Reply to My Critics

2021 ◽  
Vol 35 (4) ◽  
pp. 527-541
Author(s):  
Anna Stilz
Keyword(s):  
Social Justice ◽  
Global Justice ◽  
Self Determination ◽  
Technical Term ◽  
External Interference ◽  
Territorial Sovereignty ◽  
Collective Self

AbstractThis essay replies to three critics of my book Territorial Sovereignty: A Philosophical Exploration. First, in response to Kit Wellman, I defend the claim that states sometimes have a right against external interference even when their decisions depart from the requirements of social justice. This “right to do wrong” is grounded in respect for a legitimate procedure of collective self-determination, in which the state's members have an important interest. Second, I reply to Michael Blake's concern that there is an inconsistency in my treatment of people's actual wills in politics. I clarify that my view places weight on the actual wills only of “cooperators” (a technical term), and that cooperators’ actual wills matter because they have claims against alien rule. There is no inconsistency in treating political annexation differently from immigration since immigrants rarely threaten to impose alien rule on cooperators. Finally, I address Adom Getachew's concerns about the imperial dimensions of the states system, arguing that my book contains resources for theorizing remedial claims to land in settler colonial societies and other reparative duties of global justice.

Do Legitimate States Have a Right to Do Wrong?

2021 ◽  
Vol 35 (4) ◽  
pp. 515-525 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christopher Heath Wellman
Keyword(s):  
Self Determination ◽  
External Interference ◽  
Distinctive Features ◽  
Territorial Sovereignty ◽  
Collective Self ◽  
The Right

AbstractThis essay critically assesses Anna Stilz's argument in Territorial Sovereignty: A Philosophical Exploration that legitimate states have a right to do wrong. I concede that individuals enjoy a claim against external interference when they commit suberogatory acts, but I deny that the right to do wrong extends to acts that would violate the rights of others. If this is correct, then one must do more than merely invoke an individual's right to do wrong if one hopes to vindicate a legitimate state's right to commit injustices. Of course, there may be distinctive features of legitimate states that explain why they enjoy moral protections that individuals lack, but I argue that the value of collective self-determination is not up to this task. And even if these arguments fail, self-determination would at most explain why legitimate states enjoy a right to commit injustices against their own citizens; it would provide them no moral protection when they violate the rights of outsiders.

Territorial Sovereignty

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anna Stilz
Keyword(s):  
Natural Resources ◽  
International Law ◽  
International System ◽  
Core Values ◽  
The State ◽  
Self Determination ◽  
Territorial Sovereignty ◽  
Collective Self ◽  
Political Units ◽  
Territorial States

This book offers a qualified defense of a territorial states system. It argues that three core values—occupancy, basic justice, and collective self-determination—are served by an international system made up of self-governing, spatially defined political units. The defense is qualified because the book does not actually justify all of the sovereignty rights states currently claim and that are recognized in international law. Instead, the book proposes important changes to states’ sovereign prerogatives, particularly with respect to internal autonomy for political minorities, immigration, and natural resources. Part I of the book argues for a right of occupancy, holding that a legitimate function of the international system is to specify and protect people’s preinstitutional claims to specific geographical places. Part II turns to the question of how a state might acquire legitimate jurisdiction over a population of occupants. It argues that the state will have a right to rule a population and its territory if it satisfies conditions of basic justice and facilitates its people’s collective self-determination. Finally, Parts III and IV of this book argue that the exclusionary sovereignty rights to control over borders and natural resources that can plausibly be justified on the basis of the three core values are more limited than has traditionally been thought.

The Moral Standing of States Revisited

2009 ◽  
Vol 23 (4) ◽  
pp. 325-347 ◽  
Author(s):  
Charles R Beitz
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Global Justice ◽  
Self Determination ◽  
Moral Standing ◽  
Subsequent Work ◽  
World Community ◽  
Central Value ◽  
Collective Self ◽  
The Difference ◽  
The Cold War

“The Moral Standing of States” is the title of an essay Michael Walzer wrote in response to four critics of the theory of nonintervention defended in Just and Unjust Wars. It states a theme to which he has returned in subsequent work. I offer four sets of comments. First, by way of introduction, I describe the controversy between Walzer and his critics and try to identify the central point of contention. Second, I make some observations about the wider conception of global justice suggested by Walzer's remarks, emphasizing the extent of the difference between this conception and the traditional view of a “society of states” to which it stands as an alternative. The central value in Walzer's conception is collective self-determination, so I comment about its meaning and importance. Finally, I consider whether and how concerns about the moral standing of states bear on the kinds of cases of humanitarian intervention that the world community has actually faced since the book and article were written, particularly since the end of the cold war.

scholarly journals Reading bedtime stories to compatriots: Reconciling global equality of opportunity and self-determination

2019 ◽  
Vol 45 (3) ◽  
pp. 367-386
Author(s):  
Ayelet Banai ◽  
Eszter Kollar
Keyword(s):  
Global Justice ◽  
Equality Of Opportunity ◽  
Self Determination ◽  
Contemporary Theory ◽  
The Family ◽  
Familial Relationship ◽  
Collective Self ◽  
Parental Partiality

AbstractIn this article, we propose a reconciliation between global equality of opportunity and self-determination, two central and seemingly conflicting principles in the contemporary theory of global justice. Our conception of reconciliation draws on the family-people analogy, following the account of familial relationship goods, developed by Harry Brighouse and Adam Swift, on permissible parental partiality and domestic equality of opportunity. We argue, first, that a plausible conception of global equality of opportunity must be able to distinguish morally arbitrary aspects of nationality that require mitigation from morally permissible ones. Second, we argue that a plausible criterion for the distinction integrates a person’s normative interests over a lifetime: (i) the interests of a child born into societal circumstances that impact her life prospects; and (ii) the interests of an adult citizen in collective self-determination. Third, we outline an account of ‘people relationship goods’, as a principled way to circumscribe the permissible scope of self-determination. Fair global equality of opportunity requires mitigating nationality-tracking inequalities, except those that fall within the permissible scope of collective self-determination.

Introduction: The Normative Bases for Territorial Sovereignty

2019 ◽  
pp. 1-30
Author(s):  
Anna Stilz
Keyword(s):  
Geographical Area ◽  
Core Values ◽  
Self Determination ◽  
Moral Justification ◽  
Historical Contingency ◽  
Territorial Sovereignty ◽  
Collective Self ◽  
The Face ◽  
Territorial States ◽  
Separatist Groups

This chapter introduces the two main questions with which this book is concerned. First, is there any compelling moral justification for organizing our world as a territorial states system or is this mode of organization just a firmly rooted historical contingency? Second, how might a state demonstrate a right to control a population and geographical area within that system, especially in the face of challenges from foreign powers or separatist groups who dispute its title? The chapter introduces the three core values that ground the account of territorial sovereignty, occupancy, basic justice, and collective self-determination, and it distinguishes the book’s position from alternative views.

scholarly journals Justice in migration

2018 ◽  
Vol 48 (2) ◽  
pp. 245-265 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christine Straehle
Keyword(s):  
Social Justice ◽  
Global Justice ◽  
Political Legitimacy ◽  
Self Determination ◽  
Philosophical Perspective ◽  
The Individual

AbstractThe movement of people across borders is one of the most pressing issues of our time. Yet it is still unclear how migration should be regulated to be fair to the sending societies, the host societies and the individual migrant. What is at issue? Are we discussing migration from an ethical or from a political philosophical perspective, or both? Are we discussing migration from a global justice perspective or social justice perspective? Do we consider political legitimacy and democratic self-determination as part of our analysis? How should we balance demands of justice in immigration compared to those of emigration?

Cosmopolitan Justice, Democracy, and the World State

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Catherine Lu
Keyword(s):  
Social Justice ◽  
Political Reform ◽  
Political Authority ◽  
First Century ◽  
Self Determination ◽  
World State ◽  
Proper Functioning ◽  
Collective Self ◽  
The World ◽  
Twenty First Century

This chapter argues that being a good democrat in the twenty-first century requires, rather than precludes, engaging in both domestic and international political reform and struggle that will culminate in the establishment of a world state, or a global political authority that can command and enforce duties of cosmopolitan justice. Cosmopolitan justice constitutes the background essential supporting conditions for the proper functioning and legitimacy of domestic, regional, and global political orders. Under contemporary global circumstances, the effective realization of cosmopolitan justice requires institutional cosmopolitanism in the form of an impartial global political authority that can adjudicate and enforce the rights and duties of states so that they are consistent with their cosmopolitan duties. Only with the realization of institutional cosmopolitanism in the form of a cosmopolitan world state can the principles and values of collective self-determination and social justice championed by democratic theorists be based on a morally acceptable foundation.

Unwanted Compatriots: Alienation, Migration, and Political Autonomy

2021 ◽  
Vol 35 (4) ◽  
pp. 491-501
Author(s):  
Michael Blake
Keyword(s):  
Political Institutions ◽  
Political Authority ◽  
Self Determination ◽  
Apparent Contradiction ◽  
Political Autonomy ◽  
Territorial Sovereignty ◽  
Hypothetical Consent

AbstractIn Territorial Sovereignty: A Philosophical Exploration, Anna Stilz argues that legitimate political authority requires the actual—rather than hypothetical—consent of the governed. I argue, however, that her analysis of that consent is inconsistent, in the weight it ascribes to the felt desire to refrain from doing politics with some particular group of people. In the context of secession and self-determination, the lack of actual consent to shared political institutions is weighty enough to render such institutions presumptively illegitimate. In the context of migration, however, a lack of actual consent to the presence of newcomers is ascribed nearly no weight, and instead is taken as evidence of irrationality or immoral preferences. I argue that this apparent contradiction must be clarified before Stilz's overall account of self-governance can be accepted.

scholarly journals The Tone of Prime Unity

2018 ◽  
Vol 23 (2) ◽  
pp. 208-217
Author(s):  
Will Schrimshaw
Keyword(s):  
Self Determination ◽  
Marshall Mcluhan ◽  
Collective Self ◽  
The World ◽  
Acoustic Community ◽  
Participatory Intervention

In The Soundscape, R. Murray Schafer describes a tone of ‘prime unity’, a tonal centre conditioning an international sonic unconscious. Diverging from the bucolic image of nature readily associated with Schafer’s ethics and aesthetics, this tone is found in the ubiquitous hum of electrical infrastructure and appliances. A utopian potential is ascribed to this tone in Schafer’s writing whereby it constitutes the conditions for a unified international acoustic community of listening subjects.This article outlines Schafer’s anomalous concept of the tone of prime unity and interrogates the contradictions it introduces into Schafer’s project of utopian soundscape design. Discussion of the correspondence between Schafer and Marshall McLuhan contextualises and identifies the source of Schafer’s concept of the tone of prime unity. Of particular interest is the processes of unconscious auditory influence this concept entails and its problematic relation to the politics of sonic warfare. Through discussion of contemporary artistic practices that engage with these problems, it is argued that the tone of prime unity nonetheless presents an opportunity to shift the focus of Schafer’s project from a telos of divine harmony towards collective self-determination through participatory intervention in the world around us.

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