In the last 30 years, a range of powerful arguments have pushed ethics in a utilitarian direction by invoking the principle of Outcome Anonymity, which holds that two outcomes are equally good if they involve the same distribution of welfare, differing only in who is at which level. This principle is often presented as a minimal requirement of impartiality. I argue that it is not. Outcome Anonymity forbids more than partiality: it forbids caring who is who in a welfare (...) distribution. After illustrating this point with four examples, I present a theorem that suggests that it is not Outcome Anonymity but a weaker principle, which May and Sen call simply “Anonymity,” that is the essence of impartial concern. (shrink)

We need modal imagination in order to extend our conception of reality - and, in particular, of human beings - beyond our immediate experience in the indexical present; and we need to do this in order to preserve the significance of human interaction. To make this leap of imagination successfully is to achieve not only insight but also an impartial perspective on our own and others' inner states. This perspective is a necessary condition of experiencing compassion for others. This is (...) the primary thesis I will try to defend in this discussion. (shrink)

Following a long-standing philosophical tradition, impartiality is a distinctive and determining feature of moral judgments, especially in matters of distributive justice. This broad ethical tradition was revived in welfare economics by Vickrey, and above all, Harsanyi, under the form of the so-called Impartial Observer Theorem. The paper offers an analytical reconstruction of this argument and a step-wise philosophical critique of its premisses. It eventually provides a new formal version of the theorem based on subjective probability.

Social contract theorists often take the ideal contract to be the agreement or bargain individuals would make in some privileged choice situation. Recently, experimental philosophers have explored this kind of decision-making in the lab. One rather robust finding is that the exact circumstances of choice significantly affect the kinds of social arrangements experimental subjects unanimously endorse. Yet prior work has largely ignored the question of which of the many competing descriptions of the original position subjects find most compelling. This paper (...) aims to address this gap, exploring how attractive experimental subjects find various characterizations of these circumstances of choice. We find evidence suggesting that no one choice situation can fulfill the role that social contract theorists have hoped it would play. We also find that, contrary to what some prominent social contract theorists have expected, there is no robust relationship between an individual’s ranking of distributive principles and their ranking of various descriptions of the original position. In conclusion, we discuss the broader implications of these results for political philosophy. (shrink)

Many hold that morality is essentially impartial. Many also hold that partiality is justified. Susan Wolf argues that these commitments push us toward downgrading morality’s practical significance. To use her iconic phrase, not everyone should strive to be a moral saint. Here I argue that there is a way of pushing morality’s boundaries in a partialist direction in a way that respects Wolf’s insights. According to this theory, there is eudaimonic encroachment on morality. This means that non-moral eudaimonic considerations can (...) impact what morality demands of us without themselves being moral. This allows us to do justice to the non-moral pursuits Wolf values and allows us to vindicate the idea that being morally ideal is compatible with being ideal. (shrink)

How should an impartial social observer judge distributions of well-being across different individuals when there is uncertainty regarding the state of the world? I explore this question by imposing very weak conditions of rationality and benevolent sympathy on impartial betterness judgments under uncertainty. Although weak enough to be consistent with all the main theories of rationality, these conditions prove to be sufficient to rule out any heterogeneity in what is good for individuals, to require a neutral attitude to uncertainty on (...) the part of the social observer, and to require that both individual and social betterness be strongly separable. (shrink)

Amartya Sen has argued that contractarian theories of justice inevitably fall victim to the problem of parochialism, for the reason that they rely on a problematically narrow conception of impartiality. Sen finds a corrective model of impartiality in Adam Smith’s figure of the impartial spectator. In this essay, I argue that Sen’s invocation of the spectator to resolve the problem of parochialism is unfounded, as the impartial spectator is fundamentally a product of socialization that serves to propagate conventional (...) moral norms. I consider various interpretive avenues for “rescuing” the spectator from parochialism, and ultimately conclude that a minor amendment to Smith’s account, resting on the possibility of a conscience informed by moral pluralism, is required. (shrink)

1. Impartiality has long been esteemed by audiences across diverse cultures and media forms, and this esteem persists today. According to a recent Reuters Digital News Report surveying respondents...

We present an experiment designed to investigate three different mechanisms to achieve impartiality in distributive justice. We consider a first-person procedure, inspired by the Rawlsian veil of ignorance, and two third-party procedures, an involved spectator and a detached observer. First-person veiled stakeholders and involved spectators are affected by an initially unfair distribution that, in the stakeholders’ case, is to be redressed. We find substantial differences in the redressing task. Detached observers propose significantly fairer redistributions than veiled stakeholders or involved (...) spectators. Risk preferences partly explain why veiled stakeholders propose less egalitarian redistributions. Surprisingly, involved spectators, who are informed about their position in society, tend to favour stakeholders holding the same position as they do after the initial distribution. (shrink)

Impartiality is often cited as a virtue of inquiry, but it is not clear what it means for an inquiry to be impartial. In this paper, I draw on ground-breaking work on the epistemology of inquiry and epistemic rationality to introduce and argue in favour of a novel account of epistemic impartiality. In my view, epistemic impartiality is ultimately a matter of fairness. According to this new account, which I call the positive account, an inquiry is impartial (...) if and only if its design and execution are appropriately influenced by fair consideration of the interests of the parties that will be affected by the outcomes of the inquiry. Contrary to our pre-theoretical expectations, I argue that epistemic impartiality is not a matter of setting people’s interests aside; rather, it requires us to take people’s interests seriously when we make our inquiries. (shrink)

Consequentialism is often charged with demandingness objections which arise in response to the theory’s commitment to impartiality. It might be thought that the only way that consequentialists can avoid such demandingness objections is by dropping their commitment to impartialism. However, I outline and defend a framework within which all reasons for action are impartially grounded, yet which can avoid demandingness objections. I defend this framework against what might appear to be a strong objection, namely the claim that anyone who (...) accepts the theory will be practically irrational. (shrink)

One possible strategy in dealing with the so-called “Adam Smith Problem” is to probe the architectural unity of his two major works, The Theory of Moral Sentiments and the Wealth of Nations. The architectural elements of a theory consist of premises and perspectives chosen, processes and mechanisms described, and results obtained. In this essay, I trace in the Wealth of Nations the architectural building blocks as known from The Theory of Moral Sentiments, by analogy, all the way up to the (...) Impartial Spectator. The key challenge of this thought exercise is to not simply carry over the ethical categories of The Theory of Moral Sentiments to the Wealth of Nations, but to remain entirely within its economic framework. There is no explicit mention of the Impartial Spectator in the Wealth of Nations, but one can find his counterpart in connection with prudence, the dimmed-down self-regarding virtue that connects the two books and drives much of the action in the economic realm. Specifically, it is the long-sightedness of prudence, that is, the consideration of the consequences of one’s economic actions on oneself and others over a longer time-horizon, that allows for an analogy to the Impartial Spectator procedure. Just as the Impartial Spectator from The Theory of Moral Sentiments is the result of spinning off from one’s person an imagined disinterested, more objective judge of one’s conduct, the unnamed Long-sighted Spectator of the Wealth of Nations would be conjured up by the economic agent to ensure better judgment and sustainable economic behavior over time. (shrink)

Intergenerational impartiality requires putting the welfare of future generations at par with that of our own. However, rational choice requires weighting all welfare values by the respective probabilities of realization. As the risk of non-survival of mankind is strictly positive for all time periods and as the probability of non-survival is cumulative, the probability weights operate like discount factors, though justified on a morally justifiable and completely different ground. Impartial intertemporal welfare maximization is acceptable, though the welfare of people (...) in the very far future has lower effects as the probabilities of their existence are also lower. However, the effective discount rate on future welfare values (distinct from monetary values) justified on this ground is likely to be less than 0.1 per annum. Such discounting does not compromise environmental protection and sustainability unduly. The finiteness of our universe implies that the sum of our expected welfare to infinity remains finite, solving the paradox of having to compare different infinite values in optimal growth/conservation theories. (shrink)

The paper examines how the capability approach, as developed by Sen and Nussbaum, would fare as a guide for ethical reasoning when confronted with a catastrophic future. The analysis responds to Tim Mulgan’s Ethics for a Broken World, in which he imagines a world devastated by climate change and then investigates whether today’s philosophy would be of any help under those circumstances. In order to grasp how approaches would have to transform to deal with such a future, I modify Mulgan’s (...) method from a comparative static (‘broken’) examination to a dynamic (‘breaking’) one. The capability approach is tested against problems related to justifying intervention, new conceptions of responsibility in the face of catastrophe, and dealing with demands of impartial attention to humanitarian needs. I suggest that the capability approach is useful in reflections about intervention and may also offer clues to deal with responsibility issues. However, impartiality problems seem beyond what the approach can handle at the moment, perhaps because of its close connection to the idea of justice. Giving more attention to the ethics of security is suggested as a possible way forward instead. (shrink)

I argue that partialist critics of deontological theories make a mistake similar to one made by critics of utilitarianism: they fail to distinguish between a theory’s decision procedure and its standard of rightness. That is, they take these deontological theories to be offering a method for moral deliberation when they are in fact offering justificatory arguments for moral principles. And while deontologists, like utilitarians do incorporate impartiality into their justifications for basic principles, many do not require that agents utilize (...) impartial methods of moral deliberation. It follows that insofar as partialists reject impartiality in deliberation, their criticisms may miss their mark. If however, partialists are opposed to justifications for basic principles that rely upon impartiality, they are committed, I argue, to drastic revisions in moral theory that have worrisome implications. (shrink)

How should an impartial social observer judge distributions of well-being across different individuals when there is uncertainty regarding the state of the world? I explore this question by imposing very weak conditions of rationality and benevolent sympathy on impartial betterness judgments under uncertainty. Although weak enough to be consistent with all the main theories of rationality, these conditions prove to be sufficient to rule out any heterogeneity in what is good for individuals, to require a neutral attitude to uncertainty on (...) the part of the social observer, and to require that both individual and social betterness be strongly separable. (shrink)

In this paper, I discuss the question of partiality and impartiality in the application of triage. Triage is a process in medical research which recommends that patients should be sorted for treatment according to the degree or severity of their injury. In employing the triage protocol, however, the question of partiality arises because socially vulnerable groups will be neglected since there is the likelihood that the social determinants of a patient's health may diminish her chance of survival. As a (...) process that is based on the severity of a patient's injury, triage will be unfair, and hence negatively partial, to socially vulnerable people. Thus, I aim in this paper to show that the triage protocol fails as an impartial evaluative process because its only aim is to maximize survivability. I contend that: (i) triage would lead to the neglect of the social condition of patients or victims, and (ii) it will only serve the utilitarian purpose of maximization of outcomes which may not be justified in some cases. (shrink)

Bernard Williams questioned whether impartial morality “can allow for the importance of individual character and personal relations in moral experience.” Underlying his position is a distinction between factual and practical deliberation. While factual deliberation is about the world and brings in a standpoint that is impartial, practical deliberation is, he claims, radically first‐personal; it “involves an I that [is] intimately the I of my desires.” While it may be thought that Williams's claim implies an unpalatable Humean subjectivism, the present article (...) argues that this does not follow: That first‐person practical deliberation is directed both by the “I of my desires” and by the world. Drawing on Peter Winch's argument against the universalizability of moral judgments and D. H. Lawrence's Lady Chatterley's Lover, the article argues that practical deliberations involve discovering value in the world, but that what is revealed about the world depends constitutively on the first‐person deliberations and decisions of particular agents. (shrink)

This paper considers the question of whether impartiality and predictability are illusory to the extent that every consequentialist ethical theory must be hopeless.

This article contributes to the scholarly analysis of impartiality in the early modern period. While previous studies have focused on impartiality in law, history, philosophy and aesthetics, this article analyzes impartial and cold or even cold-blooded self-examinations and self-observations, primarily in the work of the eighteenth-century German philosophers and writers Georg Friedrich Meier and Karl Philipp Moritz. The article is particularly concerned with the relation between the therapeutic and epistemic meanings and functions of these concepts. Without suggesting a (...) linear development, it details how, over time, therapeutic connotations tended to be challenged and partly replaced by epistemic ones. It further argues that this development was intimately connected to the culture of sensibility and, in particular, to the growing interest in the unique, individual and often sensual experience. (shrink)

The debate between impartialists and their critics has dominated both moral and political philosophy for over a decade. Characteristically, impartialists argue that any sensible form of impartialism can accommodate the partial concerns we have for others. By contrast, partialists deny that this is so. They see the division as one which runs exceedingly deep and argue that, at the limit, impartialist thinking requires that we marginalise those concerns and commitments that make our lives meaningful. This book attempts to show both (...) that the dispute between impartialists and their critics runs very deep, and that it can nonetheless be resolved. The resolution begins by asking how impartialist political philosophy can defend the priority of justice when it conflicts with people's commitments to their conceptions of the good. It is argued that priority can only defended if political impartialism has a moral foundation, and that moral foundation must not be a foundation in the ideal of equality (as is often thought), but a foundation in the partial concerns we have for others. In short, impartialist moral philosophy must take our partial concerns as central if it is to gain allegiance. However, if it does take our partial concerns as central, then it can generate a defence of political impartialism which shows why justice must take priority, but which also acknowledges that pluralism about the good is permanent. (shrink)

‘Universal benevolence’ may be defined as the goal of promoting the welfare of every individual, however remote, to the best of one’s ability. Currently, the commonest model of universal benevolence is that of ‘impartiality,’ the notion promoted by Peter Singer, Roderick Firth, and others, that every individual (including oneself) is of equal intrinsic worth. This paper contends that the impartialist model is seriously flawed. Specifically, it is demonstrated that impartialist accounts of benevolence (1) attempt to draw positive moral conclusions (...) from negative premises, (2) draw actual conclusions from merely counterfactual premises, (3) fail to live up to stated claims of naturalism, and (4) give no compelling account of moral motivation. By contrast, I propose an alternate model of universal benevolence, grounded in the Stoic, cosmopolitan theory of oikeiôsis, i.e. ‘appropriation.’ Such a model, in contradistinction to impartiality, would see benevolence as the positive identification between moral agent and moral patient, rather than a charitable sacrifice of oneself for a distinct but equal other. An ethics of oikeiôsis has the further benefit of avoiding each of the four abovementioned conceptual pitfalls common to impartialist theories. (shrink)

This paper presents an analysis of the various dimensions of independence and impartiality. Among other things, I will argue that the two concepts, both of which are profoundly implicated in the rule of law, can be conceived as values and are perfectly distinguishable from each other. I will also propose a conception of neutrality, as a third distinct value that satisfies the requirement for non-redundancy with regard to independence and impartiality. Hence, judges and arbitrators must be independent, impartial (...) and neutral. Each of these values contributes in different ways to enabling the law to fulfil its distinctive function of facilitating social interaction in complex and plural societies. (shrink)

To capture genuine utilitarian tendencies, (Kahane et al., Psychological Review 125:131, 2018) developed the Oxford Utilitarianism Scale (OUS) based on two subscales, which measure the commitment to impartial beneficence and the willingness to cause harm for the greater good. In this article, I argue that the impartial beneficence subscale, which breaks ground with previous research on utilitarian moral psychology, does not distinctively measure utilitarian moral judgment. I argue that Kantian ethics captures the all-encompassing impartial concern for the well-being of all (...) human beings. The Oxford Utilitarianism Scale draws, in fact, a point of division that places Kantian and utilitarian theories on the same track. I suggest that the impartial beneficence subscale needs to be significantly revised in order to capture distinctively utilitarian judgments. Additionally, I propose that psychological research should focus on exploring multiple sources of the phenomenon of impartial beneficence without categorizing it as exclusively utilitarian. (shrink)

Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) is a global public health disaster driven largely by antibiotic use in human health care. Doctors considering whether to prescribe antibiotics face an ethical conflict between upholding individual patient health and advancing public health aims. Existing literature mainly examines whether patients awaiting consultations desire or expect to receive antibiotic prescriptions, but does not report views of the wider public regarding conditions under which doctors should prescribe antibiotics. It also does not explore the ethical significance of public views (...) or their sensitivity to awareness of AMR risks or the standpoint (self-interested or impartial) taken by participants. Methods: An online survey was conducted with a sample of the U.S. public (n = 158). Participants were asked to indicate what relative priority should be given to individual patients and society-at-large from various standpoints and in various contexts, including antibiotic prescription. Results: Of the participants, 50.3% thought that doctors should generally prioritize individual patients over society, whereas 32.0% prioritized society over individual patients. When asked in the context of AMR, 39.2% prioritized individuals whereas 45.5% prioritized society. Participants were significantly less willing to prioritize society over individuals when they themselves were the patient, both in general (p =.001) and in relation to AMR specifically (p =.006). Conclusions: Participants’ attitudes were more oriented to society and sensitive to collective responsibility when informed about the social costs of antibiotic use and when considered from a third-person rather than first-person perspective. That is, as participants came closer to taking the perspective of an informed and impartial “ideal observer,” their support for prioritizing society increased. Our findings suggest that, insofar as antibiotic policies and practices should be informed by attitudes that are impartial and well-informed, there is significant support for prioritizing society. (shrink)

Confronted with Adolf Eichmann, evildoer par excellence, Hannah Arendt sought in vain for any 'depth' to the evil he had wrought. How is the philosopher to approach evil ? Is the celebrated criterion of impartiality ill-equipped to guide judgment when its object is evil - as exhibited, for instance, in the recent genocide in Bosnia? This essay questions the ability of the neutral 'third party' to respond adequately to evil from a standpoint of avowed impartiality. Discussing the different (...) roles of perpetrator and victim, I argue that in any knowledge about evil the victim is the supremely privileged source; this being so, the non-party to the occurrence of evil must privilege the testimony of the victimized - even at the cost of strict impartiality of moral judgment. Key Words: Arendt • evil • genocide • Goldhagen • impartiality • judgment • Kant • Levinas. (shrink)

Defenders of sophisticated evidential decision theory (EDT) have argued (1) that its failure to provide correct recommendations in problems where the agent believes himself asymmetrically fallible in executing his choices is no flaw of the theory, and (2) that causal decision theory gives incorrect recommendations in certain examples unless it is supplemented with an additional metatickle or ratifiability deliberation mechanism. In the first part of this paper, I argue that both positions are incorrect. In the second part of the paper, (...) I show how the agent's preferences involved in standard counterexamples to EDT, such as Newcomb's problem, violate the Jeffrey/Bolker preference axioms, specifically the Impartiality axiom. (shrink)

Para encontrar los principios más razonables que deben gobernar a las instituciones básicas de una sociedad con, Rawls se vale del recurso de un "contrato teorético-hipotético". Rawls cree que puede alcanzar un punto de apoyo "arquimediano", a partir del cual pueda construirse un plano abstracto pero universalmente aplicable para una sociedad justa. El autor argumenta en el ensayo que ninguno de los principios de Rawls es del todo convincente, cuando menos no de la manera en que Rawls los presentó. A (...) su vez, el autor destaca que tanto Rawls como la Iglesia Católica apoyan un cognitivismo moral basado en una concepción de la racionalidad práctica lo suficientemente fuerte como para justificar principios substanciales que afirmen validez moral universal. (shrink)

This paper sets out asking what is to be gained from grounding the pursuit of a cosmopolitan morality in the evolutionary history of our morals, namely, by ascertaining some of the natural constraints under which normative ethical theory must operate. In Section II, I review two major forms of altruism: kin-based and reciprocal altruism. Experimental evidence is cited to support the view that biological altruism involves a carefully self-interested calculation to enhance adaptive fitness to the social environment. In Section III, (...) I explain that, in natural selection, these self-interested calculations about relatedness and reciprocation don’t happen consciously, but rather, almost instantaneously, as heuristics. These heuristics are advantageous to the organism and thus, over time, hardwired to its ‘emotional framework’. Emotional contagion, guilt, envy, and inequity aversion are covered as examples of the emotions at work in altruistic behavior. What can ethical deliberation on cosmopolitan morality adopt from a naturalistic examination of the evolution of altruism? According to situationists, what we do is best explained by inherent tendencies to respond to features of our situation. The pursuit of cosmopolitan morality via the evolutionary history of altruism reiterates this situationist conclusion, and seems to carry a recommendation for polity: to adjust our environment in response to findings about human nature as to better correspond with our proposed moral ends. (shrink)

Much has been written about Bernard Williams' remarks (1981) regarding the (imagined) man faced with the choice of saving either a drowning stranger or his drowning wife. For Williams, the man's justification for saving his wife ought not to be any kind of practical syllogism, but simply, "because she is my wife." Susan Wolf claims (2012) that the standard response to Williams', which she dubs the Standard View, has been inadequate. Wolf then considers and rejects a potential response to the (...) Standard View—what she calls the "virtuous attention" view. Such a view, Wolf argues, is merely a variation of the Standard View. In this paper, I argue that the virtuous attention view is not a variation of the Standard View. While Wolf’s reading of Williams is correct, I argue that a developed version of the virtuous attention view can actually provide support for Wolf's reading of Williams. (shrink)

Anthropologists have documented substantial cross-society variation in people’s willingness to treat strangers with impartial, universal norms versus favoring members of their local community. Researchers have proposed several adaptive accounts for these differences. One variant of the pathogen stress hypothesis predicts that people will be more likely to favor local in-group members when they are under greater infectious disease threat. The material security hypothesis instead proposes that institutions that permit people to meet their basic needs through impartial interactions with strangers reinforce (...) a tendency toward impartiality, whereas people lacking such institutions must rely on local community members to meet their basic needs. Some studies have examined these hypotheses using self-reported preferences, but not with behavioral measures. We conducted behavioral experiments in eight diverse societies that measure individuals’ willingness to favor in-group members by ignoring an impartial rule. Consistent with the material security hypothesis, members of societies enjoying better-quality government services and food security show a stronger preference for following an impartial rule over investing in their local in-group. Our data show no support for the pathogen stress hypothesis as applied to favoring in-groups and instead suggest that favoring in-group members more closely reflects a general adaptive fit with social institutions that have arisen in each society. (shrink)

Many hold that morality is essentially impartial. Many also hold that partiality is justified. Susan Wolf argues that these commitments push us towards downgrading morality's practical significance. Here I argue that there is a way of pushing morality's boundaries in a partialist direction in a way that respects Wolf's insights.

According to Richard Cumberland, men’s natural law obligation to promote the common good does not derive from self-interest, but there is really no conflict between private and public happiness because the former is contained in the latter. The aim of this paper is to disentangle the various arguments supposed to support this claim and to focus specifically on the ‘parity of reason’ argument which draws upon the principle of treating like cases alike. I will show that Cumberland tends to confuse (...) the principle with a more substantive Golden Rule-like principle requiring that we treat others like ourselves and that he appeals to ideas of both impartiality and reciprocity in doing so. Moreover, I will argue that Cumberland’s failure to fully grasp the distinction between these three concepts derives from the way in which the overall structure of his argument integrates the perspective of human rational agents with the perspective of God. (shrink)

Judith Jarvis Thomson recently argued that it is impermissible for a bystander to turn a runaway trolley from five onto one. But she also argues that a trolley driver is required to do just that. We believe that her argument is flawed in three important ways. She fails to give proper weight to (a) an agent¹s claims not to be required to act in ways he does not want to, (b) impartiality in the weighing of competing patient-claims, and (c) (...) the role of patient-claims in determining agent-duties. All three of these failures can be understood in terms of what we call the Mechanics of Claims, an approach we develop for identifying and balancing competing claims in determining rights. Using that framework, one can see both why Thomson's most recent argument is mistaken, and how to think more clearly about deontological choices generally. (shrink)

Distinguishing between reasonable partiality and reasonable impartiality makes a difference in resolving the serious clashes between 'priority for compatriots' versus cosmopolitan global duties. Defenders of a priority for compatriots have to acknowledge two strong moral constraints: states have to fulfil all their special, domestic and trans-domestic duties, and associative duties are limited by distributive constraints resulting from the moral duty to fight poverty and gross global inequalities. In the recent global context, I see four main problems for liberal-nationalist defenders (...) of priority for compatriots: Reasonable particularists often forget that associative duties for compatriots compete with many sub-national and trans-domestic associative duties. They tend to forget that associative national duties compete with other, strong special obligations regarding not only citizens and residents inside nation-states but also trans-domestic obligations across state borders. They do not properly discuss the problem of unallocated duties in addressing global poverty and insecurity. The design of supra-national and global 'mediating' institutions, and the crafting of policies to remedy the misallocation of duties and to coordinate the required state activities is an urgent task neglected by liberal nationalists. In the recent context, reasonable partiality's bias towards partiality is most unwelcome and morally dubious. Reasonable impartiality's bias towards cosmopolitanism helps to stimulate a drastic shift in obligations and stimulates productive trans-national institutional design. (shrink)

It is a commonplace that in many societies people adhere to profoundly different conceptions of the good. Given this we need to know what political principles are appropriate. How can we treat people who are committed to different accounts of the good with fairness? One recent answer to this pressing question is given by Brian Barry in his important work Justice as Impartiality. This book, of course, contains much more than this. It includes a powerful and incisive discussion of (...) several accounts of distributive justice, a critique of other attempts to defend liberal neutrality and a rebuttal of those who are critical of the ideal of impartiality. In this paper I wish, however, to focus on Barry's defence of liberal neutrality. The paper falls into three parts. Section I outlines the thesis that Barry wants to defend and gives a brief sketch of the argument he employs to defend it. Barry's argument makes two claims – what I have termed the Sceptical Thesis and the Agreement Thesis. Section II therefore critically assesses Barry's defence of the sceptical thesis and Section III examines the agreement thesis. (shrink)

Contemporary discussions of teacher impartiality often assume that political polarization in classrooms can be managed through balanced pedagogical strategies. This paper challenges that assumption by arguing that polarization is not merely ideological but also affective and epistemic: polarization shapes who is heard, what knowledge is considered legitimate, and which emotions are deemed appropriate in educational spaces. Drawing on recent philosophical work in education, as well as emerging scholarship on epistemic-affective injustice, the paper contends that the duty of teacher (...) class='Hi'>impartiality may fail to address the deeper, structurally embedded inequalities that shape classroom dynamics. Instead of refining impartiality norms as a solution, the paper proposes reorienting teacher responsibility around the recognition of epistemic-affective injustices that marginalize certain students’ voices and emotions. The paper offers an epistemic-affective justice framework that prioritizes ethical responsiveness, relational accountability, and affective attunement, problematizing what it means to teach ethically and impartially in contexts of political polarization. (shrink)

‘Impartial benevolence and partial love’ contributes, like the other essays in the edited collection ‘The Problem of Moral Demandingness’, to the discussion of that problem. Its contribution is to offer a phenomenological exploration of the place that these two ideas/ ideals actually have in our ethical life and experience. On the basis of this exploration I argue that neither ideal, neither impartial benevolence nor partial love, comprehensively “trumps” the other — both are important, and more to the point, simply different. (...) Hence there is no general algorithm for deciding which counts for more. (shrink)