Self-consciousness in non-human animals is a complex phenomenon which raises both conceptual and methodological problems. First, what do we mean by the concept of ‘self-consciousness’? Secondly, what is the best experimental approach to self-consciousness? This paper gives a short overview of the concept of self-consciousness in section 1. We can understand the concept of self-consciousness as capturing the ability of subjects to consciously think about themselves as themselves. If this is accurate, then it is prudent to look at a broad (...) bundle of abilities which are related to this ability. The paper then focuses on advantages and problems of the multipronged approach, a kind of empirical approach which uses several different test criteria to determine whether a subject is self-conscious or not. Section 2 briefly contrasts this kind of approach with other possibilities. The main disparity is to singlepronged approaches, which have been discussed and dismissed in greater detail elsewhere. Section 3 discusses the advantages of a multipronged approach, whereas section 4 is dedicated to the discussion of some of its problems. (shrink)

Contemporary proponents of republican political theory often focus on the concept of freedom as non-domination, and how best to promote it within a state. However, there is little attention paid to what the republican conception of freedom demands in the international realm. In this essay I examine what is required for an agent to enjoy freedom as non-domination, and argue that this might only be achieved for individuals if one of two possibilities is pursued internationally: either (1) all nations are (...) made equally powerful, such that none may arbitrarily impose its will on another without penalty, or (2) all nations are joined under a global sovereign which guarantees that the weaker states are not subject to the whims of the stronger. I further argue that the first condition cannot suffice for achieving true non-domination, and as a result, republicanism must prescribe working toward the establishment of a global state. This paper provides an important contribution to the literature by addressing the international implications of the republican conception of freedom. (shrink)

Politics, Philosophy & Economics, Volume 21, Issue 2, Page 97-121, May 2022. Republicans hold that people are unfree if they are dominated, that is, if others have an insufficiently constrained ability to frustrate their choices. Since legislation can frustrate individuals’ choices, republicans believe that the design of legislative institutions has consequences for individual freedom. Some have argued that if legislative institutions are democratic, then they need not be sources of domination at all. We argue this view is incorrect: the introduction (...) of legislative authority, even if democratically organized, always creates a new site of domination. However, republicans can defend democratic procedures as the best means of minimizing the degree to which citizens are dominated, subject to the constraint of equalizing everyone’s freedom. We formulate and prove this claim within a simple model of legislative authority and domination. (shrink)

This research uses a normative approach to examine the relationship between basic income and migration. The decisive variable is the effect of labour automation, which increases economic insecurities globally, leaving some nation states in a position to cope with this and others not. The insecurities will increase migratory pressures on one hand but also justify the introduction of basic income on a nation state level on the other. The normative guideline is the republican conception of freedom as non-domination. This is (...) used to justify a basic income, analyse how labour automation creates dominating structures and how borders dominate migrants seeking to move to countries which introduce a basic income. The result is that nation states that introduce a basic income to counter internal domination through labour automation, also have to look outside of their nation state. The imposition of borders in order to keep a basic income sustainable as well as labour automation itself, establish a form of domination over less developed countries and thus demand international regulation. (shrink)

What role should the political ideal of non-domination play in theorizing global justice? The importance of this ideal is defended most prominently in neo-republican political thought where non-domination embodies a conception of political freedom and serves as the foundational ideal of state citizenship [Pettit, Philip. 1997. Republicanism: A Theory of Freedom and Government. Oxford: Clarendon Press; Laborde, Cecile. 2008. Critical Republicanism. Oxford, New York: Oxford University Press]. It has been argued, however, that these theories can be extended to the global (...) political community and yield a separate framework for global justice. This paper agrees with proponents of non-domination that there is a significant critical and normative potential in the ideal's capacity to speak to the structural inequalities of power in the global order and to make them central, in a way that not only encompasses but also moves beyond questions of redistribution. Yet it argues that this should be conceived as a complement to existing approaches to global justice, rather than a full-fledged alternative. Non-domination's central contribution lies in reframing our perspective on the political authority of states and global institutions. As such it should be viewed as a freestanding principle to assess the political legitimacy of institutionalized global power relations. (shrink)

Domination consists in subjection to the will of others and manifests itself both as a personal relation and a structural phenomenon serving as the context for relations of power. Domination has again become a central political concern through the revival of the republican tradition of political thought . However, normative debates about domination have mostly remained limited to the context of domestic politics. Also, the republican debate has not taken into account alternative ways of conceptualizing domination. Critical theorists, liberals, feminists, (...) critical race theorists, and postcolonial writers have discussed domination in different ways, focusing on such problems as imperialism, racism, and the subjection of indigenous peoples. This volume extends debates about domination to the global level and considers how other streams in political theory and nearby disciplines enrich, expand upon, and critique the republican tradition’s contributions to the debate. This volume brings together, for the first time, mostly original pieces on domination and global political justice by some of this generation’s most prominent scholars, including Philip Pettit, James Bohman, Rainer Forst, Amy Allen, John McCormick, Thomas McCarthy, Charles Mills, Duncan Ivison, John Maynor, Terry Macdonald, Stefan Gosepath, and Hauke Brunkhorst. -/- Front matter and First chapter available for download. (shrink)

This chapter explores the different dimensions of domination, including whether it has a structural approach, its relation to race and imperialism, and how non-domination can be institutionalized and achieved at a global level.