Self-employment, which accounts for one in seven workers in OECD countries, has ceased to decline in recent decades and is now growing in these countries.1 It comprises shop owners, restaurateurs, consultants, lawyers, and an increasing number of unskilled workers in industries like construction and transportation, in which self-employment was unusual in the past.2 Yet these workers, the vast majority of whom do not employ others, have meagre access to social protection. In some countries, the self-employed are legally excluded from unemployment, sickness, and occupational injury benefits—the three areas of social protection that, retirement pensions aside, self-employed workers value most.3 And in other countries they become de facto excluded because, despite having statutory access to these benefits, the eligibility requirements to accrue them are tailored to waged work.4 Unprotected exposure to social risks makes self-employed workers, on average, three times more likely to become income-poor than their salaried peers.5
Over recent years, the working conditions and social protection of the self-employed have gained ground in public policy debates. A growing consensus exists among practitioners and policy-makers on the importance of strengthening the social protection of the self-employed in four ways. One is to offer them unemployment benefits in order to protect them from poverty in the event of bankruptcy. Another is to secure them access to insurance for occupational diseases and injuries. The third is to grant them adequate protection from day one in case of sickness. The fourth and final way is to give them access to benefits and measures that allow for a better work–life balance, including maternity, paternity, and caregiver leave. Moreover, as part of the implementation of the European Pillar of Social Rights, the European Commission has recently put forward a proposal that encourages EU member states to offer adequate social coverage to self-employed workers.6
The debate over these measures, however, has lacked normative input thus far. Even though self-employment was a central concern for pre-industrial thinkers like James Harrington, Adam Smith, and Thomas Paine, who conceived of it as an alternative to the ‘servile dependency’ that waged work involved, recent philosophers have largely overlooked it.7 The burgeoning philosophical analyses of work have paid scant attention to the nature and value of self-employment, nor to the normative significance that the distinction between self-employment and employee work may have for the legal and social protection that self-employed and waged workers are due.
This neglect may be explained by the tendency in recent philosophy to embrace a corporatist paradigm of working relations—a paradigm that equates work with employment, usually in large firms, and neglects self-employment and other non-standard forms of work. This is clearly true of philosophers working in the M
One of the crucial questions that lawyers, philosophers, politicians, and journalists struggled with during the twentieth century was how to “guarantee that informative and accurate news would flow to the public through the press.”1 Traditional answers to this question assumed that the key to a well-informed citizenry lay within speech rights. The idea was that speech rights would create a rich flow of information from which diligent citizens could learn the important facts and form their own views about public issues.
However, in digital democracies, speech rights are very well entrenched, yet many people are still largely uninformed. To be sure, ignorance is sometimes the result of negligence, but it is undeniable that citizens are often the victims of disinformation campaigns, fake news, and personalized online propaganda. These phenomena make it difficult to understand public issues even if one is disposed to do so. And, importantly, they seem to confirm what scholars like Lebovic himself—but also Lippmann or Habermas—have lamented: speech rights are not enough to guarantee that the public receives an adequate supply of news. The traditional answer to Lebovic's question is, then, at least partially incorrect.
Drawing on these insights, this article shifts the focus from speech rights towards the rights of the public, and argues that, if we want to guarantee that an adequate supply of news reaches the public, we need to start taking more seriously the idea that citizens have a right to be well informed. As I will show, this idea repeatedly appears in journalism theory and practice, as well as in democratic and legal theory, but it remains a somewhat vague notion: it is not clear what it might mean, nor what its normative implications could be. This article aims to fill this conceptual gap by conceptualizing what I will call citizens' right to information (henceforth CRI).
One motivation for theorizing CRI is to show that a positive right of the citizenry to be provided with quality news is—contrary to appearances—fully compatible with free speech and journalistic freedoms. The key here lies in conceiving this as a moral right which imposes moral—but not legal—obligations on journalists while, at the same time, compelling the state to foster quality journalism through adequate media policies. Seen in this light, CRI may become a useful landmark whose conceptual clarification could illuminate other discussions, such as journalism ethics. Indeed, it seems that journalists' special democratic rights and duties could hardly be explained without assuming something like CRI. Moreover, CRI might illuminate the discussion on what journalism can mean in our digital era—in which the line separating professional journalists from lay citizens is increasingly blurred—by linking the profession to an ethical commitment to provide citizens with the information they, as such, have a right to. Finall
Philosophers engaged in projects of ‘ameliorative inquiry’ offer accounts of social categories, such as those of race and gender, that set aside the descriptive question of understanding those categories as they currently exist in favour of developing accounts of how we ought to think of those categories given our political goals. For feminists whose goal is to combat gender injustice, the dictionary definition of ‘woman’ as ‘adult human female’ has, on the face of it, little to offer. If we see gender injustice as arising primarily out of the system of patriarchal oppression, then understanding ‘women’ and ‘girls’ as the classes of people who are the primary targets of that oppression might seem appropriate, even if it turns out that these classes exclude some human females and include some human males. And if we see gender injustice as also involving an unjust imposition of gendered expectations and gender categories on people regardless of their own gendered understanding of their selves, then an account of ‘women’ as ‘adult human females’ might appear even to exacerbate this kind of gender injustice, by forcing people into gendered categories that are contrary to their identities. As a result, the consequence of ameliorative inquiry is often to recommend that we revise our accounts of existing concepts so as to better serve our political ends.
But what should we do if, having engaged in an ameliorative inquiry, we come to the conclusion that our concepts need to be amended? Concepts and definitions have a life outside of philosophy, and presumably those convinced that revisions are needed should have something to say about what should change in our use of our concepts outside of discussions taking place in philosophy journals. In the case of gender concepts and terms such as ‘woman’ and ‘girl’, these terms have existing legal meanings and uses. The natural consequence of ameliorative inquiry should then presumably be proposals to amend our existing legal categories to better represent the targets of our inquiry. Indeed, in recent years, many jurisdictions have been grappling with the question of whether to amend the ways in which sex and/or gender are recognized in law; and so an opportunity presents itself for those involved in ameliorative inquiry into gender concepts to offer some practical proposals for legal changes.
While no state has formally signed up to be bound by the Yogyakarta Principles, they are taken very seriously as a guide to best practice. It is against the backdrop of Principle 31 that we can understand recent proposals in the UK (both in England and Wales as consulted on in 2018 by the UK government, and in Scotland as passed by the Scottish government in December 2022) to amend the 2004 Gender Recognition Act (GRA) to move to a system of self-determination of gender (self-ID) in line with Part C of Principle 31.
What, then, should those involved in offering ameliorative definitions of ‘woman’
In his article, “The Space between Justice and Legitimacy”, Kit Wellman offers a novel account of the relationship between political philosophy's two central concepts.1 He argues that states can be legitimate yet impose many unjust laws and policies. This is true, he suggests, because political legitimacy should be understood as a claim about wide proportionality.2 Just as a country's war can be widely proportionate overall, and yet contain many instances of injustice, states can be proportionate (that is, legitimate) overall, yet contain a fair amount of injustice. But although Wellman thinks legitimate injustice is, in this sense, a real and pervasive phenomenon, he goes on to argue that legitimacy doesn't have much practical relevance with regard to unjust laws and policies. It doesn't make it permissible to impose and enforce unjust laws, nor does it generate an obligation to comply with unjust laws.
Like Wellman, I think legitimate injustice is real and pervasive. But I don't share his view of this phenomenon and, as a result, I also don't agree with him about the practical implications of legitimate injustice. Contra Wellman, I think state officials can act permissibly when they enforce unjust but legitimate law, and I think they have claim rights against being interfered with when they do so.
Before we begin, it will help to clarify what's at stake in labeling a state legitimate. There are many competing conceptions of political legitimacy in the literature, but, as Wellman says, “virtually everyone agrees that legitimacy at least entitles a state to coerce its constituents”.3 Following Wellman, I will assume this is, at a minimum, what's at stake in determining whether a state is legitimate. Other things being equal, a legitimate political authority is presumptively permitted to coerce its constituents in at least some ways that illegitimate authorities are not permitted to do.
Wellman believes legitimate states can act unjustly, and he defends this view by appeal to a particular notion of proportionality. Just as it can be morally permissible to launch a war even when we can foresee that some of our troops will commit unjust crimes during its course, a state can be legitimate even though we know it sometimes commits injustice. In both cases, we weigh the good things that will be achieved if we proceed against all the harms or costs that will be caused. Provided the goods are sufficiently great to outweigh the harms or costs, the proposed course of action or the institution can be defended on the basis that the benefits are proportionate relative to the costs.4 As Wellman puts it, “Because states perform such incredibly valuable functions … they are worth at least some moral costs”.5 This is, on Wellman's view, simply what it is for a state to be legitimate. When the benefits the state provides are proportionate relative to the costs (including the injustices the state commits), the state is morally legitimate.
One might hope that philosophy could reconcile us to our social world and each other. To entertain this as plausible is to think there is some perspective one could reach via philosophical enquiry that shows our life and society to be as they are for good reason, allows us to see it all as in some sense rational. Hegel is no doubt the great exponent of this ideal, his system promising to trace history's patterns and conceptual development, while he is so optimistic as to believe that, at its end, we would achieve the perspective whereby every agent's own actions and situation can be made intelligible to themselves and others. This was meant to be true for us the readers, so we would be able to see for ourselves how what we do makes sense, given our circumstances, and is plausibly tending towards a good end.1
Of course, the problem is that there may not be such a perspective. Perhaps to see the world aright is to recognize it as a jumbled mess, with no progressive tendency towards greater coherence, and no satisfaction to be had in achieving superior insight. Perhaps there is no good end we are collaboratively working towards, no possible reconciliation with each other; maybe we are perpetually on the brink of descending once more into a Hobbesian nightmare. Hegel hoped to reassure us that the existence of that clarificatory perspective is guaranteed; as free agents, once we achieve self-awareness we necessarily mutually recognize one another as engaged in a fundamentally cooperative project tending towards justified ends.2 But, alas, not all of us have been convinced, and a kind of existential anomie can befall a thoughtful person who surveys our present socio-cultural situation.3 What if there really just is no excuse for how things are, and no good reason for me to carry on?
We ought then to make the social world worthy of reconciliation. The guiding idea here is that the ideal of reconciliation underlying Hegelian social thought is desirable, and if it is not yet possible given present social arrangements, we are called upon to change those arrangements until the ideal can be attained. To be clear, this is not a disagreement with Hegel's system at its deepest level; he may have jumped the gun on what a rationally reconcilable social order looks like, but in some sense that is a mere detail compared to his deeper point that we proactively seek a coherence that we can be reconciled to. Social and political philosophy can then play a dual role of identifying points at which our social order will throw up obstacles to attaining a coherent and reconcilable view of one's life, and suggesting means by which these obstacles can be removed.4
I shall illustrate these rather abstract ideas by constructing and analysing a narrative of the historical situation leading up to the current culture war; especially as it plays out concerning race, and black–white relations even more especially, among the middle class of the USA. The US being
In this article, I raise a justice problem for a universal basic income (UBI) if implemented in one or a few nations, but not globally. I raise this objection from the perspective of someone who is ultimately sympathetic to a UBI, even a merely national one. My argument specifically problematizes the unconditionality of a UBI and the unprecedented benefits for those who receive it. UBI advocates themselves often draw attention to this unconditionality in order to justify the greater moral appeal of a UBI over other schemes. Thus, my argument has particular relevance for those sympathetic to a UBI. I argue that, in response to the justice problem I raise, a merely national UBI should be accompanied by compensation for non-UBI-recipients who contribute to what I will call the UBI's ‘effectiveness’.
In Section I, I explain what I mean by a merely national UBI, and in Section II, I develop a justice or exploitation problem that a merely national UBI faces. In Section III, I argue for a compensation scheme for non-recipient contributors. In Section IV, I clarify the scope of my argument, and in Section V, I discuss how my argument relates to a potential global UBI.
A UBI is income paid irrespective of willingness to work, of wealth, of other sources of income, and of personal circumstances. If a UBI is pitched at a sufficiently high level, it realizes a number of goods for its recipients: it frees them from the most basic forms of economic insecurity without conditions such as a work requirement,1 affords so-called ‘real freedom’, the freedom to choose the way recipients want to live,2 and allows recipients to exit unattractive jobs and even the job market altogether.3 If a UBI realizes these goods for a recipient, I will say that the UBI is effective. In the next section, I will argue that it is unjust if a merely national UBI is made more effective by the exploitative labour of those who do not receive a UBI and thus cannot opt out of their unattractive jobs, lack the freedom to live as they want, and are subject to basic economic insecurity.
A UBI is currently often presented as a radical yet feasible solution to pressing political and social problems, such as poverty,4 the demeaning nature of conditional welfare schemes,5 costly and overly bureaucratic welfare-state regulations,6 the drive for ever more growth and the resulting environmental destruction,7 the fact that much necessary care work is currently not financially rewarded,8 and that workers are increasingly being replaced by robots and computers.9
For my purpose, two things are especially significant. Firstly, a UBI is frequently presented as a non-utopian proposal that, from an economic perspective, could be implemented in some countries now or in the near future.10 Secondly, a global UBI, by contrast, would require major political, economic, and social changes worldwide. This is currently rather utopian, though perhaps ‘no longer a mere pipe drea
It is good for people to flourish. But does the state have the authority to promote the flourishing of its citizens? Some political philosophers—perfectionists—hold that it does.1 For perfectionists, the state has the authority to pursue policies meant to promote the flourishing of its citizens, and it is appropriate for the state, or state officials, to take considerations about what will promote flourishing into account when exercising their authority. Traditionally for perfectionists, the fact that a policy will promote the flourishing of the citizens may legitimate the state's using its authority to pursue that policy, even if the policy does not promote any non-perfectionist aims— that is, aims other than flourishing.
Other political philosophers—anti-perfectionists—hold that the state acts illegitimately when it tries to promote flourishing.2 These philosophers hold that the state does not have the authority to try to promote flourishing and that flourishing does not legitimate the extension of state authority to pursue a particular policy. One influential anti-perfectionist argument for this conclusion is that, however good it is for people to flourish, considerations about flourishing are not the appropriate grounds for political authority, and so it is an illegitimate extension of authority contrary to people's rights when the state uses its authority to promote flourishing. Let's call this argument the legitimacy objection to perfectionism.3
How should perfectionists answer this argument? After discussing the legitimacy objection in Section II, I explore one common perfectionist response in Section III—that there are natural or political duties to promote people's flourishing that can ground the state's authority to promote flourishing.4 I am skeptical that responses of this kind are dialectically effective. Rather, in Section IV, I suggest that the appropriate space for perfectionist state action lies in using considerations about flourishing to select among courses of state action that the state may legitimately pursue for non-perfectionist reasons. This consideration-based perfectionism allows officials to take considerations about flourishing seriously, without extending the legitimate scope of state authority, thereby avoiding the legitimacy objection.
This shows that there are two distinct roles that flourishing could play within political life. On the one hand, flourishing could be something that the state is sensitive to in making its decisions. On the other hand, flourishing could be something that partially grounds the domain of legitimate state authority. The ability of consideration-based perfectionism to avoid the legitimacy objection shows how these roles can come apart—the state can be sensitive to flourishing even if flourishing does not partially ground the domain of legitimate state authority. Proponents of the legitimacy objection collapse together two distinct roles th
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