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Abstract:
The background thesis is that an implicit ontology of the people and the relation between the people and the state often shapes how we think in normative terms about politics. The paper attempts to defend that thesis in relation to Rawls. The argument is that the rejection of an image of the people as a group agent connects with his objection to utilitarianism, and the rejection of an image of the people as a mere aggregate connects with his objection to libertarianism. Rawls, it is argued, holds by an in-between picture and it is this that explains many of his most distinctive commitments.

Abstract:
The paper sets out a conception of philosophy as critical reflection on received opinion; looks at different conceptions of human agents and relationships, different views of social formations like the people and the state, and conflicting stories about the connection between the good and the right; and considers the implications of those rival views for politics.

Abstract:
Hobbes persuaded later, if not immediate, successors that it is only the exercise of a power of interference that reduces people's freedom, not its (unexercised) existence - not even its existence in an arbitrary, unchecked form. And equally he persuaded them that the exercise of a power of interference always reduces freedom in the same way, whether it occur in a republican democracy, purportedly on a "non-arbitrary" basis, or under an dictatorial, arbitrary regime. But those propositions were defended in Hobbes's case on a very different basis from any that would have appealed to successors. That claim is documented on the basis of a distinction in Hobbes's work between freedom as non-commitment, of which freedom as non-obligation is the principal variety, and freedom as non-obstruction.

Abstract:
What is preference? And how does preference formation relate to deliberation? The paper offers an account of preference in the first section, deliberation in the second, and then attempts to show how the two relate. The main idea is that while deliberation leads us towards the option for which we have the strongest preference, that does not mean that we are generally focussed on how options promise to satisfy our preferences. The option we come to prefer is preferred most strongly because it proves in deliberation to have the strongest support, not the other way around.

Abstract:
This essay looks at how the market appears from the republican perspective of freedom as non-domination. It outlines this conception of freedom, identifying some relevant aspects of the approach and then goes on to look at three features of the market - property, exchange, and regulation - and at the ways in which they appear from within the republican perspective. The republican conception of freedom argues for important normative constraints on these arrangements without supporting rhetorical extremes to the effect that 'property is theft' or 'taxation is theft' or anything of that kind.

Abstract:
On the assumption that criminal justice systems fail to live up to any of the established rationales for their existence, the paper asks after why this might be so and what, if anything, might reduce their resistance to the effects of systematic, reasoned discussion. The answer is developed in three sections. In the first, I describe a dynamic in policy-making that was first identified by nineteenth century studies of the rise of the administrative state - I call it the outrage dynamic - and I show how this force also operates in the case of crime. In the second, I look at the upshot of this dynamic for criminal sentencing policy, arguing that it makes it difficult for democratic politicians to enact or maintain any policies, no matter how well argued or successful, that routinely fall short of what by cultural standards are the maximal, acceptable sanctions. Finally, in the third section I identify one institutional arrangement - putting decisions at arm's length from elected politicians - that might make it politically feasible to shape the penal system by reasoned debate.

Abstract:
The consensus since Bentham has been that law in itself is a restriction of freedom and that it is justified only if it perpetrates less restriction than it prevents. But there is an alternative view of the relationship between law and liberty, which draws on the older republican way of thinking that Bentham rejected. And this view has powerful support. Freedom on this approach requires not living under the uncontrolled will of another, where such a will may be imposed, not just by active interference, but also in other ways: say, by silent intimidation. Let the law represent the will of the community. Is it a will that in itself makes citizens unfree? Not if it is appropriately controlled. And can law be appropriately controlled? Arguably, yes.

Abstract:
Taking states as they are (at their best), what shape ought the international order to have? In particular what shape ought it to have if the guiding value is not as austere as non-intervention among states and not as rich as cosmopolitan justice: if it is the value of freedom as non-domination? The paper seeks to outline the requirements that this value would have in the international context.

Abstract:
The republican notion of freedom as non-domination can be recast more rigorously in the language of control. Human beings routinely exercise certain forms of control over one another, affecting the probabilities attached to the options they respectively confront. But one variety of control is non-alien, leaving those affected with full freedom of choice, while another is alien or alienating, having a negative impact on freedom of choice. Each form of control can occur with interference, and each form can occur without; thus there may be freedom in the presence or absence of interference, and there may be unfreedom in its presence or absence. Alien control without interference materializes when the controller or associates invigilate the choices of the controlled agent, being ready to interfere should the controlled agent not conform to a desired pattern or should the controller have a change of mind. Non-alien control with interference materializes when things are the other way around: the interferee or associates invigilate the choices of the interferer, being ready to stop or redirect the interference should the interferer not conform to a desired pattern or should the interferee have a change of mind.

Abstract:
How to characterize the basic liberties other than by giving a few examples and adding an 'and so on'? This paper starts from the intuitive connection between enjoying the basic liberties and being a free citizen. It identifies three constraints that that connotation supports: that the basic liberties should be personally significant, equally co-enjoyable by all and as numerous as those other constraints allow. And then it explores the shape that those constraints would impose on the basic liberties, elaborating in particular on the implications of equal co-enjoyment.

Abstract:
Neorepublican theory requires the legitimate domestic state to protect people against domination by others in a way that is not dominating itself: state coercion is to be conducted under the pressure of citizens and their representatives on terms that citizens equally accept. The international order serves a similar protective role in relation to states themselves, and indirectly their members. So what is going to be required for its legitimacy? The chapter outlines a neorepublican response, focusing on how to resolve two distinctive problems. One is the membership problem as to which entities are to play the role played by citizens in the domestic context; the answer given is, legitimate domestic states or states that can be made legitimate. The other is the imbalance problem as to how such states can be equally empowered in the control of the international order; there is no easy answer but neither are there grounds for despair.

Abstract:
From Introductory Paragraph: Drawing on a background in republican thought, I have argued elsewhere that democracy should have an electoral and a contestatory aspect. I argued in a normative spirit that this two-dimensional ideal is more defensible and more commanding than the more common, purely electoral alternative. But I believe that this usage of the word "democracy" also picks up some aspects of common talk, since few of us would happily apply the word to regimes, no matter how electorally unimpeachable, that failed to ensure the independence of the courts and to provide thereby for a basic form of contestation.

Abstract:
Incorporated groups include businesses, universities, churches and the like. Organized to act as single centers of agency, they also routinely satisfy the three conditions that make an agent fit to be held responsible: they face significant choices, can recognize the relative value of different options, and are able to choose in sensitivity to such values. But is it redundant to hold a corporate agent responsible for something, when certain members are also held responsible for the individual parts they play? No it is not, for it is often possible for a corporate entity to be fully fit to be held responsible, when this is not true of the individual members; they may be able to make excuses that are not available at the corporate level. Does the case made for corporate responsibility extend to unincorporated collectivities like nations or religions? Not strictly but it does explain why it may be sensible to treat those collectivities as if they had corporate responsibility in certain domains.

Abstract:
No abstract available.

Abstract:
It is now widely accepted as an ideal that democracy should be as deliberative as possible. Democracy should not involve a tussle between different interest groups or lobbies in which the numbers matter more than the arguments. And it should not be a system in which the only arguments that matter are those that voters conduct in an attempt to determine where their private or sectional advantage lies. Democracy, it is said, should promote public deliberation among citizens and authorities as to what does best for the society as a whole and should elicit decision-making on that basis. But the ideal of deliberative democracy has two components - the deliberative and the democratic - and often they pull apart. In this paper I look in the first section at a series of problems that arise on the deliberative front, arguing that their resolution requires various degrees of depoliticization. And then I ask in the second whether the depoliticizing responses that those problems require are antithetical to the ideal of democracy. I argue that they are not in tension with the ideal, if that ideal is cast in the relatively revisionary, two-dimensional form that I favour.

Abstract:
It is now widely accepted as an ideal that democracy should be as deliberative as possible. Democracy should not involve a tussle between different interest groups or lobbies in which the numbers matter more than the arguments. And it should not be a system in which the only arguments that matter are those that voters conduct in an attempt to determine where their private or sectional advantage lies. Democracy, it is said, should promote public deliberation among citizens and authorities as to what does best for the society as a whole and should elicit decision-making on that basis. But the ideal of deliberative democracy has two components - the deliberative and the democratic - and often they pull apart. In this paper I look in the first section at a series of problems that arise on the deliberative front, arguing that their resolution requires various degrees of depoliticization. And then I ask in the second whether the depoliticizing responses that those problems require are antithetical to the ideal of democracy. I argue that they are not in tension with the ideal, if that ideal is cast in the relatively revisionary, two-dimensional form that I favour.

Abstract:
Neorepublicanism may be defined as the attempt by current political scientists, philosophers, historians, lawyers, and others to draw on a classical republican tradition in the development of an attractive public philosophy intended for contemporary purposes. Three main ideas have been especially prominent in the neorepublican literature. First and most important is the conception of a free person as one who does not live under the arbitrary will or domination of others. Second is the associated conception of a free state as one that attempts to promote the freedom of its citizens without itself coming to dominate them. And third is the conception of good citizenship as consisting in a vigilant commitment to preserving the state in its distinctive role as an undominating protector against domination. The aim of the neorepublican research program is to rethink issues of legitimacy and democracy, welfare and justice, public policy and institutional design, from within the framework that these basic ideas provide.

republicanism, freedom, liberty, domination, rule of law, constitutionalism, democracy

Abstract:
Social ontology does not drive political theory as axioms drive a theorem, but it can have an important shaping or constraining effect; this fits with Rawls's idea that our views on normative and related topics should be in 'wide reflective equilibrium' This paper tries to document the shaping effect of Rawls's social ontology on his theory of international justice. It begins with a characterization of Rawls's rejection of cosmopolitanism. It reviews the claims that he makes about peoples and tries to articulate the ontology of peoples that they support. And then in the final section it shows how that ontology helps to explain his position on cosmopolitanism.

Abstract:
In a recent paper on "The Many as One", Lewis A. Kornhauser and Lawrence G. Sager look at an important issue in political theory? How far should groups in public life try to speak with one voice, and act with one mind? How far should public groups - in particular, politically authoritative groups like the judiciary and the legislature - try to display what Ronald Dworkin calls integrity? While we agree with many of the points they make about this issue, we do not think that they do justice to the challenge they identify. Our comments fall into three sections. We address, first, the nature of the integrity challenge; second, the range of cases in which the challenge arises; and third, the question of whether public groups should try to satisfy it. While starting from our differences with Kornhauser and Sager, the main aim of the paper is to advance the discussion of these topics, generating a more general perspective than they provide.

Abstract:
The paper in is in three sections. In the first I offer a characterization of contractualism, explaining along the way that under this representation it is proof against two more or less obvious consequentialist objections. In the second section I argue that even when characterized in this manner, however, there remains an attractive and plausible way of taking contractualism that would make it consistent with consequentialism; this would cast it as a theory of the relatively right - the right relative to a practice - rather than the absolutely right. And then in the third section I show that even if this relativised way of taking it is rejected, as Scanlon himself would certainly reject it, there is a second way in which contractualism can in principle be rendered consistent with consequentialism; it may be cast as a partial rather than a complete theory of the absolutely right. Under neither of these ways of taking the doctrine would contractualism ground morality - not at least in every relevant sense - but under each it would retain a significant place in moral theory.