Philip Cook

Two Types of Self‐Censorship: Public and Private

We develop and defend a distinction between two types of self-censorship: public and private. First, we suggest that public self-censorship refers to a range of individual reactions to a public censorship regime. Second, private self-censorship is the suppression by an agent of his or her own attitudes where a public censor is either absent or irrelevant. The distinction is derived from a descriptive approach to self-censorship that asks: who is the censor, who is the censee, and how do they interact? We label situations in which censor and censee are different agents as public self-censorship, and situations in which they are the same agents as private self-censorship. We demonstrate the salience of this distinction by analysing the case of publication of Mohammed cartoons by the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten. Our analysis reveals the presence and interaction of a number of different instances of private and public self-censorship. While our article is primarily concerned with establishing this novel descriptive distinction between public and private self-censorship, our analysis has important evaluative implications. We explain for instance how Jyllands-Posten was laudable as a public self-censor but not so as a private self-censor. In general, our analysis reveals that the agents and processes involved in public and private self-censorship are substantively different, as are the agents to whom normative principles regarding censorship should be applied. In particular, principles of free speech do not apply to the case of private self-censorship, because while an instance of censorship, the absence of an external censor makes the censorship non-coercive.

Against a minimum voting age

A minimum voting age is defended as the most effective and least disrespectful means of ensuring all members of an electorate are sufficiently competent to vote. Whilst it may be reasonable to require competency from voters, a minimum voting age should be rejected because its view of competence is unreasonably controversial, it is incapable of defining a clear threshold of sufficiency and an alternative test is available which treats children more respectfully. This alternative is a procedural test for minimum electoral competence. A procedural test for minimum electoral competence also succeeds in fulfilling adults’ duties to promote children’s rational and moral engagement with democracy. A minimum voting age should therefore be rejected, all things considered. A procedural test for minimum literacy and independent voting is the most justified means to ensure competency from voters and to promote the democratic agency of children.

An Augmented Buck-Passing Account of Reasons and Value: Scanlon and Crisp on What Stops the Buck

Roger Crisp has inspired two important criticisms of Scanlons buck-passing account of value. I defend buck-passing from the wrong kind of reasons criticism, and the reasons and the good objection. I support Rabinowicz and Ronnow-Rasmussens dual role of reasons in refuting the wrong kind of reasons criticism, even where its authors claim it fails. Crisps reasons and the good objection contends that the property of goodness is buck-passing in virtue of its formality. I argue that Crisp conflates general and formal properties, and that Scanlon is ambiguous about whether the formal property of a reason can stop the buck. Drawing from Wallace, I respond to Crisps reasons and the good objection by developing an augmented buck-passing account of reasons and value, where the buck is passed consistently from the formal properties of both to the substantive properties of considerations and evaluative attitudes. I end by describing two unresolved problems for buck-passers.

The Margins of Citizenship

Preface 1. The margins of citizenship: introduction Philip Cook and Jonathan Seglow 2. Citizenship and the marginalities of migrants David Owen 3. Amnesty in immigration: forgetting, forgiving, freedom Linda Bosniak 4. Workers without rights as citizens at the margins Virginia Mantouvalou 5. Luck, opportunity and disability Cynthia A. Stark 6. Citizenship and Disability: incommensurable lives and well-being Steven R. Smith 7. Voters should not be in prison! The rights of prisoners in a democracy Peter Ramsey 8. Against a minimum voting age Philip Cook 9. Marginalization as non-contribution Jonathan Seglow

The margins of citizenship: introduction

For many, the ideal of citizenship as a complete complement of rights contrasts with the reality of a partial and insecure assemblage of entitlements. Thus we find degrees of distance between full citizens and those at the margins. This special issue examines a range of different experiences of citizenship through the lens of marginality. Whether through an examination of specific cases of marginal citizenship, or through reflection on the concept of marginal citizenship more broadly, the papers in this issue plot a detailed map of marginal citizenship in contemporary societies. The authors describe a complex terrain where political institutions, law and morality often fail to provide a coherent and justified citizenship for groups at a distance from an ideal of citizenship as equal membership. The question of the morality of marginal citizenship motivates the different papers in a variety of ways. Some of the papers ask how far it is justified to create different kinds of citizenship, or to have differences in the rights and entitlements of citizens and non-citizens? Groups such as immigrants, prisoners, children and people with disabilities very often lack key citizenship rights such as the right to vote or labour rights. Does this constitute unjustified marginalization? Several of the papers that follow argue that entitlements to vote, labour protections and other social entitlements should be distributed more widely amongst those experiencing marginal citizenship. Justifications for arguments against marginalization draw on a range of sources, whether the good of membership, avoiding status inequalities, fundamental human rights or the demands of reciprocity. This serves to highlight the diversity of objections to marginal citizenship. All the papers ask, in a variety of ways, whether citizenship is the appropriate moral category through which to address unjustified marginalization, or indeed injustice more generally? For example, can we justify directing extra resources for disabled people as a means to improve their

On the Duties of Shared Parenting

How should we understand the duties between those who share in parenting a child? Those who engage in shared parenting have duties to each other derived from the childs interests, but they also have additional duties to each other as sharers in parenting. The intentional account of duties between parents appears unable to explain the stringency of duties of shared parenting, as it seems to permit a parent to relinquish unilaterally their duties of shared parenting. Drawing on the work of Bratman, Alonso, and Scanlon, I develop a shared intention account of duties of shared parenting. Duties of shared parenting are constituted by the distinctive combination of the value of reliance in shared intentions, the importance of assurance in agreements, the significance of autonomy is deciding ones goals, and the entitlement to choose with whom one shares the intimacy of parenting. On this view, duties of shared parenting are shown to be stringent, but not duties of strict performance. Thus, I argue that the intentional account of parental duties is able to explain the stringency of duties of shared parenting.

Fairness, Consensus, and the Justification of the Ideal Liberal Constitution

In Constitutional Goods Brudner argues that the justification of the ideal liberal constitutional must be based on an alternative conception of public reason from that that presented by Rawls in Political Liberalism. This paper sets out the disagreement between the two notions of justification, and argues that Brudners proposed account is problematic on two accounts. Firstly, it seems internally inconsistent. Brudners alternative to Rawlss overlapping consensus, a convergent consensus on an inclusive conception of liberalism, will be impossible given the plural and often contradictory nature of differing liberal doctrines. Secondly, even if such a consensus is possible it will be characterized by modus vivendi rather than a reasonable agreement based on the value of fairness. Consequently, Brudners notion of public justification will lack both fairness and consensus, and should therefore be rejected as the basis for the ideal liberal constitution.