Punishment, Liberalism, and Public Reason

Liberalism and the general justifiability of punishment

I argue that contemporary liberal theory cannot give a general justification for the institution or practice of punishment, i.e., a justification that would hold across a broad range of reasonably realistic conditions. I examine the general justifications offered by three prominent contemporary liberal theorists and show how their justifications fail in light of the possibility of an alternativ...

Public Health Ethics and Liberalism

This paper defends a distinctly liberal approach to public health ethics and replies to possible objections. In particular, I look at a set of recent proposals aiming to revise and expand liberalism in light of public health's rationale and epidemiological findings. I argue that they fail to provide a sociologically informed version of liberalism. Instead, they rest on an implicit normative pre...

From a Tight Place: Crime, Punishment, and American Liberalism

Public Reason and Bioethics

1. Rawls puts forward a proposal of political philosophy suitable for a pluralistic society where members try to establish and make persistent a stable social cooperation. The proposal is very sophisticated and takes into consideration numerous elements of a complex society. First of all, it is worth pointing out that the model of society proposed by Rawls is a liberal society, based on the ide...

Technoethics and Public Reason