Browsing by Author "Norman, Wayne"
Results Per Page
Sort Options
Item Open Access Bad goods: On the political morality of production and consumption in global supply chains(2019) Kingston, EwanPeople buy many goods produced in ways that appear to call for a remedy or a reaction from actors in developed countries: these are goods which appear to have “grave flaws” in the upstream supply chain. For example, one can buy products produced by firms which routinely clear-cut forests, employ child or forced labor, defy domestic health-and-safety laws, intimidate labor organizers, and so on. On the other hand, many of the global poor rely on the employment opportunities that global production networks create, and developing countries tend to see their low production costs as their comparative advantage to attract foreign investment and upgrade to higher stages of development. In this dissertation, I explore different aspects of the moral, political and social philosophy surrounding grave flaws, particularly what they entail for consumers in affluent countries. Chapters 1-3 concern the appropriate role of consumers and those who would mobilize them to remedy grave flaws. In Chapter 1, I survey the kinds of moral relationship that consumers might have to the grave flaws. I then ask under what conditions an individual consumer has strong moral reasons to react to grave flaws by practicing selective purchasing. I conclude that the deep epistemic difficulties surrounding recognising each good’s connection with a grave flaw, and the effects of switching to apparently better products, mean consumers do not typically have strong moral reasons to practice conscientious consumption. Chapters 2 and 3 turn to consider what I call political consumerism, practiced by consumers as an aggregate group, mobilized by those who aim to remedy some of the grave flaws. In Chapter 2 I raise concerns about the necessity, effectiveness, and risks of political consumerism, and argue that it might be an effective and appropriate means to remedy grave flaws in global supply chains only in rather specific circumstances. Furthermore, in Chapter 3, I argue that because political consumerism threatens several liberal-democratic values, the mobilizers of political consumerism should attempt to apply more deliberative and democratic elements to their campaigns. Finally, in Chapter 4, I turn to the question of which flaws in supply chains are actually grave. I use the apparel industry as an example, and argue that, apart from outright fraud and coercion, cases of firms trying to undermine or ignore attempts to collectively overcome systemic market failures in the supply chain are the grave flaws we in affluent countries should be most concerned about.
Item Embargo Conceptions of Victimhood: Legal, Political, and Psychological Dimensions(2023) Weese, TaraThis dissertation focuses on conceptions of victimhood across legal, political, and psychological domains. Conceptions of victimhood, as they currently stand, delegitimize the claims of legitimate victims and impose undue burdens upon victims to respond in a socially correct way. My research can be divided into three subsections: 1) legal and political conceptions of victimhood and the delegitimization of legitimate claims to victim status, 2) societal burdens placed on victims unduly because of their victim status, and 3) psychological conceptions internal to victims that make self-identification of blamelessness and victim-status more difficult than current scholarship suggests.
I build an expanded definition of victimhood that recognizes victims of structural harms and a parallel conception of survivorhood that legitimizes the suffering of victims even if they are seen as complicit actors in the harm they suffer. After building up a more robust conception of who counts as a legitimate victim, I investigate the internal self-conception that victims construct in light of the societal conceptions that surround them. In particular, I show that many victims have psychological reactions to being harmed that are at odds with the social expectations for how a victim ought to feel and act in relation to themselves and their offenders. The trajectory of my project first deals with others’ conceptions of victims, then addresses the ethical obligations imposed on victims as a condition of their legitimacy, and finally examines the psychological reactions of victims and internalization folk legal and psychological conceptions.
Item Open Access Lethal Autonomous Weapon Systems: Reconciling the Myth of Killer Robots and the Reality of the Modern Battlefield(2021) Eason, MackenzieIn the past two decades there has been a significant interest in the ethical and legal concerns surrounding the development of Lethal Autonomous Weapon Systems (LAWS). These arguments are principally based on a killer robot conception of future autonomy - that is that futuristic LAWS are capable of near-human like moral reasoning and judgement. My argument is twofold – first, I argue that this conception of future weapon autonomy might be flawed, and future LAWS technology might be better understood as existing on a continuum of weapons autonomy. Machine guns, precision guided missiles, remote piloted drones, and the Aegis Combat System, among others, represent this continuum. While successive technological development might introduce greater levels of autonomy to the battlefield, critical human functions of moral reasoning and judgement are still a necessary and critical component of their design. In this framework, LAWS can be reduced to just another weapon ultimately put to use by human soldiers and commanders. Understood in this way it becomes difficult for critical arguments to hold much force as they must define at what point on this continuum that autonomy meaningfully represents a paradigm shift in warfare to the point that it violates just war norms and international law. Second, I will argue that even if we do assume a killer robot level of autonomy, the utilitarian arguments against LAWS might still be flawed. The arguments rely on the notion that a LAWS could potentially make a mistake and cause unnecessary harm on the battlefield. This notion is flawed because it fails to articulate how that is meaningfully different than a battlefield characterized by human warfare. Humans are also subject to mistakes and error in judgement that could result in unnecessary harm. With that in mind, I will specifically address four of the most prominent utilitarian arguments against LAWS – responsibility gap, proportionality, distinction, and the idea of ‘riskless warfare’.
Item Open Access The Problem of Sorting: A Dilemma Between Freedom of Association and Social Justice(2021) Soon, Valerie-JeanWhat does justice require of us in the personal realm of intimate association? Many seemingly innocent choices at the heart of private life, such as our tendency to sort ourselves into groups of friends, partners, and neighbors who share our social identities, play a significant role in perpetuating social segregation and its concomitant inequalities. And oftentimes, we rely on structures such as informal social norms, selective rules of club membership, or local land-use policies to protect these associational choices. I call this the problem of sorting. Because these choices are in the private realm, there is significant tension between personal liberty, especially the freedom of association, and the demands of justice. I begin this dissertation by using empirical social science to outline the problem of sorting. Individuals have reasons to take political action in favor of shaping their search environments according to these criteria, and they also have reasons to offer social opportunities to the excluded. The state should take positive steps to create diverse search environments. However, the state ought not interfere in our actual associations, and individuals have no duties to form substantive associations with the excluded. I conclude that this understanding of freedom of association and its concomitant duties reduces the tension that we began with, though it does not eliminate it.