Equal Citizenship and Public Reason

This excellent book by Lori Watson and Christie Hartley—Equal Citizenship and Public Reason: A Feminist Political Liberalism—has been out for several months now. Anyone interested in liberal egalitarianism, feminism, and/or public reason should read it.  

Here is the description from the Oxford University Press website:

This book is a defense of political liberalism as a feminist liberalism. The first half of the book develops and defends a novel interpretation of political liberalism. It is argued that political liberals should accept a restrictive account of public reason and that political liberals' account of public justification is superior to the leading alternative, the convergence account of public justification. The view is defended from the charge that such a restrictive account of public reason will unduly threaten or undermine the integrity of some religiously oriented citizens and an account of when political liberals can recognize exemptions, including religious exemptions, from generally applicable laws is offered. In the second half of the book, it is argued that political liberalism's core commitments restrict all reasonable conceptions of justice to those that secure genuine, substantive equality for women and other marginalized groups. Here it is demonstrated how public reason arguments can be used to support law and policy needed to address historical sites of women's subordination in order to advance equality; prostitution, the gendered division of labor and marriage, in particular, are considered.

I should mention that Christie and Lori are good friends, and I commented on multiple drafts of many of the chapters in the book. Nonetheless, despite my partiality, I am confident that this book will come to be regarded as a key text in the development of political liberalism.

Conservative ‘intellectual’ gets ‘destroyed’

Watching squeaky sophist Ben Shapiro get ‘destroyed’ (doesn’t he normally to the ‘destroying’?) by Andrew Neil on the BBC made my day. (And, hilariously, Shapiro is so clueless that he charges über-Tory Neil with being a ‘Leftist’!)

Here’s a valid argument:

a. If Ben Shapiro represents the intellectual leadership of contemporary American Conservatism,

And

b. If the success of a political movement (e.g., contemporary American Conservatism) depends upon the philosophical cogency of the political views espoused by its intellectual leadership,

Then:

c. Contemporary American Conservatism is doomed.

Of course, while valid, the argument is unsound: premise ‘b’ is manifestly false. American Conservatism (or what is called that today) is thoroughly incoherent, and entirely motivated by a desire to enforce existing hierarchies (racial, gender, class, etc.) and relations of domination.

“Conservatives are not necessarily stupid, but most stupid people are conservatives…” (J.S. Mill)

AOC: Rawlsian?

Could John Rawls's conception of distributive justice -- 'justice as fairness' -- someday actually help shape public policy in the United States?

Perhaps ... if Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s proposal to tax income above 10 million USD at 70 percent is ever realized in law -- or so claims Micah Johnson at Slate.

(Alas, the article gets some things wrong, e.g., that Rawls was a defender of the 'welfare state'; he in fact favoured 'property-owning democracy'. And the 'egalitarian' objection it mentions is accommodated by the 'fair value' of the political liberties guarantee. Still, it's always nice to see justice as fairness mentioned in the popular press!)

Elizabeth Anderson: champion of relational egalitarianism

Looking for a stimulating article with which to start the new year? Try this New Yorker piece on the work and life of Elizabeth Anderson (the John Dewey Distinguished University Professor of Philosophy at the University of Michigan) by Nathan Heller.

I’ve mentioned Anderson’s important work here before. Her influence on my own research—especially her account of ‘relational equality’—has been enormous. Strangely, though, while Anderson was the Co-Chair of my dissertation committee at the University of Michigan, I have been far more influenced by her work post-PhD than I was while a graduate student. (The reason for this, I think, is that I only felt free to engage critically with her views once I had left the 'student-supervisor' relationship. This was my fault, I should emphasize, as she no doubt would’ve welcomed critical engagement with her work by graduate students.)

I do disagree with Anderson on some points. For instance, I remain critical of what I take to be her uncharitable characterization—and hence unfair criticism—of ‘ideal theory’ (as I explain in my chapter “Why Public Reasoning Involves Ideal Theorizing”.) But whatever disagreements I have with her are, so to speak, ‘minor quibbles’.

I’ve taught her criticisms of ‘luck egalitarianism’ and her arguments in favour of relational egalitarianism in many of my political philosophy courses over the years. And in my ‘political autonomy’ seminar last year I taught her book Private Government (which is mentioned towards the end of the article). Of all the works we discussed—including those by Rousseau and Rawls—this one generated the most intense discussions. No doubt part of the reason for this was that many of the students worked part-time—and hence were regularly subject to the arbitrary power of employers themselves.

Just Leisure?

Last summer I was asked by for The Forum (the LSE’s public philosophy website) to write up a shorter—and hopefully more readable—version of the argument from my recent Philosophical Studies article, ‘“The Kids are Alright”: political liberalism, leisure time, and childhood’. That essay—‘Just Leisure?’—was published a couple of months ago and is available to read here. I’m pretty happy with how it turned out, and am grateful to The Forum’s editor, Elizabeth Hannon, for all her help with it.

I also quite like the picture that she used for the essay:

Libertarianism = feudalism

Existential comics helpfully explains why libertarianism (of the sort endorsed by Robert Nozick in Anarchy, State, and Utopia) leads to (a kind of) feudalism...

[For a more academic explanation, read Samuel Freeman’s article “Why Libertarianism Is Not a Liberal View” (Philosophy and Public Affairs 30(2):105-151 (2001)).]

Ted Cruz: Master Debater

This post, “Owning the Peanut Gallery,” by Maria Farrell at the ‘Crooked Timber’ blog is well worth reading—especially by anyone who ever participated in university-level debating in North America. It is hilarious and does a great job in capturing what it was like to take part in university tournaments in the early 1990s, especially from the perspective of Canadian teams visiting the U.S. And of course any post that further illuminates the comprehensive awfulness of Ted Cruz is worthy of praise.

The post brought back my own memories of debating in Canada around the same time (I represented University College at University of Toronto). I recall going to tournaments at Yale and Harvard, and encountering Cruz (and Austan Goolsbee, and others), although—thankfully—I don’t recall ever debating Cruz myself.

(Nitpick: A friend points out that this claim in the post is incorrect: “We’re the highest ranked Canadian team at a US tournament, ever, at that point [1993].” A team from the University of Toronto made it to the finals at Harvard in 1992.)