published in Asli Bali and Omar Dajani (eds) Federalism and Decentralization in the Contemporary ... more published in Asli Bali and Omar Dajani (eds) Federalism and Decentralization in the Contemporary Middle East and North Africa (Cambridge University Press, 2023), 50-66.
Previous research has shown that the public tends to see some groups as less deserving of social ... more Previous research has shown that the public tends to see some groups as less deserving of social rights. Our focus in this article is whether they are also seen as less entitled to engage in political claims-making. Recent theorists of inclusive nationalism argue that whether minorities are seen as having the right to codetermine the future may depend on whether the majority believes minorities are morally committed to the nation. Drawing on a unique survey experiment, we test this intuition by analyzing how majority perceptions of a minority's commitment to the larger society influence support for claimsmaking by immigrants and national minorities. We show that immigrants, French-speaking Quebeckers, and Indigenous peoples are judged more harshly about their right to make claims and that this is in part explained by the majority's views that these groups are not, in fact, committed members of the larger political community.
published in Edward Koning (ed) The Exclusion of Immigrants from Welfare Programs: Cross-National... more published in Edward Koning (ed) The Exclusion of Immigrants from Welfare Programs: Cross-National Analysis and Contemporary Developments (University of Toronto Press, 2022), pp. 237-250.
On Education: Journal for Research and Debate, 2021
In most countries, the education system seeks to instill two kinds of solidarity: a thick sense o... more In most countries, the education system seeks to instill two kinds of solidarity: a thick sense of national solidarity with one's co-citizens, and a thinner sense of global solidarity with all of humanity. Many commentators argue that we need to rebalance these two forms of solidarity, de-emphasizing national solidarity and re-centering global solidarities. More radical commentators argue that we should abandon ideas of national solidarity entirely as inherently exclusionary and outdated. I will suggest that we in fact need both kinds of solidarity, although our conception of education for national solidarity needs to reflect our multicultural realities.
Paper presented to Conference on "Political Theory in / and/ as Political Science". McGill Univer... more Paper presented to Conference on "Political Theory in / and/ as Political Science". McGill University, Montreal.
published in Gina Gustavsson and David Miller (eds) Liberal Nationalism and Its Critics: Normativ... more published in Gina Gustavsson and David Miller (eds) Liberal Nationalism and Its Critics: Normative and Empirical Questions (Oxford University Press, 2020): 205-225.
Daedalus: Journal of the American Academy of Arts and Science, 2019
This paper explores processes by which a broadening of legal, social and cultural membership in W... more This paper explores processes by which a broadening of legal, social and cultural membership in Western societies appears to be accompanied by a reduction in the social rights of citizenship, in part due to harsher judgements concerning the deservingness of low-income populations. As more diverse groups are extended formal national membership, fewer individuals appear deserving of social rights such as welfare redistribution. Why is this the case? Some explain this decline in solidarity as a simple, even mechanical response to growing diversity. We offer alternative approaches to understanding these tensions, and pathways for promoting inclusive membership and broad social rights. We do so by drawing on the analytical tools of four distinct fields that are rarely in dialogue, proposing that positive social change may emerge from (1) solidarity, explored by normative political theorists; (2) group identity and distributive justice, a focus for social psychologists; (3) boundary drawing and destigmatization, as analyzed by cultural sociologists; and (4) contestation and social movements, studied by political sociologists and political scientists.
in Keith Banting and Will Kymlicka (eds) The Strains of Commitment: The Political Sources of Solidarity in Diverse Socieites (Oxford University Press), pp. 1-58., 2017
in James A. Banks (ed) Citizenship Education and Global Migration: Implications for Theory, Research, and Teaching (American Educational Research Association, Washington, 2017), xi-xvii.
published in Asli Bali and Omar Dajani (eds) Federalism and Decentralization in the Contemporary ... more published in Asli Bali and Omar Dajani (eds) Federalism and Decentralization in the Contemporary Middle East and North Africa (Cambridge University Press, 2023), 50-66.
Previous research has shown that the public tends to see some groups as less deserving of social ... more Previous research has shown that the public tends to see some groups as less deserving of social rights. Our focus in this article is whether they are also seen as less entitled to engage in political claims-making. Recent theorists of inclusive nationalism argue that whether minorities are seen as having the right to codetermine the future may depend on whether the majority believes minorities are morally committed to the nation. Drawing on a unique survey experiment, we test this intuition by analyzing how majority perceptions of a minority's commitment to the larger society influence support for claimsmaking by immigrants and national minorities. We show that immigrants, French-speaking Quebeckers, and Indigenous peoples are judged more harshly about their right to make claims and that this is in part explained by the majority's views that these groups are not, in fact, committed members of the larger political community.
published in Edward Koning (ed) The Exclusion of Immigrants from Welfare Programs: Cross-National... more published in Edward Koning (ed) The Exclusion of Immigrants from Welfare Programs: Cross-National Analysis and Contemporary Developments (University of Toronto Press, 2022), pp. 237-250.
On Education: Journal for Research and Debate, 2021
In most countries, the education system seeks to instill two kinds of solidarity: a thick sense o... more In most countries, the education system seeks to instill two kinds of solidarity: a thick sense of national solidarity with one's co-citizens, and a thinner sense of global solidarity with all of humanity. Many commentators argue that we need to rebalance these two forms of solidarity, de-emphasizing national solidarity and re-centering global solidarities. More radical commentators argue that we should abandon ideas of national solidarity entirely as inherently exclusionary and outdated. I will suggest that we in fact need both kinds of solidarity, although our conception of education for national solidarity needs to reflect our multicultural realities.
Paper presented to Conference on "Political Theory in / and/ as Political Science". McGill Univer... more Paper presented to Conference on "Political Theory in / and/ as Political Science". McGill University, Montreal.
published in Gina Gustavsson and David Miller (eds) Liberal Nationalism and Its Critics: Normativ... more published in Gina Gustavsson and David Miller (eds) Liberal Nationalism and Its Critics: Normative and Empirical Questions (Oxford University Press, 2020): 205-225.
Daedalus: Journal of the American Academy of Arts and Science, 2019
This paper explores processes by which a broadening of legal, social and cultural membership in W... more This paper explores processes by which a broadening of legal, social and cultural membership in Western societies appears to be accompanied by a reduction in the social rights of citizenship, in part due to harsher judgements concerning the deservingness of low-income populations. As more diverse groups are extended formal national membership, fewer individuals appear deserving of social rights such as welfare redistribution. Why is this the case? Some explain this decline in solidarity as a simple, even mechanical response to growing diversity. We offer alternative approaches to understanding these tensions, and pathways for promoting inclusive membership and broad social rights. We do so by drawing on the analytical tools of four distinct fields that are rarely in dialogue, proposing that positive social change may emerge from (1) solidarity, explored by normative political theorists; (2) group identity and distributive justice, a focus for social psychologists; (3) boundary drawing and destigmatization, as analyzed by cultural sociologists; and (4) contestation and social movements, studied by political sociologists and political scientists.
in Keith Banting and Will Kymlicka (eds) The Strains of Commitment: The Political Sources of Solidarity in Diverse Socieites (Oxford University Press), pp. 1-58., 2017
in James A. Banks (ed) Citizenship Education and Global Migration: Implications for Theory, Research, and Teaching (American Educational Research Association, Washington, 2017), xi-xvii.
published in Kristin Voigt, Valéry Giroux, and Angie Pepper (eds) The Ethics of Animal Shelters (... more published in Kristin Voigt, Valéry Giroux, and Angie Pepper (eds) The Ethics of Animal Shelters (Oxford University Press, 2023), 284-308.
forthcoming in Solidarity with Animals, ed. Alasdair Cochrane & Mara-Daria Cojocaru, (Oxford Univ... more forthcoming in Solidarity with Animals, ed. Alasdair Cochrane & Mara-Daria Cojocaru, (Oxford University Press).
Royal Institute of Philosophy Supplement, 91, 213-244, 2022
It is increasingly acknowledged that animals have an intrinsic moral status, in part due to the i... more It is increasingly acknowledged that animals have an intrinsic moral status, in part due to the influential work of many moral philosophers. However, surprisingly little has been written by philosophers on whether animals are owed social membership and the rights that attach to membership in society. In this paper, I explore why the idea of social membership matters, particularly in relation to domesticated animals, and how it can guide legal and political reforms. Focusing on social membership identifies neglected avenues for transformative change, and offers new ways of challenging the deeply-embedded 'human use typologies' that currently govern our relations to domesticated animals. It also raises fascinating philosophical questions about the definition of 'society' and the role of an ethics of membership. Ultimately, we will need to develop a new philosophy of interspecies society.
published in "Animal Labour: A New Frontier of Interspecies Justice?", edited by Charlotte Blatt... more published in "Animal Labour: A New Frontier of Interspecies Justice?", edited by Charlotte Blattner, Kendra Coulter & Will Kymlicka (Oxford University Press, 2019), pp. 1-25.
For centuries, animals have worked alongside humans in a wide variety of workplaces, yet they are... more For centuries, animals have worked alongside humans in a wide variety of workplaces, yet they are rarely recognized as workers or accorded labour rights. Many animal rights advocates have argued that using animals for their labour is inherently oppressive, and that animal labour should therefore be abolished. Recently, however, some people have argued that work can be a source of meaning, self-development and social membership for animals, as it is for humans, and that our goal should be to create good work for animals, not to abolish work. In this volume, an international and interdisciplinary group of scholars explores the benefits and drawbacks of animal labour as a site for interspecies justice. What kind of work is good work for animals? What kinds of labour rights are appropriate for animal workers? Can animals consent to work? Would recognizing animals as “workers” improve their legal and political status, or would it simply reinforce the perception that they are beasts of burden? Can a focus on labour help create bonds between the animal rights movement and other social justice movements? These and other questions are explored in depth. While the authors defend a range of views on these questions, their contributions make clear that the question of labour deserves a central place in any account of justice between humans and animals.
published in Animal Labour: A New Frontier of Interspecies Justice?, edited by Charlotte Blattner, Kendra Coulter & Will Kymlicka (Oxford University Press, 2019), pp. 207-228.
in Gideon Calder, Jurgen De Wispelaere and Anca Gheaus (eds) The Routledge Handbook on the Philosophy of Childhood and Children (Routledge, 2018), 282-293.
in Rainer Bauböck (ed) Democratic Inclusion: Rainer Bauböck in Dialogue (Manchester University Press, 2018), 160-82.
Rainer Bauböck's essay argues persuasively that our account of democratic inclusion needs to be m... more Rainer Bauböck's essay argues persuasively that our account of democratic inclusion needs to be more complex than is standardly recognized. Whereas most authors attempt to identify a single fundamental principle of democratic inclusion – whether it is the " all-affected interests " principle or the " all-subjected to coercion " principle or some social membership/stakeholder principle – Bauböck shows that there are different types of polities, with different principles of inclusion, and that the appropriate principles for inclusion at one level depend in part on the principles operative at other levels. Birthright citizenship at the national level, for example, makes possible both residency-based citizenship at the local level and derivative or nested citizenship at the federal level, just as the latter two modes of citizenship help to correct potential injustices or forms of domination generated by birthright citizenship at the national level. We are in broad agreement with Bauböck's general story about the need to complicate theories of democratic inclusion by recognizing multiple principles of democratic inclusion tied to multiple types of polity. The aim of this commentary is to push his project one step further, by adding another layer of complexity to our thinking about democratic inclusion. We will focus on a range of cases that fall outside our normal assumptions about who is eligible for, or capable of, citizenship, including children, people with cognitive disability and domesticated animals.
Amicus curiae brief in support of the Nonhuman Rights Project's efforts to secure recognition of ... more Amicus curiae brief in support of the Nonhuman Rights Project's efforts to secure recognition of legal personhood and rights for two chimpanzees.
Philosophers Offer Support For Chimpanzee Rights Cases As Nonhuman Rights Project Seeks To Appeal To New York’s Highest Court
– Experts in animal ethics, animal political theory, the philosophy of animal cognition and behavior, and the philosophy of biology urge the Court of Appeals to recognize chimpanzees Tommy and Kiko as persons –
Feb. 26, 2018—New York, NY—After the Nonhuman Rights Project (NhRP) filed a motion for permission to appeal to the New York Court of Appeals in the cases of captive chimpanzees Tommy and Kiko, a group of prominent philosophers submitted an amicus curiae brief in support of the NhRP’s efforts to secure recognition of their clients’ legal personhood and rights.
The NhRP argues in its Memorandum of Law, filed on Friday, that the New York Supreme Court, Appellate Division, First Judicial Department’s June 2017 ruling requires review by the state’s highest court, not only because it conflicts with New York’s common law habeas corpus statute and previous rulings of the Court of Appeals, the First Department, and other Appellate Departments on issues pertaining to common law personhood and habeas corpus relief, but also “based on the novelty, difficulty, importance, and effect of the legal and public policy issues raised.”
Engaging directly with a core issue raised by the NhRP’s appeal—the question of who is a “person” capable of possessing any legal rights—the philosophers’ brief maintains that the First Department’s ruling “uses a number of incompatible conceptions of person which, when properly understood, are either philosophically inadequate or in fact compatible with Kiko and Tommy’s personhood.” The philosophers who authored the brief are:
Kristin Andrews (York University) Gary Comstock (North Carolina State University) G.K.D. Crozier (Laurentian University) Sue Donaldson (Queen’s University) Andrew Fenton (Dalhousie University) Tyler M. John (Rutgers University) L. Syd M Johnson (Michigan Technological University) Robert C. Jones (California State University, Chico) Will Kymlicka (Queen’s University) Letitia Meynell (Dalhousie University) Nathan Nobis (Morehouse College) David Peña-Guzmán (California State University, San Francisco) James Rocha (California State University, Fresno) Bernard Rollin (Colorado State) Jeffrey Sebo (New York University) Adam Shriver (University of British Columbia) Rebecca L. Walker (University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill) “We submit this brief in our shared interest in ensuring a more just co-existence with other animals who live in our communities,” they write. “We strongly urge this Court, in keeping with the best philosophical standards of rational judgment and ethical standards of justice, to recognize that, as nonhuman persons, Kiko and Tommy should be granted a writ of habeas corpus and their detainers should have the burden of showing the lawful justification of their current confinement.”
Tommy is a male chimpanzee whom the NhRP discovered living alone in a cage in a shed on a used trailer lot along Route 30 in Gloversville, New York.
Kiko is a male chimpanzee, who, to the best of the NhRP’s knowledge, is held in captivity in a cage in a cement storefront attached to a home in a residential area in Niagara Falls, New York.
The NhRP has been fighting since 2013 to free them to Save the Chimps sanctuary, where they can live with other chimpanzees in a more natural environment where their fundamental right to bodily liberty will be respected.
The NhRP expects the Court to rule on its motion for permission to appeal in 6-8 weeks.
Los textos del presente libro se organizan en torno a tres ejes relevantes en el campo de los est... more Los textos del presente libro se organizan en torno a tres ejes relevantes en el campo de los estudios críticos animales: la construcción ideológica, histórica y social de la dominación sobre los animales, la interseccionalidad entre las dominaciones de especie, raza, género y clase, y las conexiones entre la ética, la filosofía política y las relaciones político-económicas. El libro consta de los siguientes capítulos: Cap. 1: A grande divisória, de Charles Patterson; Cap. 2: El Nuevo Ateísmo: promesas y problemas para las especies distintas de las humanas, de Kim Socha; Cap. 3: Proteína feminizada: significado, representaciones e implicancias, de Carol J. Adams; Cap. 4: Nada para ver - algo para ver: animales blancos y vida / muerte excepcional, de Fiona Probyn-Rapsey; Cap. 5: De Polis a Zoopolis: Una teoría política del derecho animal, de Sue Donaldson y Will Kymlicka; Cap. 6: La guerra contra los animales. Dominación, ley y soberanía, de Dinesh Joseph Wadiwel; Cap. 7: Ecosistema y paisaje: estrategias para el Antropoceno, de Adrian Franklin; Cap 8: Develando el "Complejo Animal-Industrial". ¿Un concepto y un método para los estudios críticos animales?, de Richard Twine. El prólogo está a cargo de Alicia Puleo.
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Philosophers Offer Support For Chimpanzee Rights Cases As Nonhuman Rights Project Seeks To Appeal To New York’s Highest Court
– Experts in animal ethics, animal political theory, the philosophy of animal cognition and behavior, and the philosophy of biology urge the Court of Appeals to recognize chimpanzees Tommy and Kiko as persons –
Feb. 26, 2018—New York, NY—After the Nonhuman Rights Project (NhRP) filed a motion for permission to appeal to the New York Court of Appeals in the cases of captive chimpanzees Tommy and Kiko, a group of prominent philosophers submitted an amicus curiae brief in support of the NhRP’s efforts to secure recognition of their clients’ legal personhood and rights.
The NhRP argues in its Memorandum of Law, filed on Friday, that the New York Supreme Court, Appellate Division, First Judicial Department’s June 2017 ruling requires review by the state’s highest court, not only because it conflicts with New York’s common law habeas corpus statute and previous rulings of the Court of Appeals, the First Department, and other Appellate Departments on issues pertaining to common law personhood and habeas corpus relief, but also “based on the novelty, difficulty, importance, and effect of the legal and public policy issues raised.”
Engaging directly with a core issue raised by the NhRP’s appeal—the question of who is a “person” capable of possessing any legal rights—the philosophers’ brief maintains that the First Department’s ruling “uses a number of incompatible conceptions of person which, when properly understood, are either philosophically inadequate or in fact compatible with Kiko and Tommy’s personhood.” The philosophers who authored the brief are:
Kristin Andrews (York University)
Gary Comstock (North Carolina State University)
G.K.D. Crozier (Laurentian University)
Sue Donaldson (Queen’s University)
Andrew Fenton (Dalhousie University)
Tyler M. John (Rutgers University)
L. Syd M Johnson (Michigan Technological University)
Robert C. Jones (California State University, Chico)
Will Kymlicka (Queen’s University)
Letitia Meynell (Dalhousie University)
Nathan Nobis (Morehouse College)
David Peña-Guzmán (California State University, San Francisco)
James Rocha (California State University, Fresno)
Bernard Rollin (Colorado State)
Jeffrey Sebo (New York University)
Adam Shriver (University of British Columbia)
Rebecca L. Walker (University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill)
“We submit this brief in our shared interest in ensuring a more just co-existence with other animals who live in our communities,” they write. “We strongly urge this Court, in keeping with the best philosophical standards of rational judgment and ethical standards of justice, to recognize that, as nonhuman persons, Kiko and Tommy should be granted a writ of habeas corpus and their detainers should have the burden of showing the lawful justification of their current confinement.”
Tommy is a male chimpanzee whom the NhRP discovered living alone in a cage in a shed on a used trailer lot along Route 30 in Gloversville, New York.
Kiko is a male chimpanzee, who, to the best of the NhRP’s knowledge, is held in captivity in a cage in a cement storefront attached to a home in a residential area in Niagara Falls, New York.
The NhRP has been fighting since 2013 to free them to Save the Chimps sanctuary, where they can live with other chimpanzees in a more natural environment where their fundamental right to bodily liberty will be respected.
The NhRP expects the Court to rule on its motion for permission to appeal in 6-8 weeks.