Research
My research investigates how citizens should respond to state injustices. Under that general theme I have written on various topics.
The Ethics of Violent Protest
My current research project concerns the appropriate response of citizens to state injustices. I am particularly interested in the question of whether oppressed citizens may resort to violent protest against their state, and how should unjust states respond to citizens who resort to such violence. I am now working on a book manuscript titled 'No Justice No Peace: in Defence of Violent Protests' (under contract with Oxford University Press).
In 2019-20 I was a Rockefeller Visiting Faculty Fellow at Princeton University's Center for Human Values to work on this project.
Here are some of my selected publications on this topic (see a full list of publications in my CV):
‘Criminal Justice, Restorative Justice and the Moral Standing of Unjust States’ (with Jeff Howard) The Journal of Political Philosophy (2021, Online First).
Political Riots - A Moral Assessment Philosophy and Public Affairs 2019
you can hear me talking about this project here: philosophy247.org/podcasts/riots/
You can read my Ethics of War and Peace blog piece about the Hong Kong protest here
Collective Responsibility in the State
A central question I am interested in concerns the collective responsibility of citizens for their state’s unjust policies: we commonly hold states responsible for their wrongdoings, and demand that they pay compensations to their victims. But when the state pay compensations to its victims, it turns to its citizens to finance the expenditure. Is it justified that the citizens of democratic and nondemocratic states pay for their state's wrongdoings?
My recently published book, Responsible Citizens Irresponsible States: Should Citizens Pay for Their State's Wrongdoings? is available now at OUP Press.
You can read about it in LSE EUROPP and in OUPBlog
Some of my other publications on this topic:
Sanctioning Liberal Democracies Political Studies 2009.
The paper builds the case for international sanctions on liberal democracies that violate democratic norms. The argument is made from a 'nationalist' standpoint, which recognises the moral status of political communities. I suggest that nationalists have strong reasons to support sanctions on unjust liberal democracies by other liberal democracies. the purpose of the sanctions would be to protect and reinforce the shared values of the community of liberal democracies in the world.
click here a thread on this paper in Crooked Timber.
The Distributive Effect of Collective Punishment in R. Vernon and T. Issacs (eds.) Accountability for Collective Wrongdoing (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2011)
The paper addresses one of the major moral problems that collective punishment raises, namely, the adverse impact that the punishment of a group has on it individual members. It seeks to define the different ways in which collective sanctions can be distributed between group members, and to assess the relative normative merits and demerits of these different distributions. This investigation contributes to our assessment of the moral permissibility and the limits of collective punishment.
The Collective Responsibility of Democratic Publics Canadian Journal of Philosophy 2011.
Are democratic peoples collectively morally responsible (CMR) for their governments’ unjust policies? Many would object that: (a) democratic peoples are not institutionalised groups, so fail to qualify as collective moral agents; and (b) the people cannot be morally responsible for decisions made only indirectly by their government. In response I: (a) develop an account of collective agency which includes semi-structured groups, like democratic peoples; and (b) offer a typology of democratic representation that identifies those democratic models where a people is more likely to affect governmental decisions. I conclude that democratic peoples are CMR only in specific and rare circumstances.
Sharing the Costs of Political Injustice Politics Philosophy Economics 2011.
It is commonly thought that democratic states who act wrongly are responsible for remedying the harm they caused. However, since states are collective agents, their financial burdens pass on to their individual citizens. HOw should these burdens be distributed between citizens? The paper identifies two opposing models for distributing collective responsibility in democracies: in proportion to citizens’ personal association with the collective injustice, or giving an equal share of the burden to each citizen. It then evaluates both models, and builds an argument for equal distribution.
Limiting States’ Corporate Responsibility The Journal of Political Philosophy 2013.
States are usually considered to be collective agents and responsible for their polices. But when states are held corporately responsible, their individual citizens end up paying the price. This ‘trickle down effect’ of corporate responsibility is particularly troubling for states, because of their non-voluntary nature. This paper examines the conditions under which states’ corporate responsibility can be justified, despite their non-voluntary nature. I reject attempts to tie states’ corporate responsibility to democratic procedures. Instead, using recent accounts of collective action, I argue that citizens should share their state’s liability if they are ‘intentional members’. The test for ‘intentional membership’ is not the presence of democratic institutions, but rather whether the state respects its citizens’ human rights.
The Impact of Corporate Tasks Responsibilities: A Comparison of Two Models Midwest Studies in Philosophy 2014.
In recent years, there is a growing consensus in the literature around the ‘corporate agency thesis’ – the view that structured groups can qualify as moral agents in themselves, and may be held morally responsibility for their actions (in the sense of being blamed or praised), and also be assigned forward-looking responsibilities, such as duties of compensation or remedial duties. However, group agents’ task responsibilities are likely to have a ‘trickledown effect’ on individuals in the world, most commonly their members. To what extent is this trickledown effect normatively worrying, and under what circumstances may it be justified? The paper draws attention to two conceptually distinct ways in which this question has been addressed in recent literature. The first answer focuses on the effect on individuals as members of the group. The second answer focuses on the 'side effects' of corporate responsibility on individuals as third parties. These conceptual differences ground further differences both in the nature and scope of justification of the impact of corporate responsibility.
From Corporate Moral Agency to Corporate Moral Rights Law and Ethics of Human Rights 2017.
Recent literature suggests that organisational entities, such as states and business corporations, can qualify as moral agents. Does it follow that, as members of our moral community, group agents are entitled to moral protections? This article explores the connection between groups’ moral agency and moral rights. I argue that corporate moral agency does not, in itself, ground a group’s claim for moral protections. Nevertheless, a group agent can be entitled to derivative moral rights protections, which attach to the group itself but are grounded in the interests of individuals, such as the group’s members. Furthermore, the agential status of a group helps to identify which rights can attach to it, given its moral agency. One such moral agency related right is a right not to be morally subverted. This right generates a duty for the group agent’s members to ensure that its decision-making process incorporates sound moral reasoning. The final part of the article applies these conclusions to recent debates on the rights of states. I argue that, as moral agents, states have a moral right not to be morally subverted. It follows that citizens have a pro tanto duty, directed at their state, not to engage in political activities that would subvert its moral powers..
Benefitting from Injustice
I have also written on the question of wrongful benefits and whether citizens who benefit from their state’s wrongdoings have special obligations to their victims. My work on this question appeared in Law and Philosophy and in The Journal of Moral Philosophy and I edited a special issue in the Journal of Applied Philosophy on the duties that fall on beneficiaries from wrongdoing.
Fair Play and Wrongful Benefits The Journal of Moral Philosophy 2017
According to the fair play defence of political obligations citizens have a reciprocity-based duty to share the costs involved in the production of public goods. But sometimes, states produce collective goods through wrongdoing. For example, sometimes states’ wrongful immigration policies can contribute to the welfare of their own populations. Do citizens have duties of reciprocity in light of such wrongful benefits? I argue that the answer to this question is negative. Drawing on the observation that beneficiaries of wrongdoing incur compensatory duties to the victims of that wrongdoing, I argue that, rather than having a duty of reciprocity for wrongful benefits, citizens have a duty to disgorge the benefits in compensation. Furthermore, the fair play defence of political obligations entails that citizens can be justified in disobeying the law in order to comply with their compensatory duties to victims of their state’s wrongdoing.
Intending to Benefit from Wrongdoing (with Robert Goodin) Politics, Philosophy Economics, 2016
Can it ever be wrong to benefit from the wrongdoing of someone else, if you did nothing to assist in that wrongdoing? One way, not previously noticed, is by intending to benefit from that wrongdoing. You might have committed a wrongful doing in forming such an intention. You might be worthy of some blame for that wrongful doing, even if as it subsequently transpires there was nothing you could have done to avoid benefiting from the other person's wrongdoing. This observation has important implication for the recent debate on the duties of beneficiaries from the wrongdoing of others. Some believe that the mere beneficiaries of wrongdoing ought to disgorge their tainted benefits. Others deny that claim. Both sides of this debate concentrate on unavoidable beneficiaries of the wrongdoing of others, which are presumed to be innocent themselves, by virtue of the fact they have not contributed to the wrong nor can avoid receiving the benefit. But, as we show, this presumption is mistaken for unavoidable beneficiaries that intend to benefit from wrongdoing.
Voluntary benefitting from Wrongdoing The Journal of Applied Philosophy 2014.
The Principle of Wrongful Benefits prescribes that beneficiaries from wrongdoing incur duties towards the victims of the wrongdoing. Traditionally, this principle has focused on involuntary beneficiaries, and limited the content of their duty to the disgorgement of their benefit. But the principle overlooks the duties of beneficiaries who are not straightforwardly involuntary. This paper addresses this gap in the literature. It explores the duties of ‘voluntary beneficiaries’, who know about the tainted source of their benefit and who could avoid receiving it; and the duties of ‘welcoming beneficiaries’, who know about the tainted source of their benefit and while cannot avoid receiving it, nevertheless welcome it. The paper demonstrates that in both cases, the duties of the beneficiary towards the victim of the wrongdoing are not limited to the disgorgement of the benefit. Rather, voluntary and welcoming beneficiaries are themselves involved in the commission of wrongdoing against the victim of the original wrongdoing; and for that reason owe the victim compensation that exceeds the level of their own benefit. This argument has various practical implications. e.g. in defining the duties of companies who benefit from human rights violations down their supply chain.