G.A.Cohen

The paper develops an account of the value of tradition that completes that of Samuel Scheffler and employs it to discuss whaling and bullfighting. The discussion, however, is applicable to many other practices the paper describes, and its relevance extends also beyond animal ethics. Some of the arguments discussed here for maintaining these traditions appeal to their positive aspects, such as their contribution to social or environmental harmony; other arguments focus on the impermissibility of one group criticizing another group’s practices when its own are vulnerable to comparable criticism. Reflecting on the first kind of argument, the paper responds, building on the work of G. A. Cohen and T. M. Scanlon, that the value of tradition, if any, must be conditional. Reflecting on the second, however, the paper disagrees with Cohen and Scanlon on the impermissibility of casting the first stone.

El objetivo de esta tesis es evaluar los fundamentos que utilizan las teorías igualitaristas de la justicia contemporáneas para defender determinadas demandas políticas como una exigencia derivada del igual valor moral de las personas. Para ello, se han tomado como referencia las teorías de John Rawls, G. A. Cohen y Elizabeth Anderson, tres autores cuyas perspectivas sobre la igualdad han contribuido de diferentes formas y en distintos momentos a definir el panorama actual del igualitarismo académico. Ese panorama ha sido descrito como un escenario dominado por dos grandes corrientes: el igualitarismo distributivo y el igualitarismo relacional. Cada una de ellas sostiene una posición distinta sobre lo que requiere la igualdad en el ámbito de la justicia. A la posibilidad de demostrar la importancia independiente, tanto de la igualdad distributiva como de la igualdad relacional, se atribuye en la tesis una consecuencia: las teorías igualitaristas de la justicia deberían ser pluralistas. A partir de un análisis de las disputas más relevantes entre ambas corrientes, en la Tesis se defiende que los igualitaristas deberían adoptar una concepción particular del pluralismo, el igualitarismo de doble base, según la cual tanto la igualdad distributiva como la igualdad relacional deben ser consideradas como objetivos con importancia independiente en el ámbito de la justicia.

Although G. A. Cohen's work on Marx was flawed by a lack of gender-awareness, his work on Rawls owes much of its success to feminist inspiration. Cohen appeals effectively to feminism to rebut the basic structure objection to his egalitarian ethos, and could now appeal to feminism in response to Andrew Williams's publicity objection to this ethos. The article argues that Williams's objection is insufficient to rebut Cohen's ethos, inapplicable to variants of this ethos, and in conflict with plausible gender-egalitarian ethoses. The article also advocates an understanding of basic structuralism and publicity consistent with feminism, and argues that Rawlsians need not reject plausible domestic egalitarian ethoses on either publicity or liberty grounds.

In Marx on Capitalism, James Furner offers a new answer to the fundamental question of Marxism: can a philosophical thesis connecting capital, the state and classes with the desirability of socialism be developed from an analysis of the commodity? The Interaction-Recognition-Antinomy Thesis is anchored in a systematic retranslation of Marx’s writings, and critical engagement with a wide range of Anglophone and German language scholarship. It offers an antinomy-based strategy for grounding the value of social humanity in working-class agency, facilitates a dialectical derivation of the logic of political representation, and condemns capitalism as unjust without appeal to rights.

When assessing institutions and social outcomes, it matters how free society is within them (‘societal freedom’). For example, does capitalism come with greater societal freedom than socialism? For such judgements, freedom theorists typically assume Individualism: societal freedom is simply the aggregate of individual freedom. However, G.A. Cohen’s well-known case provides a challenge: imagine ten prisoners are individually free to leave their prison but doing so would incarcerate the remaining nine. Assume further that no one actually leaves. If we adopt Individualism plus the standard liberal view of freedom, such incarceration seems to leave societal freedom unaffected. This is an important theoretical challenge: it seems we must either reject Individualism or reject, or at least amend, the liberal view. Cohen also suggests his case, and the collective unfreedom therein, helps us capture how proletarians are unfree under capitalism. In this article, I argue that we can solve Cohen’s puzzle, if we focus on how power can reduce freedom. If we adopt the republican view of freedom, we can say that prisoners are unfree in Cohen’s case because they are dominated by the other prisoners. This solution keeps Individualism but moves beyond liberal freedom. I then also show how this individualistic framework captures proletarian unfreedom.

"En el siguiente artículo se busca ofrecer una crítica al llamado
principio de diferencia en la teoría Rawlsiana. Dicho principio
ha sido objeto de críticas tanto desde la derecha como desde la
izquierda, discusión que abordaremos en este texto a partir del
contraste entre las posturas de Robert Nozick y G.A. Cohen,
para rescatar desde ahí elementos que nos permitan problematizar los supuestos motivacionales que subyacen a una democracia
liberal. El objetivo de este texto será proponer un horizonte teó-
rico alternativo al de Rawls, cuyo lenguaje, deliberadamente o
no, tiene un rol preponderante en las discusiones actuales en la
sociedad chilena. La pregunta por la legitimidad de los incentivos es finalmente, la pregunta por la legitimidad de las actitudes
estratégicas dentro de un pacto social del que las instituciones
serían el reflejo."

In this article I explored the co-tenability of John Rawls’ two principles of justice by framing the problem in terms of the alleged compatibility of the equality of the political liberties vis-à-vis inequalities in income and wealth. I contend that historical considerations, as well as aspects internal to Rawls theory, present formidable difficulties for Rawls if he wants to maintain the lexical ordering of the first principle over the second. I questioned whether there are suitable institutions that could actually implement his principles. I then discussed and appled the insights of G.A. Cohen to resolve the objections articulated in the first half of this paper. While his insights do not specifically address my concern, they can be suitably modified to help illuminate and explain why Rawls’ assumption regarding the compatibility of political equality and socioeconomic inequality is untenable, given the conflicting demands of his two principles. I argued, ultimately, that a well-ordered society regulated by justice as fairness requires its citizens to affirm an ethos of justice within their everyday individual transactions if such a society is to be considered truly just in the Rawlsian sense.