J Wolff
Biographic Data
| ID | 26531 |
|---|---|
| NAME | J Wolff |
| GIVEN NAMES | J |
| FAMILY NAME | Wolff |
| SIGNATURE | WOLFF J |
| AFFILIATIONS | University College London |
| ORCID | 0000-0003-2608-5674 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 61 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 128 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 57 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 4 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1953 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2025 |
| H-INDEX | 3 |
Uncollected Writings
Richard Wollheim (1923–2003) is known primarily for his writings on aesthetics and on philosophy of mind and psychoanalysis, being a towering figure in these fields. Yet his work had a very wide scope, and a discernible further major strand in his academic output is political philosophy, on which this volume, of previously uncollected papers, concentrates. The papers range over a number of topics, but several themes recur: a concern for the worki…
John Stuart Mill and the Limits of State Action (1973)
This influential paper, interpreting John Stuart Mill’s account of liberty and the limits of state action, was published in the journal Social Research in 1973. Mill argues that the only reason to interfere with the liberty of an (adult, rational) human being is to prevent interference with the interests of others or threat thereto. But the notion of ‘interest’ is a difficult one. Is any source of unhappiness or discontent a damage to interests? …
The Value of Ceremonies
Ceremonies, such as weddings, funerals, graduations, coronations, presidential inaugurations, and many other celebratory occasions play a central role in human life and society. But while their importance is emphasised in sociology and anthropology, as well as in Chinese, African and other philosophical traditions, ceremonies have received far less attention in Western philosophy, and when discussed are often, though not universally, dismissed as…
The philosophers have only interpreted the world
Many political philosophers happily repeat Marx?s Eleventh Thesis on Feuerbach (inscribed on his gravestone) ?The Philosophers have only interpreted the world in various ways. The point, however, is to change it.? Marx had a theory of change: proletarian revolution. But what theory of change is appropriate in current circumstances? In this paper I will consider the steps that typically foreshadow and lead to policy change and the potential for ph…
Marx’s Ethical Vision
Readers of Marx’s works, early and late, cannot fail to detect a consistent normative sting in Marx’s texts. Marx remains perhaps our most incisive critic of capitalism, passionately making the case for its replacement by communism, which, Marx clearly appears to believe, will be an immeasurably superior way to live. But what is the nature of his normative stance? What, morally, is wrong with capitalism, to be repaired under communism? In Marx’s …
Socialism and Culture (1961)
Socialism and Culture, published as a pamphlet for the Fabian Society in May 1961, is a fascinating, wide-ranging essay that takes on the question of the culture of a putative socialist society. Wollheim suggests that British culture is ‘stored’ within its education system, dominated by the middle classes, focused on Oxbridge, Public and Grammar Schools, and a Classical education. A new mass culture has emerged, aimed at maximum diffusion, leisur…
Returning to Hobbes
My paper ‘Hobbes and the Motivations of Social Contract Theory’ was published in this journal in 1994. In this contribution I explain the background that led me to write that paper at an early stage of my career, relating the explanation to my education as a student at UCL, and, briefly, at Harvard and contrasting the methodological approaches I experienced in the two departments. The Hobbes paper itself offers a type of ‘rational reconstruction’…
An Introduction to Political Philosophy
An Introduction to Political Philosophy provides an introduction to the subject, combining clarity and a conversational style with a thought-provoking account of the central questions of the discipline. It explores the subject through a series of enduring and timeless questions, crossing centuries and millennia to consider the most influential answers and demonstrate the relevance of political philosophy for an understanding of contemporary issue…
No More Benefit Cheats
The concept of the ‘benefit cheat’ plays a critical role in political rhetoric and public policy and it has been deployed to justify changes to the benefit system that have had a very negative impact on well being and justice. The authors argue that the concept is dangerous, adding to the existing burdens of poverty and exclusion and that it must be eradicated by a reorganisation of the welfare system. Dignity and a spirit of equality must be the…
Respecting, protecting and fulfilling the human right to health
Not applicable Our work does not report results of a health care intervention on human participants. Registration is therefore not applicable
Ethical and policy considerations for Covid-19 vaccination modalities
Background To investigate whether neonatal hyperglycaemia in the first postnatal week is associated with treatment-demanding retinopathy of prematurity (ROP). Methods This is a Danish national, retrospective, case–control study of premature infants (birth period 2003–2006). Three national registers were searched, and data were linked through a unique civil registration number. The study sample consisted of 106 cases each matched with two comparis…
The Human Right to Health
© Cambridge University Press 2011. Introduction: The global health duty It is hardly news that the health and life expectancy of many of the peoples of the developing world is truly shocking. For example, according to one source, in 2009 life expectancy at birth was over 82 for those born in Japan, but, astonishingly, around 32 for those born in Swaziland (Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), 2009). If this figure is to be believed then it may well…
Enhancing the WHO’s Proposed Framework for Distributing Covid-19 Vaccines Among Countries
An ethical framework for global vaccine allocation
The Fair Priority Model offers a practical way to fulfill pledges to distribute vaccines fairly and equitably
Public Reflective Disequilibrium
Avner de-Shalit has devised a methodology for coming closer to a settled view in political philosophy which he calls ‘public reflective equilibrium’, extending ideas of John Rawls and Michael Walzer. De-Shalit proposes that the philosopher should come to an understanding of views outside the academy through extended interaction with members of the public. These discussions can and do lead to changes in the philosophical theory, from the introduct…
Risks and Regulation of New Technologies
Fighting risk with risk
Solar radiation management (SRM) has been proposed as a means of mitigating climate change. Although SRM poses new risks, it is sometimes proposed as the ‘lesser evil’. I consider how research and implementation of SRM could be regulated, drawing on what I call a ‘precautionary checklist’, which includes consideration of the longer term political implications of technical change. Particular attention is given to the moral hazard of ‘regulatory dr…
Poverty
Poverty is often defined as lacking the financial resources to meet a set of basic needs. Here, I consider four questions. First, how is the relevant level of basic needs to be determined? Second, given that the possibility of satisfying basic needs is not solely determined by possession of financial resources, is poverty better understood or measured at least in part in non-financial terms? Third, what, if anything, is owed to people in poverty …
An Introduction to Political Philosophy
An Introduction to Political Philosophy provides and introduction to the subject, combining clarity and a conversational style with a thought-provoking account of the central questions of the discipline. The text explores the subject through a series of enduring and timeless questions, jumping centuries and millennia to explore the most influential answers and demonstrate the relevance of political philosophy for an understanding of contemporary …
Social Equality, Relative Poverty and Marginalised Groups
Political Philosophy and the Real World of the Welfare State
What contribution can political philosophers make to policy questions, such as the best configuration of the welfare state? On one view, political philosophers set out abstract theories of justice that can guide policy makers in their attempt to transform existing institutions. Yet it rarely seems the case that such a model is used in practice, and it therefore becomes unclear how political philosophy can contribute to policy debates. Following a…
Social Equality and Social Inequality
Theorists of social equality argue that the inspiration behind egalitarianism is not the idea of the equalization of some currency of justice, but the idea of a society in which all regard and treat each other as equals. On this view, barriers to equality include asymmetric social relations involving hierarchy, exclusion, or oppression. Generally, though, social egalitarians have found it difficult to present a positive theory of social equality,…
The Precautionary Attitude
Innovation in basic science is often a cause for wonder and excitement. Those associated with a new development are quick to point out the anticipated benefits: a cure for cancer or dementia, an end to unsafe water or hunger. These advocates are slower to draw attention to the possible costs, which may become known only much later. It is always hard to have an accurate overview, as it is almost impossible to predict the total effects of the wid…
Are people consistent when trading time for health
Lectures on the History of Moral and Political Philosophy
G. A. Cohen was one of the leading political philosophers of recent times. He first came to wide attention in 1978 with the prize-winning book Karl Marx's Theory of History: A Defence . In subsequent decades his published writings largely turned away from the history of philosophy, focusing instead on equality, freedom, and justice. However, throughout his career he regularly lectured on a wide range of moral and political philosophers of the pas…
Fairness, Respect, and the Egalitarian Ethos
Socialism and Culture (1961)
Socialism and Culture, published as a pamphlet for the Fabian Society in May 1961, is a fascinating, wide-ranging essay that takes on the question of the culture of a putative socialist society. Wollheim suggests that British culture is ‘stored’ within its education system, dominated by the middle classes, focused on Oxbridge, Public and Grammar Schools, and a Classical education. A new mass culture has emerged, aimed at maximum diffusion, leisur…
Freedom, liberty, and property
If one values freedom, what sort of regime of property should one favor: libertarianism, socialism, or something else again? Debate on this topic has been hampered by a failure to distinguish freedom and liberty, which are both of great value, but can come into conflict. Furthermore there are many similar concepts—distinct from both liberty and freedom, yet each representing something we rightly value—which may also come into conflict with each o…
Fighting risk with risk
Solar radiation management (SRM) has been proposed as a means of mitigating climate change. Although SRM poses new risks, it is sometimes proposed as the ‘lesser evil’. I consider how research and implementation of SRM could be regulated, drawing on what I call a ‘precautionary checklist’, which includes consideration of the longer term political implications of technical change. Particular attention is given to the moral hazard of ‘regulatory dr…
Enhancing the WHO’s Proposed Framework for Distributing Covid-19 Vaccines Among Countries
Mill, Indecency and the Liberty Principle
This paper attempts to do two things. One concerns Mill's attitude to public indecency. In On Liberty Mill expresses the conventional view that certain actions, if conducted in public, are an affront to good manners, and can properly be prohibited. This paper aims to come to an understanding of Mill's position so that it allows him to defend this part of conventional morality, but does not disrupt certain of his liberal convictions: principally t…
Hume, Bentham, and the Social Contract
An abstract is not available for this content so a preview has been provided. Please use the Get access link above for information on how to access this content
Die Wirtschaftsunionen in ihrer Stellung zu den Nationalwirtschaften und zur Weltwirtschaft
Techniques modernes de la politique économique
La prévision
La vie économique et sociale de la Nation
La vie économique et sociale de la nation
Rilke's Use of the Word ‘Rein’
Romantic Variations of Pygmalion Motifs by Hoffmann, Eichendorff and Edgar Allan Poe
Ruhrstahl und Europa. Die Wirtschaftsvereinigung Eisen- und Stahlindustrie und die Anfange der europaischen Integration, 1945-1952
Contemporary Political Philosophy
Problématique des agglomérations suisses
Dieser Artikel gibt einen Überblick über die wichtigsten Fragen, die sich heute in der Agglomeration der Schweiz stellen. Er analysiert die städtische Entwicklungspolitik, die Verkehrspolitik, die Verkehrsplanung sowie die Sozialfrage. Unsere Studie betrifft sechs Städte der deutschen und französischen Schweiz. Es hat sich u.a. bestätigt, daß besonders die Verkehrspolitik sehr unterschiedlich angegangen wird: in der deutschen Schweiz ist sie weit…
Hume, Bentham, and the Social Contract
An abstract is not available for this content so a preview has been provided. Please use the Get access link above for information on how to access this content
Robert Nozick
Journal Article Book Reviews Get access Robert Nozick: Property, Justice and the Minimal State. By Jonathan Wolff. (Oxford: Polity Press, 1991. Pp. xiii + 168. Price £29.50 h/b, £8.95 p/b.) Dudley Knowles Dudley Knowles University of Glasgow Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar The Philosophical Quarterly, Volume 43, Issue 173, October 1993, Pages 566–569, https://doi.org/10.2307/2220011 Published: 01 October 1…
Pluralistic models of political obligation
Many theorists assume that to solve the problem of political obligation it is necessary to appeal to one principle or argument which shows that all citizens have political obligations, every citizen having the same political obligations as every other. This approach makes several assumptions, all of which can be questioned. Rejecting these assumptions opens the way for various pluralistic models of political obligations I My use of these terms ha…
Political Obligation, Fairness, and Independence
In the first section the problem of political obligation is motivated, and in Section 2 the core structure of the problem is laid bare. A recognition of this structure prompts reflection that the problem will appear very different to different thinkers, depending on their moral theories. It also invites the speculation that the problem will be incapable of solution on some moral theories while trivial on others. This polarity does reflect the sta…
Rational, Fair, and Reasonable
There can be no doubt that Brian Barry has made an enormous contribution to the clarification of the ideas of justice current in contemporary political thought. In Barry's Justice as Impartiality he explicitly distinguishes and sets in competition three models of justice: justice as mutual advantage; justice as reciprocity; and justice as impartiality (the ‘rational’, ‘fair’, and ‘reasonable’ of my title), and he argues that we should prefer the …
Freedom, liberty, and property
If one values freedom, what sort of regime of property should one favor: libertarianism, socialism, or something else again? Debate on this topic has been hampered by a failure to distinguish freedom and liberty, which are both of great value, but can come into conflict. Furthermore there are many similar concepts—distinct from both liberty and freedom, yet each representing something we rightly value—which may also come into conflict with each o…
Mill, Indecency and the Liberty Principle
This paper attempts to do two things. One concerns Mill's attitude to public indecency. In On Liberty Mill expresses the conventional view that certain actions, if conducted in public, are an affront to good manners, and can properly be prohibited. This paper aims to come to an understanding of Mill's position so that it allows him to defend this part of conventional morality, but does not disrupt certain of his liberal convictions: principally t…
Modernism, Modernity and English Art
Journal Article Modernism, Modernity and English Art Get access David Peters Corbett : The Modernity of English Art 1914–1930 ( Manchester University Press : Manchester and New York , 1997 ), 60 b&w illns, 234 pp., hardback ISBN 0-7190-3732-8 , £45.00, paperback ISBN 0-7190-3733-6 , £16.99. Janet Wolff Janet Wolff Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Oxford Art Journal, Volume 21, Issue 2, 1998, Pages 199–202, …
Fairness, Respect, and the Egalitarian Ethos
Marx and Exploitation
Addressing Disadvantage and the Human Good
This paper sets out a framework in which we can distinguish between four types of redistributive attention to the disadvantaged: compensation; personal enhancement; targeted resource enhancement; and status enhancement. It is argued that in certain cases many of us will have strong intuitions in favour or against one or more strategies for addressing disadvantage, and it is further argued that in such cases it is likely that our reactions are bas…
Why Read Marx Today
In recent years we could be forgiven for assuming that Marx has nothing left to say to us. Marxist regimes have failed miserably, and with them, it seemed, all reason to take Marx seriously. The fall of the Berlin Wall had enormous symbolic resonance: it was taken to be the fall of Marx as well as of Marxist politics and economics. This book argues that we can detach Marx the critic of current society from Marx the prophet of future society, and …
Contractualism and the virtues
© 2003 Frank Cass & Co. Ltd. All rights reserved. An ethics of the virtues has been accused of being too directed to the interests of the moral agent to constitute a moral theory; yet at the same time the notion of a virtuous agent conjours up an image of a joyless prig. This essay attempts to explain and defuse these criticisms. It analyses an ethics of the virtues as being motivated by an attempt to combine the good life for the agent with a pr…
Training, Perfectionism and Fairness
This paper considers the question of whether unemployed individuals have a duty of fairness to accept retraining as a condition of receiving unemployment benefit. It is argued, in response to Stuart White, that, although there are some circumstances where individuals do have such a moral duty, for an egalitarian it is never the case that there is sufficient reason for enforcing such a duty by means of the law.
Disputed land claims
Hillel Steiner, Jonathan Wolff; Disputed land claims: a response to Weatherson and to Bou-Habib and Olsaretti, Analysis, Volume 66, Issue 3, 1 July 2006, P
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