In recent years theorists, such as Yael Tamir and David Miller, have proposed a liberal form of nationalism thereby combining two seemingly incompatible traditions of thought. Perhaps the most controversial element of their theories is the claim that national communities should be accorded with a right to political self-determination. In the article it is explained, firstly, why membership in a nation is seen as important for the individual’s well-being and, secondly, why statehood is deemed necessary for the thriving of the (...) nation. Subsequently, two problems of the liberal nationalists’ argument for political self-determination are discussed. It is argued, firstly, that national communities only need some form of regional autonomy to achieve their most important goals and, secondly, that non-national communities, e.g. religious groups, can base their demand for political sovereignity on the very same argument. (shrink)

Is it fair to leave the next generation a public debt? Is it defensible to impose legal rules on them through constitutional constraints? From combating climate change to ensuring proper funding for future pensions, concerns about ethics between generations are everywhere. In this volume sixteen philosophers explore intergenerational justice. Part One examines the ways in which various theories of justice look at the matter. These include libertarian, Rawlsian, sufficientarian, contractarian, communitarian, Marxian and reciprocity-based approaches. In Part Two, the authors look (...) more specifically at issues relevant to each of these theories, such as motivation to act fairly towards future generations, the population dimension, the formation of preferences through education and how they impact on our intergenerational obligations, and whether it is fair to rely on constitutional devices. (shrink)

Non-consequentialist libertarianism usually revolves around the claim that there are only “negative,” not “positive,” rights. Libertarian nega- tive-rights theories are so patently problematic, though, that it seems that there is a more fundamental notion at work. Some libertarians think this basic idea is freedom or liberty; others, that it is self-ownership. Neither approach is satis- factory.

Philosophical defenses of property regimes can be classified as supporting either a conservative politics of property rights—the political protection of existing property titles—or a radical politics of direct political intervention to redistribute property titles. Traditionally, historical considerations were used to legitimize conservative property‐rights politics, while consequentialist arguments led to radical politics. Recently, however, the philosophical legitimations have changed places. Conservatives now point to the beneficial economic consequences of something like the current private‐property regime, while radicals justify political redistribution as restitution (...) for historical misappropriations. This shift can be explained by such factors as the failure of state‐directed redistributions of property during the twentieth century to benefit the poor. But there are limitations to the usefulness of historical arguments for radicals, and of consequentialist arguments for conservatives: namely, the undeserving poor and the idle rich, respectively. (shrink)

Advocates of remedying historical injustices urge political communities to take responsibility for their past, but their arguments are ambiguous about whether all past injustices need remedy, or just those regarding groups that suffer from current injustice. This ambiguity leaves unanswered the challenge of critics who argue that contemporary injustices matter, not those in the past. I argue instead for a focus on injustices that have roots in the past, and continue to the present day, what I call enduring injustice. Instead (...) of focusing on finding the party responsible for the injustice, I argue that we use history to help us understand why some injustices endure, which I suggest is partly due to the limitations of liberal justice. I conclude with a conception of responsibility for repairing enduring injustice that deemphasizes searching for the causal agent, and instead focuses on how to repair the injustice, which I explain through an expansive conception of shared space. (shrink)

This paper is interested in place-related attachments. It discusses the way in which territory or land is treated in theories of global distributive justice, and argues that this fails to capture the normatively significant relationship between peoples and places. This paper argues that any adequate theory of justice in territory has to begin by recognizing that territory is a claimant-relative good, and that this should be an important point of departure for theorizing about land and justice. Not only do the (...) current theories of distributive justice fail to acknowledge the claimant-relative nature of territory, but they do not offer a good way to incorporate place-related attachments in their theories. (shrink)

This article examines the nature of the wrongs that are inflicted on individuals and groups who have been expelled from the land that they previously occupied, and asks what they might consequently be owed as a matter of corrective justice. I argue that there are three sorts of potential wrongs involved in such expulsions: being deprived of the moral right of occupancy; being denied collective self-determination; and having one's property rights violated. Although analytically distinct, all of these wrongs are likely (...) to be perpetrated when people are expelled from their homelands. Although there is substantial literature on corrective justice dealing with such cases, most of that literature focuses on the expropriation of property only, and is therefore unlikely to grasp the full implications of the wrong done or to reveal the full extent of what might be owed to people as a matter of corrective justice. (shrink)

As an Israeli writing at the turn of the twenty-first century, I have become accustomed to hearing the word ‘settlement’ used by liberals almost invariably as a derogatory term. The Jewish settlements to the west of the Jordan river, now populated by close to a quarter of a million Jews, are often said to be a central obstacle to peace in the Middle East, as well as being immoral in and of themselves. Consistent liberals realize that this attitude poses a (...) problem for the endorsement of the Zionist effort altogether, since settlement has been a central tenet of this doctrine from the start and the main practical tool for achieving its goals within contested territories. It was also the primary apparatus for achieving Western control over North America, Australia, and New Zealand, wholly at the expense of the aboriginal inhabitants of those places. This, too, is the source of a great deal of contemporary liberal breast-beating. (shrink)