Philip Pettit, The Birth of Ethics: Reconstructing the Role and Nature of Morality, Kinch Hoekstra (ed.), Michael Tomasello (comm.)

2020 ◽  
Vol 17 (6) ◽  
pp. 707-710
Author(s):  
Paul Schofield
Keyword(s):  
Philip Pettit

The Good Polity: Normative Analysis of the State. Alan Hamlin , Philip Pettit

Ethics ◽  
1990 ◽  
Vol 101 (1) ◽  
pp. 189-191
Author(s):  
David M. Estlund
Keyword(s):  
The State ◽  
Normative Analysis ◽  
Philip Pettit

scholarly journals Criminal Law and Republican Liberty: Philip Pettit’s Account

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jeremy Horder
Keyword(s):  
Political Theory ◽  
Criminal Law ◽  
Significant Challenge ◽  
Philip Pettit ◽  
Republican Liberty ◽  
Republican Theory

AbstractPhilip Pettit has made central to modern republican theory a distinctive account of freedom—republican freedom. On this account, I am not free solely because I can make choices without interference. I am truly free, only if that non-interference does not itself depend on another’s forbearance (what Pettit calls ‘formal’ freedom). Pettit believes that the principal justification for the traditional focus of the criminal law is that it constitutes a bulwark against domination. I will, in part, be considering the merits of this claim. Is the importance of the orthodox realm of the criminal law solely or mainly explained by the wish to protect people from domination? In short, the answer is that it is not. Across the board, the criminal law rightly protects us equally from threats to what Pettit calls ‘effective,’ as opposed to formal, republican freedom. I will develop my critique of Pettit’s account of criminal law, in part to raise questions about the role of ‘domination’ in political theory, and about whether it poses a significant challenge to liberal accounts of criminal law.

Symposium on Amartya Sen's philosophy: 4 Reply

2001 ◽  
Vol 17 (1) ◽  
pp. 51-66 ◽  
Author(s):  
Amaryta Sen
Keyword(s):  
Martha Nussbaum ◽  
Related Literature ◽  
Philip Pettit ◽  
Elizabeth Anderson ◽  
Thomas Scanlon

I am most grateful to Elizabeth Anderson (2000), Philip Pettit (2000) and Thomas Scanlon (2000) for making such insightful and penetrating comments on my work and the related literature. I have reason enough to be happy, having been powerfully defended in some respects and engagingly challenged in others. I must also take this opportunity of thanking Martha Nussbaum, for not only chairing the session in which these papers were presented followed by a splendid discussion (which she led), but also for taking the initiative, in the first place, to arrange the session.

scholarly journals Systemic domination, social institutions and the coalition problem

2020 ◽  
Vol 19 (4) ◽  
pp. 382-402
Author(s):  
Hallvard Sandven
Keyword(s):  
Possible Worlds ◽  
Social Institutions ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Critical Potential ◽  
Philip Pettit ◽  
The Social ◽  
Constant State ◽  
Group Members ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Relevant Domain

This article argues for a systemic conception of freedom as non-domination. It does so by engaging with the debate on the so-called coalition problem. The coalition problem arises because non-domination holds that groups can be agents of (dominating) power, while also insisting that freedom be robust. Consequently, it seems to entail that everyone is in a constant state of domination at the hands of potential groups. However, the problem can be dissolved by rejecting a ‘strict possibility’ standard for interpreting non-domination’s robustness requirement. Frank Lovett and Philip Pettit propose to restrict the relevant domain of possible worlds by reference to two epistemic conditions pertaining to potential group members. I argue that this strategy unduly limits non-domination’s critical potential. I then argue that a suitably systemic conception of domination avoids this problem. By placing explanatory emphasis on social institutions, and how these bear on the feasibility of individual and collective action, a systemic conception of non-domination avoids the coalition problem in a way that retains its critical potential. The article clarifies the relationship between the rule of law and the social norms and objects to the claim that non-domination is bound to deem the latter irrelevant from the point of view of freedom.

Book Symposium: Hobbes and Political Theory Introduction: Hobbes, Language and Liberty

2009 ◽  
Vol 22 (2) ◽  
pp. 161-170
Author(s):  
Richard Bourke
Keyword(s):  
Political Philosophy ◽  
International Symposium ◽  
Political Theory ◽  
Philip Pettit ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Book Symposium

AbstractHobbes's place in the history of political philosophy is a highly controversial one. An international symposium held at Queen Mary, University of London in February 2009 was devoted to debating his significance and legacy. The event focussed on recent books on Hobbes by Quentin Skinner and Philip Pettit, and was organised around four commentaries on these new works by distinguished scholars. This paper is designed to introduce the subject of the symposium together with the commentaries and subsequent responses from Petit and Skinner. It examines the themes of language and liberty in the philosophy of Hobbes and concludes by highlighting some of the ways in which further research into Hobbes's debt to Aristotle's Politics will prove fruitful and illuminating.

scholarly journals Justifying republican patriotism

2019 ◽  
Vol 30 (2) ◽  
pp. 287-303
Author(s):  
Szilárd Tóth
Keyword(s):  
The Other ◽  
Normative Force ◽  
The Third ◽  
Philip Pettit ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
Intrinsic Character

My paper is on the republican version of patriotism and its justification, as developed most systematically by Philip Pettit and Maurizio Viroli. The essence of the justification is as follows: patriotism is to be viewed as valuable insofar as it is an indispensable instrument for the upholding of the central republican ideal, namely freedom understood as non-domination. My primary aim is to evaluate the normative force of this justification. In the first section, I introduce minimal descriptive definitions of the concepts of patriotism and the patria. Second, I reconstruct the republican patria-ideal to which patriotism is linked to. In the third section, I reconstruct the republican justification of patriotism. Finally, I ask what we justify when we justify republican patriotism. Two views are prevalent in this regard. According to the first, republican patriotic motivation, similarly to its justification, ought to be instrumental itself too (Pettit, Viroli). I argue that this view is untenable, since it is in tension with the minimal definition of patriotism. The conclusion is that the other view - according to which the patriotic motivation ought to be of intrinsic character (Miller) - possesses greater normative force.

Philip Pettit

2015 ◽  
pp. 33-57
Author(s):  
Nathaniel Jason Goldberg
Keyword(s):  
Philip Pettit

Hope in the task of forgiveness

2020 ◽  
pp. 190-204
Author(s):  
John Lippitt
Keyword(s):  
Interpersonal Forgiveness ◽  
Death Row ◽  
Philip Pettit ◽  
Normative Change ◽  
Dead Man

A second putative virtue key to forgivingness is hope. This chapter compares the hope that Kierkegaard labels as a variety of ‘expectancy’ [Forventning] with what Philip Pettit has called ‘substantial’ (as opposed to ‘superficial’) hope, focusing in particular on their mutual capacity to provide what Pettit calls ‘cognitive resolve’. Such hope, it is argued, can itself be understood as a work of love, returning to the earlier discussion of Helen Prejean’s relation to the Death Row inmate Pat Sonnier in Dead Man Walking to discuss how such hope can ‘scaffold’ normative change. This view of hope is defended against objections in the context of considering the role of hope in the task of interpersonal forgiveness.

scholarly journals From Domination to Emancipation and Freedom: Reading Ernesto Laclau's Post-Marxism in Conjunction with Philip Pettit's Neo-republicanism

2019 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
pp. 391-409
Author(s):  
Gulshan Khan
Keyword(s):  
Focal Point ◽  
Alternative Conceptions ◽  
Political Freedom ◽  
Political Struggle ◽  
Arbitrary Power ◽  
Structure And Agency ◽  
Political Implications ◽  
Philip Pettit ◽  
Marxist Approach ◽  
A Doll's House

In this paper, I bring Ernesto Laclau's post-Marxist approach into conversation with the analytical thinker Philip Pettit, who has developed an influential neo-republican conception of freedom as 'non-domination'. Both thinkers aim to reconfigure power and domination towards more democratic and egalitarian relations and I evaluate the political implications of their respective conceptions of domination/non-domination, emancipation and freedom. I show that despite these common points of reference, the two authors exhibit considerable differences which manifest in their respective conceptions of structure and agency. In the opening section, I compare Laclau's and Pettit's respective conceptions of 'domination' where I highlight the differences between them in two alternate readings of Henrik Ibsen's play A Doll's House. In the second section, I examine their respective understandings of 'emancipation' and 'freedom', and I demonstrate that Pettit does not model his conception of freedom as non-domination on the idea of emancipation. This stands in contrast to Laclau, for whom emancipation remains the focal point of political struggle, despite formal equality, and who maintains the idea of the possibility of a more radical transformation in the underlying structures of society. In the final section, I consider Laclau's and Pettit's alternative conceptions of politics where both thinkers place a premium on democratic contest in challenging and overturning arbitrary power. I show that for Pettit political freedom is a mode of contestability within the established institutions, while Laclau's notions of emancipation and freedom functions at the level of competing hegemonic projects, and this facilitates a form of political struggle that might transcend the existing regime to instantiate a new institutional order. I conclude by amalgamating the respective strengths of both thinkers to provide a multi-layered analysis of contemporary forms of domination to better aid our understanding about the kinds of struggle needed to contest them.

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