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Against Perfectionism defends neutralist liberalism as the most appropriate political morality for democratic societies.

This article assesses Richard Vernon's attempted reconciliation of compatriot preference with global justice by analyzing the iteration proviso (IP), which says that a group of people can legitimately set out to confer special advantages upon each other if others, outside that group, are free to do the same in their own case. Part I outlines how duties to outsiders are typically characterized in two leading accounts of global justice — moral universalism and associativism. The IP is motivated by Vernon's desire to transcend the binary opposition between, and the limitations of, these two views. Part II sketches the version of contractualism that Vernon deploys to surmount these limitations and explains the role of the IP therein. Part III elucidates two different interpretations of the IP and shows that neither seems plausible.

"Dieser Artikel untersucht, ob es moralisch vertretbar ist, Kinder von Wahlen auszuschließen. Letztendlich gibt es starke Spannungen zwischen den egalitären Annahmen der Demokratie und unserem offensichtlichen Unwillen, Kindern das Wahlrecht zuzugestehen. Solange kein plausibler Grund für die ungleiche Behandlung von Erwachsenen und Kindern gefunden wird, muss die anhaltende politische Vorenthaltung des Wahlrechts von unseren jüngsten Bürgern als das bezeichnet werden, was sie ist: soziale Ungerechtigkeit. Der Artikel beginnt mit der Darstellung einiger konzeptioneller Schwierigkeiten, die im Verhältnis Kindheit - Demokratie aufkommen. Anschließend untersucht er zwei sehr unterschiedliche Demokratieansätze und ihre Bedeutung für das Kinderwahlrecht: Prozeduralismus und das vermeintliche Kinderrecht auf eine offene Zukunft." (Autorenreferat)

Dieser Artikel untersucht, ob es moralisch vertretbar ist, Kinder von Wahlen auszuschließen. Letztendlich gibt es starke Spannungen zwischen den egalitären Annahmen der Demokratie und unserem offensichtlichen Unwillen, Kindern das Wahlrecht zuzugestehen. Solange kein plausibler Grund für die ungleiche Behandlung von Erwachsenen und Kindern gefunden wird, muss die anhaltende politische Vorenthaltung des Wahlrechts von unseren jüngsten Bürgern als das bezeichnet werden, was sie ist: soziale Ungerechtigkeit. Der Artikel beginnt mit der Darstellung einiger konzeptioneller
Schwierigkeiten, die im Verhältnis
Kindheit – Demokratie aufkommen. Anschließend
untersucht er zwei sehr unterschiedliche
Demokratieansätze und ihre Bedeutung für das Kinderwahlrecht: Prozeduralismus und das vermeintliche Kinderrecht auf eine offene Zukunft.

This paper examines whether or not children's continued electoral exclusion is morally defensible. Ultimately, there is a deep tension between the egalitarian presuppositions of democracy and our apparent unwillingness to grant children voting rights. Unless a plausible distinction can be found, then, between adults and children that also tracks the underlying reasons for endorsing democracy in the first place, the continued political disenfranchisement of our youngest citizens is shown for what it is: social injustice. e paper begins by exploring some of the conceptual difficulties that childhood creates in relation to democracy. It then assesses the implications of two very different approaches to democracy for children's voting rights: proceduralism and a child's supposed right to an open future.

This paper examines whether or not children's continued electoral exclusion is morally defensible. Ultimately, there is a deep tension between the egalitarian presuppositions of democracy and our apparent unwillingness to grant children voting rights. Unless a plausible distinction can be found, then, between adults and children that also tracks the underlying reasons for endorsing democracy in the first place, the continued political disenfranchisement of our youngest citizens is shown for what it is: social injustice. The paper begins by exploring some of the conceptual difficulties that childhood creates in relation to democracy. It then assesses the implications of two very different approaches to democracy for children's voting rights: proceduralism and a child's supposed right to an open future.

Political philosophers often worry about the potentially elitist implications of perfectionism as the basis of distributive justice. Richard Arneson challenges this familiar connection between perfectionism and elitism by developing an egalitarian theory of distributive justice with distinctively perfectionist grounds. In this article, I argue that Arneson's theory is implausible, because an egalitarian political morality renders perfectionism either irrelevant or arbitrary.

The most influential contemporary defences of liberal neutrality are premised on a contractual view of political legitimacy. For contractualists, perfectionist principles of justice are illegitimate because they cannot be the object of reasonable agreement among free and equal citizens. Several critics have challenged this connection between contractualism and neutrality by suggesting that the epistemic arguments commonly offered in its favour are self-defeating. This paper examines three recent expressions of this claim – those of Simon Caney, Simon Clarke and Joseph Chan – and finds that none of them succeeds. They fail because they mistake an ethical claim about how states should respond to disagreement for an epistemic one that explains why such a response is needed.

The political theory of Richard Vernon has made major contributions to the many complex dimensions of political morality, democratic dialogue, justice, and toleration. Justice, Rights, and Toleration offers critical engagement with the central ideas of his work on the perennial political challenges in liberal democratic societies.

Introduction fragile freedoms : the global struggle for human rights / Steven Lecce, Neil McArthur, Arthur Schafer -- Human rights : past and future / Anthony Grayling -- A history of violence / Steven Pinker -- Capabilities, entitlements, rights : supplementation and critique / Martha Nussbaum -- Culture, identity, and human rights / Kwame Anthony Appiah -- Indigenous love, law, and land in Canada's constitution / John Borrows -- Legal challenges in a changing world / Baroness Helena Kennedy -- Women and the struggle for human rights / Germaine Greer.