My main research interests lie within five related areas: the relationship between social practices and ethical principles; social justice; EU politics; basic equality and human rights; solidarity. But here I focus on my most recent work.
My most recent book is a monograph, entitled Solidarity: Nature, Grounds, and Value (Manchester University Press, 2023, available OpenAccess), which also includes five critical essays by Catherine Lu, Sally Scholz, Rainer Forst, Avery Kolers, and Jared Holley. I argue that solidarity is not a form of fellow-feeling, a synonym of social justice, or a mere disposition to share resources or aid the needy; rather, it is best understood as a kind of joint action. To be in solidarity is to act in solidarity. I also discuss what reasons we might have for acting in solidarity (including the idea of identifying with another on the basis of role, condition, experience, cause, or way of life), and whether and what kind of value acting in solidarity has. Juri Viehoff and I have edited a volume on solidarity entitled The Virtue of Solidarity (Oxford University Press, 2024) with essays by me, Juri Viehoff, Tommie Shelby, Carol Gould, Sally Scholz, Rainer Forst, Philippe Van Parijs, Veronique Munoz-Dardé, Alexander Somek, Avery Kolers, Meghan Clark, and Peggy Kohn. I have started to think about different traditions of political thought about solidarity, especially in a post-colonial context, for example in North American, India, Latin America, and Africa. An article on 'Solidarity as a Social Kind' is forthcoming in the open-access journal Political Philosophy.
A second project is on the 'European-only exclusion rule'. Why is the EU a European Union? Why are states that are not European automatically rejected from acceding to the Union (as Morocco was in 1987)? The question has been surprisingly overlooked. And yet it stands at the very core of Europe’s self-understanding. We standardly believe that domestic associations that exclude would-be members on the basis of race, for example, fall afoul of anti-discrimination norms. But how is the European-only exclusion rule any different? The history of ‘Europe’ as an idea — an idea that was used first to bound Christendom (against Islam), then, in the Enlightenment, civilization (against barbarism), and, closely related, the white race (from other races) — brings this question into much sharper focus. My current work seeks to answer it, and, in the process, to query how ‘Europe’ as a project may be justified.
I am also interested in burden-sharing within regional organizations, and have recently published (see here) a paper that asks the following question: What standards should govern our assessment of burden-sharing policies regarding refugee processing, housing, and protection in regional organizations like the EU? Also: What kinds of redistributive social policies might be justifiable at the EU level? See here for a paper arguing that a form of EU-level ‘re-insurance’ against exogenous shocks is preferable to an EU-wide basic income.
These three projects are supported by an ERC Consolidator Grant entitled Solidarity in Europe.
My most recent book is a monograph, entitled Solidarity: Nature, Grounds, and Value (Manchester University Press, 2023, available OpenAccess), which also includes five critical essays by Catherine Lu, Sally Scholz, Rainer Forst, Avery Kolers, and Jared Holley. I argue that solidarity is not a form of fellow-feeling, a synonym of social justice, or a mere disposition to share resources or aid the needy; rather, it is best understood as a kind of joint action. To be in solidarity is to act in solidarity. I also discuss what reasons we might have for acting in solidarity (including the idea of identifying with another on the basis of role, condition, experience, cause, or way of life), and whether and what kind of value acting in solidarity has. Juri Viehoff and I have edited a volume on solidarity entitled The Virtue of Solidarity (Oxford University Press, 2024) with essays by me, Juri Viehoff, Tommie Shelby, Carol Gould, Sally Scholz, Rainer Forst, Philippe Van Parijs, Veronique Munoz-Dardé, Alexander Somek, Avery Kolers, Meghan Clark, and Peggy Kohn. I have started to think about different traditions of political thought about solidarity, especially in a post-colonial context, for example in North American, India, Latin America, and Africa. An article on 'Solidarity as a Social Kind' is forthcoming in the open-access journal Political Philosophy.
A second project is on the 'European-only exclusion rule'. Why is the EU a European Union? Why are states that are not European automatically rejected from acceding to the Union (as Morocco was in 1987)? The question has been surprisingly overlooked. And yet it stands at the very core of Europe’s self-understanding. We standardly believe that domestic associations that exclude would-be members on the basis of race, for example, fall afoul of anti-discrimination norms. But how is the European-only exclusion rule any different? The history of ‘Europe’ as an idea — an idea that was used first to bound Christendom (against Islam), then, in the Enlightenment, civilization (against barbarism), and, closely related, the white race (from other races) — brings this question into much sharper focus. My current work seeks to answer it, and, in the process, to query how ‘Europe’ as a project may be justified.
I am also interested in burden-sharing within regional organizations, and have recently published (see here) a paper that asks the following question: What standards should govern our assessment of burden-sharing policies regarding refugee processing, housing, and protection in regional organizations like the EU? Also: What kinds of redistributive social policies might be justifiable at the EU level? See here for a paper arguing that a form of EU-level ‘re-insurance’ against exogenous shocks is preferable to an EU-wide basic income.
These three projects are supported by an ERC Consolidator Grant entitled Solidarity in Europe.
I have also written a book entitled Humanity Without Dignity (Harvard University Press, 2017) on the idea of basic equality and its relevance to human rights. Name any valued human trait—intelligence, wit, charm, grace, strength—and you will find an inexhaustible variety and complexity in its expression among individuals. Yet we insist that such diversity does not provide grounds for differential treatment at the most basic level. Whatever merit, blame, praise, love, or hate we receive as beings with a particular past and a particular constitution, we are always and everywhere due equal respect merely as persons. But why? Most who attempt to answer this question appeal to the idea that all human beings possess an intrinsic dignity and worth—grounded in our capacities, for example, to reason, reflect, or love—that raises us up in the order of nature. I reject this predominant view. To understand our commitment to basic equality, I argue that we must begin with a consideration not of equality but of inequality. Rather than search for a chimerical value-bestowing capacity possessed to an equal extent by each one of us, we ought to ask: Why and when is it wrong to treat others as inferior? For two symposia on the book, see here and here, and see also this article in Die Zeit. I have continued to write on themes relevant to the book in 'Are We of Equal Moral Worth?' and 'Is There a Thing Called Moral Equality? (And Does It Matter if There Isn’t?)' (see publications for citations).
More recently, I returned to thinking about the role of social hierarchy in modern politics, especially in the context of the rise of populism. Across nearly all liberal democracies today, there is an increasing divide between the rural and metropolitan, the more educated and less educated, the core and periphery. The divide is not, however, simply economic. It is social as well: people increasingly feel left out, marginalized, looked down upon, contemned, and scorned for being ‘inferior’. When and why are social status hierarchies illegitimate? If we abandon any idea of basic equality (as I suggest we should), on what basis might we criticize them?
More recently, I returned to thinking about the role of social hierarchy in modern politics, especially in the context of the rise of populism. Across nearly all liberal democracies today, there is an increasing divide between the rural and metropolitan, the more educated and less educated, the core and periphery. The divide is not, however, simply economic. It is social as well: people increasingly feel left out, marginalized, looked down upon, contemned, and scorned for being ‘inferior’. When and why are social status hierarchies illegitimate? If we abandon any idea of basic equality (as I suggest we should), on what basis might we criticize them?