John Rawls and the Social Minimum

ABSTRACT Welfare states are often urged to secure a social minimum for citizens—a level of material well-being beneath which no-one should be permitted to fall. This paper examines the justification for such a claim. It begins by criticising John Rawls's rejection of the social minimum approach to justice in A Theory of Justice : the argument Rawls uses to justify the Difference Principle, based on what he calls 'the strains of commitment' in the 'original position', actually provides a better justification for a social minimum principle. The paper then examines the substance of that argument outside the context of Rawls's contractarianism, showing that there is a general case for seeing to it that desperate need does not go unmet in a liberal society.     

Breaking the Rules When Others Do

People often speak as if the behaviour of others is relevant to the question of whether they are justified in violating a rule. This paper explores three lines of argument which might be used to justify rule violation on grounds appealing to what others do. The appeal to self-defence as a justification does not succeed, since it must expand the concept to involve a cumbersome weighing of harms. The argument that complying with a rule may involve too great a sacrifice in some cases needs to be developed by an account of when a sacrifice is morally significant. It is tempting, but problematic, to do this by weighing consequences of individual acts. An alternative approach is to argue that the behaviour of others is sometimes relevant to determining what rule is actually functioning in some context as a part of a particular moral system.     

Against a “Combined Liability-Lesser-Evil Justification”

Philosophia - Jeff McMahan has recently proposed what he calls a “combined liability-lesser-evil justification.” Its core idea is that the fact that someone has no right against the...     

Assassination and Targeted Killing: Law Enforcement,Execution or Self‐Defence?

abstract   During the current round of fighting in the Middle East, Israel has provoked considerable controversy as it turned to targeted killings or assassination to battle militants. While assassination has met with disfavour among traditional observers, commentators have, more recently, sought to justify targeted killings with an appeal to both self-defence and law enforcement. While each paradigm allows the use of lethal force, they are fundamentally incompatible, the former stipulating moral innocence and the latter demanding the presumption of criminal guilt. Putting aside the paradigm of law enforcement which demands due process and forbids extra-judicial execution, the only possible avenue for justifying named killings lies in self-defence. While named killings might be defensible on the grounds that there are no other ways to disable combatants when they fight without uniforms, the costs, including the cost of targeted killing emerging as an acceptable convention in its own right, should be sufficient to view the practice with a good deal of caution.     

Self-Determination, Wellbeing, and Threats of Harm

David Rodin argues that the right of national‐defence as conceived in international law cannot be grounded in the end of defending the lives of individuals. Firstly, having this end is not necessary because there is a right of defence against an invasion that threatens no lives. However, in this context we are to understand that ‘defending lives’ includes defending against certain non‐lethal threats. I will argue that threats to national‐self determination and self‐government are significant non‐lethal threats to the wellbeing of individuals that can justify lethal defensive force. Therefore the end of defending individuals can ground a right of national‐defence against a ‘bloodless invasion’. Secondly, Rodin argues that defending lives is not a sufficient condition for military action to be national self‐defence, because humanitarian intervention is military action to defend individuals, and such action is in deep tension with national self‐defence. I will argue that a reductive account, grounded in claims of need and threats of harm, can justify principles of both intervention and non‐intervention on the same grounds; that is, protecting the wellbeing of individuals.     

Tensions in a Certain Conception of Just War as Law Enforcement

Many just war theorists (call them traditionalists) claim that just as people have a right to personal self-defense, so nations have a right to national-defense against an aggressive military invasion. David Rodin claims that the traditionalist is unable to justify most defensive wars against aggression. For most aggressive states only commit conditional aggression in that they threaten to kill or maim the citizens of the nation they are invading only if those citizens resist the occupation. Most wars, then, claimed to be justified by the traditionalist fail to meet the proportionality criterion. Thus, a just war, for Rodin, is best conceived of as a punitive war of law enforcement, not as a war of national-defense. I argue that Rodin does not have a case against the traditionalist. If national-defense is a disproportionate response to conditional aggression, then punitive war is a disproportionate response as well. Furthermore, the belief that punitive war is a proportionate response to conditional aggression underscores the traditionalist’s view that self-determination, cultural identity and the like are of sufficient value to defend by means of lethal force. I end the paper by very briefly sketching an account, different from that of Rodin’s, of how individual nations can be justified in waging wars of law enforcement.

Unnatural Access

Jordi Fernández has recently offered an interesting account of introspective justification according to which the very states that (subjectively) justify one's first-order belief that p justify one's second-order belief that one believes that p. I provide two objections to Fernandez's account.     

Epistemic Elitism and Other Minds

Experiences justify beliefs about our environment. Sometimes the justification is immediate: seeing a red light immediately justifies believing there is a red light. Other times the justification is mediate: seeing a red light justifies believing one should brake in a way that is mediated by background knowledge of traffic signals. How does this distinction map onto the distinction between what is and what isn't part of the content of experience? Epistemic egalitarians think that experiences immediately justify whatever is part of their content. Epistemic elitists deny this and think that there is some further constraint the contents of experience must satisfy to be immediately justified. Here I defend epistemic elitism, propose a phenomenological account of what the further constraint is, and explore the resulting view's consequences for our knowledge of other minds, and in particular for perceptual theories of this knowledge.     

Self-defence and Forcing the Choice between Lives

ABSTRACT In the standard case of justifiable killing in self-defence one agent without provocation tries to kill a second agent and the second agent's only way to avoid death is to kill his attacker. It is widely accepted that such killings in self-defence are morally justifiable, but it has proved difficult to show why this is so. Recently, Montague has put forward an account in terms of forcing a choice between lives, and Teichman has propounded a quasi-Hobbesian rights-based account of self-defence. I argue that neither Montague nor Teichman has succeeded in providing an adequate justification for killing in self-defence.     

Positism: The Unexplored Solution to the Epistemic Regress Problem

As we trace a chain of reasoning backward, it must ultimately do one of four things: (i) end in an unjustified belief, (ii) continue infinitely, (iii) form a circle, or (iv) end in an immediately justified basic belief. This article defends positism—the view that, in certain circumstances, type‐(i) chains can justify us in holding their target beliefs. One of the assumptions that generates the epistemic regress problem is: (A) Person S is mediately justified in believing p iff (1) S has a doxastic reason q for p and (2) S is justified in believing q. Assumption (A) presupposes that reasoning is only justification transmitting, not justification generating. The article rejects (A) and argues that, in certain circumstances, reasoning itself is justification generating, even if that from which one is reasoning is not itself justified. It concludes by comparing positism with its infinitist, coherentist, and foundationalist rivals, acknowledging what is right about these other views.     

Contagious Disease and Self-Defence

This paper gives a self-defence account of the scope and limits of the justified use of compulsion to control contagious disease. It applies an individualistic model of self-defence for state action and uses it to illuminate the constraints on public health compulsion of proportionality and using the least restrictive alternative. It next shows how a self-defence account should not be rejected on the basis of past abuses. The paper then considers two possible limits to a self-defence justification: compulsion of the non-culpable and over-inclusive compulsion. The paper claims that objections to compelling the non-culpable do not greatly restrict the scope of the self-defence justification. The over-included are, however, innocent bystanders, and methods such as compulsory quarantine, vaccination, and screening are not justified in self-defence. I am grateful to Julian Lamont, Jeff McMahan and Debbie Tseung for their help with this paper. An earlier version was given at the School of Public Health, the University of Texas at Houston; the Auckland Regional Public Health Service; and a conference at the School of Population Health, the University of Auckland. My thanks to the audiences for their comments.     

From Conceptual Analysis to Serious Metaphysics

Abstract

Habermas’s recent work in epistemology has been marked by a decisive rejection of his earlier epistemic conception of truth in which he understood truth as ‘what may be accepted as rational under ideal conditions’. Arguing that no ‘idealization of justificatory conditions’ can do justice to both human fallibility and the unconditional nature of truth, he has attempted to develop a realistic conception of truth that severs any conceptual link between truth and justification while respecting the epistemic relevance of justification for ascertaining the truth. But realizing this second goal has proved elusive for Habermas because he veers too close to a form of metaphysical realism in his epistemology. By contrast, Hilary Putnam’s recent turn to what he calls ‘natural realism’ is more successful in articulating a form of realism that, in taking its leave of an epistemic conception of truth, still manages to keep its distance from metaphysical realism.     

A moral justification for killing in self-defence

In the first part of this paper I will argue that for a case to be one of killing in self-defence at least the following three important conditions need to be met: (i) the defender's death must seem to him/her to be imminent; (ii) there must be a choice forced upon the defender between being killed or killing his/her attacker; (iii) the responsibility for (i) and (ii) must be the attacker's. I go on to point out that a lethal use of force which meets conditions (i)—(iii) is thought by most people to be morally permissible. However we believe also that everyone has the right to life and this cannot be taken away under any circumstances. But if this is so, how can we justify one person intentionally killing another? Or to put the point differently: what, in our moral assessment of such cases, are we to claim an attacker has done that is so morally wrong we are prepared to argue that if one of them has to be killed, it is the attacker? I hope to answer this question in the second part of my paper by developing a strand of ethical thought, associated with Kant.     

系统合理化何以形成——三种不同的解释视角

系统合理化理论认为, 人们会自然地将其所在的社会系统感知为公平合理的, 这一倾向即系统合理化。而系统合理化形成之原因, 一直是该领域理论和研究关注的重点。为此, 研究者先后提出了三种解释思路。认知失调视角认为, 系统合理化之所以产生是因为个体想要缓解因系统无法满足他们的需求而产生的焦虑。补偿性控制视角认为, 系统合理化源于个体自身控制感的缺乏。社会认知视角则认为人们固有的认知倾向特别是对于社会经济差异的内归因倾向是造成系统合理化的根源。未来可以考虑在同一个研究中包含来自于不同理论视角的解释变量, 借鉴相近领域的发现探索其他可能存在的系统合理化的形成机制, 探究中国文化特有的系统合理化的来源, 同时对积极的合理化与消极的合理化作出区分, 并在此基础上针对社会现实问题加强应用研究的开展。     

Experience and the Space of Reasons: The Problem of Non-Doxastic Justification

It is not difficult to make sense of the idea that beliefs may derive their justification from other beliefs. Difficulties surface when, as in certain epistemological theories, one appeals to sensory experiences to give an account of the structure of justification. This gives rise to the so-called problem of ‘nondoxastic justification’, namely, the problem of seeing how sensory experiences can confer justification on the beliefs they give rise to. In this paper, I begin by criticizing a number of theories that are currently on offer. Finding them all wanting, I shall then offer a diagnosis of why they fail while gesturing towards a promising way of resolving the dispute. It will be argued that what makes the problem of nondoxastic justification a hard one is the difficulty of striking the right balance between a notion of normative justification that is content-sensitive and truth conducive and the possibility of error while acknowledging the fact that our experiences can justify our beliefs in cases we are hallucinating.

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Why be my colleague’s keeper? Moral justifications for peer review

Justifying ethical practices is no easy task. This paper considers moral justifications for peer review so as to persuade even the sceptical individualist. Two avenues provide a foundation for that justification: self-interest (the right behaviour is that which maximally serves one’s own interests) and social contract theory (the right behaviour is that which best meets obligations set in binding social contracts). A wider notion of “interest” permits the self-interest approach to justify not only submitting one’s own work to peer review but also removing oneself momentarily from the production of primary knowledge to serve as a rigorous, independent, and honest referee. The contract approach offers a non-selfish alternative and relies on four types of binding social contracts: those implicit in accepting funds, those implicit in asserted professional status, those to contribute what is of most value to society, and those to defend the ideals of the Academy. Efforts to restore respect for rigorous, independent, honest peer review should begin in earnest.     

A Deterrence Theory of Punishment

I start from the presupposition that the use of force against another is justified only in self-defence or in defence of others against aggression. If so, the main work of justifying punishment must rely on its deterrent effect, since most punishments have no other significant self-defensive effect. It has often been objected to the deterrent justification of punishment that it commits us to using offenders unacceptably, and that it is unable to deliver acceptable limits on punishment. I describe a sort of deterrent theory which can avoid both of these objections.     

Left–right ideological differences in system justification following exposure to complementary versus noncomplementary stereotype exemplars

The capacity for victim‐derogating stereotypes and attributions to justify social inequality and maintain the status quo is well known among social scientists and other observers. Research conducted from the perspective of system justification theory suggests that an alternative to derogation is to justify inequality through the use of complementary stereotypes that ascribe compensating benefits and burdens to disadvantaged and advantaged groups, respectively. In two experimental studies conducted in Poland we investigated the hypothesis that preferences for these two routes to system justification would depend upon one's political orientation. That is, we predicted that the system‐justifying potential of complementary versus noncomplementary stereotype exemplars would be moderated by individual differences in left–right ideology, such that left‐wingers would exhibit stronger support for the societal status quo following exposure to complementary (e.g., “poor but happy,” “rich but miserable”) representations, whereas right‐wingers would exhibit stronger support for the status quo following exposure to noncomplementary (e.g., “poor and dishonest,” “rich and honest”) representations. Results were supportive of these predictions. Implications for theory and practice concerning stereotyping, ideology, and system justification are discussed. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The Place of Rawls in Political and Ethical Theory

The work of John Rawls is central to contemporary political philosophy. A Theory of Justice provides a model for the justification of substantive principles of justice, and it defends principles that reject utilitarianism. Ultimately, justification is a matter of what the participants in a relationship or an institution can justify to one another. Unlike utilitarianism, which assumes that there is one good that it is the job of morality to maximize, Rawls holds that there are multiple conceptions of the good associated with different individuals. Furthermore, he holds that there are multiple principles of morality associated with different relationships and institutions. His principles of justice are designed for one of these—the basic structure of society. They establish a moral minimum that all members of a society owe to one another, but additional principles are required to govern other special relationships.     

Does Doxastic Justification Have a Basing Requirement?

The distinction between propositional and doxastic justification is the distinction between having justification to believe that P (= propositional justification) versus having a justified belief in P (= doxastic justification). The focus of this paper is on doxastic justification and on what conditions are necessary for having it. In particular, I challenge the basing demand on doxastic justification, i.e. the idea that one can have a doxastically justified belief only if one's belief is based on an epistemically appropriate reason. This demand has been used to refute versions of coherentism and conservatism about perceptual justification, as well as to defend phenomenal ‘conservatism’ and other views besides. In what follows, I argue that there is virtually no reason to think there is a basing demand on doxastic justification. I also argue that, even if the basing demand were true, it would still fail to serve the dialectical purposes for which it has been employed in arguments concerning coherentism, conservatism, and phenomenal ‘conservatism’. I conclude by discussing the fact that knowledge has a basing demand and I show why this needn't raise the same sort of problems for coherentism and conservatism that doxastic justification's basing demand seemed to raise.