Back from Nottingham

And again I'm back in Sheffield, for slightly longer this time (a whole week! I'm heading to Bristol to stay with a friend this weekend) after the ALSP conference in Nottingham. The conference was excellent - interesting papers, good discussion and some really nice people. I got a lot out of it, and will be posting my thoughts on here over the next few days. My paper was well received, and a couple of the questions were really helpful, if a little challenging. I'm planning on revising it slightly and then submitting it to a journal soon (once I've made up my mind where to send it that is).

Back from Amsterdam

I'm now back in Sheffield for a few days before heading off to Nottingham for the ALSP conference on Global Justice. I spent the Easter weekend at home in Cambridgeshire with my parents - it was a nice opportunity to relax after getting back from Amsterdam late Friday night. Amsterdam was lovely, as I expected it would be. The snow on Friday morning was however unexpected!

The ETMP conference was really enjoyable. My paper was in the first session, and was well attended. There were some good questions and positive comments which are always nice to receive! The general thrust of many of the questions was a doubt about whether the particularist needs to be too worried about objectivity (one of my criticisms in the paper is that objectivity is going to be lacking for the particularist). It became clear during the discussion that the reasons I have for thinking that a lack of objectivity is a problem for particularists stem from the location of the debate in global justice literature. As a general approach to ethics particularism can do without (perhaps) objectivity, but in the context of the search for a comprehensive theory of global justice, it seems to become more of a problem. All in all I'm pleased with the reception to the paper. I don't think I'll be taking it any further in it's current form however, because I think it would work much better if the focus was restricted to the context of the global justice literature, rather than ethical theory in general. 

Amsterdam

I'm in Amsterdam (which is beautiful) awaiting the start of the ETMP conference tomorrow. My paper is in the first session, so the stressful part will out of the way early! I have 20 mins to present and 15 mins for questions so hopefully there should be time for some good discussion. I'm interested in hearing what people have to think about the issue in general, because I haven't had that much chance to talk to people about it so far. Expect updates on how it went fairly soon...

ALSP paper

I sent my paper for the ALSP conference to the organisers on Friday. For anyone else who is interested I've made it available on Google Docs here.

Graduate Seminar 27th Feb

Yesterday I gave a draft of my paper on Miller for the ALSP conference at the department's graduate research seminar. I will be posting the paper here tomorrow when I've sent it to the conference organisers.

Generally I think the response to the paper was good, and there were several helpful questions and comments. The main point of contention seemed to be my argument that Miller's use of needs to ground his theory of basic rights in National Responsibility and Global Justice leaves them lacking objectivity, given his arguments in Principles of Social Justice (PSJ). Many people had the same thought - why can't Miller just have objective basic human rights at the global level as well as contextually specific needs based justice within solidaristic communities? I wanted to show that his contextual arguments in PSJ make this difficult - if the concept of needs has no content without a community-defined conception of harm, then how can needs ground basic rights without there being such a community at the global level? If Miller is committed to such a community, if he holds to the view that needs have no content without a community-defined concept of harm, then it seems to me that his basic rights are contingent on that community. Basic rights as I understand them can't be contingent in this way - mainly because of the work we want to do with them.

There were also a few questions about what exactly the difference was between a global 'solidaristic community' and humanity as such. The concern was that I was placing too much weight on there being something importantly different between the two. I think there is an important difference, because the solidaristic community that Miller describes is a type of relationship between persons, whereas humanity as such is just the set of all persons - there might not be any relationships between them at all. If there was a solidarisitc community that encompassed all persons then the rights it would support would be universal, but this is contingent on the membership of the community encompassing everyone - and it might not be the case that it did so.

Overall it was a helpful discussion in that it flagged up the areas which are likely to attract the most criticism, and which need more work.

ETMP paper

I've just sent my paper for the ETMP conference off to the organisers. I felt quite constrained by the 5000 word limit and the need to do quite a lot of expository work. As a result I'm not sure that I made my argument in the strongest way. I think it's the type of paper that is best given as a conference presentation, by which I mean its aim is more to start discussion (and get feedback on issues that interest me) than to make unassailable arguments. The organisers are going to distribute the papers to all participants prior to the conference, but for anyone else who is interested, I've published it on Google Docs here.

Graduate Research Seminar

I'll be speaking at our department's graduate research seminar on Wednesday 27th Feb. I'm going to present one of the conference papers that I am working on, although I'm not sure yet which one to choose. The paper on Miller is probably more accessible to a general audience, but I'm not sure if it will be done in time.

Ethical Theory and Moral Practice 10th Anniversary Conference

As well as the paper on David Miller that I am writing for the ALSP conference, I am also working on a seperate paper for a conference being held in Amsterdam in March. The conference is in honour of the 10th anniversary of the journal Ethical Theory and Moral Practice.

My paper is entitled 'Universalism and Moral Schizophrenia' and the abstract is below:

Universalist moral theories are often charged with lacking motivational or practical force; they are said to exhibit ‘ethical schizophrenia’ in that they force a split between one’s motives and one’s judgements (Stocker). Particularist critics argue that there is little point in theorising about ethics if all we are doing is a purely intellectual enterprise that has no practical relevance. When looking for principles that tell us how to behave morally we must make sure they have practical force; that they motivate people to act on them. Universalist theories are said to lack this force because they are too general, too abstract, and, worst of all, too demanding. The particularist solution is to take into account people’s commonsense ideas of their own moral obligations and so to reject impartialist abstraction in favour of embeddedness and immersion (Walzer, Miller). The charge is that particularist moral theory therefore possesses more relevance and legitimacy, as well as more practical force, than universalist moral theory ever can. However there is a trade-off here between these virtues and the equally important virtues of objectivity and impartiality. The particularist rejection of abstraction leads to a lack of critical force and a tendency toward conservatism. This paper will argue that given these problems with particularism, we should not simply reject universalism because of its ‘schizophrenic’ tendencies, but instead should find ways to treat this malaise. Many people share universalist intuitions to the effect that our moral duties are stronger and of wider scope than previously thought, but fail to act on these intuitions in any concrete way. This is an example of the gap between people’s moral intuitions and their actions which particularist critics of universalist moral theory point to. This paper will argue that we should be working to explain and understand the reasons for this gap, and looking for ways to close it. I will suggest that use of the concept of empathy to show why universalist intuitions really can have motivational force is a potential course of treatment.

ALSP 08 Abstract

The abstract for my paper for ALSP is reproduced below:

In recent work (National Responsibility and Global Justice 2007) David Miller has proposed a system of global basic rights, argued for via a humanitarian strategy, focusing on basic human needs. His position however remains non-cosmopolitan; he remains committed to strong national responsibility and social (rather than global) justice. His theory of social justice (Principles of Social Justice 1999) is pluralistic; he argues that there are three different principles of justice which apply within three different modes of relationship. One of these is the principle of need, which applies within solidaristic communities. Miller argues that need as a principle of justice is only feasible within such communities because they provide the necessary practical conception of need. This paper will explore the relationship between Miller's views in these two books. I will suggest that Miller's use of needs to underpin his system of basic rights might indicate that he is in some way committed to there being a global solidaristic community. If this were the case then it would provide ammunition for cosmopolitanism. I will suggest a way of reply for Miller, which will utilise his distinction between basic needs and societal needs to show how he might deny the existence of a global solidaristic community.

ALSP 08

I'm currently writing a paper for the upcoming Association for Legal and Social Philosophy conference on Global Justice which be held at Nottingham University from 27th-29th March this year. I've had my abstract accepted - now I just have to finish the paper.

My paper is entitled 'A Global Solidaristic Community?'. It addresses the role that the concept of need plays in David Miller's theories of social and global justice, and asks whether there is substantial and problematic divergence between his two theories.

I have been assigned to one of the panels on 'Cosmopolitanism and Nationalism', and from the other titles it looks like we will all be focusing on David Miller's work in some way or another. At the moment our panel is scheduled for 9am on 28th - which may mean a smaller attendance than if it were scheduled later in the day!