Christopher Heath Wellman – författare

Rights and Resistance features ten essays by Christopher Heath Wellman on our moral rights, and the measures we may take to protect them. In addition to offering original accounts of various rights, in these essays Wellman considers how we may permissibly enforce our moral claims against others on both the individual and political levels. Virtually everyone agrees that we may defend our rights with only necessary and proportionate force, but should we accept these restrictions even when our resistance would be unnecessary or disproportionate only because a wrongdoer is employing overpowering force? What about citizens who endure political injustice? Although it is no longer fashionable to insist that we must obey the laws of an illegitimate regime, most theorists remain reluctant to condone forcible resistance against a legitimate government. Given that states can be fully legitimate without being perfectly just, prohibiting resistance against legitimate regimes requires oppressed citizens to simply endure injustices at the hands of the state. How are we exhibiting fidelity to justice if we constrain innocent victims whose moral rights are being trampled in these ways?This volume analyzes interpersonal issues alongside political questions in the hopes that if we begin with clear, intuitive ideas about interpersonal morality, we might make important progress tackling complex issues in political philosophy. Wellman argues that it is crucial to properly understand our pre-institutional rights and correlative duties. These rights leave space for institutions to create further rights and duties, but they place important limits on the kind of legitimate authority those institutions can possess. Even if conventions play an ineliminable role specifying the contours of our property rights, for instance, the moral dominion we enjoy over our self-regarding affairs restricts what states may do to and require of us. Ultimately, Rights and Resistance challenges us to reconsider the boundaries of moral and political resistance, urging a deeper understanding of the rights and duties that shape our interactions and the limits of state authority.

This book advances a novel theory of international justice that combines the orthodox liberal notion that the lives of individuals are what ultimately matter morally with the putatively antiliberal idea of an irreducibly collective right of self-governance. The individual and her rights are placed at center stage insofar as political states are judged legitimate if they adequately protect the human rights of their constituents and respect the rights of all others. Yet, the book argues that legitimate states have a moral right to self-determination and that this right is inherently collective, irreducible to the individual rights of the persons who constitute them. Exploring the implications of these ideas, the book addresses issues pertaining to democracy, secession, international criminal law, armed intervention, political assassination, global distributive justice, and immigration. A number of the positions taken in the book run against the grain of current academic opinion: there is no human right to democracy; separatist groups can be morally entitled to secede from legitimate states; the fact that it is a matter of brute luck whether one is born in a wealthy state or a poorer one does not mean that economic inequalities across states must be minimized or even kept within certain limits; most existing states have no right against armed intervention; and it is morally permissible for a legitimate state to exclude all would-be immigrants.

A Liberal Theory of International Justice advances a novel theory of international justice that combines the orthodox liberal notion that the lives of individuals are what ultimately matter morally with the putatively antiliberal idea of an irreducibly collective right of self-governance. The individual and her rights are placed at center stage insofar as political states are judged legitimate if they adequately protect the human rights of their constituents and respect the rights of all others. Yet, the book argues that legitimate states have a moral right to self-determination and that this right is inherently collective, irreducible to the individual rights of the persons who constitute them. Exploring the implications of these ideas, the book addresses issues pertaining to democracy, secession, international criminal law, armed intervention, political assassination, global distributive justice, and immigration. A number of the positions taken in the book run against the grain of current academic opinion: there is no human right to democracy; separatist groups can be morally entitled to secede from legitimate states; the fact that it is a matter of brute luck whether one is born in a wealthy state or a poorer one does not mean that economic inequalities across states must be minimized or even kept within certain limits; most existing states have no right against armed intervention; and it is morally permissible for a legitimate state to exclude all would-be immigrants.

Do states have the right to prevent potential immigrants from crossing their borders, or should people have the freedom to migrate and settle wherever they wish? Christopher Heath Wellman and Phillip Cole develop and defend opposing answers to this timely and important question. Appealing to the right to freedom of association, Wellman contends that legitimate states have broad discretion to exclude potential immigrants, even those who desperately seek to enter. Against this, Cole argues that the commitment to the moral equality of all human beings - which legitimate states can be expected to hold - means national borders must be open: equal respect requires equal access, both to territory and membership; and that the idea of open borders is less radical than it seems when we consider how many territorial and community boundaries have this open nature. In addition to engaging with each other's arguments, Wellman and Cole address a range of central questions and prominent positions on this topic. The authors therefore provide a critical overview of the major contributions to the ethics of migration, as well as developing original, provocative positions of their own.

Do states have the right to prevent potential immigrants from crossing their borders, or should people have the freedom to migrate and settle wherever they wish? Christopher Heath Wellman and Phillip Cole develop and defend opposing answers to this timely and important question. Appealing to the right to freedom of association, Wellman contends that legitimate states have broad discretion to exclude potential immigrants, even those who desperately seek to enter. Against this, Cole argues that the commitment to the moral equality of all human beings - which legitimate states can be expected to hold - means national borders must be open: equal respect requires equal access, both to territory and membership; and that the idea of open borders is less radical than it seems when we consider how many territorial and community boundaries have this open nature. In addition to engaging with each other's arguments, Wellman and Cole address a range of central questions and prominent positions on this topic. The authors therefore provide a critical overview of the major contributions to the ethics of migration, as well as developing original, provocative positions of their own.

The twin questions at the heart of political philosophy are "Why may the state forcibly impose itself on its constituents? " and "Why must citizens obey the state's commands? " In Liberal Rights and Responsibilities, Christopher Heath Wellman offers original responses to these fundamental questions and then, building upon these answers, defends a number of distinctive positions concerning the rights and responsibilities individual citizens, separatist groups, and political states have regarding one another. The first four chapters combine to critically discuss standard theories of political obligation and then to introduce Wellman's samaritan explanation of our duty to obey the law. The next three papers challenge the traditional approaches to group autonomy en route to advancing Wellman's functional account of political self-determination. Next Wellman reviews group responsibility and argues that, in addition to discharging our individual moral duties, each of us must do our share to ensure that the groups to which we belong do not perpetrate injustice. In the ninth chapter, Wellman invokes freedom of association to provide a defense of a legitimate state's right to unilaterally design and enforce an exclusionary immigration policy. The last two essays are on punishment; the first defends the rights forfeiture justification of punishment, and the second combines this rights forfeiture theory with the samaritan account of political legitimacy to explain why legitimate states may permissibly assume exclusive control over the enforcement of criminal law. Taken as a group, these eleven essays - one new and ten previously published - aim to vindicate a liberal political philosopher's capacity to begin with relatively modest moral principles and still arrive at robust conclusions in favor of the moral standing of legitimate states.

First published in 2005, A Theory of Secession: The Case for Political Self-Determination offers an unapologetic defense of the right to secede. Christopher Heath Wellman argues that any group has a moral right to secede as long as its political divorce will leave it and the remainder state in a position to perform the requisite political functions. He explains that there is nothing contradictory about valuing legitimate states, while permitting their division. Once political states are recognized as valuable because of the functions that they are uniquely suited to perform, it becomes apparent that the territorial boundaries of existing states might permissably be redrawn as long as neither the process, nor the result of this reconfiguration, interrupts the production of the crucial political benefits. Thus, if one values self-determination, then one has good reason to conclude that people have a right to determine their political boundaries.

First published in 2005, A Theory of Secession: The Case for Political Self-Determination offers an unapologetic defense of the right to secede. Christopher Heath Wellman argues that any group has a moral right to secede as long as its political divorce will leave it and the remainder state in a position to perform the requisite political functions. He explains that there is nothing contradictory about valuing legitimate states, while permitting their division. Once political states are recognized as valuable because of the functions that they are uniquely suited to perform, it becomes apparent that the territorial boundaries of existing states might permissably be redrawn as long as neither the process, nor the result of this reconfiguration, interrupts the production of the crucial political benefits. Thus, if one values self-determination, then one has good reason to conclude that people have a right to determine their political boundaries.

Now in an updated edition with fresh perspectives on high-profile ethical issues such as torture and same-sex marriage, this collection pairs cogently argued essays by leading philosophers with opposing views on fault-line public concerns. Revised and updated new edition with six new pairs of essays on prominent contemporary issues including torture and same-sex marriage, and a survey of theories of ethics by Stephen DarwallLeading philosophers tackle colleagues with opposing views in contrasting essays on core issues in applied ethicsAn ideal semester-length course text certain to generate vigorous discussion

Contemporary Debates in Applied Ethics features pairs of newly commissioned essays by some of the leading theorists working in the field today. Brings together fresh debates on eleven of the most controversial issues in applied ethicsTopics addressed include abortion, affirmative action, animals, capital punishment, cloning, euthanasia, immigration, pornography, privacy in civil society, values in nature, and world hunger.Lively debate format sharply defines the issues, and paves the way for further discussion.Will serve as an accessible introduction to the major topics in applied ethics, whilst also capturing the imagination of professional philosophers.

Applied or practical ethics is perhaps the largest growth area in philosophy today, and many issues in moral, social, and political life have come under philosophical scrutiny in recent years. Taken together, the essays in this volume – including two overview essays on theories of ethics and the nature of applied ethics – provide a state-of-the-art account of the most pressing moral questions facing us today. Provides a comprehensive guide to many of the most significant problems of practical ethicsOffers state-of-the-art accounts of issues in medical, environmental, legal, social, and business ethicsWritten by major philosophers presently engaged with these complex and profound ethical issues