In this article, I argue that Michael Moore’s (1997), and other similar formulations of desert re... more In this article, I argue that Michael Moore’s (1997), and other similar formulations of desert retributivism – viz., the theory that holds punishment to be justified because of the deserved suffering it imposes on guilty offenders – are epistemically problematic. The argument draws on John Dewey’s inchoate critique of retribution, and on Dewey’s more general contention that the justification of ethical judgments and principles proceeds ex post – viz., that it depends on the experiences elicited by acting on those judgments and principles. Based on Dewey’s ex post take on justification, I more specifically argue that, given its commitment to moral naturalism and to coherentism, Moore’s version of desert retributivism is epistemically unwarranted. This is because we have evidentially grounded reasons to think that many of the retributive judgments that underlie the principle of retributive justice are not clearly supported ex post in the relevant, desert retributivist sense.
Cette these propose une theorie de la peine formulee dans les termes d’une conception de la justi... more Cette these propose une theorie de la peine formulee dans les termes d’une conception de la justice corrective. L’idee de justice corrective et la theorie qu’on en propose trouvent leurs sources dans la pensee ethico-politique d’Aristote. On a choisi de restreindre l’espace d’application de la conception corrective aux systemes juridiques contemporains des Etats-Unis et de la France. Le principe de justice corrective, tel qu’on l’interprete ici, pose que les peines peuvent etre justes si elles tentent de retablir une egalite de droits fondamentaux entre la victime et l’auteur d’une infraction concue comme violation de ces memes droits. La conception corrective marque une rupture importante par rapport aux principales conceptions alternatives – retributiviste et distributiviste – de la punition, en ceci qu’aucune de ces deux approches ne repose essentiellement sur la primaute normative de la relation entre victime et infracteur et que l’egalite des droits fondamentaux n’y est envisag...
Humanitarian interventions carried out by some national governments can help prevent or alleviate... more Humanitarian interventions carried out by some national governments can help prevent or alleviate mass atrocities abroad. However, such interventions are arguably rendered less likely when domestic public support (as distinct from international endorsement) is absent or weak. This article focuses on public domestic support for different types of military and non-military humanitarian interventions. Specifically, we test theories of support for intervention based on the cultural similarity, public opinion, and statements from authority figures. We do so through two large-N survey experiments with samples from the Netherlands and Poland. The experimental vignettes manipulated (1) where the mass atrocities happen; (2) whether their community favors an intervention; (3) whether national leaders support an intervention. The findings showed that none of these manipulations had substantial and reliable influence on moral condemnation of atrocities or support for interventions. Exploratory ...
Cette thèse propose une théorie de la peine formulée dans les termes d’une conception de la justi... more Cette thèse propose une théorie de la peine formulée dans les termes d’une conception de la justice corrective. L’idée de justice corrective et la théorie qu’on en propose trouvent leurs sources dans la pensée éthico-politique d’Aristote. On a choisi de restreindre l’espace d’application de la conception corrective aux systèmes juridiques contemporains des États-Unis et de la France. Le principe de justice corrective, tel qu’on l’interprète ici, pose que les peines peuvent être justes si elles tentent de rétablir une égalité de droits fondamentaux entre la victime et l’auteur d’une infraction conçue comme violation de ces mêmes droits. La conception corrective marque une rupture importante par rapport aux principales conceptions alternatives – rétributiviste et distributiviste – de la punition, en ceci qu’aucune de ces deux approches ne repose essentiellement sur la primauté normative de la relation entre victime et infracteur et que l’égalité des droits fondamentaux n’y est envisag...
version of the normative question and, somewhat unusually, introduce the term practical normative... more version of the normative question and, somewhat unusually, introduce the term practical normative ethics to refer to those theories that concentrate on a specific set of practical cases (and not morality as such) as their subject matter. The domain of foundational normative ethics (or normative ethics for short) is usually, if imprecisely, carved up into three contending theories – namely, consequentialism (with utilitarianism being the most prominent version thereof), deontologism (within which Kantian ethics occupies a central position), and virtue ethics (which tends to be specified either in the register of neo-Aristotelian ethics or in terms of feminist or care ethics).8 These theories offer irreconcilable answers to the abstract normative question. Consequentialism often takes the
This article examines whether, given the Rawlsian procedural distinction between pure, perfect an... more This article examines whether, given the Rawlsian procedural distinction between pure, perfect and imperfect procedural justice, a purely procedural theory of global criminal justice is conceptually possible. It argues that it is not. It does so against the recently held view - I call this "the strong proceduralist thesis" - that procedural fairness is sufficient to ensure justificatory rightness. The strong proceduralist thesis is found wanting on two accounts. First, it cannot address the specific normative logic of punitive practice. Second, it leads to an unacceptable justice principle for the regulation of societies, whether national or international. Such a principle would amount to justifying the existence and functioning of societies on account of their punishing their own members.
The right to vote should not be used as a sanction for bad behaviour, and it should not be used a... more The right to vote should not be used as a sanction for bad behaviour, and it should not be used as a reward for good or decent behaviour either. Rather, the right to vote should be treated as a fundamental human right that everyone, including felons, have simply by virtue of being human. This means that felon citizens should be treated as fellow citizens, irrespective of their criminal record.
In this chapter, I advance an interpretation of Aristotle’s division of particular justice into d... more In this chapter, I advance an interpretation of Aristotle’s division of particular justice into distributive and corrective justice. I do so by relying on two closely connected arguments. First, I argue that, properly understood, distributive justice regulates the fair allocation of common goods among the members of a polity based on principles of worth, whereas corrective justice directs the fair exchange of goods among the members of the polity based on principles of private property. Second, I argue that Aristotle’s clarification of the distinction between distributive and corrective justice matters politically and that it does so for reasons that pertain to the existence and stability of political communities. Both arguments are based on a joint reading of Aristotle’s Ethics and Politics.
This article argues that, given the current pervasive uncertainty about the reliability of jury d... more This article argues that, given the current pervasive uncertainty about the reliability of jury deliberation, we ought to treat it with epistemic humility. I further argue that epistemic humility should be expressed and enforced by turning jury deliberation from a mandatory rule of the jury trial to a waivable right of the defendant. I consider two main objections to my argument: the first one concerns the putative self-defeatingness of humility attitudes; the second objection points to the burdensomeness of granting an unconditional jury deliberation waiver to the defendant.
Is criminal disenfranchisement compatible with a democratic political order? This article conside... more Is criminal disenfranchisement compatible with a democratic political order? This article considers this question in light of a recently developed view that criminal disenfranchisement is justified because it expresses our commitment to democratic values. We call this view expressive disenfranchisement and refer to the general conception in which it is grounded as democratic expressivism. Contra supporters of expressive disenfranchisement, we argue that democratic expressivism does not offer a sound justification of criminal disenfranchisement. Additionally, we argue that, insofar as one really cares about answering serious criminal wrongs via an expression of democratic values, criminal disenfranchisement should be abandoned and replaced with a policy that temporarily obliges the relevant criminals to vote. Democratic expressivists should, in other words, move from supporting the disenfranchisement of serious offenders to endorsing a policy of compulsory criminal voting for a finit...
Tommie Shelby articulates a nonideal theory of black US ghettos that casts them as consequences o... more Tommie Shelby articulates a nonideal theory of black US ghettos that casts them as consequences of an intolerably unjust institutional structure. I argue that, despite some of its significant merits, Shelby’s theory is weakened by his rejection of integration as a principle for reforming disadvantaged ghettos and correcting structural injustices in the US. In particular, I argue that Shelby unwarrantedly downplays the socio-economic efficiency of integrationist policies and fails to consider some of the ways in which integration might count as a duty of (corrective) justice.
Are there any prima facie reasons that democracies might have for disenfranchising older citizens... more Are there any prima facie reasons that democracies might have for disenfranchising older citizens? This question reflects increasingly salient, but often incompletely theorized complaints that members of democratic publics advance about older citizens’ electoral influence. Rather than rejecting these complaints out of hand, we explore whether, suitably reconstructed, they withstand democratic scrutiny. More specifically, we examine whether the account of political equality that seems to most fittingly capture the logic of these complaints – namely, equal opportunity of political influence over electoral outcomes – can justify disenfranchising older citizens. We conclude that equal opportunity of influence cannot ground a blanket disenfranchisement of older people and that, taken in conjunction with other general considerations that apply to all sound electoral policies, partial disenfranchisement proposals (i.e. proposals for reducing the electoral influence of older citizens via ag...
In this article, I argue that Michael Moore’s (1997), and other similar formulations of desert re... more In this article, I argue that Michael Moore’s (1997), and other similar formulations of desert retributivism – viz., the theory that holds punishment to be justified because of the deserved suffering it imposes on guilty offenders – are epistemically problematic. The argument draws on John Dewey’s inchoate critique of retribution, and on Dewey’s more general contention that the justification of ethical judgments and principles proceeds ex post – viz., that it depends on the experiences elicited by acting on those judgments and principles. Based on Dewey’s ex post take on justification, I more specifically argue that, given its commitment to moral naturalism and to coherentism, Moore’s version of desert retributivism is epistemically unwarranted. This is because we have evidentially grounded reasons to think that many of the retributive judgments that underlie the principle of retributive justice are not clearly supported ex post in the relevant, desert retributivist sense.
Cette these propose une theorie de la peine formulee dans les termes d’une conception de la justi... more Cette these propose une theorie de la peine formulee dans les termes d’une conception de la justice corrective. L’idee de justice corrective et la theorie qu’on en propose trouvent leurs sources dans la pensee ethico-politique d’Aristote. On a choisi de restreindre l’espace d’application de la conception corrective aux systemes juridiques contemporains des Etats-Unis et de la France. Le principe de justice corrective, tel qu’on l’interprete ici, pose que les peines peuvent etre justes si elles tentent de retablir une egalite de droits fondamentaux entre la victime et l’auteur d’une infraction concue comme violation de ces memes droits. La conception corrective marque une rupture importante par rapport aux principales conceptions alternatives – retributiviste et distributiviste – de la punition, en ceci qu’aucune de ces deux approches ne repose essentiellement sur la primaute normative de la relation entre victime et infracteur et que l’egalite des droits fondamentaux n’y est envisag...
Humanitarian interventions carried out by some national governments can help prevent or alleviate... more Humanitarian interventions carried out by some national governments can help prevent or alleviate mass atrocities abroad. However, such interventions are arguably rendered less likely when domestic public support (as distinct from international endorsement) is absent or weak. This article focuses on public domestic support for different types of military and non-military humanitarian interventions. Specifically, we test theories of support for intervention based on the cultural similarity, public opinion, and statements from authority figures. We do so through two large-N survey experiments with samples from the Netherlands and Poland. The experimental vignettes manipulated (1) where the mass atrocities happen; (2) whether their community favors an intervention; (3) whether national leaders support an intervention. The findings showed that none of these manipulations had substantial and reliable influence on moral condemnation of atrocities or support for interventions. Exploratory ...
Cette thèse propose une théorie de la peine formulée dans les termes d’une conception de la justi... more Cette thèse propose une théorie de la peine formulée dans les termes d’une conception de la justice corrective. L’idée de justice corrective et la théorie qu’on en propose trouvent leurs sources dans la pensée éthico-politique d’Aristote. On a choisi de restreindre l’espace d’application de la conception corrective aux systèmes juridiques contemporains des États-Unis et de la France. Le principe de justice corrective, tel qu’on l’interprète ici, pose que les peines peuvent être justes si elles tentent de rétablir une égalité de droits fondamentaux entre la victime et l’auteur d’une infraction conçue comme violation de ces mêmes droits. La conception corrective marque une rupture importante par rapport aux principales conceptions alternatives – rétributiviste et distributiviste – de la punition, en ceci qu’aucune de ces deux approches ne repose essentiellement sur la primauté normative de la relation entre victime et infracteur et que l’égalité des droits fondamentaux n’y est envisag...
version of the normative question and, somewhat unusually, introduce the term practical normative... more version of the normative question and, somewhat unusually, introduce the term practical normative ethics to refer to those theories that concentrate on a specific set of practical cases (and not morality as such) as their subject matter. The domain of foundational normative ethics (or normative ethics for short) is usually, if imprecisely, carved up into three contending theories – namely, consequentialism (with utilitarianism being the most prominent version thereof), deontologism (within which Kantian ethics occupies a central position), and virtue ethics (which tends to be specified either in the register of neo-Aristotelian ethics or in terms of feminist or care ethics).8 These theories offer irreconcilable answers to the abstract normative question. Consequentialism often takes the
This article examines whether, given the Rawlsian procedural distinction between pure, perfect an... more This article examines whether, given the Rawlsian procedural distinction between pure, perfect and imperfect procedural justice, a purely procedural theory of global criminal justice is conceptually possible. It argues that it is not. It does so against the recently held view - I call this "the strong proceduralist thesis" - that procedural fairness is sufficient to ensure justificatory rightness. The strong proceduralist thesis is found wanting on two accounts. First, it cannot address the specific normative logic of punitive practice. Second, it leads to an unacceptable justice principle for the regulation of societies, whether national or international. Such a principle would amount to justifying the existence and functioning of societies on account of their punishing their own members.
The right to vote should not be used as a sanction for bad behaviour, and it should not be used a... more The right to vote should not be used as a sanction for bad behaviour, and it should not be used as a reward for good or decent behaviour either. Rather, the right to vote should be treated as a fundamental human right that everyone, including felons, have simply by virtue of being human. This means that felon citizens should be treated as fellow citizens, irrespective of their criminal record.
In this chapter, I advance an interpretation of Aristotle’s division of particular justice into d... more In this chapter, I advance an interpretation of Aristotle’s division of particular justice into distributive and corrective justice. I do so by relying on two closely connected arguments. First, I argue that, properly understood, distributive justice regulates the fair allocation of common goods among the members of a polity based on principles of worth, whereas corrective justice directs the fair exchange of goods among the members of the polity based on principles of private property. Second, I argue that Aristotle’s clarification of the distinction between distributive and corrective justice matters politically and that it does so for reasons that pertain to the existence and stability of political communities. Both arguments are based on a joint reading of Aristotle’s Ethics and Politics.
This article argues that, given the current pervasive uncertainty about the reliability of jury d... more This article argues that, given the current pervasive uncertainty about the reliability of jury deliberation, we ought to treat it with epistemic humility. I further argue that epistemic humility should be expressed and enforced by turning jury deliberation from a mandatory rule of the jury trial to a waivable right of the defendant. I consider two main objections to my argument: the first one concerns the putative self-defeatingness of humility attitudes; the second objection points to the burdensomeness of granting an unconditional jury deliberation waiver to the defendant.
Is criminal disenfranchisement compatible with a democratic political order? This article conside... more Is criminal disenfranchisement compatible with a democratic political order? This article considers this question in light of a recently developed view that criminal disenfranchisement is justified because it expresses our commitment to democratic values. We call this view expressive disenfranchisement and refer to the general conception in which it is grounded as democratic expressivism. Contra supporters of expressive disenfranchisement, we argue that democratic expressivism does not offer a sound justification of criminal disenfranchisement. Additionally, we argue that, insofar as one really cares about answering serious criminal wrongs via an expression of democratic values, criminal disenfranchisement should be abandoned and replaced with a policy that temporarily obliges the relevant criminals to vote. Democratic expressivists should, in other words, move from supporting the disenfranchisement of serious offenders to endorsing a policy of compulsory criminal voting for a finit...
Tommie Shelby articulates a nonideal theory of black US ghettos that casts them as consequences o... more Tommie Shelby articulates a nonideal theory of black US ghettos that casts them as consequences of an intolerably unjust institutional structure. I argue that, despite some of its significant merits, Shelby’s theory is weakened by his rejection of integration as a principle for reforming disadvantaged ghettos and correcting structural injustices in the US. In particular, I argue that Shelby unwarrantedly downplays the socio-economic efficiency of integrationist policies and fails to consider some of the ways in which integration might count as a duty of (corrective) justice.
Are there any prima facie reasons that democracies might have for disenfranchising older citizens... more Are there any prima facie reasons that democracies might have for disenfranchising older citizens? This question reflects increasingly salient, but often incompletely theorized complaints that members of democratic publics advance about older citizens’ electoral influence. Rather than rejecting these complaints out of hand, we explore whether, suitably reconstructed, they withstand democratic scrutiny. More specifically, we examine whether the account of political equality that seems to most fittingly capture the logic of these complaints – namely, equal opportunity of political influence over electoral outcomes – can justify disenfranchising older citizens. We conclude that equal opportunity of influence cannot ground a blanket disenfranchisement of older people and that, taken in conjunction with other general considerations that apply to all sound electoral policies, partial disenfranchisement proposals (i.e. proposals for reducing the electoral influence of older citizens via ag...
In this chapter, I advance an interpretation of Aristotle's division of particular justice into d... more In this chapter, I advance an interpretation of Aristotle's division of particular justice into distributive and corrective justice. I do so by relying on two closely connected arguments. First, I argue that, properly understood, distributive justice regulates the fair allocation of common goods among the members of a polity based on principles of worth, whereas corrective justice directs the fair exchange of goods among the members of the polity based on principles of private property. Second, I argue that Aristotle's clarification of the distinction between distributive and corrective justice matters politically and that it does so for reasons that pertain to the existence and stability of political communities. Both arguments are based on a joint reading of Aristotle's Ethics and Politics.
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