In defence of departure: Justice and the right to leave

I have previously argued that liberal states are limited in the means by which they can respond to the emigration of skilled professionals. In particular, the right to leave is a right of sufficient strength that it must be defended even when its suspension would create more robust institutions for those in the state of origin. Against this, four critics offer arguments in favour of positions which – like those of Gillian Brock – would allow states more leeway in their legitimate policy options. These critics offer arguments from legitimate authority; from solidarity; from burden-sharing under non-ideal circumstances; and from gradualism in both the acquisition and dissolution of membership. In this paper, I defend my original view against these objections. I am grateful to these critics, as well as the other authors who have written in this volume.     

Leave or remain? European identification,legitimacy of European integration,and political attitudes towards the EU

In this paper, we look at the relationship between European identification and political support for (or opposition to) EU membership. First, we argue that conceptualizing political attitudes towards the EU as a direct product of European identification (a) neglects the distinction between the social reality of Europe and the political reality of the EU and (b) leads to psychological reductionism. We propose that the relationship should instead be conceptualized as mediated by legitimacy perceptions and as moderated by social‐level variables. Second, we look at three spheres of European integration and propose that their perceived legitimacy is appraised through the following principles: (a) normative solidarity for wealth sharing, (b) political authority for sharing political decisions, and (c) collective self‐realization for the sharing of practices. We illustrate the key mediating role of those principles by drawing on data from a survey ran across five European countries. Third, we argue that these meditational relationships are in turn moderated by social, political, and ideological realities and illustrate this point by looking at the case of United Kingdom in the context of the EU membership referendum. We point to an ideological assumption in the U.K. political landscape about the illegitimacy of EU supranational decision making and argue that this contributed to shape both the debate of the referendum campaign and its result.     

Two (Weak) Cheers for Markets in Votes

This paper offers the first moral defense of markets in votes in a democratic electoral system based on majority rule where there are no moral restrictions on how votes can be cast. In Part 1 I outline the type of vote buying that I defend in this paper, and defend my methodological assumption. In Part 2 I criticize Freiman’s arguments for legalizing vote buying (arguments that do not address its morality). In Part 3 I outline and reply to some responses that could be made to my criticisms of Freiman’s arguments. In Part 4 I draw from the flaws in Freiman’s arguments to argue that vote buying is morally permissible and defend these arguments against objections.     

Private Solidarity

It’s natural to think of acts of solidarity as being public acts that aim at good outcomes, particularly at social change. I argue that not all acts of solidarity fit this mold - acts of what I call ‘private solidarity’ are not public and do not aim at producing social change. After describing paradigmatic cases of private solidarity, I defend an account of why such acts are themselves morally virtuous and what role they can have in moral development.     

CHURCH UNDER LEVIATHAN

Political philosophers have long disagreed on the issue of whether churches should exercise restraint in the appeal to religious reasons in public discussion and political mobilization. Exclusivists defend the restraint, whereas inclusivists reject it. Both sides, however, assume the existence of a democratic government. In this essay, I discuss whether churches should exercise restraint in a non‐democratic, authoritarian society. I defend inclusivism and believe that churches should not restrain themselves, especially when doing so can promote democracy and prevent severe injustices. First, I argue that two exclusivist arguments which justify the restraint cannot be applied in an authoritarian society. Second, I defend inclusivism because religious reasons are effective in cultivating active citizens that strengthen the democratic movement. Finally, I use the Umbrella Movement in Hong Kong as an example to show how inclusivism can enhance democratic movements under authoritarianism.     

Nationality: Some Replies

This paper defends the principle of nationality against a number of critical objections made in recent issues of the Journal . It starts from the claim that national solidarity has served and continues to serve as an essential support to liberal democratic institutions and practices of social justice. Such national allegiances are not easy to defend if one begins from a cosmopolitan standpoint. But defending them does not mean embracing everything that people ordinarily believe — a political philosophy that begins from existing national sentiments can be sharply critical of the practices that are said to embody those sentiments. In particular justice, although its principles are context-dependent, is more than merely subjective.
The idea that nations are historic communities is defended against the charge that such 'communities' are in fact divided along lines of class, ethnicity, etc. Membership imposes obligations, but these are not merely to repeat what our ancestors have done; they are redefined in each generation. A principle of nationality that is reiterative and democratic, recognising the equal claims of other nations, and giving priority to the way the present inhabitants of a territory understand their identity, can remedy weaknesses in liberalism without licensing aggressive forms of nationalism.     

Politics,democratic action,and solidarity

I agree with the critique of rationalism proposed by Spinosa, Flores, and Dreyfus in ‘Disclosing New Worlds’. Today the defence of democracy requires us to understand that allegiance to democratic institutions can only rest on identification with the practices, the language‐games, and the discourses which are constitutive of the democratic ‘form of life’, and that it is not a question of providing them with a rational justification. My comments are developed in two directions. First, as a development of their thesis concerning the centrality of practices, I suggest that in order to grasp the present crisis of democratic forms of individuality we can learn a lot from Nietzsche's analysis of ‘nihilism’. Second, I point to a dimension which I consider to be missing in the perspective put forward in the article. It fails to take account of the fact that the constitution of a ‘we’ always requires the determination of a ‘them’. This, in my view, has important consequences for the relation between solidarity and politics. I conclude by arguing for the need to introduce an agonistic element in the view of solidarity, and for the crucial role of the category of the adversary in a pluralist democracy whose aim is to transform antagonism into agonism.     

Les effets du soutien organisationnel,de la qualité de la relation leader membre et du soutien social sur l’engagement et les comportements de citoyenneté organisationnelle : le rôle modérateur de la pauvreté subjective

The purpose of this research was to determine whether perceived organizational support, leader membership exchange and social solidarity were related to employee commitment to the organization and to organizational citizenship behavior. A survey questionnaire measuring the relevant variables was sent to 276 employees from 3 organizations. The results of the study indicate that perceived organizational support, leader membership exchange and social solidarity were positively associated with affective organizational commitment and organizational citizenship behavior. Perceived organizational support is more strongly related to organizational citizenship behavior when poverty is low.     

Autonomy, Liberalism, and Anti-Perfectionism

John Christman has recently objected to substantive conceptions of autonomy on the grounds that they introduce unwanted perfectionism into political thinking. I defend substantive conceptions of autonomy against Christman’s critique on two fronts. First, I defend substantive conceptions of autonomy against the charge that their utilisation in political theory would result in the inappropriate exclusion from democratic respect of individuals in oppressive relations. Second, I defend substantive conceptions of autonomy from the charge that they fail the ‘endorsement constraint’, i.e. that incorporating a substantive conception of autonomy into the concept of the person at the heart of a political theory would be alienating for citizens.     

A Typology of Ideological Attitudes Towards Social Solidarity and Social Control

Research on ideological attitudes has identified two main dimensions that refer to two fundamental features of group organization: social solidarity and social control. In response to prior research that has studied their relationship mainly from a correlational perspective, this paper introduces a social reality model based on psychological functionality of ideological attitudes. Social position variables (education, income and material vulnerability) and insecurity variables (fear of crime and distrust) are used to predict the interplay between ideological attitudes towards social solidarity and social control. Using K‐means cluster analysis, a typology with four patterns of support for solidarity and control (‘socials’, ‘repressives’, ‘minimalists’ and ‘social‐repressives’) was created, on the basis of representative survey data for the UK, France and Germany (N = 7034). Results from logistic regression analyses show that the proposed social reality model explains membership in typology categories, with similar results across the three countries. Overall, the model underscores the social origins of ideological attitudes as functional responses to perceived social reality. The paper illustrates how the social psychological study of ideological attitudes may be enriched by a typological approach that examines patterns of attitudes rather than single dimensions. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Dead People and the All-Affected Principle

Discussions of the all-affected principle as a solution to the boundary problem – how do we specify the group making democratic decisions? – have focused extensively on future people. We have yet to focus on dead people, however. This article tries to bridge this gap by arguing that the all-affected principle – i.e. the all actually affected interests principle – entails inclusion of dead people. This is true because dead people can be harmed or legally affected, and this is sufficient for having a claim to democratic inclusion. The last part of the article discusses where this leaves the all-affected principle in the quest for the proper boundary principle, including a discussion of possible institutional solutions to the enfranchisement of dead people.     

Liberalism and Democracy Revisited

In JAP 9 (1992) Gordon Graham argued that liberals cannot be counted on to support democratic institutions since there are no conceptual or strongly contingent links between democracy and liberal ideals. This paper responds to Graham's challenge by claiming that his model of liberal aristocracy is not liberal in several respects. In particular, the liberal should recognise a right to democratic participation which individuals may plausibly claim as an element in a respectable conception of how to live well. The right to democratic participation is shown to stand alongside other important liberal ideals which may be justified in this fashion, e.g. freedom of religious worship and freedom of association. Furthermore, I argue against those who claim that political participation enacts delusory aspirations that the rights which are promoted and protected within a democratic constitution are necessary for both individual and collective autonomy — and so the liberal should defend them.     

The political solidarity model of social change: dynamics of self-categorization in intergroup power relations

Social and political change involves a challenge to the status quo in intergroup power relations. Traditionally, the social psychology of social change has focused on disadvantaged minority groups collectively challenging the decisions, actions, and policies of those in positions of established authority. In contrast, this article presents a political solidarity model of social change that explores the process by which members of the majority challenge the authority in solidarity with the minority. It is argued that political solidarity as a social change process involves a contest between the authority and the minority over the meaning of a shared (higher order) identity with the majority. When identity ceases to be shared with the authority and becomes shared with the minority, majority challenge to authority in solidarity with the minority becomes possible. The model's contributions to existing social psychological approaches to social change are also discussed.     

Family Ties, Living Arrangement, and Marital Satisfaction

This study investigates the role of strong family ties in the decisions of living arrangement and intergenerational transfer as well as their effects on marital satisfaction in Taiwan where cultural traditions emphasize more familial interest and filial obligations. Even though the rapid economic and democratic developments have led to many adjustments in family structure, this study’s findings suggest that intergenerational relationship still strongly affects the level of marital satisfaction for married children. The strength of family ties is positively correlated with the possibilities of intergenerational co-residence and resource transfer. However, the positive effect of intergenerational co-residence on marital satisfaction is relatively more apparent for married individuals when they live with their own fathers. The influences of strong family ties tend to take place along male lineage under the structure of a patrilineal family.     

Organizing Muslim Virtue: Community Organizing,Comparative Religious Ethics,and the South African Muslim Struggle Against Apartheid

While offering valuable comparative insights into models of the self and ethical formation across religious traditions, studies of virtue ethics have been critiqued for putting forward accounts which are elite-focused. Some comparative ethicists have pointed to work in religious ethics and political theology on faith-based community organizing as offering compelling case studies of non-elite ethical formation. I seek to add to this literature by performing an analysis of the theories and practices of ethical formation in the South African Muslim anti-apartheid grassroots organization known as the “Call of Islam.” The “Call of Islam” emphasized a liberation-oriented praxis and active solidarity with non-Muslim organizations for the purposes of protesting apartheid and employed a range of social practices including study circles (halaqat) and political funeral processions to prepare and equip its members for such work. As such, it not only sheds light on non-elite ethical formation, but in its cultivation of the habits and dispositions of democratic solidarity, it also serves as an Islamic example of broad-based community organizing.     

‘An Association for All’—Notions of the Meaning of Autistic Self‐Advocacy Politics within a Parent‐Dominated Autistic Movement

In this paper, we seek to explore the tensions between advocacy and self advocacy autistic movements in a Swedish context with a special focus on the meanings that enable the production of particular understandings of autism and the autistic subject. Drawing on articles written for the Swedish advocacy magazine Empowerment written for and by people with autism, the discourse analysis explores two competing discourses: a reformist and a radical. The reformist discourse underlines a goal of (political) representation expressed in Empowerment. It may be understood as an important part of producing a legitimate autistic political subject–positioned as a full member, with a full membership–within a parent‐dominated autistic advocacy movement. The reformist discourse can be viewed as a result of a negotiation, where full membership is conditioned on the parents' terms and granted on specific terms. These include working together (neuro‐inclusively), advocacy based on interest rather than identity/position as a specific target/member group, agreement upon a definition of autism as a disability (a deficit) a person has rather than an identity. In relation to this, an alternative legitimate autistic subject is produced through invoking the counter‐hegemonic radical discourse. Such a narrative produces the ‘Asperger’ or ‘Aspie’. Here, the ‘full membership’ refers to a sense of identification with sense of belonging to and being at home with other people with autism. It contains a certain amount of autistic solidarity within the group of adults with autism. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

On ‘disclosing new worlds’

The framework presented by Spinosa, Flores, and Dreyfus (henceforth SFD) centres on a new view of entrepreneurship. This sees the entrepreneur not simply as the instrumentally rational agent of economic maximization, but as someone committed to new modes of practice. This rescues the entrepreneur from the misleading stereotype which both right and left have conspired to accredit in our society. It allows us to see that there is more than one type of entrepreneur, and it defines one which is potentially very benign in democratic society (and also social‐democratic societies). SFD propose to see political initiative‐taking in democratic societies as analogous to this kind of entrepreneurship, and they extend their analysis to deal with the maintenance and fostering of solidarity. The framework is very illuminating for the first case, and partially, although less so, for the second.     

Constructivism in the Age of Trump: Truth,Lies, and Knowing the Difference

Donald Trump lies so often that some have wondered whether he has poisoned the well. Can we continue to defend the constructivism of relational psychoanalysis, with its emphasis on interpretive understanding? Might it not be claimed that this is actually the very approach Trump himself takes? Does an openness to interpretive understanding allow anybody to just say anything, as Trump does? Would our views perhaps be more justified and defensible, and give less shelter to the world’s liars, if we shifted to a reliance on objectivism and its advocacy of “facts?” I say no. I take the point of view, drawing illustrations from the news of the months just before this presentation was delivered (June 2018), that the crucial democratic influence of constructivism not only persists when despotic leaders lie in order to enforce their agendas, it is actually magnified under circumstances like those we face now.     

Ethics, Academic Freedom and Academic Tenure

Universities can and have existed without academic freedom and academic tenure. But academic freedom is necessary for a university dedicated to the pursuit of knowledge in a democratic society. Both academic freedom and academic tenure are not only rights but also carry with them moral obligations. Furthermore academic tenure is the best defense of academic freedom that American universities have found. Academic tenure can be successfully defended from the many contemporary attacks to which it is being subjected only insofar as it is necessary to defend academic freedom, and only if all involved in the system of tenure observe the ethical requirements that the system demands.     

Political Legitimacy,the Egalitarian Challenge,and Democracy

This article argues against the claim that democracy is a necessary condition of political legitimacy. Instead, I propose a weaker set of conditions. First, I explain the case for the necessity of democracy. This is that only democracy can address the ‘egalitarian challenge’, i.e. ‘if we are all equal, why should only some of us wield political power?’. I show that if democracy really is a necessary condition of political legitimacy, then (what I label) the problems of domestic justice and of international legitimacy become intractable. I then argue that the egalitarian challenge is addressed where the requirements of (1) horizontal equality, (2) acceptable vertical inequality, and (3) publicity, are met and where (4) citizens have some institutionalized opportunity for a voice in decisions. I show that these conditions can be realized in non‐democratic form and conclude by explaining how the four conditions can be employed to make the problems of domestic justice and of international legitimacy more tractable. Overall, my ambitions are limited. I do not offer an all‐things‐considered case against democracy but I do show that (some) forms of non‐democratic government are permissible.