Research in psychology and behavioral economics shows that individuals’ choices often depend on “irrelevant” contextual factors. This presents problems for normative economics, which has traditionally used preference-satisfaction as its criterion. A common response is to claim that individuals have context-independent latent preferences which are “distorted” by psychological factors, and that latent preferences should be respected. This response implicitly uses a model of human action in which each human being has an “inner rational agent.” I argue that this model is psychologically ungrounded. Although references to latent preferences appear in psychologically based explanations of context-dependent choice, latent preferences serve no explanatory purpose.

J.S. Mill’s advocacy of liberty was based only in part on his harm principle. He also endorsed two other principles that considerably extend the scope of liberty: first, a principle of individual liberty that is based on the value of positive freedom and of developing individuality, and second, a principle of free trade or economic freedom that is based on the value of economic efficiency. An analysis is offered of how these three principles are combined in Mill’s account of liberty and how they connect with his antipaternalism. It is proposed that his appeal in On Liberty to positive freedom and the development of individuality provides a uniting principle that makes his view on liberty cohere with his utilitarianism.

Robert Nozick and Eric Mack have tried to show that a minimal state could be just. A minimal state, they claim, could help to protect people’s moral rights without violating moral rights itself. In this article, I will discuss two challenges for defenders of a minimal state. The first challenge is to show that the just minimal state does not violate moral rights when taxing people and when maintaining a monopoly on the use of force. I argue that this challenge can be met. The second challenge is to show that the just minimal state has political authority, including, most importantly, the moral power to impose duties on citizens. I argue that both Nozick and Mack lack the resources to meet that challenge, and that political authority cannot be deflated. This is an important problem, because a lack of political authority also undermines a state’s justness.

This paper focuses on the theme of intersubjective disagreement in the late Wittgenstein and how his thought can be applied to our understanding of deliberative political practice. To this end, the study critically compares the contradictory readings of Wittgenstein that we find epitomized in Saul Kripke and James Tully. Drawing on Tully (and Stanley Cavell), I argue against Kripke that widespread disagreement over meaning does not necessarily threaten the utility of social practices. Notwithstanding, I also demonstrate how Tully’s reading, which can be considered pro-disagreement, is in need of refinement if certain misreadings are to be foreclosed and Wittgenstein is to be properly invoked as theoretical support for more comprehensive approaches to deliberative practice.

The theory of pure restitution claims that a state should not punish offenders, and instead it should be limited to exacting restitution from offenders. I begin the paper by assessing and rejecting Jesper Ryberg’s critique of pure restitution. I then assess David Boonin’s defense of pure restitution. I argue that Boonin’s theory of pure restitution fails because it cannot rely on carceral nonmonetary interventions. After evaluating Boonin’s theory, I advance three novel versions of common objections to pure restitution. I conclude that there are strong objections to any theory of pure restitution that have yet to be overcome.

Is socialism morally preferable to free market capitalism? G.A. Cohen has argued that even when the economic inequalities produced by free markets are not the result of injustice, they nevertheless ought to be avoided, because they are community-undermining. As free markets inevitably lead to economic inequalities and socialism does not, socialism is morally preferable. This argument has been the subject of recent criticism. Chad Van Schoelandt argues that it depends on a conception of community that is incompatible with pluralism, while Richard Miller argues that it rules out individualistic pursuits. I will show that both of these objections rest upon a misreading of Cohen’s argument.

Critical attention directed to John Rawls’s ideal theory has in particular leveled three charges against it: first, its infeasibility; second, its inadequacy for providing normative guidance on actual injustices; and third, its insensitivity to the justice concerns of marginalized groups. Recently, advocates for Rawls’s ideal theory have replied that problems arising at the stage of ideal theory can be addressed at the later stage of his nonideal theory. This article disputes that claim by arguing that although Rawls’s nonideal theory provides a good answer to the infeasibility charge, it does not do so for the second and third charges. To argue for this thesis, I illustrate that nonideal theory in Rawls’s Law of Peoples is unable to identify crucial injustices that emerge in the nonideal conditions of real world globalization.

Many high-income countries have skill-selective immigration policies, favoring prospective immigrants who are highly skilled. I investigate whether it is permissible for high-income countries to adopt such policies. Adopting what Joseph Carens calls a “realistic approach” to the ethics of immigration, I argue first that it is in principle permissible for high-income countries to take skill as a consideration in favor of selecting one prospective immigrant rather than another. I argue second that high-income countries must ensure that their skill-selective immigration policies do not contribute to the nonfulfillment of their duty to aid residents of low- and middle-income countries.

Recent epidemiological research on the social determinants of health has been used to attack an important framework, associated with Norman Daniels, that depicts healthcare as special. My aim is to rescue the idea that healthcare has special importance in society, although specialness will turn out to be mainly limited to clinical care. I build upon the link between Daniels’s theory and the work of John Rawls to develop a conception of public justification liberalism that is applicable to the field of justice and health. I argue that, from the perspective of public justification liberalism, (clinical) healthcare deserves special status.