Scholarly Works, Kellogg Center for Philosophy, Politics, and Economics
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- The limits of compromiseWendt, Fabian (Wiley, 2024-06-01)This paper defends the view that the limits of compromise are identical with the moral principles that set limits to human action more generally. Moral principles that prohibit lying, stealing, or killing, for example, sometimes make it morally impermissible to accept a compromise proposal, for the simple reason that the proposal involves an act of lying, killing, or stealing. The same holds for any other moral principle that sets limits to human action. This may sound straightforward and, perhaps, trivial. Yet in the philosophical literature, discussions of the limits of compromise have singled out more specific principles: Avishai Margalit proposes that the limits of compromise are set by the value of humanity, Simon May points at racial equality and more generally democratic legitimacy, Alexander Ruser and Amanda Machin appeal to the value of integrity, and a fourth at least initially plausible account invokes the idea of public justifiability. After discussing in greater detail what an account of the limits of compromise may be expected to do, the paper will show that none of these accounts is convincing.
- Strategic justice, conventions, and game theory: introduction to a Synthese topical collectionMoehler, Michael; Thrasher, John (Springer, 2024-07-06)Evolutionary, game-theoretic approaches to justice and the social contract have become increasingly popular in contemporary moral and political philosophy. (Vanderschraaf, Strategic justice: convention and problems of balancing divergent interests, Oxford University Press, 2019) theory of strategic justice represents the most recent contribution to this tradition and, in many ways, can be viewed as a culmination of it. This article discusses some of the central features of Vanderschraaf's theory and relates them to the contributions in this collection. Some of the contributions directly address Vanderschraaf's work, while others explore related topics in game theory, bargaining theory, formal philosophy, rationality, equality, justice, and the theory of conventions. This collection aims to bridge a gap between disjoint but closely related literature spanning a wide range of disciplines. The contributions allow readers to systematically engage with the topic of strategic justice, advance dialogue, and more easily follow this rich and expanding field of study.
- Integrated Moral Agency and the Practical Phenomenon of Moral DiversityMoehler, Michael (2021-11-07)The practical phenomenon of moral diversity is a central feature of many contemporary societies and poses a distinct problem to moral theory building. Because of its goal to settle the moral question fully and exclusively and/or to provide better understanding of moral disagreement, traditional first-order moral theory often does not provide sufficient guidance to address this phenomenon and moral agency in deeply morally diverse societies. In this article, I move beyond traditional first-order moral theorizing and, based on multilevel social contract theory (Moehler 2018, 2020a), develop a practically sound notion of moral agency for morally diverse societies. The interrelational and dynamic notion of integrated moral agency developed in this article demands that agents actively exercise their rational and affective capacities, are receptive to the capacities of others, and are aware of the type of moral interaction in which they engage with others. The notion of integrated moral agency helps agents to reconcile conflicting first-order moral directives and to maximally protect agents’ autonomy in morally diverse societies.
- Different Strokes for Different Folks: Who Votes for Technocratic Parties?Snegovaya, Maria (Cogitatio Press, 2020-12-17)In this study, I look at two types of political actors commonly described as ‘populist’ in literature—namely, rightwing populists and technocratic leaders like France’s Emmanuel Macron and the Czech Republic’s Andrej Babiš. While both types of political actors tend to emerge as a response to a decline in trust in established parties and adopt platforms with anti-establishment and monist elements, they also possess noticeably different qualities. Unlike rightwing populists, technocrats lack a distinctive ideological profile and tend to adopt more inclusive rhetoric by appealing to a broadly-defined community of people. When contrasted with supporters of rightwing populists, empirical analysis of supporters of Macron’s and Babiš’ parties shows that the two have few commonalities. Relatively few examples of such political leadership, the lack of a distinct ideological profile and the variation of their support bases suggest that one should use caution when conceptualizing technocratic populists as a distinct theoretical type.