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Brownlee, Kimberley. A Human Right Against Social Deprivation
2013, Philosophical Quarterly 63 (251):199-222
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Added by: Deryn Mair Thomas
Abstract:

Human rights debates neglect social rights. This paper defends one fundamentally important, but largely unacknowledged social human right. The right is both a condition for and a constitutive part of a minimally decent human life. Indeed, protection of this right is necessary to secure many less controversial human rights. The right in question is the human right against social deprivation. In this context, ‘social deprivation’ refers not to poverty, but to genuine, interpersonal, social deprivation as a persisting lack of minimally adequate opportunities for decent human contact and social inclusion. Such deprivation is endured not only in arenas of institutional segregation by prisoners and patients held in long‐term solitary confinement and quarantine, but also by persons who suffer less organised forms of persistent social deprivation. The human right against social deprivation can be fleshed out both as a civil and political right and as a socio‐economic right. The defence for it faces objections familiar to human rights theory such as undue burdensomeness, unclaimability, and infeasibility, as well as some less familiar objections such as illiberality, intolerability, and ideals of the family. All of these objections can be answered.

Comment: This could be an interesting text to use in the context of a course on human rights, as it addresses an area of rights literature largely neglected by mainstream, analytic political philosophers. Brownlee offers a thorough and thoughtful consideration of what the content of such a right might be, and defends her account using careful reference to qualitative studies and existing data on the effects of social deprivation. In this sense, the text might also be useful in the context of discussions about applied social ethics and the broader civic and political significance of meeting social needs.

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Brownlee, Kimberley. Being Sure of Each Other: An Essay on Social Rights and Freedoms
2020, Oxford University Press
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Added by: Deryn Mair Thomas
Publisher’s Note:

To survive, let alone flourish, we need to be sure of—securely tied to—at least one other person. We also need to be sure of our general acceptance within the wider social world. This book explores the normative implications of taking our social needs seriously. Chapter 1 sketches out what our core social needs are, and Chapter 2 shows that they ground a fundamental, but largely neglected human right against social deprivation. Chapter 3 then argues that this human right includes a right to sustain the people we care about, and that often, when we are denied the resources to sustain others, we endure social contribution injustice. Chapters 4–6 explore the tension between our needs for social inclusion and our needs for interactional and associational freedom, showing that social inclusion must take priority. While Chapters 5 and 6 defend a narrow account of freedom of association, Chapter 7 shows that the moral ballgame changes once we have made morally messy associative decisions. Sometimes we have rights to remain in associations that we had no right to form. Finally, Chapter 8 exposes the distinct social injustices that we do to people whom we deem to be socially threatening. Overall, the book identifies ways to change our social and political practices, and our personal perspectives, to better honour the fact that we are fundamentally social beings.

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Brownlee, Kimberley. Conscience and Conviction: The Case for Civil Disobedience
2012, Oxford: Oxford University Press.
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Added by: Carl Fox
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This book shows that civil disobedience is more defensible than private conscientious objection. Part I distinguishes conviction from conscience, shedding light on the former as something non-evasive and communicative, and on the latter as something much richer, namely, genuine moral responsiveness. Each of these concepts informs a distinct argument for civil disobedience. The conviction argument shows that, as a constrained, communicative practice, civil disobedience has a better claim than private objection does to the protections that liberal societies give to conscientious dissent. This view reverses the standard liberal picture which sees private ‘conscientious’ objection as a modest act of personal belief and civil disobedience as a strategic, undemocratic act whose costs are only sometimes worth bearing. The conscience argument is narrower and shows that genuinely morally responsive civil disobedience honours the best of our moral responsibilities and is protected by a duty-based moral right of conscience. Part II translates the conviction argument and conscience argument into two legal defences. The first is a demands-of-conviction defence. The second is a necessity defence. Both of these defences apply more readily to civil disobedience than to private disobedience. Part II also examines lawful punishment, showing that, even when punishment is justifiable, civil disobedients have a moral right not to be punished.

Comment: An original approach to the morality of civil disobedience and the question of what protections should be enshrined in law for adherence to the dictates of one's conscience. Particularly interesting because the author argues that a stronger case can be made for permitting and protecting public civil disobedience than can be made for private conscientious objection. This text would be useful in a variety of teaching contexts. For example, a high-level undergraduate or master's level course on activism and resistance might utilise Part I to explore the specifically moral arguments defending civil disobedience, while philosophy of law courses might focus on the legal arguments in Part II. For a reading group or lower-level undergraduate courses, the introduction defines basic terms and offers a more entry-level discussion of the traditional liberal view of civil disobedience.

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Brownlee, Kimberley. Ethical Dilemmas of Sociability
2016, Utilitas 28 (1):54-72
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Added by: Deryn Mair Thomas
Abstract:

There is a tension between our need for associative control and our need for social connections. This tension creates ethical dilemmas that we can call each-we dilemmas of sociability. To resolve these dilemmas, we must prioritize either negative moral rights to dissociate or positive moral rights to social inclusion. This article shows that we must prioritize positive social rights. This has implications both for personal morality and for political theory. As persons, we must attend to each other's basic social needs. As a society, we must adopt a sufficientarian approach to the regulation of social resources.

Comment: This paper presents a unique interpretation of social, moral dilemmas in the context of our rights as social creatures. As such, it could be useful in the context of various social and political philosophical subject areas, including discussions on human rights, the scope of rights and duties, social rights, or alternative perspectives on moral dilemmas. In this sense, it could be used in an introductory moral philosophy course to introduce basic questions about moral dilemmas and the extent to which our social needs can be the subject of those dilemma. It could also be utilised in more advanced courses to examine the nature of socio-economic rights, the extent of our social needs, or to debate the extent to which the satisfaction of social needs constitutes such basic rights as human rights. It is somewhat technical, so introductory-level students may need some extra guidance.

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Brownlee, Kimberley. Freedom of Association: It’s Not What You Think
2015, Oxford Journal of Legal Studies 35 (2):267-282
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Added by: Deryn Mair Thomas
Abstract:

This article shows that associative freedom is not what we tend to thinkit is. Contrary to standard liberal thinking, it is neither a general moral permissionto choose the society most acceptable to us nor a content-insensitive claim-rightakin to the other personal freedoms with which it is usually lumped such asfreedom of expression and freedom of religion. It is at most (i) a highly restrictedmoral permission to associate subject to constraints of consent, necessity andburdensomeness; (ii) a conditional moral permission not to associate provided ourassociative contributions are not required; and (iii) a highly constrained, contentsensitive moral claim-right that protects only those wrongful associations thathonour other legitimate concerns such as consent, need, harm and respect. Thisarticle also shows that associative freedom is not as valuable as we tend to think itis. It is secondary to positive associative claim-rights that protect our fundamentalsocial needs and are pre-conditions for any associative control worth the name.

Comment: This paper offers a novel account of associative freedom, which counters existing philosophical consensus in the literature and proposes an account grounded in more positive claim-rights that we have as human beings to hold intimate associations throughout our lives. As such, it could be included in a course exploring the fundamentals of social philosophy, as a way to explore the basic requirements we have for social resources, as well as the rights/freedoms/obligations/duties that surround those requirements. It could also be useful as a core text in more traditional topic areas like political theory, human rights, or basic freedoms, or further reading as a counterposition to more traditional claims in those areas.

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Brownlee, Kimberley. The Lonely Heart Breaks: On The Right to Be a Social Contributor
2016, Aristotelian Society Supplementary Volume 90 (1):27-48
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Added by: Deryn Mair Thomas
Abstract:

This paper uncovers a distinctively social type of injustice that lies in the kinds of wrongs we can do to each other specifically as social beings. In this paper, social injustice is not principally about unfair distributions of socio-economic goods among citizens. Instead, it is about the ways we can violate each other’s fundamental rights to lead socially integrated lives in close proximity and relationship with other people. This paper homes in on a particular type of social injustice, which we can call social contribution injustice. The paper identifies two distinct forms of social contribution injustice. The first form involves compromising a person’s social resources so as to deny her adequate scope to contribute socially. The second form involves unjustly misvaluing a person as a social contributor, usually by not taking her seriously as a social contributor.

Comment: This paper offers a unique account of what distinguishes social contribution from other social goods, and makes an interesting defense of contribution as a right. It is especially relevant for discussing the extent to which we have social rights, and determining their scope, or their relationship to basic human rights. It might be useful to offer as further reading for a course on applied ethics, or could be used as a central reading in courses which focus on human rights or social rights. It also puts forward a novel understanding of social injustice which is grounded, not in distribution of goods, but in violation of rights. This aspect of the argument could be relevant to a more general discussion on conceptions of social justice.

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Burch-Brown, Joanna. Is it Wrong to Topple Statues and Rename Schools?
2017, Journal of Political Theory and Philosophy 1(1):59-88
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Added by: Ten-Herng Lai
Abstract: In recent years, campaigns across the globe have called for the removal of objects symbolic of white supremacy. This paper examines the ethics of altering or removing such objects. Do these strategies sanitize history, destroy heritage and suppress freedom of speech? Or are they important steps towards justice? Does removing monuments and renaming schools reflect a lack of parity and unfairly erase local identities? Or can it sometimes be morally required, as an expression of respect for the memories of people who endured past injustices; a recognition of this history's ongoing legacies; and a repudiation of unjust social hierarchies?

Comment (from this Blueprint): It is often thought that statues and monuments, even those of terrible people, are innocuous, that they cannot harm or affect us negatively. This paper helps to spell out the harms of preserving these commemorations. Among other important issues, this paper also engages with the “anachronism” problem, that we are judging people of the past with contemporary standards. This paper also gives a good introduction on the notion of “ideology” and its relation to objectionable commemorations.

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Burkhart, Brian. Indigenizing Philosophy through the Land: A Trickster Methodology of Decolonising Environmental Ethics and Indigenous Futures
2019, Michigan State University Press.
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Added by: Sonja Dobroski and Quentin Pharr
Publisher’s Note: Land is key to the operations of coloniality, but the power of the land is also the key anticolonial force that grounds Indigenous liberation. This work is an attempt to articulate the nature of land as a material, conceptual, and ontological foundation for Indigenous ways of knowing, being, and valuing. As a foundation of valuing, land forms the framework for a conceptualization of Indigenous environmental ethics as an anticolonial force for sovereign Indigenous futures. This text is an important contribution in the efforts to Indigenize Western philosophy, particularly in the context of settler colonialism in the United States. It breaks significant ground in articulating Indigenous ways of knowing and valuing to Western philosophy—not as artifact that Western philosophy can incorporate into its canon, but rather as a force of anticolonial Indigenous liberation. Ultimately, Indigenizing Philosophy through the Land shines light on a possible road for epistemically, ontologically, and morally sovereign Indigenous futures.

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Buss, Sarah. Personal autonomy
2008, Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
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Added by: Clotilde Torregrossa, Contributed by: Simon Fokt
Abstract: To be autonomous is to be a law to oneself; autonomous agents are self-governing agents. Most of us want to be autonomous because we want to be accountable for what we do, and because it seems that if we are not the ones calling the shots, then we cannot be accountable. More importantly, perhaps, the value of autonomy is tied to the value of self-integration. We don't want to be alien to, or at war with, ourselves; and it seems that when our intentions are not under our own control, we suffer from self-alienation. What conditions must be satisfied in order to ensure that we govern ourselves when we act? Philosophers have offered a wide range of competing answers to this question.

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Butler, Judith, Athena Athanasiou. The Political Promise of the Performative
2013, In: Dispossession: The Performative in the Political. London: Polity. 140-148.
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Added by: Rossen Ventzislavov
Summary: In this conversation Butler and Athanasiou explore the parameters of the public performance of political dissent. They discuss instances of political protest that link up to Butler and Athanasiou's shared sense of performativity. For the two of them, performativity is the aspect of our social life that manifests surprise, challenge and urgency through the human body. This makes the performative an especially effective instrument against the disparity, dispossession and desperation the better part of humanity is forced to endure.

Comment: This text is best used as a further or specialised reading in classes on political dissent and subversion of social norms. It can inspire interesting discussions on ways to express dissent and protest, and can be very useful in discussions of politically involved art.

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Carrasco, David, Jones, Lindsay, Sessions, Scott. Mesoamerica’s Classic Heritage: From Teotihuacan to the Aztecs
2000, University Press of Colorado
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Added by: M. Jimena Clavel Vázquez and Andrés Hernández Villarreal
Publisher’s Note:

For more than a millennium the great Mesoamerican city of Teotihuacn (c. 150 b.c.a.d. 750) has been imagined and reimagined by a host of subsequent cultures including our own. Mesoamerica's Classic Heritage engages the subject of the unity and diversity of pre-Hispanic Mesoamerica by focusing on the classic heritage of this ancient city. This new volume is the product of several years of research by members of Princeton University's Moses Mesoamerican Archive and Research Project and Mexico's Proyecto Teotihuacn. Offering a variety of disciplinary perspectives--including the history of religions, anthropology, archaeology, and art history - and a wealth of new data, Mesoamerica's Classic Heritage examines Teotihuacn's rippling influence across Mesoamerican time and space, including important patterns of continuity and change, and its relationships, both historical and symbolic, with Tenochtitlan, Cholula, and various Mayan communities.

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Cassidy, Lisa. Starving Children in Africa: Who Cares?
2005, Journal of International Women's Studies 7 (1): 84-96.
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Added by: Rochelle DuFord
Abstract: The current state of global poverty presents citizens in the Global North with a moral crisis: Do we care? In this essay, I examine two competing moral accounts of why those in the North should or should not give care (in the form of charity) to impoverished peoples in the Global South. Nineteen years ago feminist philosopher Nel Noddings wrote in Caring that 'we are not obliged to care for starving children in Africa' (1986, p. 86). Noddings's work belongs to the arena of care ethics - the feminist philosophical view that morality is about responding to, caring for, and preventing harm to those particular people to whom one has emotional attachments. By contrast, Peter Singer's recent work, One World, advances an impartialist view of morality, which demands that we dispassionately dispense aid to the most needy (2002, p.154). Thus this question needs answering: am I obliged to give care to desperately poor strangers, and if so, which moral framework (Singer's impartialism, or feminism's care ethics) gives the best account of that obligation? I argue that as an American feminist I should care for Africans with whom I will never have a personal relationship. However, this obligation can be generated without relying on the impartialist understanding of morality.

Comment: This text responds to Peter Singer and Ned Noddings on the question of global poverty (though, one need not have read either previously as she provides an overview). It would be useful in a course that focused on questions of economic justice, poverty, care ethics, or charity.

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Césaire, Aimé. Discourse on Colonialism
2000, NYU Press
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Added by: Suddha Guharoy, Andreas Sorger

Publisher's Note: This classic work, first published in France in 1955, profoundly influenced the generation of scholars and activists at the forefront of liberation struggles in Africa, Latin America, and the Caribbean. Nearly twenty years later, when published for the first time in English, Discourse on Colonialism inspired a new generation engaged in the Civil Rights, Black Power, and anti-war movements and has sold more than 75,000 copies to date.

Aimé Césaire eloquently describes the brutal impact of capitalism and colonialism on both the colonizer and colonized, exposing the contradictions and hypocrisy implicit in western notions of "progress" and "civilization" upon encountering the "savage," "uncultured," or "primitive." Here, Césaire reaffirms African values, identity, and culture, and their relevance, reminding us that "the relationship between consciousness and reality are extremely complex. . . . It is equally necessary to decolonize our minds, our inner life, at the same time that we decolonize society."

Comment (from this Blueprint): Aimé Césaire’s Discourse on Colonialism is a foundational text in postcolonial theory, which provides an excoriating critique of not only European practices of colonialism, but also the underlying theories and logics used to justify them. Specifically, Césaire takes aim at the view of colonialism as a ‘civilising mission’, where benevolent Europeans would provide non-white non- Europeans with the tools necessary for modernisation. Instead, he argued that colonialism wrought destruction everywhere it went, killing people, eradicating civilisations, and obliterating any alternative cultural ideas that contrasted European values. Crucially, Césaire explores the psychological effects of colonialism on both the colonised and the coloniser – a theme that would be taken further by Frantz Fanon (a student of Césaire’s) in his writings.

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Chakrabarty, Dipesh. Provincializing Europe: Postcolonial Thought and Historical Difference
2007, New Edition. Princeton University Press.
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Added by: Suddha Guharoy and Andreas Sorger
Publisher’s Note: First published in 2000, Dipesh Chakrabarty's influential Provincializing Europe addresses the mythical figure of Europe that is often taken to be the original site of modernity in many histories of capitalist transition in non-Western countries. This imaginary Europe, Dipesh Chakrabarty argues, is built into the social sciences. The very idea of historicizing carries with it some peculiarly European assumptions about disenchanted space, secular time, and sovereignty. Measured against such mythical standards, capitalist transition in the third world has often seemed either incomplete or lacking. Provincializing Europe proposes that every case of transition to capitalism is a case of translation as well - a translation of existing worlds and their thought-categories into the categories and self-understandings of capitalist modernity. Now featuring a new preface in which Chakrabarty responds to his critics, this book globalizes European thought by exploring how it may be renewed both for and from the margins.

Comment (from this Blueprint): This book is a watershed in Indian history, labour theory and postcolonial theory. Chakrabarty begins by accepting the idea that history has already provincialized Europe. However, time and again we find the author acknowledging that the categories and ideals that European thought and the Enlightenment produced are both indispensable and at the same time inadequate to understand the modern political relations of non-European, ex-colonial lands. On the one hand, the familiar theories we use to understand the lives of the proletariat or bourgeois political relations were inadequate to explain their postcolonial existence in Bengal and India. Yet, on the other, these frameworks are simultaneously indispensable for theories about the proletariat in postcolonial Bengal to be accepted as knowledge. A quest, therefore, ensued to interpret the lives of the working class and bourgeoisie political relations in parts of the world that did not replicate the historical transition of Europe. This book challenges the monolithic understanding of historical progression and attempts to follow a different historiography (using Marxist insights) to understand political modernity in places with different histories.

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Chambers, Clare, Phil Parvin. Teach Yourself Political Philosophy: A Complete Introduction
2012, Hodder & Stoughton.
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Added by: Carl Fox
Publisher's Note: Written by Phil Parvin and Clare Chambers, who are current political philosophy lecturers and leading researchers, Political Philosophy - The Essentials is designed to give you everything you need to succeed, all in one place. It covers the key areas that students are expected to be confident in, outlining the basics in clear jargon-free English, and then providing added-value features like summaries of key thinkers, and even lists of questions you might be asked in your seminar or exam. The book's structure follows that of most university courses on political philosophy, by looking at the essential concepts within political philosophy (freedom, equality, power, democracy, rights, the state, political obligation), and then looking at the ways in which political philosophers have used these fundamental concepts in order to tackle a range of normative political questions such as whether the state has a responsibility to alleviate inequalities, and what interest liberal and democratic states should take in the cultural or religious beliefs of citizens.

Comment: 'Phil Parvin and Clare Chambers have produced a state of the art textbook, which provides students with a comprehensive and bang up-to-date introduction to contemporary political philosophy. Topics are introduced in a clear and eminently readable fashion, using accessible real world examples whilst drawing on sophisticated scholarly literature. There is no comparable book which covers such a wide range of topics in such a student-friendly manner.' (Dr Daniel Butt, Lecturer in Political Theory, University of Bristol.) 'A lively, accessible and engaging read. Comprehensive and well organized, it provides an updated account of key concepts in contemporary political philosophy, and highlights their relevance to political life in the 21st century. A valuable book for anyone taking their first steps in the world of political philosophy, or anyone who seeks to understand the normative challenges faced by our society today.' (Dr Avia Pasternak, Lecturer in Political Theory, University of Essex.) 'Written in a clear and accessible style, it is an engaging introduction for those who are new to political philosophy and wish to think through some of its most important questions. In addition to offering outlines of key arguments, each chapter also contains a summary of main concepts, self-test questions, a wonderful selection of quotations and some attention-grabbing 'nuggets'' (Dr Zosia Stemplowska, University Lecturer in Political Theory, University of Oxford)

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