Books by Andrew I. Cohen
What makes a policy work? What should policies attempt to do, and what ought they not do? These q... more What makes a policy work? What should policies attempt to do, and what ought they not do? These questions are at the heart of both policymaking and ethics. Philosophy, Ethics and Public Policy: An Introduction examines these questions and more. Andrew I. Cohen uses contemporary examples and controversies, mainly drawn from policy in a North American context, to illustrate important flashpoints in ethics and public policy, such as:
Philosophy and Public Policy, 2018
This book argues that justice often governs apologies. Drawing on examples from literature, polit... more This book argues that justice often governs apologies. Drawing on examples from literature, politics, and current events, Cohen presents a theory of apology as corrective offers. Many leading accounts of apology say much about what apologies do and why they are important. They stop short of exploring whether and how justice governs apologies. Cohen argues that corrective justice may require apologies as offers of reparation. Individuals, corporations, and states may then have rights or duties regarding apology. Exercising rights to apology or fulfilling duties to provide them are ways of holding one another mutually accountable. By casting rights and duties of apology as justifiable to free and equal persons, the book advances conversations about how liberalism may respond to historic injustice. Apologies and Moral Repair will be of interest to scholars and advanced students in ethics, political philosophy, and social philosophy.
papers by Andrew I. Cohen
![Research paper thumbnail of Credentialism, Career Opportunities and Corrective Justice [penultimate draft PAQ 2022]](https://attachments.academia-assets.com/91140871/thumbnails/1.jpg)
Public Affairs Quarterly, 2022
Higher education provides crucial public and private goods. Especially in the United States, howe... more Higher education provides crucial public and private goods. Especially in the United States, however, higher education reflects and sometimes compounds enduring inequities and inefficiencies. Higher education, critics argue, inefficiently provides a credential that is often crucial for career advancement but whose value is mainly to signal skills one already had. This paper explores the moral significance of an oversupply of higher education, especially for persons disadvantaged because of uncorrected historic injustice. I review the moral costs of credentials inflation. Focusing on those who already have independent claims to reparation for historic injustice, I set out whether and how some such persons might have additional claims to repair for the increased credential demands for work. I close by considering what sorts of repair corrective justice might prescribe.
Hobbes claims all persons agree on the value of the laws of nature and the peace to which they ar... more Hobbes claims all persons agree on the value of the laws of nature and the peace to which they are means. He also sees the laws of nature as the ‘conclusions’ of right reason. But Hobbes argues that right reason in nature is particularized; each agent may decide which reasons govern her conduct. If Hobbes is then to cast the laws of nature as conclusions of right reason, he must either explain why the extent to which right reason in nature is particularized is not such as to impede convergence on the laws of nature, or he must explain why any divergence is irrelevant to the justification of the laws of nature.
Freeman, Dec 1, 1999
review of INDIVIDUALISM IN MODERN THOUGHT From Adam Smith to Hayek Lorenzo Infantino
Social Philosophy and Policy, 2009
In this essay I describe how contractarianism might approach interspecies welfare conflicts. I st... more In this essay I describe how contractarianism might approach interspecies welfare conflicts. I start by discussing a contractarian account of the moral status of nonhuman animals. I argue that contractors can agree to norms that would acknowledge the “moral standing” of some animals. I then discuss how the norms emerging from contractarian agreement might constrain any comparison of welfare between humans and animals. Contractarian agreement is likely to express some partiality to humans in a way that discounts the welfare of some or all animals. While the norms emerging from the contract might be silent or inconsistent in some tragic or catastrophic cases, in most ordinary conflicts of welfare, contractors will agree to norms that produce some determinate resolution. What the agreement says can evolve depending upon how the contractors or the circumstances change. I close with some remarks on contractarian indeterminacy.
Journal of Social Philosophy, 1997
May a person be morally protected in doing something that is morally wrong? Yes, if rights carve ... more May a person be morally protected in doing something that is morally wrong? Yes, if rights carve out certain domains of protected action. Some writers defend a right to do some wrong actions with an appeal to self-definition.' They argue that rights protect certain freedoms of choice ...
Journal of Social Philosophy, 2004
Sometimes writers speak of general rights as human rights or natural rights. Since my focus... more Sometimes writers speak of general rights as human rights or natural rights. Since my focus is on formal and conceptual matters, I hope to avoid substantive controversies regarding the term general rights. Persons hold general rights independently of special acts (such as ...
Journal of Applied Philosophy, 2007
Contractarianism roots moral standing in an agreement among rational agents in the circu... more Contractarianism roots moral standing in an agreement among rational agents in the circumstances of justice. Critics have argued that the theory must exclude nonhuman animals from the protection of justice. I argue that contractarianism can consistently accommodate the notion that nonhuman animals are owed direct moral consideration. They can acquire their moral status indirectly, but their claims to justice can be as stringent as those among able-bodied rational adult humans. Any remaining criticisms of contractarianism likely rest on a disputable moral realism; contractarianism can underwrite the direct moral considerability of nonhuman animals by appealing to a projectivist quasi-realism.
Hobbes Studies, 1998
Hobbes claims that the sovereign's absolute authority is consistent with the subjects' re... more Hobbes claims that the sovereign's absolute authority is consistent with the subjects' retaining liberties to resist certain commands. In this essay, I explore what it means for subject to authorize a sovereign with a right to command. I show how retained rights are compatible with sovereignty. Though any given subject does not authorize the sovereign to do anything, I argue that the sovereign power is absolute. The sovereign has the most power anyone could command.
Ethics & the Environment, 2008
In focusing on the normative significance of dependencies, the essay makes several assumptions an... more In focusing on the normative significance of dependencies, the essay makes several assumptions and sets certain controversies aside. I assume that all and only persons are moral agents and that only human beings are persons. I also suppose that personhood is not necessary for ...
Dialogue, 2003
RésuméLes propriétés dynamiques de l'amitié requièrent parfois que les amis réévaluent leur r... more RésuméLes propriétés dynamiques de l'amitié requièrent parfois que les amis réévaluent leur relation à la lumière de raisons de réciprocité ou de considérations morales. Les amis maintiennent leur relation en partie en évaluant leurs rapports de réciprocité. Ils doivent aussi considérer parfois l'impact de raisons morales sur leur amidé; il leur faut résoudre d'occasionnelles tensions entre les exigences de l'amitié et certaines considérations rivales d'ordre moral, et ils doivent agir parfois comme surveillants l'un pour l'autre dans l'ordre moral. Je discute ici la façon dont les amis peuvent gérer leur relation sans compromettre la confiance et le respect mutuels qui sont appropriés entre amis.
Communication Research Reports, 2008
A survey examined how a perceiver's age, race, and the potential to be personally affected b... more A survey examined how a perceiver's age, race, and the potential to be personally affected by a corporate wrongdoing influence judgments of event severity, corporate responsibility, and the degree to which a corporate response is warranted. Repeated measures analyses of ...
Philosophy and Public Affairs, 2009
Must people be compensated for injustices their ancestors suffered? If someone commits an injusti... more Must people be compensated for injustices their ancestors suffered? If someone commits an injustice, it would seem that she should undo the effects of her transgression on all parties she has harmed, possibly including persons in subsequent generations. Victims' descendants might then have claims to compensation. However, nonidentity problems threaten any argument for reparation for historic injustices. 1 In brief, the problem is this: how can any person have a claim to compensation for a wrong that was a condition of her existence? In such cases, there is no possible world in which the wrong was not committed but the claimant exists. If she cannot exist but for the wrong then she cannot claim damages for the wrong. 2 In separate recent articles, Bernard Boxill 3 and George Sher 4 argue that transgressors owe their victims reparation for an injustice and that the failure to provide such reparation is a further wrong against the victim. Boxill and Sher admit that an original injustice might be a condition of a victim's descendant's existence. They argue, however, that a later injustice of not compensating the victim after her child is conceived can be a compensable wrong to that child but not be a condition of the child's existence. Boxill and Sher also consider how the compensation claim might also prevail across several generations. Compensation for Historic Injustices p. 2 The Boxill-Sher argument is convincing as far as it goes. Yet it fails to specify fully the conditions under which we can justify claims to compensation for children born to victims of historic injustice. This article proposes to complete their account by specifying such conditions. I argue that children can claim compensation only for those welfare gains their parents' transgressor unjustly denied the children. Relying on a natural duty account of what level of welfare children may claim, I argue children's right to support from their parents can help justify and determine the extent of a transgressor's liability for some setbacks to children's welfare. In the course of the argument, I discuss problems with sustaining reparation claims across generations and the challenge of fixing the welfare baselines that are the targets of filial duties. I also explore whether a victim's actions might mitigate or cancel a transgressor's liability to compensate the victim's child. 5 <A-head>I. REPARATION AND THE NONIDENTITY PROBLEM Reparation is not punishment. Transgressors owe their victims reparation as compensation for an injury. Reparation attempts either to put a victim into the position she would have occupied but for the transgression or to return to the status quo prior to the violation. 6 In the case of reparations for historic injustices to previous generations, however, it might be meaningless to speak of what position a victim's descendants would have occupied but for the transgression.
Dialogue: The Canadian Philosophical Review, 2016
Contractarianism is more inclusive than critics (and, indeed, Gauthier)
sometimes suggest. Contra... more Contractarianism is more inclusive than critics (and, indeed, Gauthier)
sometimes suggest. Contractarianism can justify equal moral standing for human persons (in some respects) and provide sufficient moral standing for many nonhuman animals to require what we commonly call decent treatment. Moreover, contractarianism may allow that some entities have more moral standing than others do. This does not necessarily license the oppression that liberal egalitarians rightly fear. Instead, it shows that contractarianism may support a nuanced account of moral status.
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Books by Andrew I. Cohen
papers by Andrew I. Cohen
sometimes suggest. Contractarianism can justify equal moral standing for human persons (in some respects) and provide sufficient moral standing for many nonhuman animals to require what we commonly call decent treatment. Moreover, contractarianism may allow that some entities have more moral standing than others do. This does not necessarily license the oppression that liberal egalitarians rightly fear. Instead, it shows that contractarianism may support a nuanced account of moral status.
sometimes suggest. Contractarianism can justify equal moral standing for human persons (in some respects) and provide sufficient moral standing for many nonhuman animals to require what we commonly call decent treatment. Moreover, contractarianism may allow that some entities have more moral standing than others do. This does not necessarily license the oppression that liberal egalitarians rightly fear. Instead, it shows that contractarianism may support a nuanced account of moral status.
apologies. According to this challenge, corporations always and only act through their members; thus they are not the sorts of entities that can apologize. Consequently there can be no corporate apologies. Against this challenge, this paper argues that even if corporate acts can be analyzed as acts by individuals within certain relationships, there can still be corporate apologies. This paper offers a noneliminative individualist account of such apologies. The paper also responds to various substantive objections to the possibility of such apologies.
shortfalls of one sort of account that holds these are independent domains of justice. To support a more modest claim that these are sometimes independent domains of justice, I focus instead on the case of apologies. Apologies are sometimes among the measures specified by corrective justice. I argue that the sorts of injustices that apologies can help to correct need not always be departures from ideals specified by distributive justice. Apologies and the moral relations they engage might thus be parts of a domain of justice that is neither distributive nor dependent on distributive justice.