Books by Daniel Halliday
Oxford University Press, 2020
(NOTE: uncorrected proof version)
This chapter presents the basic question of this textbook: wha... more (NOTE: uncorrected proof version)
This chapter presents the basic question of this textbook: what might be meant by asking about the “ethics” of capitalism? And what makes this question so important that it gets its own book? The chapter then proceeds by first clarifying the intellectual discipline of political economy, emphasizing its philosophical and moralized content. This helps draw attention to the problem of economic justice. The chapter then distinguishes capitalism from alternative institutional systems before articulating the key questions about capitalism and justice that will be discussed in the larger body of the book, as well as the methods used to consider various answers to such questions.
Oxford University Press, 2018
(NOTE: Uncorrected proof version)
This chapter lays out the main intellectual motivations for a ... more (NOTE: Uncorrected proof version)
This chapter lays out the main intellectual motivations for a philosophical inquiry into the moral significance of inherited wealth. It is argued that the problem of how to regulate inheritance should be approached as an open and difficult question. Yet it is one that must be answered if we are to reach any determinate view about how to regulate inequality and private property over time (as opposed to within single generations). The chapter also seeks to highlight and account for the relative scarcity of sustained discussions of inherited wealth in political philosophy since the mid-twentieth century. Further motivation for the project is taken from a brief review of recent empirical studies that highlight an apparent growth in large inheritance flows that are concentrated into a relatively small portion of the population. The chapter also provides a brief overview of the main arguments to come in the remainder of the book.
Papers by Daniel Halliday
Australasian Journal of Philosophy, 2019
Philosophical discussions of positional goods typically focus on parties competing for shares of ... more Philosophical discussions of positional goods typically focus on parties competing for shares of such goods and on the inequalities among them that both shape and arise from these competitions. Less has been said about the actions of the various agents who shape the opportunities available to parties competing for positional goods. Such agents include suppliers of the goods in question, as well as those who instil value in these either directly or indirectly. This paper explores the complexity and normative significance of this more causally upstream agency with an emphasis on the role played by such agency in higher education. More specifically, we identify some of the forms taken by upstream agency, how the agents involved are related to each other, how they are related to the agents who actually compete for positional goods, and what sort of moral demands can be made of them. Much of this work will be taxonomic and descriptive. Our aim, however, is to show how the taxonomy that we develop and the dynamics that we describe bear on the questions with which political philosophers have tended to be more preoccupied concerning the moral significance of positional goods and how they ought to be regulated.
The Cambridge Handbook of the Ethics of Ageing
Britain finally abolished employer rights to impose mandatory retirement with the Equality Act in... more Britain finally abolished employer rights to impose mandatory retirement with the Equality Act in 2010. See Blackham (2016: ch. 3). In the USA, employees have held this right since the Age Discrimination in Employment Act in 1967. Similar protections have existed in Australia and Canada for some decades, though their precise content varies across states and provinces. We note that there are significant exceptions to the trend towards abolishing mandatory retirement. For example, several member states of the European Union (EU) continue to practice mandatory retirement, as permitted under the EU's Employment Equality Framework Directive.
Science, 2020
Once effective coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) vaccines are developed, they will be scarce. T... more Once effective coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) vaccines are developed, they will be scarce. This presents the question of how to distribute them fairly across countries. Vaccine allocation among countries raises complex and controversial issues involving public opinion, diplomacy, economics, public health, and other considerations. Nevertheless, many national leaders, international organizations, and vaccine producers recognize that one central factor in this decisionmaking is ethics (1, 2). Yet little progress has been made toward delineating what constitutes fair international distribution of vaccine. Many have endorsed "equitable distribution of COVID-19…vaccine" without describing a framework or recommendations (3, 4). Two substantive proposals for the international allocation of a COVID-19 vaccine have been advanced, but are seriously flawed. We offer a more ethically defensible and practical proposal for the fair distribution of COVID-19 vaccine: the Fair Priority Model. The Fair Priority Model is primarily addressed to three groups. One is the COVAX facility-led by Gavi, the World Health Organization (WHO), and the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI)-which intends to purchase vaccines for fair distribution across countries (5). A second group is vaccine producers. Thankfully, many producers have publicly committed to a "broad and equitable" international distribution of vaccine (2). The last group is national governments, some of whom have also publicly committed to a fair distribution (1). These groups need a clear framework for reconciling competing values, one that they and others will rightly accept as ethical and not just as an assertion of power. The Fair Priority Model specifies what a fair distribution of vaccines entails, giving content to their commitments. Moreover, acceptance of this common ethical framework will reduce duplication and waste, easing efforts at a fair distribution. That, in turn, will enhance producers' confidence that vaccines will be fairly allocated to benefit people, thereby motivating an increase in vaccine supply for international distribution. VACCINE NATIONALISM Those who think countries will inevitably engage in "vaccine nationalism" (4) may deem an ethical framework for vaccine distribution among countries irrelevant. Public sentiment in some countries for retaining vaccine developed within their borders is strong, and many governments will also try to obtain vaccines produced elsewhere. But an ethical framework has broad relevance even in the face of nationalist attitudes. Rather than simply asserting that might makes right, governments typically appeal to national partiality: a country's right and duty to prioritize its own citizens. Some defend national partiality as ethical (6-8). Fellow citizens share "associative ties," common governmental, civic, and other institutions, and a sense of shared identity (6, 7). Also, the legitimate authority of representative government officials inheres in their representing and promoting the interests of their citizens. Plausibly, these relations support allowing countries to prioritize citizens over foreigners for vaccines (6). Others view national partiality as unethical: People's entitlement to lifesaving resources should not depend on nationality (9). Regardless of whether some national partiality is ethical, unlimited national partiality is not (6-8). Associative ties only justify a government's giving some priority to its own citizens, not absolute priority (6). Moreover, associative ties extend across national borders, and citizens of different countries
Ethics & International Affairs, 2021
COVID-19 vaccines are likely to be scarce for years to come. Many countries, from India to the U.... more COVID-19 vaccines are likely to be scarce for years to come. Many countries, from India to the U.K., have demonstrated vaccine nationalism. What are the ethical limits to this vaccine nationalism? Neither extreme nationalism nor extreme cosmopolitanism is ethically justifiable. Instead, we propose the fair priority for residents (FPR) framework, in which governments can retain COVID-19 vaccine doses for their residents only to the extent that they are needed to maintain a noncrisis level of mortality while they are implementing reasonable public health interventions. Practically, a noncrisis level of mortality is that experienced during a bad influenza season, which society considers an acceptable background risk. Governments take action to limit mortality from influenza, but there is no emergency that includes severe lockdowns. This “flu-risk standard” is a nonarbitrary and generally accepted heuristic. Mortality above the flu-risk standard justifies greater governmental interventi...
Law, Ethics & Philosophy, 2020
This is a response to five critical commentaries on my 2018 book The Inheritance of Wealth, these... more This is a response to five critical commentaries on my 2018 book The Inheritance of Wealth, these being the papers in this symposium from Miranda Perry Fleischer, Jonathan Wolff, Stewart Braun, Nicholas Barry, and Colin Macleod. After a brief review of some recent empirical data on inherited wealth, these replies concentrate on some central themes discussed by these authors. These include the question of how to connect inheritance with the longstanding theoretical efforts to properly interpret and contrast luck-egalitarian and relational-egalitarian theories of justice; the role of the concept of solidarity in evaluating tax policy; questions about how an inheritance tax would impact differently on the middle class versus the very wealthy; and the case for furthering the defense of a ‘Rignano Scheme’ on which second- or third-generation inheritance is taxed at a higher rate than the transfer of newly created wealth.
Politics, Philosophy & Economics, 2021
The emergence of so-called 'gig work', particularly that sold through digital platforms accessed ... more The emergence of so-called 'gig work', particularly that sold through digital platforms accessed through smartphone apps, has led to disputes about the proper classification of workers: Should platform workers be classified as independent contractors (as platforms typically insist), or as employees of the platforms through which they sell labor (as workers often claim)? Such disputes have urgency due to the way in which employee status is necessary to access certain benefits such as a minimum wage, sick pay, and so on. In addition, classification disputes have philosophical significance because their resolution requires some foundational account of why the law should make a distinction between employed and freelance workers in the first place. This paper aims to fill this foundational gap. Central to it is the idea that employment involves a worker ceding certain freedoms in return for a degree of security, at least with respect to income. Insofar as the misclassification objection has force against digital platforms, it is when a platform is attempting to have it both ways: Workers are giving up freedom but not being granted a proportionate increase in security. As I shall explain, this approach offers some flexibility as to how actual disputes might be resolved-justice may be indifferent between whether platforms offer greater security or permit workers greater freedom, provided they do at least one of these things.
Social Theory & Practice, 2021
Recent decades have seen substantial increases in the average amount of money spent on wedding ce... more Recent decades have seen substantial increases in the average amount of money spent on wedding ceremonies in economically developed countries. This paper develops an account of wedding expenditure as a form of positional competition where participation involves purchasing services in a market. The main emphasis is on the role that conspicuously expensive weddings can play in enabling certain kinds of signalling, most notably the signalling of commitment to a personal relationship and a distinct signalling of personal wealth. The analysis seeks to demonstrate how wedding expenditure is both similar to but distinct from the positional consumption associated with markets in other goods and services. While much of the work in this paper is descriptive, it aims to complement more normatively engaged work on the moral status of marriage, and on the proper evaluation and response to excessive positional consumption.
Legal Theory, 2020
The pursuit of justice can be pursued by the state, or through voluntary charity. Appreciation of... more The pursuit of justice can be pursued by the state, or through voluntary charity. Appreciation of this fact has motivated discussion of the appropriate division of labour between government and charitable agencies. This paper seeks to contribute to this debate by developing a positive account of the moral foundations of the charity sector, which has so far been absent from influential discussions of this division of labour. The account given here is grounded in a legal conception of charity, as a set of subsidies and privileges designed to cultivate a wide variety of activities aimed at enhancing civic virtue and autonomy. Among other things, this implies that a charity sector oriented largely around the pursuit of justice will come at a moral cost to a liberal society, at least when the state is in a position to take the greater share of the responsibility. So, a positive account of charity provides at least a pro tanto reason for preferring a division of labour in which the state takes a greater share of the responsibility for pursuing justice. As well as developing and defending this conception in its own right, we apply it in offering some criticisms and enhancements of existing views about the division of labour.
The Oxford Handbook of Intergenerational Ethics , 2021
This chapter investigates whether the replication of inequality is, other things being equal, mor... more This chapter investigates whether the replication of inequality is, other things being equal, morally objectionable in ways not applicable to inequality that remains confined to a single generation or 'birth cohort'. The focus is both theoretical and practical. The chapter considers the philosophical foundations that might lie behind an objection to dynastic inequality, negotiating the diversity of egalitarian views supporting this position, and the complexity around the causal mechanisms at work in cases where inequality has a dynastic tendency. It then discusses the policy reforms that might target inequalities that replicate old distributive trends while leaving newly produced trends more intact, with a focus on tax policy. Current tax rules in most developed economies do not make a distinction between new and old influences on the material distribution. Accordingly, it is likely that the tax reforms implied could be quite extensive.
Disclaimer: This piece has been written as part of the (free) online supplementary material for a... more Disclaimer: This piece has been written as part of the (free) online supplementary material for a newly published textbook called The Ethics of Capitalism (see website link below). Though the reasoning extends some themes discussed at greater length in this book, it can be used as a stand-alone piece for students. As with anything written on the current pandemic, it will get out of date quickly. Our plan is to frequently upload revised versions in accordance with developments in the economic impact and management of the pandemic.
Australasian Journal of Philosophy , 2020
Philosophical discussions of positional goods typically focus on parties competing for shares of ... more Philosophical discussions of positional goods typically focus on parties competing for shares of such goods and on the inequalities among them that both shape and arise from these competitions. Less has been said about the actions of the various agents who shape the opportunities available to parties competing for positional goods. Such agents include suppliers of the goods in question as well as those who instill value on them either directly or indirectly. This paper explores the complexity and normative significance of this more causally upstream agency with an emphasis on the role they play in higher education. More specifically, we identify some of the forms taken by upstream agency, how the agents involved are related to each other, how they are related to the agents who actually compete for positional goods, and what sort of moral demands can be made of them. Much of this work will be taxonomic and descriptive. Our aim, however, is to show how the taxonomy we develop and the dynamics we describe bear on the questions with which political philosophers have tended to be more preoccupied concerning the moral significance of positional goods and how they ought to be regulated.
The Routledge Handbook of Applied Epistemology, 2018
This chapter aims to draw the reader’s attention to Mill’s wider body of work concerning freedom ... more This chapter aims to draw the reader’s attention to Mill’s wider body of work concerning freedom of expression. Mill’s other writings augment the more famous text of On Liberty, in ways that give a better impression of how his position on free speech fitted into a larger program of applied philosophy. Special attention is given to Mill’s focus on education and the role of a free press in improving the position of the working poor. We also assess Mill’s approach with respect to some contemporary problems to which it might be applied.
The Palgrave Handbook of Philosophy and Public Policy, 2018
The concept of economic rent is among the oldest in political economy. This reflects the fact tha... more The concept of economic rent is among the oldest in political economy. This reflects the fact that economies have always included parties whose income appears more parasitic than productive. The concept of rent seeking refers to the efforts of parties seeking to secure such income by way of gaining influence over economic regulation or otherwise gaining favors from government. In spite of its intuitiveness, however, it has proven difficult to precisely distinguish rent from other categories of income. This chapter seeks to acquaint readers with this problem. The privatization of incarceration is then supplied as an important case study in current rent-seeking behaviour.
Theory & Research in Education 15(3) (2017): 290-305, 2017
This article develops a perspective on big data in education, drawing on a broadly liberal concep... more This article develops a perspective on big data in education, drawing on a broadly liberal conception of education's primary purpose. We focus especially on the rise of so-called learning analytics and the associated rise of digitization, which we evaluate according to the liberal view that education should seek to cultivate individuality and proceed partly by way of experimentation and with an emphasis on civic education. Our argument is not that the use of big data is wholly out of place in education. Indeed, it might have significant value in pursuit of certain educational aims. Nevertheless, the liberal conception shows how education is distinct from other domains in which big data are being applied, in ways that suggest that considerable caution must be exercised when they are used in educational contexts.
Politics, Philosophy & Economics, 2016
This paper defends the view that markets in education need to be restricted, in light of the prob... more This paper defends the view that markets in education need to be restricted, in light of the problem posed by what I call the ‘educational arms race’. Markets in education have a tendency to distort an important balance between education’s role as a gatekeeper – its ‘screening’ function – and its role in helping children develop as part of a preparation for adult life. This tendency is not merely a contingent fact about markets: It can be traced to ways in which education is a partly positional good, and how markets respond to (and stimulate) demand for positional goods over non-positional goods. The problem with arms races is that they allow markets to facilitate wider use of defection in a collective action problem. Using these claims, I argue that markets in education have a distinctive tendency to become objectionably exploitative. I conclude by applying some of my conclusions to illuminate various egalitarian claims about justice in education.
The Legacy of Ronald Dworkin, edited by S. Sciaraffa & W. Waluchow (Oxford University Press), 2016
This paper examines Ronald Dworkin’s treatment of inherited wealth, which is stated only briefly,... more This paper examines Ronald Dworkin’s treatment of inherited wealth, which is stated only briefly, but represents a sophisticated stance, to which Dworkin remained committed over multiple writings. Dworkin’s contentions are that (i) the goal of restricting bequest is to prevent formation of hierarchies of social class, and (ii) this goal can be pursued through a progressive estate tax that models citizens’ hypothetical insurance choices concerning protection against class harm. This paper seeks to support Dworkin’s commitment to the diagnostic significance of class injustice, but finds problems with his attempt to use the hypothetical insurance approach. After identifying various difficulties around hypothetical insurance, the paper ends on a more positive note: Dworkin’s concern to address class hierarchies can be adapted so that an inheritance tax gains support from the various principles that make up the liberty/constraint system in chapter three of Sovereign Virtue. This may not result in a completely adequate treatment of inherited wealth, but it promises to drawn on principles that supplement, rather than rely on, any ideas about hypothetical insurance.
Consumption taxes are often used to dissuade citizens from purchasing products that cause negativ... more Consumption taxes are often used to dissuade citizens from purchasing products that cause negative health outcomes, or other sorts of harm, such as tobacco and alcohol. Such taxes are often criticized on grounds that they discriminate against the poor: Consumption taxes are ‘regressive’, insofar as they require poor persons to pay a larger fraction of their income per consumed unit of consumed good. After an attempt to spell out exactly what this objection asserts, this paper attempts to respond to it. The apparently egalitarian complaint about regressive taxation can be countered by other egalitarian worries about the vulnerability of low-income groups to the harms resulting from the type of consumption being taxed. This calls for the redesign of consumption taxes rather than abolition. Further progress can be made by recognizing there are ways of taxing consumption other than the standard model of a sales tax that is typically assumed in these debates. One is to hypothecate the revenues from ways that aid the poor, mitigating the regressivity of the tax burden. Another is to replace sales taxes with licences or permits. Hypothecation and licensing can also be combined in ways that can eliminate regressivity altogether. This paper attempts to develop these ideas in more detail.
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Books by Daniel Halliday
This chapter presents the basic question of this textbook: what might be meant by asking about the “ethics” of capitalism? And what makes this question so important that it gets its own book? The chapter then proceeds by first clarifying the intellectual discipline of political economy, emphasizing its philosophical and moralized content. This helps draw attention to the problem of economic justice. The chapter then distinguishes capitalism from alternative institutional systems before articulating the key questions about capitalism and justice that will be discussed in the larger body of the book, as well as the methods used to consider various answers to such questions.
This chapter lays out the main intellectual motivations for a philosophical inquiry into the moral significance of inherited wealth. It is argued that the problem of how to regulate inheritance should be approached as an open and difficult question. Yet it is one that must be answered if we are to reach any determinate view about how to regulate inequality and private property over time (as opposed to within single generations). The chapter also seeks to highlight and account for the relative scarcity of sustained discussions of inherited wealth in political philosophy since the mid-twentieth century. Further motivation for the project is taken from a brief review of recent empirical studies that highlight an apparent growth in large inheritance flows that are concentrated into a relatively small portion of the population. The chapter also provides a brief overview of the main arguments to come in the remainder of the book.
Papers by Daniel Halliday
This chapter presents the basic question of this textbook: what might be meant by asking about the “ethics” of capitalism? And what makes this question so important that it gets its own book? The chapter then proceeds by first clarifying the intellectual discipline of political economy, emphasizing its philosophical and moralized content. This helps draw attention to the problem of economic justice. The chapter then distinguishes capitalism from alternative institutional systems before articulating the key questions about capitalism and justice that will be discussed in the larger body of the book, as well as the methods used to consider various answers to such questions.
This chapter lays out the main intellectual motivations for a philosophical inquiry into the moral significance of inherited wealth. It is argued that the problem of how to regulate inheritance should be approached as an open and difficult question. Yet it is one that must be answered if we are to reach any determinate view about how to regulate inequality and private property over time (as opposed to within single generations). The chapter also seeks to highlight and account for the relative scarcity of sustained discussions of inherited wealth in political philosophy since the mid-twentieth century. Further motivation for the project is taken from a brief review of recent empirical studies that highlight an apparent growth in large inheritance flows that are concentrated into a relatively small portion of the population. The chapter also provides a brief overview of the main arguments to come in the remainder of the book.
The journal issue includes a short reply from Tan.