Informal justice often is castigated as rough justice, procedurally unauthorized and substantively unrationalized and prone to error. Yet those same features are present, to some extent, in formal justice as well: they do not form the basis for any sharp categorical contrast between formal and informal justice. Furthermore, some roughness in justice may be no bad thing. Certain of those elements of roughness in formal justice are inextricably bound up with other features of (...) formal justice that are rightly deemed morally important. And rough informal justice can sometimes be used to change formal justice in more just directions. (shrink)

What exactly is a “wicked problem”? It is a social or economic problem that is so complex and so interconnected with other issues that it is extraordinarily difficult or impossible to resolve. This is because all proposed resolutions generate equally complex, equally wicked problems. In this essay, I argue that precision medicine, especially in the context of the U.S. healthcare system, generates numerous wicked problems related to distributive justice. Further, I argue that there are no easy solutions to these (...) wicked problems. The need for trade-offs is inescapable. Rough justice is the best outcome we can hope for, and that outcome requires a commitment to processes of public reason that are fair and inclusive. (shrink)

This paper considers Pindar's diverse appropriations of elements of the sacred topography of Aegina for different purposes in epinikia composed for Aeginetan victors. It focuses on poems likely performed in the vicinity of the Aiakeion for their different mobilizations of a monument that we know from Pausanias stood beside the Aiakeion—the tomb of Phokos, an earth mound topped with the “rough stone” that killed him. The more speculative final part of the paper suggests that it may also be possible (...) to track a coherent ideology attached to the island's sacred topography across several Aeginetan odes, thereby detecting a broader structural unity that accompanies and frames the different individual appropriations of different poems. This part starts from Pausanias’ mythic narrative of the exemplary justice of Aiakos banishing his own son Telamon as the aetiology for a distinctive Aeginetan justice system inscribed in a whole set of man-made monuments that ring the island with concentric circles of rough stones. (shrink)

In this stimulating work of political philosophy, acclaimed philosopher G. A. Cohen sets out to rescue the egalitarian thesis that in a society in which distributive justice prevails, peopleâes material prospects are roughly equal. Arguing against the Rawlsian version of a just society, Cohen demonstrates that distributive justice does not tolerate deep inequality. In the course of providing a deep and sophisticated critique of Rawlsâes theory of justice, Cohen demonstrates that questions of distributive justice arise not (...) only for the state but also for people in their daily lives. The right rules for the macro scale of public institutions and policies also apply, with suitable adjustments, to the micro level of individual decision-making. Cohen also charges Rawlsâes constructivism with systematically conflating the concept of justice with other concepts. Within the Rawlsian architectonic, justice is not distinguished either from other values or from optimal rules of social regulation. The elimination of those conflations brings justice closer to equality. (shrink)

Solidarity is a fundamental social value in many European countries, though its precise practical and theoretical meaning is disputed. In a health care context, I agree with European writers who take solidarity normatively to mean roughly equal access to effective health care for all. That is, solidarity includes a sense of justice. Given that, I will argue that precision medicine represents a potential weakening of solidarity, albeit not a unique weakening. Precision medicine includes 150 targeted cancer therapies (mostly for (...) metastatic cancer), all of which are extraordinarily expensive. Our critical question: Must a commitment to solidarity as defined mean that all these targeted cancer therapies should be guaranteed to all within each country in the European Union, no matter the cost, no matter the degree of effectiveness? Such a commitment would imply that cancer was ethically special, rightfully commandeering unlimited resources. That in itself would undermine solidarity. I offer multiple examples of how current and future dissemination of these targeted cancer drugs threaten a commitment to solidarity. An alternative is to fund more cancer prevention efforts. However, that too proves a threat to solidarity. Solidarity, with or without a sense of justice, is too abstract a notion to address these challenges. Further, we need to accept that we can only hope to achieve “rough justice” and “supple solidarity.” The precise practical meaning of these notions needs to be worked out through a fair and inclusive process of rational democratic deliberation, which is the real and practical foundation of just solidarity. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Piety, Justice, and the Unity of VirtueMark L. McPherranNo doubt the Socrates of the Euthyphro would be delighted to encounter many of its readers, offering as they do an audience of piety-seeking interlocutors, eager to mend the dialogical breach created by Euthyphro’s sudden departure. Socrates’ enthusiasm for this pursuit is at least as intense and comprehensible as theirs. We are told, after all, that he will never abandon (...) his quest for knowledge of “what the pious is” (15c–16a), since not only is this enterprise both pious and “inconceivably happy” (cf. Ap. 41c3–4) in itself,1 but coming to understand piety would allow one to “live better the rest of one’s life,” (15e7–16a4), especially should its continuation be threatened by a charge of impiety (3b–d, 5a–c, 12e, 15e–16a).2 My own search here is no less happy and ambitious, since I wish to uncover Socrates’ own, implicit understanding of piety and its relation to his claim elsewhere that “the virtues are one.”3 The account of this I shall provide will also touch on Platonic piety, although this notion obviously rests on a tendentious distinction. Nevertheless, there do seem to be some interesting differences between the way piety is treated in elenctic dialogues such as the Euthyphro and Protagoras, and the more explicitly theory-laden, constructive works such as the Republic and Laws. I shall later characterize [End Page 299] these differences, primarily in terms of the more carefully articulated, internalist moral psychology of the Republic.42. SOCRATIC PIETYThe distinct phenomena the term “religion” popularly designates for us were for the Greeks seamlessly integrated into everyday life. Thus, it is natural that the term “piety”—εὐσέβεια—carried a wider sense than our English equivalent commonly does: it concerned not only one’s immediate relation to the gods—emphasizing proper religious conduct and carrying a sense of respect and fear towards divinity (concomitant with a grasp of one’s own mortal limits)—but also often designated appropriate behavior towards parents, native land, and the dead.5 It is to this rough, inclusive conception of piety that Euthyphro appeals when confronted by Socrates on the Porch of the King (2a–6a). Moreover, and despite his own shockingly irreverent attempt at father-bashing and the subsequent elenctic drubbing he then receives from Socrates, toward the close of the dialogue Euthyphro still manages to envision piety in the quasi-traditionalist fashion with which he began—as “a knowledge of how to ensure the preservation of families and states by gratifying the gods through proper prayer and sacrifice” (14b; cf. 14c–15c).6 It is, however, precisely [End Page 300] at this dramatic juncture (14a–c) that we find—arguably—the final elements of a Socratically-acceptable conception of piety; one that builds upon Euthyphro’s initial concession to Socrates that piety and “human justice” are to be distinguished from one another (11e–12e). This, in turn, is a move that in principle forces Euthyphro to disengage from those aspects of the traditional conception of piety which would—from Socrates’ perspective—conflate the two.7 Recent challenges to this reading, however, have seen in Euthyphro’s initial holism not the heterogeneous presumptions of popular thought, but a semi-sophisticated grasp of the Socratic unity of the virtues.8 And since it does appear that the character Euthyphro is designed to serve not only as a hubristically-inflated, Homeric “fundamentalist,” but as an odd and Sophistically-influenced doppelgänger of Socrates as well—a lesson, that is, in what Socrates both is and is not—it now seems worthwhile to reexamine the view that Socratic piety is but a part and not the whole of justice.9Turning to our text, then, we discover that following the failure of Euthyphro’s initial definitional attempts to specify the nature of pious action and the resulting aporetic interlude, Socrates is willing to offer Euthyphro renewed assistance (11e1–4). This he does by asking whether all the just is pious, or whether justice is broader than piety such that piety is then merely a “part” (μóϱιον) of justice (11e4–12e5). Subsequent to his explanation of these alternatives, Socrates... (shrink)

Enhancements of the human germ-line introduce further inequalities in the competition for scarce goods, such as income and desirable social positions. Social inequalities, in turn, amplify the range of genetic inequalities that access to germ-line enhancements may produce. From an egalitarian point of view, inequalities can be arranged to the benefit of the worst-off group (for instance, through general taxation), but the possibility of an indefinite growth of social and genetic inequality raises legitimate concerns. It is argued that inequalities produced (...) by markets of germ-line enhancements are just if it they are embedded in a framework of social institutions that satisfies two conditions: (i) Rawls’ Difference Principle, which states that inequalities of income and wealth should benefit the worst-off group; (ii) the lexically prior 'principle of rough equality', which states that citizens’ initial life-chances should be similar enough, so that extreme inequalities in income, wealth and power are not produced or accumulated through institutions justified by the Difference Principle. The principle of rough equality replaces the Rawlsian principles of the Fair Value of the Political Liberties and Fair Equality of Opportunity in a post-genomic society and expresses a concern with background political equality, which is argued to be a condition of the freedom and equality of citizens that should not be traded off with material benefits. Extreme inequalities are defined in terms of political equality. (shrink)

This paper discusses two distinct questions of distributive justice raised by climate change. Stated very roughly, one question concerns how much protection is owed to the potential victims of climate change (the Just Target Question), and the second concerns how the burdens (and benefits) involved in preventing dangerous climate change should be distributed (the Just Burden Question). In Section II, I focus on the first of these questions, the Just Target Question. The rest of the paper examines the second (...) question, the Just Burden Question. To answer this question, I argue, it is necessary to address two important methodological questions (one concerning the choice between what I term Integrationism and Isolationism and the other concerning the choice between what I term Holism and Atomism). Sections III-V, thus, set out and explore these two methodological issues. Having done so, the paper then turns from methodological issues to substantive analysis, and in Section VI it examines three principles of distributive justice that, it has been suggested, should determine how the burden of addressing dangerous climatic changes should be distributed (the Polluter Pays Principle, the Ability to Pay Principle and the Beneficiary Pays Principle). (shrink)

If it is a requirement of justice that everyone has access to basic goods and services, then justice requires that the work that is necessary to produce the relevant goods and provide the relevant services is performed. Two widely accepted views, however, together rule out requirements of justice to perform such work. These are, roughly, that the state cannot force people to perform it, and that individuals are not obligated to perform it voluntarily. Lucas Stanczyk argues that (...) we should resolve this inconsistency by endorsing widely rejected coercive policies, such as compulsory service requirements. I argue that Stanczyk’s proposal fails to fully resolve the inconsistency, and that any acceptable resolution will entail that individuals can be obligated to voluntarily perform the necessary work. I conclude that accepting even modest requirements of access to basic goods and services requires rejecting the view that principles of justice do not apply directly to individual conduct. (shrink)

Justice is a natural virtue. Well-functioning humans are just, as are well-ordered human societies. Roughly, this means that in a well-ordered society, just humans internalize the laws and social norms (the nomoi)--they internalize lawfulness as a disposition that guides the way they relate to other humans. In societies that are mostly well-ordered, with isolated zones of substantial dysfunction, the nomoi are limited to those norms that are not clearly inconsistent with the function of law--to create the conditions for human (...) flourishing. In a radically dysfunctional society, humans are thrown back on their own resources--doing the best they can in circumstances that may require great practical wisdom to avoid evil and achieve good. Justice is naturally good for humans--it is part and partial of human flourishing. All of these are natural ethical facts. "Natural Justice" develops these claims in four stages. Part I contextualizes the claim that justice is a natural virtue in relationship to David Hume's famous argument about deriving ought from is, G. E. Moore's open-question argument, and the so-called fact-value distinction. The upshot of the discussion in part I is the claim that there are no clearly decisive objections to existence of natural ethical facts. Part II traces the movement from neo-Aristotelian virtue ethics to virtue jurisprudence by articulating a theory of the judicial virtues. Among these are the virtues of practical wisdom and of justice. Practical wisdom or phronesis is best understood on the model of moral vision, which in the context of law is legal vision or situation sense. The virtue of justice is best understood as lawfulness. Just humans are law-abiding or nomimos--in that they internalize the widely shared and deeply held social norms of their social groups. This part concludes with the claim that a legally correct decision is the decision that characteristically would be rendered by a fully virtuous judge under the circumstances of the case. Part III argues that natural justice can be understood on the model of natural goodness as articulated in the work of Philippa Foot and Michael Thompson. The intuitive idea is that justice as lawfulness is naturally good for reason--using social creatures in human circumstances. This part also articulates and responds to a variety of objections. Part IV concludes by articulating the sense in which an aretaic theory of law that incorporates a natural virtue of justice as lawfulness can be viewed as an expression of the natural law tradition. The natural law idea that an unjust enactment is not a true law corresponds to two senses in which positive laws can fail to be nomoi (in the technical sense specified by virtue jurisprudence). First, a given enactment may contravene deeply held and widely shared social norms. Second, such enactments may be fundamentally inconsistent with the purpose of law--the promotion of human flourishing. (shrink)

Libertarian theories of justice hold that agents, at least initially, own themselves fully, and thus owe no service to others, except through voluntary action. The most familiar libertarian theories are right-libertarian in that they hold that natural resources are initially unowned and, under a broad range of realistic circumstances, can be privately appropriated without the consent of, or any significant payment to, the other members of society. Leftlibertarian theories, by contrast, hold that natural resources are owned by the members (...) of society in some egalitarian manner, and may be appropriated only with their permission, or with a significant payment to them. Left-libertarian theories have been propounded for over two centuries[i], but in recent years there has been a revival of interest in them. Theories roughly of this sort have been explored by Kolm [1985, 1986] and Gibbard [1976], advocated by Steiner [1994], Grunebaum [1987], and Van Parijs [1995], and criticized by Cohen [1995]. (shrink)

In this article, I analyze the circumstances of justice, that is, the background conditions that are necessary and sufficient for justice to exist between individual parties in society. Contemporary political philosophers almost unanimously accept an account of these circumstances attributed to David Hume. I argue that the conditions of this standard account are neither sufficient nor necessary conditions for justice. In particular, I contend that both a Hobbesian state of nature and a prisoner’s dilemma are cases in (...) which the conditions of the standard account obtain and yet no justice exists between parties. I propose an alternative set of generic circumstances of justice motivated by examples from game theory. Parties are in these generic circumstances with respect to each other when: (1) they are engaged in a conflictual coordination game with multiple strict Nash equilibrium points where, at any of these equilibria, some parties do not receive their greatest payoffs, and (2) they have common knowledge that each party is rational and follows her end of a strict equilibrium where no party receives her greatest payoff. These two conditions reflect the idea that justice requires all parties to make some sacrifices so that others can have more of the goods they need and want. I argue that these generic circumstances are necessary and sufficient conditions for parties to follow generic norms of justice, that is, mutually beneficial practices that require some sacrifices. Key Words: common knowledge • conflictual coordination • correlated equilibrium • moderate selfishness • moderate variable scarcity • rough equality. (shrink)

ABSTRACT Norman Daniels suggests that the just distribution of resources between different age‐groups is determined by the choice a prudential agent would make in budgeting resources over the different temporal stages of a single life. He calls this view the “prudential lifespan account” of justice between age‐groups. Daniels thinks that the view recommends a rough kind of equality in resources between age‐groups. I argue that in the case of a single life prudence would choose an unequal distribution of (...) resources. Consequently, using prudence to model distribution between age‐groups might severely restrict the share of resources assigned to the elderly. If we think that extreme inequality between age‐groups would be unjust, we should continue to think of justice between age‐groups as a problem concerned with the relationship between different lives. But we should apply the requirement of equality to the temporal parts of lives, not just to complete lives. (shrink)

Our days are a vast, intricate, evolving dance of mutual understandings. We stop at a traffic light, offer a plastic card as payment for a meal, leave our weapons at home, or enter a voting booth. We live and work in close proximity, at high speed, with few collisions: on our roads and in our neighborhoods, places of worship, and places of business. Somehow, having all those people around is more liberating than stifling. The secret is that we know roughly (...) what to expect from each other. Knowing what to expect enables us to adapt to each other. Not being obliged to conform to expectations—being free to test the previously untested— is likewise a great benefit. The two benefits seem mutually exclusive, yet property rights, combined with freedom of contract, enable us to reap both at once. We can rely on being able to go to market and find someone selling cauliflower at an affordable price. We can also rely on being able to go to market and find someone rendering obsolete what a few years ago had been cutting-edge technology. We make progress by testing what has not previously been tested. We experiment. One problem with experiments is: many of them don’t work.1 Or, the ideas being tested turn out to be bad ideas. Thus a successful society encourages people not only to experiment, but also to shut down experiments whose inspiration proves unsound. What kind of framework encourages experimentation without at the same time perpetuating bad ideas? Here is one hypothesis: in societies that sustain progress over long periods, people are free to experiment at their own expense and free from having to pay for other people’s bad ideas. This is the true test of a system of property. It is natural to assume instead that the true test of a system of property is a question of whether the system is just. That is, philosophers should theorize about justice first, and only then begin to theorize about what can legitimately become a person’s property. I have become skeptical about this. (shrink)

In his book Cosmopolitan Justice, Darrel Moellendorf argues that respect for persons has the following rough implications (among others): requires states to enact liberal legislation; permits them to interfere with religious or otherwise perfectionist regimes; forbids them from restricting immigration for perfectionist ends; and requires them to permit secession. In this article, I do not question Moellendorf's Kantian foundation; what I do here is question the inferences from this principle to the above conclusions. My basic strategy involves drawing (...) a distinction between open and closed societies, and arguing that, although some of Moellendorf's arguments might be sound for closed societies, they are not clearly so for open ones. An open society is one from which it is relatively easy to leave, and a closed society is one from which it is comparatively difficult to do so. Although I doubt that any substantially open societies presently exist, they are real possibilities, and in such societies respect for persons would not have the implications that Moellendorf claims. (shrink)

Environmentalism has long placed heavy emphasis on strategies that seek to ensure the environment of today and the future roughly mirror the past. Yet while past-oriented approaches have come under increased scrutiny, environmental ethics in the time of climate change is still largely conceptualized as that which could pull humanity back from the brink of disaster or, at least, prevent the worst of it. As a result, practical and conceptual tools for grappling with what is owed to the dead and (...) dying victims of environmental injustice have been and continue to be woefully underdeveloped. This paper advances scaffolding for robust environmental death ethics that are temporally pluralistic and at home within intergenerational climate justice. (shrink)

The scarcity of resources required to produce justice is manifested in the relation between the accuracy, depth, and scope of materially possible forms of justice. Ceteris paribus , increases in the accuracy of justice must come at the expense of its depth and scope, and vice versa, though they are not linearly proportioned. The accuracy of justice is the degree of agreement between the possible results of attempts to implement a theory or principles of justice (...) and the desired result according to that theory or those principles of justice. The scope of justice measures how broadly the principle or theory of justice is intended to apply. The depth of justice measures the gap between existing social norms and the theory or principles of justice we examine within the specified scope. This three-dimensional model explains public policies, laws, and regulations that increase the scope or depth of justice at the cost of a decrease in its accuracy – rough forms of justice such as measures of transitional justice, affirmative action, mandatory sentencing, simplified tax codes, collective guilt and victimhood, and general amnesties. The scarcity of resources necessary for justice can contract or expand. The normative choice between principles of justice that prefer accuracy and those that favor scope or depth usually corresponds, respectively, with rights-based deontological theories and consequentialist ethics. (shrink)

The author discusses two questions, the relation between liberalism and democracy, and the relation between ethics, morality and law. As to the first question, she argues that neither liberalism nor democracy are merely formal. Roughly spoken, it can be said that liberalism stands for negative liberties, whereas democracy stands for positive ones. She observes a non-contingent tension between the ethos of liberalism (personal freedom) and the ethos of democracy (equality; majority rule). It is the task of morality to maintain and (...) restore the balance between these two kinds of ethos. As to the second question, she is worried about the balance between law (legal regulation), ethics, and morality. On the one hand, abolishing legal regulations would amount to abolishing the freedom of the moderns. On the other hand, the substitution of legal regulations for ethical regulations would lead to a similar result: the end of the freedom of the moderns through the homogenisation of life. In the former case, personal support, charity, magnanimity, and caring would get lost, while in the latter there would be no escape from community pressure towards uniformity. (shrink)

Miranda Fricker's original presentation of Hermeneutical Injustice left open theoretical choice points leading to criticisms and subsequent clarifications with the resulting dialectic appearing largely verbal. The absence of perspicuous exposition of hallmarks of Hermeneutical Injustice might suggest scenarios exhibiting some – but not all – such hallmarks are within its purview when they are not. The lack of clear hallmarks of Hermeneutical Injustice, moreover, obscures both the extent to which Fricker's proposed remedy Hermeneutical Justice – roughly, virtuous communicative practices (...) – adequately addresses the injustice, and the accuracy of criticisms suggesting that Hermeneutical Justice is insufficient to the task. In what follows, after briefly defending necessary and sufficient conditions for what I take to be the best candidate interpretation of Hermeneutical Injustice, I build on recent work on moral responsibility to construct and defend a rigorous explication of Hermeneutical Justice. (shrink)

A normative account of global political organization must address three fundamental questions. One concerns the way in which political jurisdictions are to be delimited and their territorial boundaries drawn; another concerns the allocation of powers of sovereignty to those jurisdictions; the third concerns the principles for the distribution of economic benefits and burdens worldwide. The aim of my dissertation is to defend an account of global justice that extends to each of these questions. In doing so, I reject the (...) answers embodied in the prevailing international states system. ;In Chapter One, I consider one of the most sophisticated attempts to defend the states system on grounds of political morality---John Rawls's "The Law of Peoples." I argue that Rawls's defense fails because it is not adequately responsive to its own animating moral ideal, namely the ideal of popular sovereignty. Properly understood, popular sovereignty imposes on global political institutions constraints that are inconsistent with the features of the states system that Rawls defends. These constraints are expressed in two conditions: a deliberativeness condition, which ensures the integrity of the communicative structures required for rational collective will formation; and a pre-commitment condition, which ensures the willing acceptance by individuals of membership in the same polity. Together, these conditions entail a set of political human rights for individuals, and a set of self-determination rights for groups. ;Thomas Pogge has proposed a federative model of global political organization that, suitably modified, is responsive to these rights. His account calls for a federative dispersion of sovereign powers among nested jurisdictions, and incorporates a voluntaristic principle for the demarcation of borders. However, Pogge's defense is incomplete. In Chapter Two, I argue that the ideal of popular sovereignty provides the necessary foundation for his model. The same ideal leads us to reject Pogge's assertion of a universal right to democratic governance. ;In Chapter Three I articulate and defend a conception of global distributive justice that mandates transfers of wealth from more- to less-affluent societies with the disjunctive target of either immigration-pressure equilibrium---roughly, the point at which all economically motivated applications for immigration are granted---or maximal human development rates for the worst-off societies worldwide. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Towards Language Justice:A Call to Identify and Overcome Structural BarriersFelicity RatwayThe patient I am interpreting for praises my interpretation. I've done nothing particularly noteworthy to merit her praise; I followed basic ethical tenets, nothing more. Hearing everything the provider says rather than a brief synopsis exceeds her expectations after many experiences working with untrained interpreters, or being refused interpreting services altogether. The bar shouldn't be this low.I am (...) exhausted. Like most interpreters, I am an independent contractor. I must work 5 am–9 pm to get paid for 8 hours of work. With some language companies, I earn less than minimum wage. To many new interpreters, $35 per hour sounds great—then they realize that driving to and from a one-hour appointment involves two hours of unpaid drive time. In rural areas, this really takes a toll. I spend hours checking pay stubs; I find errors nearly every pay period, but I wouldn't have a court case for the repeated underpayments because when I reach out to ask for the errors to be fixed, they are eventually corrected. Despite my state and national certifications and Master's degree in Interpreting and Translation Studies, medical interpreting doesn't pay the bills. I supplement my income through multiple other jobs.Laws intended to protect the patients we work with as interpreters are seldom enforced. Title VI Guidance defines a competent interpreter as one who has been trained, demonstrated proficiency, demonstrated interpreting skills, and agrees to abide by ethical standards. Patients fare better when competent interpreters are available, but when most patient and provider experiences are with interpreters who haven't met competency standards, patients and providers (understandably) lose trust in the profession. The profession has few opportunities for advancement and struggles to attract interpreters to go through rigorous training or build a long-term career. Skilled interpreters soon leave for greener pastures: the Oregon Health Authority (OHA) houses a registry of interpreters who meet minimum state training and proficiency requirements, and a 2019–2021 study found that roughly 92% of interpreters due to renew dropped off of the registry instead.When I began interpreting, I was shocked by how infrequently laws protecting patients' rights to interpreting services were followed in practice. At primary care appointments, patients often cannot answer questions about specialist visits because interpretation was not provided at the specialist's office. I knew recipients of federal funds couldn't [End Page 164] legally bill patients for interpreting services, yet I was asked to sight-translate paperwork that stated patients would be billed for interpreting services if they were late to an appointment. I reported the issue; years later, the same paperwork would still appear on their public-facing website. I discovered that though state law required credentialed interpreters to be made available, no agency had been tasked with enforcing that law; all that could be done with my complaint was to refer it to the patient's insurance company.In Oregon, Coordinated Care Organizations (CCOs) manage Medicaid plans, and are required to pay for interpreting services for their members. Instead of hiring interpreters directly, many contract with language companies that, in turn, hire us. Providers must book interpreters through the specific language companies contracted with the patient's CCO to avoid paying for the interpreter themselves. I am often called to interpret for speakers of indigenous languages even though I am not able to meet their needs as a Spanish interpreter. I offer contact information for organizations that could provide interpretation in the appropriate language, but the receptionist tells me that she can only go through specific vendors because the clinic doesn't want to have to pay out-of-pocket. Indigenous-led organizations that pay indigenous interpreters a living wage are not contracted with the CCOs in my region. In some cases, when interpreters are not available for a particular language through the CCO's preferred vendor, providers instead ask that an appointment be rescheduled, hoping that an interpreter will be available later. I have seen speakers of rare languages seeking primary care end up in the hospital after being rescheduled several times.Providers I work with often don't know... (shrink)

A society is said to age when its number of older members increases in relation to its number of younger members. The societies in most of the world’s industrialized nations have been aging since at least 1800. In 1800 the demographic makeup of developed countries was similar to that of many Third World countries in the early 1990s with roughly half the population under the age of 16 and very few people living beyond age of 60. Since that time, increases (...) in life expectancy, combined with declines in fertility rates, have dramatically increased the proportion of older persons in developed nations. The rapid increase in the number of older persons relative to younger ones carries important societal implications. In the domain of healthcare, societal aging will increase costs and exert greater pressure to ration services. It will, thus, bring to the fore questions, regarding a just distribution of healthcare between young and old age groups. This paper considers some of the most influential arguments to date for age-based rationing of health care. I show that these arguments fall short, and that the theoretical assumptions underlying them do not withstand careful scrutiny. (shrink)

Brooks convincingly makes the case that the current arguments for climate mitigation and adaptation fail. Each of the arguments discussed by Brooks appeals to end-state solutions that are some combination of poorly defined, inadequate, inappropriate, or are impossible. Thus, those arguments provide us with relatively limited guidance regarding what we should do about climate change. I hope to extend Brooks’ article by providing a rough sketch of how we might think about responding to climate change that does not depend (...) upon achieving a particular end state. (shrink)

In this discussion, we will consider arguments against the view that one person is entitled to medical care at the expense of another person, just because the one person might be able to extend it to the other. We all accept the view that we are entitled to nonviolence from each other, which in the medical case is roughly that we are entitled to other people not making us sick, at least insofar as this is something they can readily avoid. (...) But how are we also entitled to their help in making us well when we are sick? Few of us think that we are entitled to other people's new cars, or half of their incomes for our general use. Why, then, are we entitled to a hefty fraction of that income to pay our medical bills? (shrink)

In a recent article, Marilyn Baffoe-Bonnie offers three arguments for conducting CRISPR/Cas9 biotechnology research to cure sickle-cell disease (SCD) based on addressing historical and current injustices in SCD research and care. I show that her second and third arguments suffer from roughly the same defect, which is that they really argue for something else rather than for conducting CRISPR/Cas9 research in particular. For instance, the second argument argues that conducting this gene therapy research would improve the relationship between SCD sufferers (...) (who are mostly of African descent) and health care providers. But really what is essential in improving this relationship is for those providers to genuinely care and be concerned, and this could be lacking even with the CRISPR research being done. Indeed, this relationship could be improved even without that research being done, as long as there is genuine concern. Thus, this argument actually argues for the need for genuine concern. As for the third argument, one (of two) problems arises because it claims that CRISPR research for SCD should be pursued because the benefits would be shared by even non-research-participants, as non-participants would be encouraged. However, this argues for any research for SCD, not for CRISPR research in particular. I conclude that a better justice-based argument will use only Baffoe-Bonnie’s first argument, which is based on historic neglect of an actual cure for SCD (going beyond merely management or transplant therapies). (shrink)

The core idea of A Relational Theory of Justice is that normative political and legal philosophy should be grounded on people’s relational features, in particular their ability to commune with others and be communed with by them. Usually, philosophers of justice in the West have based their views on people’s intrinsic features, ones that make no essential reference to others, such as their autonomy, self-ownership, or well-being. In addition, often critics of basing politics and law on justice, (...) whether in the African, feminist/care, Marxian, or Confucian traditions, have appealed to non-intrinsic values as leverage, roughly contending that relationships are more important than justice. In contrast to both major camps, this book articulates and defends accounts of justice based on the dignity of people’s relational nature. A proper valuation of people’s capacity to be party to communal relationships does not transcend categories of justice, but instead calls for certain sorts that differ in plausible ways from those grounded on intrinsic properties. Applications are discussed in the contexts of political, economic, compensatory, criminal, transitional, and global justice. Available for download is the Table of Contents. (shrink)

Despite the title, this book is really an introduction to the study of the later philosophy of Ludwig Wittgenstein, and the significance of his way of philosophizing for problems in social and political thought. As the author points out, Wittgenstein was not a political theorist; he "did not write about society or history or revolution or alienation". The author, obviously conversant with the work and methodology of Wittgenstein, has written a work ad mentem magistri, not attempting to isolate specific doctrine (...) but to indicate how a philosopher, convinced of the centrality of language in human life, would reflect on the problems of associative life. Language is seen, not as a system of labels, but as the carrier of human culture that both asserts the individuality and communality of men, and illuminates "the nature of innovation and continuity in human affairs." The author sees the later Wittgenstein as rejecting his earlier satisfaction with the Tractatus, being careful to point out that Wittgenstein did not question ethical aesthetic and religious values, as much as to claim that they could not be talked about in a philosophically meaningful way. Roughly, the second half of the book concerns itself with social and political implications, the quarrel between Socrates and Thrasymachus on the nature of justice being seen as paradigmatic of contemporary concerns about the objectivity of social values. The book is significant not because it develops a political philosophy, for it quite obviously does not; but because it suggests possibilities and indicates a developing respect in Wittgenstein for metaphysics and objectivity, and a desire to know and understand that objectivity by means of language analysis.—R.P.M. (shrink)

In December 2003, the members of the European Union (EU) met in Brussels for a summit that had the potential to become a turning point in history. The agenda for the meeting was to adopt a constitution for Europe in the wake of the European enlargement scheduled for May 2004. However, European nations were not able to resolve their differences over undecided issues such as voting, foreign policy decision- making, budget deficit rules, and whether to mention God in the constitution. (...) The most severe disagreements occurred over the voting system proposed by the draft constitution, which envisioned a move towards population-adjusted voting rights. In the old arrangements agreed upon in Nice in 2000, members had roughly the same amount of votes independent of population. (shrink)

This paper develops a novel competition criterion for evaluating institutional schemes. Roughly, this criterion says that one institutional scheme is normatively superior to another to the extent that the former would engender more widespread political competition than the latter. I show that this criterion should be endorsed by both global egalitarians and their statist rivals, as it follows from their common commitment to the moral equality of all persons. I illustrate the normative import of the competition criterion by exploring its (...) potential implications for the scope of egalitarian principles of distributive justice. In particular, I highlight the challenges it raises for global egalitarians' efforts to justify extending the scope of egalitarian justice beyond the state. (shrink)

The feasibility constraint on the concept of justice roughly states that a necessary condition for something to qualify as a conception of justice is that it is possible to achieve and maintain given the conditions of the human world. In this paper, I propose three alternative interpretations of this constraint that could be derived from different understandings of the Kantian formula ‘ought implies can’: the ability constraint, the motivational constraint and the institutional constraint. I argue that the three (...) constraints constitute a sequence in the sense that accepting the motivational constraint presupposes that we accept the ability constraint, and to accept the institutional constraint presupposes that we accept both previous constraints. Adding the possibility of rejecting all three constraints, we get four distinct metatheoretical positions that theorists could take vis-à-vis the feasibility constraint on justice. (shrink)

I focus on the mutual advantage conception of justice and on a related Humean argument according to which “the circumstances of justice” obtain only when there is a conflict of ends, a suitable level of scarcity, and rough equality of power. I add to the challenges facing the argument by using a Millian illustration whose significance has not been appreciated in prior discussions of the circumstances of justice to show that, contrary to a key premise of (...) the Humean argument, restraining ground rules concerning entitlement can be mutually advantageous even if there is no conflict of ends or rough equality of power. It follows from my reasoning that, if justice has a place and point when restraining ground rules concerning entitlement would be mutually advantageous, the circumstances of justice can obtain without a conflict of ends or rough equality of power. (shrink)

This article studies the conceptions of social justice of women active in transnational migrant politics over a period of roughly 20 years in the Netherlands. The novel focus on migrant women reveals that transnational politics is almost completely male-dominated and -directed. Two of the exceptions found in this article include a leftist and a Kurdish women organization supporting the communist cause in the 1980s and the Kurdish struggle in the 1990s in Turkey, respectively. In both organizations gender equality was (...) subordinated to broader ideologies of political parties in their homeland. Leftist activists in the cold war era supported a narrow definition of the "politics of redistribution," while and Kurdish activists, combined classical features of the latter with those of traditional identity politics. (shrink)

In “Are Certain Knowledge Frameworks More Congenial to the Aims of Cross-Cultural Philosophy? A Qualified Yes,” Leigh Jenco responds to an article in which I had argued for a similar conclusion. I had contended roughly that the positing of objective truth combined with a fallibilist epistemology best explains why a philosopher from one culture could learn something substantial from another culture. In her response, Jenco contends that this knowledge framework does not account adequately for the intuition that various philosophical traditions (...) have an equal standing and that traditions other than one’s own are not to be considered inferior. In addition, according to Jenco, an appeal to objective truth on the part of one epistemic culture is unavoidably oppressive, or overly risks being so, with regard to another one. In this brief reply, I argue that an appeal to objective truth in the realms of epistemology and morality in fact makes the most sense of Jenco’s concerns about inegalitarianism and oppression. (shrink)

Christian Baatz claims that individuals have an imperfect duty to reduce emissions as far as can reasonably be demanded of them. His ‘epistemic’ argument roughly runs like this:(P1...

With her new book, The Conceptual Foundations of Transitional Justice, Colleen Murphy has advanced novel, comprehensive and sophisticated philosophical accounts of both what severely conflict-ridden societies should be aiming for and how they should pursue it. Ultimately grounded on a prizing of rational agency, Murphy maintains that these societies, roughly, ought to strive for a stable and legitimate democratic polity committed to not repeating gross historical injustice and do so in ways that do right by victims. In this article, (...) I argue, contra Murphy, that achieving democratic rights to political participation should not be considered an essential aim of transitional justice, and that, in contrast, doing right by victims should be considered an essential aim of it, not merely an appropriate means to achieving other aims. In addition, I highlight an issue downplayed in Murphy’s book, namely, the need to make trade-offs amongst the aims of transitional justice, which becomes particularly pressing upon accepting that doing right by victims is one of them. (shrink)

George C. Thomas III, Double Jeopardy: The History, the Law New York University Press, 1998,349 pp.

Catastrophically bad decisions were an all-too-frequent occurrence when it came to managing blood for therapeutic purposes in the first decade of the AIDS epidemic. The victims of those bad decisions were, first and foremost, the persons who received HIV-contaminated blood via their medical treatments. During the 1980s, at least 20,000 patients in the United States contracted HIV infections via "tainted" blood treatments. More than half of the nation's 16,000 hemophilia patients were among that number. Unlike the roughly 12,000 Americans who (...) contracted HIV through a standard whole blood transfusion during that decade, nearly all of these hemophilia patients contracted HIV from a commercially manufactured clotting... (shrink)

In this chapter, I attempt to do three things in the hope of making some progress toward fostering greater collaboration between contemporary atheists and traditional Christians in addressing contentious moral problems. First, I argue that there is little hope, in our current cultural climate, that contemporary atheists and traditional Christians can come to consensus on principles that will help us resolve our differences regarding contemporary hot-button social issues. Second, I argue that despite this fact, contemporary atheists and traditional Christians can (...) and ought to form pragmatic alliances to work for the common good, at least on those moral projects in which we can roughly agree on what we ought to do, even if we can’t ultimately agree on why we ought to do it. Third, I conclude by offering a few final thoughts on “true religion,” “true philosophy,” and an alternative vision of the future for contemporary atheists and traditional religious believers. (shrink)

The first political theory of post-Communism examines its implications for understanding liberty, rights, transitional justice, property rights, privatization, rule of law, centrally planned public institutions, and the legacies of totalitarian thought in language and discourse. The transition to post-totalitarianism was the spontaneous adjustment of the rights of the late-totalitarian elite to its interest. Post-totalitarian governments faced severe scarcity in the supply of justice. Rough justice punished the perpetrators and compensated their victims. Historical theories of property rights (...) became radical, and consequentialist theories, conservative. Totalitarianism in Europe disintegrated but did not end. The legacies of totalitarianism in higher education met New Public Management, totalitarian central planning under a new label. Totalitarianism divorced language from reality through the use of dialectics that identified opposites and the use of logical fallacies to argue for ideological conclusions. This book illustrates these legacies in the writings of Habermas, Derrida, and Žižek about democracy, personal responsibility, dissidence, and totalitarianism. (shrink)

In the history of philosophy, Jacques Rohault and Pierre-Sylvain Régis bear a twofold burden. They are professed followers, epigones. Worse yet, the natural philosophy they teach has been consigned to the Tartarus of fable: not a theory that failed, but something that failed even to be a theory. In the years in which they were turning Cartesianism into a system, Newton and Huygens were preparing its demise. Its empirical claims were refuted, its mathematics was rendered obsolete by the calculus, its (...) vortices and channelled magnetic particles met with the same rough justice Descartes meted out to Scholastic forms and qualities. Canonical history has little use for such figures. It prefers originals. Yet if ideas and arguments are not to seem to pass magically from one great mind to the next, we must have some account of the channels through which what was once novel and unique sediments into cliché and common ground. Those channels are not without bias and noise. Inevitably, currents from different streams meet and mix more or less coherently in the works of secondary figures, especially in the competitive intellectual world of the later seventeenth century, with its sometimes ferocious polemics fuelled by religious and political opposition. Cartesianism became a movement and—to use Leibniz’s word—a sect, divided within by disputes over the legacy of its founder, and facing opposition without from steadfast Aristotelians, pious theologians, and the avant garde of the new science. In Régis and Rohault Descartes’ legacy took the outward form of “system”. They present themselves as reworking Cartesian concepts and arguments into something coherent and comprehensive. Rohault, the more modest of the two, aims to reform the teaching of physics, still weighed down by the dead hand of Aristotle. He retains for the old philosophy only what is true and conjoin it with the new physics of Descartes, in whom France is no less fortunate than Greece once was in Aristotle (Rohault 1718, “Præfatio”).. (shrink)

Equal Justice explores the role of the idea of equality in liberal theories of justice. The title indicates the book’s two-part thesis: first, I claim that justice is the central moral category in the socio-political domain; second, I argue for a specific conceptual and normative connection between the ideas of justice and equality. This pertains to the age-old question concerning the normative significance of equality in a theory of justice. The book develops an independent, systematic, (...) and comprehensive theory of equality and egalitarianism. The principal question is about the importance of equality in a theory of justice. More precisely, we should pose questions in four contracting circles: 1. Is justice the supreme value guiding our setup of the basic structure of society, or are there other, equally important values, such as recognition, care, communal belonging? 2. If justice is the highest guiding principle, which competing ideals—especially equality and freedom—ought to have precedence in a policy oriented toward justice? What status does the ideal of equality have in that framework? 3. If equality is a basic ideal of just policy, how should it be practically realized? What sort of equality (equal opportunity, equality of welfare, resource equality) should be demanded? 4. What patterned distribution of which specific goods does the ideal of equality demand? Which principles of distribution can be justified according to our justice ideal? To conclude and summarize: 5. What is the essential core of an egalitarian theory of justice, as opposed to an inegalitarian theory? These five questions structure the work’s order of argumentation. Part A elaborates the conceptual foundations and basic moral principles of justice and equality. Chapter I sets out to install justice as the central moral category in the socio-political domain. At the beginning of the first chapter, the conceptual foundations of justice are clarified. While not eliminating the classical distinctions between different forms of justice, I argue that the distributive paradigm is of primary importance. The primacy of justice in the socio-political domain is developed out of a confrontation with alternative positions, those which maintain either that justice generally, or distributive justice in particular, are subsidiary virtues. At the end of Chapter I, the first of the questions mentioned above is answered in a way that establishes justice as the guiding normative concept for the foundation and evaluation of any social order. To clarify the role of equality in a theory of justice, Chapter II separates the idea of equality into four different principles. They are organized in a way that begins with the most general and uncontroversial principle of equality, and progresses towards increasingly detailed and contested principles. There are two theses that articulate and defend the significance of equality for justice: First there is a conceptual connection between justice and equality, in that principles of formal and proportional equality are necessary in order to explicate the concept of justice. These two principles establish an unbreakable bond between justice and equality. Justice can only be explained—or so I argue—by reference to these and other (normative) principles of equality. The second thesis posits a normative relationship between justice and equality, which is disclosed by three substantive principles of equality: moral equality, the presumption of equality, and the principle of responsibility. I argue that the normative core of an egalitarian theory of justice is expressed by the latter two principles, which are themselves based on the first principle, that of moral equality. When we view one another as persons, what form of equality or equal treatment is normatively demanded? I argue that the answer to this question is given by the procedural principle of the presumption of equality: regardless of their apparent differences, all persons deserve strictly equal treatment, unless certain kinds of differences have whatever particular relevance would justify, on generally acceptable grounds, unequal treatment or unequal distribution. The justification of the presumption of equality is central to this work and has considerable importance. If the presumption principle’s validity can be justified by enlisting the principle of general justification, then the primacy of equality, and the essential argument for an egalitarian theory of justice, is established. This would likewise provide a procedure for the construction of a material theory of justice. The second question is answered thereby at the end of Chapter II: Equality should have primacy over competing ideals within a justice-oriented policy. The presumption of equality establishes this primacy and, at the same time, offers an appropriate metric and guideline for the construction of a material theory of distributive justice. The presumption of equality in Part B offers an elegant procedure for the development of a theory of distributive justice. Chapter III clearly sets out the necessary prerequisites that a theory of distribution must satisfy in order to determine a liberal-egalitarian distributional framework. We need to specify in which situation the distribution takes place; which goods are and are not to be distributed; in which respect the presumptive equality is to be produced; and by and to whom, and for what period, the relevant goods are to be distributed. The distribution is based on resources understood as general-purpose means. It is necessary to divide goods into different categories, since the justification for unequal treatment in one domain will not carry over into another. This makes presumptive equality necessarily complex. To that end, four spheres of justice are distinguished: (1) the political sphere, which involves allocating rights through the distribution of civil liberties; (2) the democratic sphere, in which political power and the rights of political participation are regulated; (3) the economic sphere, in which income and property are distributed; (4) the social sphere, in which social positions and opportunities are distributed. This framework of distributive justice answers the third of our guiding questions, about the nature of equality, in terms of equality of resources. Chapters IV and V set out the egalitarian distributive criteria for each sphere. I argue that the generally accepted, fundamental rights of classical liberalism are more effectively reconstructed by reference to the equal resource distribution presumptively required in those spheres. Chapter IV shows that when it comes to the first two spheres, those involving basic rights and freedoms and entitlement political participation, there can be no justified exceptions to the equal distribution of the relevant goods. That section argues, contrary to what we commonly find in theories of freedom or popular sovereignty, that the value of freedom and self-determination as the political basis of autonomy is best realized through the presumption of equal distribution. Chapter V deals with the other two spheres, those of economic goods and social positions, and argues for justified exceptions to equal distribution. In the economic sphere we find one principal reason favouring unequal distribution of resources, and three restrictions and compensations limiting that inequality. The basic exception to equal economic distribution arises from the unequal consequences of personal responsibility. From a suitably egalitarian standpoint, the principle of responsibility is the normative principle that determines which reasons justify economic inequality. Here the basic idea is that unequal shares of social goods are fair if they result from the choices and deliberate actions of the relevant parties. That individuals have to bear the costs of their own choices is a condition of autonomy. However, benefits or disadvantages arising from arbitrary and unmerited differences in social circumstances or natural endowments is unfair. The unequal consequences of independent decision-making and action must therefore be limited by compensating first for preferences, secondly for disadvantages, and thirdly by redistributing wealth in aid of the worse-off. I situations of emergency, compensating for disadvantages has priority over all other claims, owing to the urgency of the situation. Social inequalities go beyond the permissible limit if it is possible to improve the long-term social or economic situation of the worse-off by redistributing wealth to them. These exceptions lead to a complex system of free economic action within a framework of compensatory tax and transfer mechanisms. Finally, in the social sphere, the distribution of social positions, offices and opportunities must be structured to ensure that equally talented and motivated citizens have roughly equal chances of obtaining those offices or positions, irrespective of their economic or social class backgrounds. This compromise is permissible for reasons of freedom and prudence, and it makes a certain measure of inequality acceptable. The fourth of our guiding questions is answered accordingly. There are five principles of justice for the basic structure of society, and five legal principles that govern the special distribution of goods in the respective spheres—all are ranked according to their most defensible grounds of priority, ensuring that everyone is accorded equal justice. Chapter VI recapitulates the initial question of equality’s value. The conception of equal justice developed in this work postulates five principles of equality and five principles of law; these constitute an egalitarian framework because they support and promote social justice. Equality has value with respect to them, but is not given any independent, intrinsic value. That is why I call the account developed here a form of constitutive egalitarianism: justice is realized through the realization of equality, itself accomplished by applying the five postulates of equality and five distributive principles of law. This is an egalitarianism on two levels. The first level is involves the claim that morality or justice is conceptually connected with equality. The second level gives equality a substantial weight in what is conceptually validated at the first level, namely the presumption of equality, and constructs an appropriate interpretation and conception of distributive justice through principles of distribution for the individual spheres. The weight and importance of equality is shown by the distributive criteria applied to those spheres. This answers our final guiding question about the nature of an egalitarian theory. (shrink)

The picture of L. Appuleius Saturninus' last days is usually derived from the straightforward narrative account found in Appian's Civil Wars, an account which modern analysis has shown to be flawed. That narrative may be glossed as follows. At the consular elections for the year 99, Saturninus and Glaucia instigated the death of a more hopeful contender. Chaos followed. On the following day, when the People had made its intention to do away with the ‘malefactors’ absolutely plain, Saturninus, Glaucia and (...) the quaestor Saufeius seized the Capitol with followers from the country. The Senate voted for their suppression and Marius invested the hill. With hopes of a safe conduct, the beseiged surrendered and Marius detained them in the curia. Those who feared that the seditiosi might escape rough justice broke in and killed, amongst others, ‘a quaestor, a tribune and a praetor, still decorated with the insignia of office. Many others also perished in the stasis, including another tribune, thought to be the son of Gracchus and being a tribune for the first time on that very day’: ταμίαν τε κα⋯ δήμαρχον κα⋯ στρατηγόν, ἔτι περικειμ⋯νους τ⋯ σ⋯μβολα τ⋯ς ⋯ρχ⋯ς. πολὺς δ⋯ κα⋯ ἄλλος ὅμιλος ⋯ν τῇ στάσει δι⋯φθαρτο κα⋯ δήμαρχος ἕτερος, ⋯ το⋯ Γράκχου παῖς εἶναι νομιζ⋯μενος, πρώτην δημαρχ⋯ν ⋯κε⋯νην ⋯μ⋯ραν. (shrink)

According to the special-obligations challenge to the justice argument for more open borders, immigration restrictions to wealthier polities are justified because of special obligations owed to disadvantaged compatriots. I interrogate this challenge by considering three types of ground for special obligations amongst compatriots. First, the social relations that come with shared residence, such as participation in a territorially bounded, mutually beneficial scheme of cooperation; having fundamental interests especially vulnerable to the state’s exercise of power; being subject to coercion by (...) the state; and having pervasive and roughly equal stakes in a political society. Second, the civic relations of shared citizenship, such as participation in a common political enterprise. And third, the political relation of joint responsibility for the exercise of political power. In light of this analysis, I argue that whatever special obligations are owed by citizens (or residents) of wealthier polities to their domestic poor, they do not justify restrictions on immigration by the global poor. (shrink)

In The Frontiers of Justice, Martha Nussbaum argues that social contract theory cannot accommodate political duties to animals because it requires the parties to the contract to enjoy rough physical and mental equality. Her interpretation of the social contract tradi­tion is unpersuasive; social contract theory requires only that the parties be equally free and deserving of moral consideration. Moreover, social contract theory is superior to her capabilities approach in that it allows us to limit the scope of the (...) community of justice to animals we are capable of recognizing as subjects of justice and with whom we have a political relationship. (shrink)

Woodger first gives a rough account of the "Boole-Frege" movement in modern logic and persuasively argues as to the importance of formalized language-systems for the methodology of science. Some of these arguments are as follows: A natural language such as English, he notes, "is not only used for purposes of communication in the scientific sense. It is also used for the writing of poetry, for religious devotion, for political controversy, and for persuading people to buy some of the products (...) of industrial activity which they would not otherwise want. But these pursuits make demands upon language which are very different from those made by science. The requirements of science prove on investigation to be quite surprisingly meagre and the excessive riches of a natural language like English are a source of embarrassment. They tempt us to employ linguistic devices borrowed from extra-scientific usages which can have unfortunate consequences. Metaphors, for example, with which some branches of biology abound, are often suggestive and may be harmless enough if they are recognized for what they are. But at best they are makeshifts and substitutes for genuine biological statements, and the fact that recourse is had to them is surely a sign of immaturity. Science demands great linguistic austerity and discipline, and the canons of good style in scientific writing are different from those of good writing in other kinds of literature." Another argument is that "sooner or later the linguistic habits of everyday life will cease to do justice to... the... increasing complexity and novelty of observation and hypothesis." A third argument is that scientific language is used not only for the purpose of communication, for recording observations, or for formulating general laws or hypotheses. It is also used for calculation and the unearthing of the consequences of our assumptions. The logic underlying a formalized language is explicitly designed to enable us to calculate easily and efficiently. The important, and now thoroughly established, methodological distinction between object-language and meta-language is blurred for natural language and is best maintained in terms of formalized language-systems. And, finally, in natural language the important distinction between syntax and semantics also tends to be blurred. "From both the syntactical and the semantical points of view natural languages are incredibly complicated and unruly. The rules of ordinary gram mar are quite insufficient from the standpoint of the requirements of science, and the problems connected with meaning and truth in relation to natural languages are enormously complicated and perhaps insoluble.". (shrink)

The strongest arguments for the permissibility of geoengineering (also known as climate engineering) rely implicitly on non-ideal theory—roughly, the theory of justice as applied to situations of partial compliance with principles of ideal justice. In an ideally just world, such arguments acknowledge, humanity should not deploy geoengineering; but in our imperfect world, society may need to complement mitigation and adaptation with geoengineering to reduce injustices associated with anthropogenic climate change. We interpret research proponents’ arguments as an application of (...) a particular branch of non-ideal theory known as “clinical theory.” Clinical theory aims to identify politically feasible institutions or policies that would address existing (or impending) injustice without violating certain kinds of moral permissibility constraints. We argue for three implications of clinical theory: First, conditional on falling costs and feasibility, clinical theory provides strong support for some geoengineering techniques that aim to remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. Second, if some kinds of carbon dioxide removal technologies are supported by clinical theory, then clinical theory further supports using those technologies to enable “overshoot” scenarios in which developing countries exceed the cumulative emissions caps that would apply in ideal circumstances. Third, because of tensions between political feasibility and moral permissibility, clinical theory provides only weak support for geoengineering techniques that aim to manage incoming solar radiation. (shrink)

The Israeli Supreme Court has become increasingly polarized between liberal and conservative judges. This phenomenon is relatively new to the Israeli Supreme Court and follows the much older and more well-known example of the U.S. Supreme Court. This article surveys both U.S. and Israeli court polarization and shows the history, reasons, and special features of polarization of both courts, including the important differences between them. It also adds a distinction to existing literature on court polarization—the distinction between court polarization and (...) politicization, and especially the distinction between “regular” polarization and “one-side” polarization. Regular court polarization happens when the court is divided roughly equally between the two main political contenders. One-side polarization happens when there is a clear advantage to one side of the political map in the make-up of the court. The current U.S. Supreme Court, with six conservative justices and only three liberal justices, is an example of one-side court polarization that is tilted to the right. The current Israeli Supreme Court is an example for one-side court polarization tilted to the left; there are 10 liberal judges and only five conservative judges on the court. The article’s main argument is that one-side court polarization presents a particularly vexing problem for the legitimacy of the court, even more so than “regular” polarization. The article concludes with a survey of possible solutions to help Israel retract itself from one-side court polarization. (shrink)