Representative Publications
Kant on Civil Society and Welfare, Elements in the Philosophy of Immanuel Kant, Desmond Hogan, Howard Williams and Allen Wood series eds., Cambridge University Press, 2018.
What justifies state-sponsored supports for individual welfare within a Kantian political system, as well as the purpose and extent of such supports and the form they may take, are vexed questions. Here, I characterize and assesses main contenders (including minimalist and middle-ground accounts) by examining the competing interpretations of Kant's larger political theory that found their social welfare claims. I then develop and defend an alternative “civic respect” reading. This new account emphasizes the perspective and institutional commitments that Kant's model of citizenship entails and what is required to respect each as both a person and a participant in joint governance.
“Moral Foundations, Shared Civic Projects and Rossi’s Kant,” prepared for a Special Edition on Phillip Rossi’s The Ethical Commonwealth in History, Pablo Muchnik, Special Edition ed., Philosophia (2021), https://doi.org/10.1007/s11406-020-00298-z.
Although I quickly review Philip Rossi’s larger argument in The Ethical Commonwealth in History, my focus in this article is on the implications of Rossi’s work for our characterizations of justice and citizenship on a Kantian account. For in arguing that a wise reading of Kant’s political theory allows us better to grasp his overarching aims, Rossi provides convincing evidence for a pair of challenges to the currently popular interpretation of that theory. These address the relationship between Kant’s moral and political theories and the nature of the political task or project that Kantian citizens undertake. In challenging popular readings of these elements of Kant’s view, I suggest, Rossi supports an interpretation of Kantian political thought with particular resonance for our time.
“Civility and Hospitality: Justice and Social Grace in Trying Times,” 6 Kantian Review (2002): 85-108. (Invited and Peer Reviewed). Reprinted in Kantian Thinking in a Time of Crisis, a Virtual Special Edition of the Kantian Review, ed. Corey Dyck, https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/kantian-review/kantian-thinking-in-a-time-of-crisis?fbclid=IwAR3FEv86pmP8BGsodUUC49vfAMpIf-JDK00gqXtlajd7T_iWj2F1r1xI2Jg#, July 2020. (This issue was curated and published in the wake of the current global pandemic and the protests that followed George Floyd’s murder in Minneapolis.)
US citizens’ failures to honor and act on settled convictions of justice in the aftermath of September 11, 2001 provide the original backdrop for this piece. An effort to develop and extend Kantian theory for practical purposes, it sketches Kant-based accounts of civic virtue and social grace and explores their role in sustaining and advancing justice in times of social turmoil. Civic virtues (e.g., civic respect and concern) are developed dispositions that aid citizens in fulfilling obligations of justice. Social graces, e.g., of civility and hospitality, are manners of behavior giving voice to these virtues. Civility encompasses practices that evidence and help us maintain commitments of justice to fellow citizens; hospitality includes practices supporting just relations with those who are “foreigners.” 2001 is not 2020, and terrorist attacks differ from racially motivated police brutality in many ways. But the concerns that prompted this exploration of civic virtue and social grace as means of bracing and tempering Kantian commitments are as alive in the wake of George Floyd’s death at the hands of Minneapolis police officers as they were in 2001. Our fear of institutional change and our suspicion of those whose message and method are unfamiliar are as likely now as then to silence thoughtful voices committed to justice. Our inclination to treat those we deem “foreigners” as enemies, though they are our fellow citizens, is the source of both the brutality that sparked worldwide protests and our ingrained tendency to ignore it. The need to develop justice-supporting attitudes and practices, among ordinary citizens and those (like police) who serve in institutional roles, is now essential not only to avoiding injustice in the moment, but to prospects for establishing justice over time. My hope is that this extension of Kant’s work offers insight towards justice on the ground, differing context notwithstanding.
“Justice, Citizenship and the Kingdom of Ends,” in Reasons, Rights and Law: New Essays on Kantian Philosophy, ed. Alice Pinheiro Walla and Memet Ruhi Demiray, University of Wales Press (2020), 85-104.
While they differ in other ways, many recent interpretations suggest that we best understand Kant’s political theory by adopting the perspective of a citizen contemplating the rights she can claim by virtue of her humanity and that found others’ obligations to her. Her appreciation of duties to fellow citizens, owed as a matter of right or justice, derives from the compelling similarity between their cases and her own. Here, I challenge this individualist reading by identifying and exploring central connections between the perspective of citizenship (MM 6:314) and that of the kingdom of ends (GW 4:433-436), offering what I term an alternative “civic respect” account of Kantian citizenship. In particular, I explore parallels between the characterization of citizens as free, equal, independent and responsible members of a political community and of legislators for a kingdom of ends as free, equal and autonomous ends in themselves with particular ends of their own. We best understand the latter, I argue, to focus (first) not on the individual as a claim-holder and a source of obligations, but as a participant with her fellows in a joint project or endeavor. She is not, by virtue of this, simply viewed as a cog to be shaped for the good of the whole, but as an agent appropriately shaping her actions in keeping with her own commitments, one of which is the foundational moral responsibility to respect her fellow agents as persons. In light of close parallels and allusions Kant makes at various points in the text, I argue contra individualist interpretations, that this is likewise the way to understand the political work.
“Beneficence and Disability,” in Disability in Practice: Attitudes, Policies and Relationships, ed. Adam Cureton and Thomas E. Hill, Jr., Oxford University Press (2018), 33-49.
What stance is morally appropriate as we ask when, whether and how to assist persons experiencing physical, emotional or intellectual disability? Appealing to a varied set of intelligent and observant thinkers (Ralph Barton Perry, Helen Keller and Immanuel Kant), I argue that one important aspect of such a stance is an attitude of “reciprocal beneficence.” My characterization of this attitude, which encompasses elements of community, sympathy and gratitude, takes initial inspiration from Perry but owes most to its roots in Kant and to wise and insightful enrichments due to Keller. Although I do not take them up here, this is an attitude likewise important for and applicable to broader contexts (e.g., to poverty, domestic and global, and to the current international refugee crisis).
“Kant & Moral Responsibility for Ebola Orphans,” in online series The Bright Continent: Illuminating the Challenges, Opportunities & Promises of a Rising Africa, The Critique, Guillaume A.W. Attia, Editor-in-Chief, http://www.thecritique.com/articles/the-bright-continent/ (October 2015).
Who has a duty to address the welfare and development of African children orphaned in the recent Ebola outbreaks? Of what moral hazards must we be aware as we attempt to fulfill these responsibilities? Published in an online journal devoted to putting moral and political philosophy to work on central contemporary issues and for a popular audience, this piece uses Kantian moral and political theory (and in particular state-based cosmopolitanism) to consider these questions. In the process, it suggests some of the broader implications of that approach.
”Kant, Justice and Civic Fellowship,” in Politics and Teleology in Kant (Political Philosophy Now), ed. Formosa, Goldman and Patrone, University of Wales Press (2014), 110-127.
Here I offer a detailed characterization of Kantian citizenship. It is one that understands citizens as active participants in a joint project, not (most centrally) as individuals who seek protection from force and fraud in pursuit of their own life plans. With this characterization in place, I argue that those who realize Kantian citizenship adopt what I term a civic perspective and develop civic fellowship as a moral attitude that regulates civic inquiry, guides decision making and shapes actions. Although the perspective and attitude are not explicit in Kant’s texts, I argue that they are implicit in the political theory as a whole and required for its realization in the world as we know it.
“Kant, Retributivism and Civic Respect,” in Retributivism: Essays on Theory and Policy, ed. Mark D. White, Oxford University Press (2011), 107-128.
This piece both expands on my early work on Kant’s theory of punishment and begins to develop my account of Kant’s theory of justice as what I have termed a “civic respect” theory. I argue that we best understand the sometimes perplexing elements of Kant’s account of just punishment as together aimed at giving voice to civic respect for all relevant parties in cases involving a criminal offense. In my view, we do better to understand Kant’s penal theory from this perspective than to see it as an example of either classical or even more contemporary retributivism.
“Justice, Mercy and Efficiency,” in Theoretical Foundations of Law and Economics, ed. Mark D. White, Cambridge University Press (2009), 119-136.
While they differ dramatically in the decision making approaches they foster, a merciful disposition and a commitment to economic efficiency are similar in one important respect. Each can encourage decisions that depart from those justice requires. Here I take up mercy and efficiency in the context of judicial decision making, where each is sometimes lauded as a desirable feature of both decisions themselves and those who make them. After offering enriched accounts of mercy, efficiency and justice likely to have wide appeal, I argue that a well-developed attitude of mercy in fact can enhance the justice of judicial decisions but that we should retain a deep skepticism regarding the compatibility of justice with commitment to a principle of economic efficiency. This piece has implications for ongoing debates concerning judicial decision making. Because the account of justice and its relationship to judicial decision has roots in Kantian theory, it also has implications for a Kant-based theory of justice and the laws and institutions that would give it voice.
“Autonomy and the Kingdom of Ends,” in The Blackwell Companion to Kant’s Ethics, ed. Thomas E. Hill, Jr., Wiley-Blackwell (2009), 102-117. Republished in Portuguese as “Autonomia e o Reino dos fins,” in 9 Studia Kantiana (2016).
Here I examine and interpret the so-called Formula of Autonomy (FA) from Kant’s Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals. I give particular attention to: 1) its connections to other formulations of Kant’s Categorical Imperative (the foundational principle of his moral theory); 2) the discussions of a kingdom of ends and of the price/dignity distinction to which Kant’s examination of FA gives rise; 3) the notion of autonomy itself and several potential sources of confusion associated with it; and finally 4) the relationship between FA and Kant’s moral and political theories more generally.
“On the Question of Orphans,” Social Theory and Practice, Vol. 32, No. 4 (2006): 579-600 (Invited and Peer Reviewed).
Here I use the example of inter-country adoption, and popular moral perspectives on it, as a way of exploring, extending and applying Kantian cosmopolitanism. In particular, I appeal to Kant’s Perpetual Peace to develop a middle ground between the positions of “blithe humanitarianism” and “adoption skepticism.” “State-centered cosmopolitanism,” the Kant-based approach I advocate, takes seriously both humanitarian concerns for children’s welfare and skeptics’ worries about duly respecting birth states and children’s relationships to them. It does so by identifying a deep connection to each in Kant’s account of moral autonomy. State-centered cosmopolitanism is thus a view that enriches our appreciation of widely acknowledged moral considerations. It should appeal both to humanitarians and adoption-skeptics and has implications for international relationships generally.
“Kantian Justice and Poverty Relief,” Kant-Studien, 95. Jahrg., Heft 1 (2004): 86-106.
This piece examines Kant’s puzzling Rechtslehre discussion of poverty relief in the context of his larger account of the just state. It concludes (contra many popular interpretations) that Kant’s theory readily supports robust programs of state-sponsored relief. The proper justification and focus of these programs, it further contends, lies not in concerns regarding force and fraud, but in a civic commitment to respecting each as a free, equal, independent and responsible fellow citizen. The discussion thus sets the stage for my more recent monograph.
“Three Strategies for Theorizing about Justice,” 40 American Philosophical Quarterly (2003): 77-90.
Here I distinguish among three strategies often used in developing theories of morality and justice, frequently criticized by those who are skeptical of such theories, and rarely adequately distinguished from one another. The strategies, abstraction, idealization and appeal to a utopia or guiding ideal, do put theorists at risk in many of the ways critics cite. They may render principles inapplicable to concrete cases, misrepresent reality, or urge us toward an ideal heedless of moral and prudential sacrifice. Nevertheless, when appropriately understood and judiciously employed, their usefulness outweighs these risks. In particular, the strategies allow theorists (Kant among them) to develop theories that display virtues of efficacy, consistency and clarity and that foster moral vision.
“Revolution, Contradiction and Kantian Citizenship,” in Kant’s Metaphysics of Morals: Interpretive Essays, ed. Mark Timmons, Oxford University Press (2002), 209-231.
Here, I examine, interpret and assess Kant’s rejection of violent resistance to state-sponsored injustice. I locate the source of Kant’s adamance on this question in his concern that any decision to use of force in the cause of justice be made from a civic perspective all can share. I further argue (contra Kant) that political violence can sometimes satisfy this demand.
“Kant, Ideal Theory and the Justice of Exclusionary Zoning,” 110 Ethics (1999): 32-58. Reprinted in International Library of Essays in the History of Social and Political Thought: Immanuel Kant, ed. Arthur Ripstein, Taylor & Francis (2008).
Taking the 1975 exclusionary zoning decision in Southern Burlington Co. NAACP v. Mount Laurel Township as a backdrop, this piece considers the practical implications of Kant’s theory of justice. It argues, inter alia, that the application of an ideal theory like Kant’s requires development of intermediate principles designed to help us bring high theory to bear on ground-level issues of justice.
“Toward Social Reform: Kant’s Penal Theory Reinterpreted,” Utilitas 9 (1997): 3-21.
This piece sets the stage for my later work on Kant’s penal theory (see “Kant, Retributivism and Civic Respect”) by examining and rejecting both traditional retributive interpretations and more recent “mixed” views. Once elaborated, I argue, a genuinely Kantian penal theory would demand substantial reforms in many current penal systems, the American system importantly among them.