nudges. Specifically, we examine three ways of measuring negative liberty – liberty as freedom of choice, liberty as absence of coercion and liberty as absence of interference – applying the measures to a case study relevant to the nudge literature: regulations governing healthy food manufacture. We show that, depending on the liberty measure adopted and the estimated impact on producer and consumer behaviour, some regulations can be liberty reducing, while others are liberty preserving or liberty enhancing. When it comes to comparing nudges and more traditional policies aimed at increasing the health and welfare of citizens, there is no a priori negative liberty ground for preferring nudges.
Journal of Politics, 2021
How should the ordinary citizens of commercial societies navigate increasingly complex political ... more How should the ordinary citizens of commercial societies navigate increasingly complex political landscapes characterized by global markets, specialization, and manipulation by special interests? Given the political power of ordinary citizens typical of contemporary democracies, political theorists and political scientists alike have investigated citizens' competence and the quality of their political judgments. This research reveals a potential gap between normative ideals and empirical reality. On the one hand, there is widespread agreement that well-functioning democracies need sufficiently well-informed citizens capable of making competent decisions on issues including taxation, regulatory policies, and education policy (Rawls 1996; Habermas 2006; Estlund 2009; Landemore 2013). On the other hand, empirical studies consistently find real-world democratic citizens to be ill-informed, biased, and prone to systematic errors in judgment (Achen and Bartels 2017; Caplan 2008). In this paper, I refer to the mismatch between the demands of political judgment and the capacities of ordinary citizens as "the political judgment problem" and I argue, drawing on the work of Adam Smith, that versions of this problem have existed since the early days of commercial society (therefore preceding the advent of mass democracy). In The Wealth of Nations (henceforth, WN), Smith 1 I have used the following (standard) in-text abbreviations for Smith's works. References to TMS and WN include the relevant book, part, section, chapter, and paragraph, followed by page number, using the Glasgow edition's citation system. CAS = Correspondence of Adam Smith; LJ = Lectures on Jurisprudence; TMS = The Theory of Moral Sentiments; WN = An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations.
Politics, Philosophy, and Economics, 2020
There is widespread agreement among philosophers and legal scholars that the current distribution... more There is widespread agreement among philosophers and legal scholars that the current distribution of educational resources in the US is unjust, but little agreement about why. An increasingly prominent view posits a sufficientarian standard based on the requirements of democratic citizenship. This view, which I refer to as democratic sufficientarianism, argues that inequalities in educational resources or opportunities above the threshold required for democratic citizenship are morally unobjectionable if and only if all children are provided with an education sufficient to meet those demands. In the paper, I argue that democratic sufficientarianism faces a democratic education dilemma. Either the philosopher specifies a precise and demanding threshold with antidemocratic implications, or she insists upon democratic equality irrespective of educational achievements, thereby undercutting the search for anything but a minimal educational threshold. As an alternative, I defend a new sufficientarian standard that is reflexive, education-specific, and democracy-compatible. This reflexive sufficientarian standard can act as a guide to democratic deliberation about education policy. The paper also sketches possibilities for litigation on behalf of children who have received insufficient primary education.
Polity, 2020
What kind of moral and sentimental education should we pursue under non-ideal circumstances? In s... more What kind of moral and sentimental education should we pursue under non-ideal circumstances? In states characterized by high inequality and imperfect political institutions, scholars have increasingly turned their attention to the ethics of care and the politics of compassion. In response, critics have raised concerns that compassion is too weak to serve politically salutary goals. Drawing on the moral and political psychology of Emile, this paper shows that Rousseau relied on fear, anxiety, and amour-propre to extend compassion across class lines. Rousseau's account suggests that the proper development of compassion cannot do without these more "dangerous" allies, at least not in societies characterized by socioeconomic inequality. In addition to its contribution to Rousseau scholarship, the paper adds to the contemporary literature on moral sentiments by highlighting three psychologically plausible and previously unacknowledged strategies for extending compassion: fear of downward social mobility, religious anxiety, and pride.
Cambridge University Press eBooks, Feb 22, 2024
Economics and philosophy, Mar 6, 2024
The American political science review, Feb 1, 2024
The Journal of Politics, 2021
How should the ordinary citizens of commercial societies navigate increasingly complex political ... more How should the ordinary citizens of commercial societies navigate increasingly complex political landscapes characterized by global markets, specialization, and manipulation by special interests? In this article, I refer to the gap between the demands of political judgment and the capacities of ordinary citizens as the “political judgment problem,” and I argue, drawing on Adam Smith’s Wealth of Nations, that versions of this problem have existed since the early days of commercial society. By reconstructing Smith’s account of collective action by ordinary citizens, we can better understand the importance of political judgment to Smith’s political theory. Attending to it uncovers both classical solutions to the political judgment problem and a series of underappreciated modern answers focused on lowering the cognitive burdens of political judgment such as creating alternatives to partisan cues in public deliberation, reforming ideological shortcuts, and simplifying the multidimensional political space.
The papers by Keith Dowding and Adrian Walsh debate whether political philosophy belongs within p... more The papers by Keith Dowding and Adrian Walsh debate whether political philosophy belongs within political science or whether it belongs within philosophy. It is my contention that the two contributions largely agree about the descriptive level, but disagree at the prescriptive and potentially at the institutional level. I conclude with a brief argument in favour of a pluralist approach to the big questions in political philosophy. By ‘pluralist approach’, I mean that (i) political philosophers belong in both political science and philosophy departments and that (ii) the intellectual community of political philosophy would be better off if it included representatives and methods from both philosophy and political science.
Philosophical Perspectives, 2020
European Journal of Political Theory, 2021
Ryan Patrick Hanley makes two original claims about François Fénelon: (1) that he is best regarde... more Ryan Patrick Hanley makes two original claims about François Fénelon: (1) that he is best regarded as a political philosopher, and (2) that his political philosophy is best understood as “moderate and modern.” In what follows, I raise two concerns about Hanley’s revisionist turn. First, I argue that the role of philosophy in Fénelon’s account is rather as a handmaiden of theology than as an autonomous area of inquiry—with implications for both the theory and practice of politics. Second, I use Fénelon’s writings on the education of women as an illustration of the more radical and reactionary aspects of his thought. Despite these limits, the book makes a compelling case for recovering Fénelon and opens up new conversations about education, religion, political economy, and international relations in early modern political thought.
British Journal of Political Science
Nudge advocates contend that nudges are liberty preserving, while government regulations are not.... more Nudge advocates contend that nudges are liberty preserving, while government regulations are not. We interrogate that assumption by considering negative liberty in the forms suggested by the proponents of nudges. Specifically, we examine three ways of measuring negative liberty – liberty as freedom of choice, liberty as absence of coercion and liberty as absence of interference – applying the measures to a case study relevant to the nudge literature: regulations governing healthy food manufacture. We show that, depending on the liberty measure adopted and the estimated impact on producer and consumer behaviour, some regulations can be liberty reducing, while others are liberty preserving or liberty enhancing. When it comes to comparing nudges and more traditional policies aimed at increasing the health and welfare of citizens, there is no a priori negative liberty ground for preferring nudges.
Journal of Politics, 2021
How should the ordinary citizens of commercial societies navigate increasingly complex political ... more How should the ordinary citizens of commercial societies navigate increasingly complex political landscapes characterized by global markets, specialization, and manipulation by special interests? Given the political power of ordinary citizens typical of contemporary democracies, political theorists and political scientists alike have investigated citizens' competence and the quality of their political judgments. This research reveals a potential gap between normative ideals and empirical reality. On the one hand, there is widespread agreement that well-functioning democracies need sufficiently well-informed citizens capable of making competent decisions on issues including taxation, regulatory policies, and education policy (Rawls 1996; Habermas 2006; Estlund 2009; Landemore 2013). On the other hand, empirical studies consistently find real-world democratic citizens to be ill-informed, biased, and prone to systematic errors in judgment (Achen and Bartels 2017; Caplan 2008). In this paper, I refer to the mismatch between the demands of political judgment and the capacities of ordinary citizens as "the political judgment problem" and I argue, drawing on the work of Adam Smith, that versions of this problem have existed since the early days of commercial society (therefore preceding the advent of mass democracy). In The Wealth of Nations (henceforth, WN), Smith 1 I have used the following (standard) in-text abbreviations for Smith's works. References to TMS and WN include the relevant book, part, section, chapter, and paragraph, followed by page number, using the Glasgow edition's citation system. CAS = Correspondence of Adam Smith; LJ = Lectures on Jurisprudence; TMS = The Theory of Moral Sentiments; WN = An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations.
Politics, Philosophy, and Economics, 2020
There is widespread agreement among philosophers and legal scholars that the current distribution... more There is widespread agreement among philosophers and legal scholars that the current distribution of educational resources in the US is unjust, but little agreement about why. An increasingly prominent view posits a sufficientarian standard based on the requirements of democratic citizenship. This view, which I refer to as democratic sufficientarianism, argues that inequalities in educational resources or opportunities above the threshold required for democratic citizenship are morally unobjectionable if and only if all children are provided with an education sufficient to meet those demands. In the paper, I argue that democratic sufficientarianism faces a democratic education dilemma. Either the philosopher specifies a precise and demanding threshold with antidemocratic implications, or she insists upon democratic equality irrespective of educational achievements, thereby undercutting the search for anything but a minimal educational threshold. As an alternative, I defend a new sufficientarian standard that is reflexive, education-specific, and democracy-compatible. This reflexive sufficientarian standard can act as a guide to democratic deliberation about education policy. The paper also sketches possibilities for litigation on behalf of children who have received insufficient primary education.
Polity, 2020
What kind of moral and sentimental education should we pursue under non-ideal circumstances? In s... more What kind of moral and sentimental education should we pursue under non-ideal circumstances? In states characterized by high inequality and imperfect political institutions, scholars have increasingly turned their attention to the ethics of care and the politics of compassion. In response, critics have raised concerns that compassion is too weak to serve politically salutary goals. Drawing on the moral and political psychology of Emile, this paper shows that Rousseau relied on fear, anxiety, and amour-propre to extend compassion across class lines. Rousseau's account suggests that the proper development of compassion cannot do without these more "dangerous" allies, at least not in societies characterized by socioeconomic inequality. In addition to its contribution to Rousseau scholarship, the paper adds to the contemporary literature on moral sentiments by highlighting three psychologically plausible and previously unacknowledged strategies for extending compassion: fear of downward social mobility, religious anxiety, and pride.