Does Convergence Liberalism Risk Anarchy?

Public reason liberals argue that coercive social arrangements must be publicly justified in order to be legitimate. According to one model of public reason liberalism, known as convergence liberalism, this means that every moderately idealized member of the public must have sufficient reason, of her own, to accept the arrangement. A corollary of this Principle of Public Justification is that a coercive social arrangement fails to be legitimate so long as even one member of the public fails to have sufficient reason to endorse the arrangement. This high bar for justification has led many critics, most notably David Enoch, to argue that convergence models are incapable of vindicating liberalism. They argue that in a sufficiently diverse society, there will always be someone for whom an arrangement is not justified, and therefore convergence liberalism leads to anarchy – the view that no law or coercive social arrangement is legitimate. Other critics accept that convergence liberalism could vindicate core liberal institutions but nothing more, and thus argue that the view makes libertarians effective “dictators”. In either case, critics hold that this objection is sufficient to reject convergence liberalism, either in favor of alternative public reason views or as a means of rejecting all public reason views. In this paper I argue that convergence liberalism can overcome this anarchy objection. I show that the objection largely rests on misinterpretations of convergence liberalism, and thus clarify aspects of the theory. However, I also show that internal debate over the scope of public justification – what stands in need of justification – must be resolved in favor of a wide scope, encompassing both State-based and non-State-based coercion, in order to overcome the anarchy objection. Therefore, my response to the anarchy objection has implications for how convergence liberalism should be developed going forward.

The Reason-Giving Force of Requests

How do we change the normative landscape by making requests? It will be argued that by making requests we create reasons for action if and only if certain conditions are met. We are able to create reasons if and only if doing so is valuable for the requester, and if they respect the requestee. Respectful requests have a normative force – it will be argued – because it is of instrumental value to us that we all have the normative power of creating reasons by making requests. The normative power has the potential for creating and shaping valuable interactions and relationships for the requester and the requestee. This potential could not be realized if we did not have the normative power of making requests. It will also be shown why this account of the normative force of requests should be preferred to the two alternative accounts of the reason-giving force of requests that have been put forward by James H.P. Lewis and David Enoch.

A Proposal for a Coherentist-Constitutivist Account of Normativity

We operate under norms of evaluating actions as good and bad, right and wrong, or reasonable and unreasonable. What justifies the authority of these norms? Christine Korsgaard takes the constitutivist position and argues that self-constitution, as the standard for what constitutes action, is the source of normativity. David Enoch argues that it is impossible for any constitutivist model to justify normative standards, and that realism is the best solution. In this paper, I demonstrate that the best solution to the tensions Enoch raises is not realism, but an original coherentist-constitutivist model of normativity rooted in Korsgaardian constitutivism.

A Proposal for a Coherentist-Constitutivist Account of Normativity

We operate under norms of evaluating actions as good and bad, right and wrong, or reasonable and unreasonable. What justifies the authority of these norms? Christine Korsgaard takes the constitutivist position and argues that self-constitution, as the standard for what constitutes action, is the source of normativity. David Enoch argues that it is impossible for any constitutivist model to justify normative standards, and that realism is the best solution. In this paper, I demonstrate that the best solution to the tensions Enoch raises is not realism, but an original coherentist-constitutivist model of normativity rooted in Korsgaardian constitutivism.

Considering Dispositional Moral Realism

My aim in this paper is to consider a series of arguments against Dispositional Moral Realism and argue that these objections are unsuccessful. I will consider arguments that try to either establish a dis-analogy between moral properties and secondary qualities or try to show that a dispositional account of moral properties fails to account for what a defensible species of moral realism must account for. I also consider criticisms from Simon Blackburn (1993), who argues that there could not be a corresponding perceptual faculty for moral properties, and David Enoch (2011), who argues that Dispositional Moral Realism does not most plausibly explain the difference between moral disagreements and disagreements of mere preference. Finally, I examine a novel criticism concerning the relationship between the diverse variety of moral properties and the range of our normative affective attitudes, arguing that the view has no problem accounting for this diversity.

Why General Jurisprudence Is Interesting

In a recent article entitled, “Is General Jurisprudence Interesting?”, David Enoch answers his own question resoundingly in the negative. This article critically examines the character of Enoch’s claim, the presuppositions it rests on, and the way in which he seeks to establish it. Having argued that many of Enoch’s views in this regard hinge on a narrow and idiosyncratic understanding of the questions that general jurisprudence addresses, and of the relations between those questions and many other inquiries concerning the character of law, the article concludes by offering its author’s own vision of what makes general jurisprudence engaging, intriguing, and. . . well. . . interesting.

Oxford Studies in Political Philosophy, Volume 3

This volume features ten papers in political philosophy, addressing a range of central topics and represent cutting-edge work in the field. Papers in the first part look at equality and justice: Keith Hyams examines the contribution of ex ante equality to ex post fairness; Elizabeth Anderson looks at equality from a political economy perspective; Serena Olsaretti’s paper studies liberal equality and the moral status of parent–child relationships; and George Sher investigates doing justice to desert. In the second part, papers address questions of state legitimacy: Ralf Bader explores counterfactual justifications of the state; David Enoch examines political philosophy and epistemology; and Seth Lazar and Laura Valentini look at proxy battles in just war theory. The final three papers cover social issues that are not easily understood in terms of personal morality, yet which need not centrally involve the state: the moral neglect of negligence (Seana Valentine Shiffrin), the case for collective pensions (Michael Otsuka); and authority and harm (Jonathan Parry).

Normative realism and ontology: reply to Clarke-Doane, Rosen, and Enoch and McPherson

In response to comments on my book, Being Realistic about Reasons, by Justin Clarke-Doane, David Enoch and Tristram McPherson, and Gideon Rosen, I try to clarify my domain-based view of ontology, my understanding of the epistemology of normative judgments, and my interpretation of the phenomenon of supervenience.

Profile: Morgan David Enoch

A benchmark of fame in the modern world, a quick Google search for Dr Morgan David Enoch brings up an intriguing set of results. These range from a BBC article, ‘Spotting the Royal stalkers’, a BMJ case report on ‘Exorcism for schizophrenia’ and Ian McEwan's Enduring Love, to Mersey Regional Health Authority's implementation of care in the community and books, including I Want a Christian Psychiatrist and Uncommon Psychiatric Syndromes: now out of print, the paperback fourth edition is currently available from online sellers, second-hand, for over £1000.