Works in Progress |
“Poverty as External Unfreedom”
Abstract: What is poverty? And why are we troubled by its existence? With some notable exceptions, philosophers have written remarkably little about these questions, focusing instead on downstream questions concerning responsibility for poverty remediation. I argue that poverty constitutes a distinctive kind of unfreedom, one that calls into question the legitimacy of the social norms that govern our use of material resources. My argument is in two steps. First, I argue that the prevailing views about the nature and normative significance of poverty face significant limitations. The welfarist view cannot redeem its commitment to understanding poverty as a problem of frustrated basic wellbeing while respecting a formal condition on any adequate conception of poverty. The capability view, while an improvement, cannot adequately account for the distinctively social nature of poverty, or for what troubles those who are themselves faced with that condition. Second, I draw from recent interpretations of Kant’s views on poverty to articulate a conception that can improve upon the prevailing views, but show that this requires us to abandon Kant’s narrow emphasis on legal norms. I conclude by showing that acceptance of the view I defend has an important implication for poverty remediation.
"Realism and Utopianism”
Abstract: It is widely recognized that realism and utopianism have something to do with feasibility and, in particular, with the role judgments of feasibility play in the justification of political proposals. Moreover, it is often thought that the way to characterize the distinction between a realistic and a utopian justification of a proposal is in terms of the conception of political feasibility that each sort of justification makes a requirement of adequate action guidance. The rough idea is that a justification is more utopian when it requires a laxer conception of feasibility (e.g. consistency with basic facts about human psychology and social organization) and more realistic when it requires a stricter one (e.g. consistency with existing political attitudes among those affected). I argue that this view lacks enough structure to make sense of our considered judgments regarding utopian and realistic justifications of political proposals. I propose, instead, that we understand realism and utopianism as a function of two factors. The first is a conception of political feasibility that ranges from lax to strict in the way already recognized. The second is an epistemic requirement concerning the grounds upon which judgments of feasibility must rest. This more complex structure can help us make sense of why a justification that requires that the feasibility of a political proposal be supported by the available evidence (e.g. from historical experience or pilot schemes) is more realistic than one that merely demands that the existing evidence not prove conclusively that the proposal is infeasible. My view is that realistic justifications of political proposals require both a strict conception of feasibility and a relatively demanding evidentiary burden. By contrast, utopian justifications require either a lax conception of feasibility or a relatively permissive evidentiary burden. I also suggest that, with this framework in hand, we will be in a better position to understand—or to do the work needed to understand—the methodological exhortation that political philosophers make their work “realistically utopian.”
“The Approximationist Interpretation of Kant's Cosmopolitan Project”
|