Title: ‘The Point Is To Change It’ Abstract: Many political philosophers happily repeat Karl Marx’s 11th Thesis on Feuerbach (inscribed on his gravestone) ‘The Philosophers have only interpreted the world. The point is to change it.’ Marx had a theory of change: proletariat revolution. But what theory of change is appropriate in current circumstances? In ... Read more
Title: Distributing Commemorative Attention Abstract: Some of us get a lot of attention and some of us very little. This continues after we die. Some of our commemorative decisions are private but some of our commemorative attention is public: we are directed by monuments, commemorative plaques and scheduled occasions towards those we should commemorate. Much ... Read more
Title: Discrimination at the Border Abstract: In selecting among prospective immigrants, it is widely accepted that states are morally permitted to differentiate on the basis of skill. By contrast, differentiating among prospective immigrants on the basis of (perceived) traits such as race, ethnicity, or religion is widely held to amount to wrongful discrimination. I argue ... Read more
Title: Value Capture Abstract: Value capture occurs when an agent enters a social environment which presents external expressions of value — which are often simplified, standardized, and quantified — and those external versions come to dominate our reasoning and motivations. Examples include becoming motivated by Twitter Likes and Retweets, citation rates, ranked lists of best ... Read more
Title: ‘The limits of ideology critique’ Abstract: The tradition of ideology critique promises a lot. It promises to be critical of the existing social order. (Good!) But it promises to generate this critique without appealing to ‘external’ normative standards. In this talk I argue on meta-normative grounds that ideology critique cannot make good on these ... Read more
Title: An Agential Account of Poverty Abstract: Poverty has traditionally been conceived as a state of deprivation. To be poor is to lack something that is essential to human flourishing. How that something is conceived—in terms of welfare, resources, or capabilities—and how it is to be measured—in absolute terms or as relative to a social ... Read more