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The Desert of the Best Qualified

Andrew Mason

in Levelling the Playing Field: The Idea of Equal Opportunity and its Place in Egalitarian Thought

This chapter examines the most obvious way of developing a meritocratic account, one in terms of the idea of desert. According to this approach, the best-qualified candidates should be appointed to ... More

This chapter examines the most obvious way of developing a meritocratic account, one in terms of the idea of desert. According to this approach, the best-qualified candidates should be appointed to advantaged social positions because they deserve to be, provided there is fair access to qualifications. David Miller's version of this approach is examined. He maintains that the best-qualified applicants for jobs deserve them because they are the most likely to come to deserve the rewards attached to them, at least when the market is functioning properly. Against this approach, it is argued that ordinary judgements about economic desert are sensitive to effort-making, not just achievement, and the degree of effort that people make corresponds in a highly imperfect way to their qualifications.Less

Distributive Justice

Simon Caney

in Justice Beyond Borders: A Global Political Theory

Having argued, in Ch. 2, that there are universal moral values, the next logical step is to ask what these universal moral values are; this question is pursued in Chs 3 and 4, which consider ... More

Having argued, in Ch. 2, that there are universal moral values, the next logical step is to ask what these universal moral values are; this question is pursued in Chs 3 and 4, which consider arguments for two different types of universal value and link together to provide an analysis of what universal principles of justice should apply at the global level. This chapter examines what universal principles of distributive justice (if any) should be adopted. It is arranged in 14 sections: Section I presents a conceptual analysis of the nature of distributive justice; Section II makes some preliminary points about the nature of cosmopolitan accounts of distributive justice and the general nature of the reasoning underlying these; Sections III–V then analyse three types of arguments for cosmopolitan principles of distributive justice, and Section VI reflects on these, and suggests and defends four principles of cosmopolitan distributive justice; Sections VII–VIII consider objections (counter-arguments) to cosmopolitan concepts of distributive justice, some of them outlined by John Rawls in his account of international justice and others by nationalist political thinkers such as David Miller; Sections IX–XI examine three nationalist claims about the nature of distributive justice, all of which emphasize the moral relevance of persons’ membership in nations, while Sections XII–XIII investigate two realist claims (XII–XIII). Section XIV sums up the findings of the chapter.Less

Against ‘Complex’ Equality

Richard J. Arneson

in Pluralism, Justice, and Equality

Richard Arneson argues that Michael Walzer's theory of complex equality is not sufficiently egalitarian, as it permits any degree of inequality. Arneson claims that David Miller's reinterpretation of ... More

Richard Arneson argues that Michael Walzer's theory of complex equality is not sufficiently egalitarian, as it permits any degree of inequality. Arneson claims that David Miller's reinterpretation of the notion of complex equality as social equality does not succeed in replacing the ideal of distributive equality.Less

The Intrinsic Argument (Or, Are Nations Moral Communities?)

Margaret Moore

in The Ethics of Nationalism

This chapter is concerned with moral arguments about membership in a national community, focusing on David Miller's On Nationality and Tom Hurka's article ‘The Justification of National Partiality’. ... More

This chapter is concerned with moral arguments about membership in a national community, focusing on David Miller's On Nationality and Tom Hurka's article ‘The Justification of National Partiality’. It examines the bonds of attachment that co‐nationals feel towards those who share the same national identity, and the moral importance that should be placed on that.Less

Limiting Sovereignty

Henry Shue

in Humanitarian Intervention and International Relations

Employs historical analysis and philosophical reasoning to argue that sovereignty is inherently limited. The writings of classical theorists such as Grotius and Vattel indicate that aspirations to ... More

Employs historical analysis and philosophical reasoning to argue that sovereignty is inherently limited. The writings of classical theorists such as Grotius and Vattel indicate that aspirations to sovereignty and non-intervention have always been tempered by considerations above and beyond the state. Philosophically, it must be remembered that sovereignty is a right, and the concept of a right makes no sense in the absence of a corresponding duty. The duties that are constitutive of the rights of sovereignty constrain the behaviour of every sovereign belonging to international society. Two conclusions follow. First, there are limits on how states may treat their own citizens within their own territory. Second, other states face specific limits concerning the ill-treatment of residents within the territory of other states that they are free to ignore. In particular, genocide and massive violations of human rights are a matter of concern for all states in contemporary international society.Less

Miller, Nationality, and Distributive Justice

Charles Jones

in Global Justice: Defending Cosmopolitanism

This chapter considers the implications for questions of distributive justice of theories attaching fundamental ethical significance to nations, and analyses David Miller's contribution. National ... More

This chapter considers the implications for questions of distributive justice of theories attaching fundamental ethical significance to nations, and analyses David Miller's contribution. National communities figure prominently in Miller's version of communitarianism, where special obligations to co-nationals are founded on the ethically valuable national community. There are basically four parts of analysis here: first, an outline of Miller's characterisation of nationality; second, a closer look at some arguments purporting to show the ethical relevance of national commitments; third, discussion of reasons for rejecting the ethically foundational character of nations; and finally, a scrutiny of what obligations go along with national allegiance. Overall, this chapter shows how the ethical importance of such a view does not fundamentally alter the duties persons owe to one another as human beings.Less

The Arbitrariness of Nationality

Kok-Chor Tan

in Justice, Institutions, and Luck: The Site, Ground, and Scope of Equality

Chapter 7 examines objections against extending luck egalitarian considerations to the global domain. These are objections that even if nationality is arbitrary, and that the aim of egalitarian ... More

Chapter 7 examines objections against extending luck egalitarian considerations to the global domain. These are objections that even if nationality is arbitrary, and that the aim of egalitarian justice is to mitigate arbitrary influences on persons’ life options, it is not obvious that global egalitarianism will be the result. It considers, specifically, recent arguments by David Miller, who argues that the fact that nationality is arbitrary does mean that it is morally irrelevant and has to be factored out; and Andrea Sangiovanni, who argues that mitigating for national arbitrariness need not imply global egalitarianism, since a further argument is needed to establish global egalitarianism as the default global distributive pattern.Less

Politicizing the Demos: Sharing Affect as Self-Conscious World-Building

Michaele L. Ferguson

in Sharing Democracy

This chapter critically examines the belief that commonality generates affective ties between citizens in democracy. That is, democratic theorists often argue that people care more for those who ... More

This chapter critically examines the belief that commonality generates affective ties between citizens in democracy. That is, democratic theorists often argue that people care more for those who share some thing in common with them, and less for those who do not. Through a reading of Robert Putnam, this chapter reveals a tension that pervades thinking about diversity in democracy between this causal belief that commonality produces attachment, and the social constructionist faith that theorists can delineate new forms of commonality that could then produce the desired solidarity. Theorists are reluctant to fully embrace the constructionist view, however, because the causal logic of commonality offers a neat, conceptual solution to two vexing problems: the affective deficit of the modern state, and the challenge of predicting how plural subjects will behave in the future. Yet these are problems that cannot be resolved in a world characterized by plurality. So theorists should more fully embrace the idea that affect is the product of human world-building activity. Insofar as people generate solidarities, rather than are caused by the presence of commonality to feel attachment, solidarity is a matter for which humans can and should take political responsibility.Less

A humanist defense of global equality

Pablo Gilabert

in From Global Poverty to Global Equality: A Philosophical Exploration

This chapter provides a defense of humanist global egalitarianism. Section 6.1 presents the humanist approach to global equality, explaining how we can move from commitment to the Cosmopolitan Idea ... More

This chapter provides a defense of humanist global egalitarianism. Section 6.1 presents the humanist approach to global equality, explaining how we can move from commitment to the Cosmopolitan Idea of Moral Equality and Cosmopolitan Justifiability to the endorsement of some global egalitarian distributive principles without appealing to associativist grounds. The section further supports the plausibility of the humanist egalitarian approach by showing how it can successfully address considerations about responsibility, special relationships, and political self-determination. It also addresses the difficult issue of the appropriate metric of humanist egalitarian distribution. Section 6.2 further develops and defends the humanist approach to global equality by considering several important objections to it.Less

Fairness and Legitimacy in Justice, And: Does Option Luck Ever Preserve Justice?

G. A. Cohen

Michael Otsuka (ed.)

in On the Currency of Egalitarian Justice, and Other Essays in Political Philosophy

This chapter defends the claim that what recommends an outcome that was achieved by just steps from a just starting point is not, in the general case, itself (unqualified) justice, but the different ... More

This chapter defends the claim that what recommends an outcome that was achieved by just steps from a just starting point is not, in the general case, itself (unqualified) justice, but the different virtue of legitimacy, or, more precisely, the property that no one can legitimately complain about it. David Miller has claimed that luck egalitarianism is inconsistent with the principal distinction that Cohen tries to draw in the chapter, because luck egalitarianism says: distribute equally, compensating appropriately for luck-induced deficits, and then whatever arises from people's choices is just. However, this suggests that luck egalitarians should not call whatever arises “just,” but merely “legitimate” (in the technical sense of being something that no one can complain about).Less

Non-Statist Theories of Territory

Margaret Moore

in A Political Theory of Territory

This chapter examines non-statist theories of territory, associated principally with the works of Avery Kolers and David Miller. Both attach rights to territory to non-statist collectives: to ... More

This chapter examines non-statist theories of territory, associated principally with the works of Avery Kolers and David Miller. Both attach rights to territory to non-statist collectives: to ethnogeographic communities, in Kolers’s work; and to cultural nations, in Miller’s work. Kolers defines an ethnogeographic group by its particular ecological and environmental (rather than cultural) relationship to land. Such a group has a specific ontology of land and a distinctive pattern of land use. Miller’s account is based on five elements that are said to constitute a nation: shared belief, extension in history, active in character, territorially connected, and with a distinct public culture. This chapter criticizes the two theories, as part of an argument that the political self-determination theory is superior.Less

Reaction Qualifications

Kasper Lippert-Rasmussen

in Born Free and Equal?: A Philosophical Inquiry into the Nature of Discrimination

Chapter 9 returns to discrimination in the labor market. More specifically, it explores the issue of the morality of cases where employers discriminate, not because they themselves harbor any ... More

Chapter 9 returns to discrimination in the labor market. More specifically, it explores the issue of the morality of cases where employers discriminate, not because they themselves harbor any discriminatory attitudes, but because of reaction qualifications, i.e. employers know that, say, customers harbor discriminatory preferences as a result of which salespersons of a particular race or gender have better qualifications from a purely economic perspective. The existence of reaction qualifications seems to imply that despite the fact that all hiring is done on a purely meritocratic basis, members of some groups may do much worse than members of other groups. To avoid this implication, some theorists have argued that employment justice, including the ideal of meritocracy, requires that reaction qualifications rooted in discriminatory responses should be disregarded. The chapter challenges this view and argues that it fails to consider a sufficiently wide range of cases where reaction qualifications matter.Less

Theopoiesis and the Pluriverse: Notes on a Process

Catherine Keller

in Theopoetic Folds: Philosophizing Multifariousness

This chapter draws into relationship three strands of self-designated “theopoetics” not normally brought into interaction. This is odd, given how little the theopoetic alternative gets articulated at ... More

This chapter draws into relationship three strands of self-designated “theopoetics” not normally brought into interaction. This is odd, given how little the theopoetic alternative gets articulated at all. The first and ancient theopoiesis, synonymous with “theosis,” (becoming divine) belongs to the classical origins of Christian theology; then the chapter skips to its formulation by Stanley Hopper at Drew in the early 1960's, contextualized by David Miller as a literary alternative to theology. But in its recent Whiteheadian usage, it forms an alternative within theology. The author suggests that the orthodox-mystical and heterodox-literary strategies fruitfully supplement the polydox-process discourse explored in this volume.Less

Toward a Right to Mobility

Phillip Cole

in Debating the Ethics of Immigration: Is There a Right to Exclude?

This chapter presents a positive case for a basic human right to freedom of international movement. It first considers Christopher Heath Wellman's argument that states have the right to exclude ... More

This chapter presents a positive case for a basic human right to freedom of international movement. It first considers Christopher Heath Wellman's argument that states have the right to exclude people from crossing their boundaries (civic and territorial) based on the premise that those states are legitimate, and legitimacy was measured by their protection of and respect for human rights. It then turns to David Miller's claim that the value of movement is not strong enough to ground a universal human right, with particular emphasis on its minimalist and “sufficientarian” features. It also suggests that we should see the right to mobility as an essential component of a holistic view of human agency, and this involves seeing certain rights as conditions of empowerment. Finally, it contends that immigration should be treated in the same way as emigration.Less

Selection Criteria

Christopher Heath Wellman

in Debating the Ethics of Immigration: Is There a Right to Exclude?

This chapter considers the selection criteria used by some countries as part of their immigration policies. It challenges the idea that even if states have the right to exclude all outsiders, it does ... More

This chapter considers the selection criteria used by some countries as part of their immigration policies. It challenges the idea that even if states have the right to exclude all outsiders, it does not necessarily follow that they may screen applicants in any fashion they choose. To appreciate how problematic this issue is, the chapter examines the views of Michael Walzer, David Miller, Joseph Carens, and Michael Blake. It then attempts to explain the impermissibility of racist selection criteria by focusing how such a policy wrongs existing members. It also comments on the morality of actively recruiting immigrants, with reference to the practice of wealthy liberal democracies to court immigrants with specific skill sets that are particularly in demand. If a rich country continues to exclude the poor or recruit the skilled workers, this chapter argues that this state has a duty to provide adequate assistance via some other avenue.Less

Against Equal Division of Natural Resources

Megan Blomfield

in Global Justice, Natural Resources, and Climate Change

This chapter rejects Equal Division, focusing on Hillel Steiner’s formulation of the view. First, further explanation of why one might take Equal Division to follow from Equal Original Claims is ... More

This chapter rejects Equal Division, focusing on Hillel Steiner’s formulation of the view. First, further explanation of why one might take Equal Division to follow from Equal Original Claims is provided. Then, David Miller’s objection is introduced, according to which there is no defensible metric by which resource shares can be made commensurate, given the fact of reasonable value pluralism. The chapter argues that what the metric problem really shows, is that Equal Division possesses insufficient impartiality to satisfy the equal original claims that motivate the view in the first place. This case is made by critiquing the three principal metrics proposed to amalgamate individual valuations of natural resources and thereby render Equal Division both coherent and defensible; namely, economic value, opportunity cost, and ecological space. The chapter concludes that to respect Equal Original Claims, the better approach will be to formulate a Common Ownership conception of justice for natural resources.Less

Ugly Progress and Unhopeful Hope

Benjamin L. McKean

in Disorienting Neoliberalism: Global Justice and the Outer Limit of Freedom

In order to provide an account of orientation to unjust circumstances, the book’s account of freedom must confront a tension within it: What is the value of this ideal to people who have grown up ... More

In order to provide an account of orientation to unjust circumstances, the book’s account of freedom must confront a tension within it: What is the value of this ideal to people who have grown up under unjust institutions and who consequently have not developed freely but instead have been profoundly habituated by unjustified inequality and oppressive hierarchy? The chapter shows how thinkers like W. E. B. Du Bois, Gloria Anzaldúa, and Theodor Adorno transform the dispositional conception of freedom to navigate unjust circumstances. People alive today will never be able to enjoy the kind of free development possible for those who grow up in a just society, but it is still possible to use such an ideal critically to orient people today to both constraints on freedom and opportunities to express what freedom they do have.Less

The Dominant Culture View and the Women of the Wall: Competing Significances, Elusive Tradition, and Inegalitarianism

Yuval Jobani and Nahshon Perez

in Women of the Wall: Navigating Religion in Sacred Sites

This chapter analyses the dominant culture view (DCV), which argues that, in any given country, majorities can legitimately advance their religious traditions and shared cultural understandings ... More

This chapter analyses the dominant culture view (DCV), which argues that, in any given country, majorities can legitimately advance their religious traditions and shared cultural understandings through the acts of the government, so long as such shared understandings and traditions are effectively demonstrated and present, and their advancement by the state does not violate the rights of minority groups. The dominant culture view thus identifies the state with one denomination. The chapter critically considers the DCV approach as a whole and its applicability to thick sites in general and to the Women of the Wall case in particular. The examination focuses on three assumptions of the dominant culture view approach: the existence of shared understandings, a robust tradition rooted in the past, and respect for democratic standards.Less