Family Migration Schemes and Liberal Neutrality

This chapter argues that the privileging of romantic and familial ties by those who believe in the liberal state’s prima facie right to exclude prospective immigrants cannot be justified. The reasons that count in favor of these relationships count equally in favor of a great array of relationships, from friends to creative collaborators, and whatever else falls in between. The result of the discussion is that liberal states must either focus on the interests of children only or the interests of all citizens who would like to be reunited with a person they enjoy a valuable and irreplaceable relationship.

LIS neutrality: a Wittgensteinian interpretation

PurposeThis study builds on a first study by Macdonald and Birdi (2019) that argues the concept of neutrality within library and information science (LIS) demands a sensitivity to context often omitted in existing literature. This study aims to develop the conceptual architecture of LIS neutrality in a way that is more conducive to reconciling the contextual nuance found in within the first study.Design/methodology/approachThe approach taken develops LIS neutrality through a Wittgensteinian lens. Two distinct ideas are explored. First, Wittgenstein's notion of a “grammatical investigation” is used to map the varied contexts in which neutrality is used within professional practice. Liberal neutrality is explored as an analogy to lend plausibility to the concept's heterogeneity. Second, Wittgenstein's “family resemblance” develops the concept in a way that facilitates greater contextual understanding.FindingsThree features of liberal neutrality literature: conceptual heterogeneity, distinct justifications for specific conceptions and the possibility that neutrality may operate with limited scope are applied to LIS neutrality. All three features successfully translate, leaving “latent conceptual space” to understand LIS neutrality as nuanced and multifaceted. Second, “family resemblance” also translates successfully, bringing its own pedagogical benefits.Originality/valueThis study's originality lies in its development of LIS neutrality using a descriptive Wittgensteinian lens. Understanding the concept via this paradigm may facilitate a more productive discussion of LIS neutrality and pave the way for a new, less polarised, normative response to it.

Philosophical Foundations of Climate Change Policy

Although the task of formulating an appropriate policy response to the problem of anthropogenic climate change is one that raises a number of very difficult normative issues, environmental ethicists have not played an influential role in government deliberations. This is primarily due to their rejection of many of the assumptions that structure the debates over policy. This book offers a philosophical defense of these assumptions in order to overcome the major conceptual barriers to the participation of philosophers in these debates. There are five important barriers: First, the policy debate presupposes a stance of liberal neutrality, as a result of which it does not privilege any particular set of environmental values over other concerns. Second, it assumes ongoing economic growth, along with a commitment to what is sometimes called a weak sustainability framework when analyzing the value of the bequest being made to future generations. Third, it treats climate change as fundamentally a collective action problem, not an issue of distributive justice. Fourth, there is the acceptance of cost-benefit analysis, or more precisely, the view that a carbon-pricing regime should be guided by our best estimate of the social cost of carbon. And finally, there is the view that when this calculation is undertaken, it is permissible to discount costs and benefits, depending on how far removed they are from the present. This book attempts to make explicit and defend these presuppositions, and in so doing offer philosophical foundations for the debate over climate change policy.

Hegemonic Religions, Majoritarianism, and the Legitimate Limits of Governmental Religious Bias

Recent major court decisions and important political events in democratic countries demonstrated, explicitly or implicitly, governmental bias in favor of a given religious tradition. Some prominent cases include the Swiss minarets ban of 2009, the 2011 ECtHR decision in the Lautsi case (Lautsi vs. Italy (2011) Application No. 30814/06) as well as the recent decision of the U.S. Supreme Court in the American Legion v. American Humanist Association case (No. 17-1717, 588 U.S. (2019), legitimizing the usage of public funds to maintain the Maryland Bladensburg Cross. Major scholars, such as David Miller, Joseph Weiler, and Cecile Laborde suggested a novel, detailed argument, justifying the rights of majorities in given countries to structure religion–state institutions following the majority religion, as long as the rights of minority communities and individuals are upheld. The aim of the current article is twofold: First, in section one, we shall attentively define the ‘religious majoritarian approach’ (RMA), that upholds the presumed rights of majorities to structure religion–state institutions according to the majority-religion. The core features of the RMA will be defined, and three pre-conditions the model requires in order to ‘fit’ any given case will be described (‘shared understanding’; ‘tradition’ and ‘democratic challenge’). Second, in section two, once we have a precise understanding of the RMA, to suggest a critical discussion of this approach. For the sake of the argument, and in order to enable a proper conversation with RMA proponents, this article will not assume that the RMA is illegitimate to begin with, as would be the case if our starting point would have been some version of liberal-neutrality. Rather, the main critical argument will be that the positive case for the RMA is under-studied. In ‘positive’, it would mean here the arguments for the RMA, rather than focusing on the mere permissibility of it. After all, if a government wishes to adopt a certain policy, it is not sufficient to argue that it does not violate certain moral or legal standards, rather, the citizens of said country would like to know what is the utility of this policy? What does it attempt to achieve? How is it justified? The ‘positive’ examination of the RMA will be divided into two categories: The first, examining the merits and plausibility of the pre-conditions and the arguments made by RMA scholars themselves. Therefore, in cases in which they are not met, the RMA should be rejected according to the RMA itself. The second is to confront RMA models with further critiques and difficulties, focusing on concerns raised regarding the entanglement between religion and state that the RMA entails, from the perspective of both religion and government. Somewhat schematically, we can label the former critique as ‘internal’, and the latter as ‘external’.

Cost-Benefit Analysis as an Expression of Liberal Neutrality

The past few decades have seen an expansion in the use of cost-benefit analysis as a tool for policy evaluation in the public sector. This slow, steady creep has been a source of consternation to many philosophers and political theorists, who are inclined to view cost-benefit analysis as simply a variant of utilitarianism and consider utilitarianism to be completely unacceptable as a public philosophy. The chapter shows that this impression is misleading. When construed narrowly, cost-benefit analysis does look a lot like utilitarianism. However, when it is seen in its broader context, in the way that it is applied, and the types of problem to which it is applied, it is better understood as an attempt by the state to avoid taking sides with respect to various controversial conceptions of the good.

Liberalism

This chapter analyses the rise of liberalism in terms of the desire to develop a set of normative principles to govern the state that exhibit neutrality with regard to controversial conceptions of the good. It traces the historical development to emphasize that these principles represented not just a solution to a conceptual difficulty but also a way to address a pressing practical problem. The classical formulation of the doctrine emphasized the state’s provision of three “neutral” goods: property, contract, and security. However, the very success of liberal states organized on this basis gave rise to a set of social problems that the doctrine was powerless to resolve. This gave rise, indirectly, to modern liberalism, which reconceptualizes liberal neutrality in terms of a commitment to a set of more abstract principles of efficiency, equality, and liberty.

Sen’s Capability Critique

Amartya Sen’s capability critique identified a problem with Rawls’s use of primary goods as his metric of advantage (that is, his way to measure inequality). Sen offered the notion of capability as a solution that would improve the ability of justice as fairness to acknowledge unfair inequalities related to disability, among other things. This chapter aims, first, to provide a more precise and conciliatory understanding of the disagreement between Rawls and Sen (by attending to Rawls’s remarks about the value of liberties); second, to spell out the deeper theoretical implications of Sen’s critique by tracing the connections between the elements Sen modifies and other more fundamental elements in justice as fairness (such as liberal neutrality); third, to identify problems raised by those implications; and fourth, to provide a solution by developing a further modification to Rawlsian theory (namely, public value perfectionism).

Criminalization and Liberalism

This chapter considers the concepts of criminalization and liberalism. Criminal sanctions are just one of a range of means by which society can respond to sexual misconduct, but they are a particularly important method in light of their stigmatizing effects and potential to deprive persons of liberty. The theory developed here assumes that it is intrinsically wrong to punish criminal offenders who are blameless and also wrong to punish blameworthy offenders more harshly than they deserve. One of the most important elements of blameworthiness is wrongfulness, which is understood to involve a violation of a victim’s rights. The approach followed here is liberal in the sense that it emphasizes the freedom of the individual. It recognizes that the government has an obligation to protect individuals from being harmed by others but also that government itself can pose a threat to liberty. A key feature of this approach is liberal neutrality, the idea that the state should not reward or punish particular conceptions of the good life but should instead provide a neutral framework within which citizens can pursue their own conception of the good.