David Weltman
Biographic Data
| ID | 1047473 |
|---|---|
| NAME | David Weltman |
| GIVEN NAMES | David |
| FAMILY NAME | Weltman |
| SIGNATURE | WELTMAN D |
| AFFILIATIONS | Ashoka University |
| ORCID | 0000-0001-7543-0337 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 21 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 40 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 21 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2001 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 3 |
What Is (Fundamentally or Per Se) Wrong with Colonialism
Ritwik Agrawal and Allen Buchanan argue that the fundamental wrong of colonialism is a denial of autonomy to those who are colonized. They claim that earlier discussions of colonialism, including those by Lea Ypi, Anna Stilz, and Massimo Renzo, mischaracterize the fundamental wrong of colonialism as something else. I argue that Agrawal and Buchanan incorrectly charge Ypi, Stilz, Renzo, and others with looking for the fundamental wrong of colonial…
What Do We Want? To Eliminate Gender! When Do We Want It? Later
Gender eliminativism, also known as gender abolitionism, is the view that we should get rid of gender. I defend gender eliminativism by suggesting that many arguments that ostensibly call for rejecting it are in fact just arguments for delaying it. Although it may be true that presently gender eliminativism should not occur because of the role gender plays in people's identities, because of the need for gender to remedy oppression, because elimin…
Saving cosmopolitanism from colonialism
Cosmopolitanism – the view that moral concern, and consequently moral duties, are not limited by borders – seems to justify colonialism with a ‘civilizing’ mission, because it supports the enforcement of moral norms universally, with no distinctions between territories, and settler colonialism, because it promotes ideas like common ownership of the Earth and open borders. I argue that existing attempts to defend cosmopolitanism from this worry fa…
What Makes Requests Normative? The Epistemic Account Defended
This paper defends the epistemic account of the normativity of requests. The epistemic account says that a request does not create any reasons and thus does not have any special normative power. Rather, a request gives reasons by revealing information which is normatively relevant. I argue that compared to competing accounts of request normativity, especially those of David Enoch and James H.P. Lewis, the epistemic account gives better answers to…
How Requests Give Reasons
A cosmopolitan instrumentalist theory of secession
I defend the cosmopolitan instrumentalist theory of secession, according to which a group has a right to secede only if this would promote cosmopolitan justice. I argue that the theory is preferable to other theories of secession because it is an entailment of cosmopolitanism, which is independently attractive, and because, unlike other theories of secession, it allows us to give the answers we want to give in cases like secession of the rich or …
Civil Disobedience and Animal Rescue
Tony Milligan argues that some forms of covert non-human animal rescue, wherein activists anonymously and illegally free non-human animals from confinement, should be understood as acts of civil disobedience. However, most traditional understandings of civil disobedience require that the civil disobedient act publicly rather than covertly. Thus Milligan’s proposal is that we revise our understanding of civil disobedience to allow for covert in ad…
Covert Animal Rescue
We should conceive of illegal covert animal rescue as acts of “subrevolution” rather than as civil disobedience. Subrevolutions are revolutions that aim to overthrow some part of the government rather than the entire government. This framework better captures the relevant values than the opposing suggestion that we treat illegal covert animal rescue as civil disobedience. If animals have rights like the right not to be unjustly imprisoned and mis…
A new well‐being atomism
Many philosophers reject the view that well‐being over a lifetime is simply an aggregation of well‐being at every moment of one's life, and thus they reject theories of well‐being like hedonism and concurrentist desire satisfactionism. They raise concerns that such a view misses the importance of the relationships between moments in a person's life or the role narratives play in a person's well‐being. In this article, we develop an atomist meta‐t…
Territorial Exclusion
Supporters of open borders sometimes argue that the state has no pro tanto right to restrict immigration, because such a right would also entail a right to exclude existing citizens for whatever reasons justify excluding immigrants. These arguments can be defeated by suggesting that people have a right to stay put. I present a new form of the exclusion argument against closed borders which escapes this “right to stay put” reply. I do this by desc…
Colonialism, injustices of the past, and the hole in Nine
In ‘Colonialism, territory and pre-existing obligations,’ Cara Nine argues that Lea Ypi’s account of the wrongness of colonialism has a hole in it: Ypi leaves open the possibility of justified settler colonialism. Nine suggests that we can patch this hole by attaching value to existing political associations. But Nine’s solution has its own hole. Many political associations exist due to settler colonialism, and thus if we endorse the value of the…
Must I Accept Prosecution for Civil Disobedience
Piero Moraro argues that people who engage in civil disobedience do not have a pro tanto reason to accept punishment for breaking the law, although they do have a duty to undergo prosecution. This is because they have a duty to answer for their actions, and the state serves as an agent of the people by calling the lawbreaker to answer via prosecution. I argue that Moraro does not go far enough. Someone who engages in civil disobedience does not e…
Helping Buchanan on Helping the Rebels
Massimo Renzo has recently argued in this journal that Allen Buchanan’s account of the ethics of intervention is too permissive. Renzo claims that a proper understanding of political self-determination shows that it is often impermissible to intervene in order to establish a regime that leads to more self-determination for a group of people if that group was or would be opposed to the intervention. Renzo’s argument rests on an analogy between ind…
On the Alleged Laziness of Moral Realists
The ideal of non-coherence in the World Bank’s social capital reforms
This paper presents an analysis of a World Bank document representing a version of the new “Social Capital” approach of International Financial Institutions (IFIs). This stance involves a rhetorical reorientation away from a much criticized unilateral approach to the poor indebted countries and to a more bi-lateral and participatory attitude. Analysis suggests that this “post-ideological” posture is reflected in the text in the form of a copious …
International Financial Institutions and Post-communist Labour Reform
Since 1999 the international financial institutions (IFI) such as the World Bank and IMF have reformed their approach to loan and grant conditionality. As part of the reforms recipient states are encouraged to consult widely with civil society organisations on the internal policy programmes promoted by the IFIs. Individual recipient countries are then assumed to take ownership of policy \nchange without recourse to IFI sanctions. However, many of…
The Pragmatics of Peremptory Assertion
New Labour’s Third Way philosophy, with its fervent critique of ideological politics, claims to be able to revitalize interest and participation in politics amongst the lay public. This article critically considers such claims by means of a detailed ideological analysis of interviews with English local politicians. Focusing on speakers’ tendency to deny or downgrade the political nature of their involvement in local politics, the recurrent occurr…
The Pragmatics of Peremptory Assertion
The pragmatics of peremptory assertion
From Political Landscape to Political Timescape
Recent changes in British politics can be partly understood in terms of the gradual replacement of political division in space by political division in time. This article explores that development by examining local politicians' accounts of political time. In the main, the rise of Third Way consensus politics was found to be represented as either a progressive or regressive development, although the former version was by far the most common. In a…
The Political Psychology of Contemporary Anti‐Politics
This article advocates a discursive approach for examining political rhetoric. Such an approach is particularly useful for studying contemporary political ideology. The current political climate, especially in Britain, has been described as exemplifying a “Third Way,” which is said to have replaced the old ideological division between “left” and “right” by a consensual, non‐ideological politics. TThe discursive approach allow the analyst to look …
The Political Psychology of Contemporary Anti‐Politics
This article advocates a discursive approach for examining political rhetoric. Such an approach is particularly useful for studying contemporary political ideology. The current political climate, especially in Britain, has been described as exemplifying a “Third Way,” which is said to have replaced the old ideological division between “left” and “right” by a consensual, non‐ideological politics. TThe discursive approach allow the analyst to look …
The Pragmatics of Peremptory Assertion
New Labour’s Third Way philosophy, with its fervent critique of ideological politics, claims to be able to revitalize interest and participation in politics amongst the lay public. This article critically considers such claims by means of a detailed ideological analysis of interviews with English local politicians. Focusing on speakers’ tendency to deny or downgrade the political nature of their involvement in local politics, the recurrent occurr…
Colonialism, injustices of the past, and the hole in Nine
In ‘Colonialism, territory and pre-existing obligations,’ Cara Nine argues that Lea Ypi’s account of the wrongness of colonialism has a hole in it: Ypi leaves open the possibility of justified settler colonialism. Nine suggests that we can patch this hole by attaching value to existing political associations. But Nine’s solution has its own hole. Many political associations exist due to settler colonialism, and thus if we endorse the value of the…
A new well‐being atomism
Many philosophers reject the view that well‐being over a lifetime is simply an aggregation of well‐being at every moment of one's life, and thus they reject theories of well‐being like hedonism and concurrentist desire satisfactionism. They raise concerns that such a view misses the importance of the relationships between moments in a person's life or the role narratives play in a person's well‐being. In this article, we develop an atomist meta‐t…
Saving cosmopolitanism from colonialism
Cosmopolitanism – the view that moral concern, and consequently moral duties, are not limited by borders – seems to justify colonialism with a ‘civilizing’ mission, because it supports the enforcement of moral norms universally, with no distinctions between territories, and settler colonialism, because it promotes ideas like common ownership of the Earth and open borders. I argue that existing attempts to defend cosmopolitanism from this worry fa…
The ideal of non-coherence in the World Bank’s social capital reforms
This paper presents an analysis of a World Bank document representing a version of the new “Social Capital” approach of International Financial Institutions (IFIs). This stance involves a rhetorical reorientation away from a much criticized unilateral approach to the poor indebted countries and to a more bi-lateral and participatory attitude. Analysis suggests that this “post-ideological” posture is reflected in the text in the form of a copious …
International Financial Institutions and Post-communist Labour Reform
Since 1999 the international financial institutions (IFI) such as the World Bank and IMF have reformed their approach to loan and grant conditionality. As part of the reforms recipient states are encouraged to consult widely with civil society organisations on the internal policy programmes promoted by the IFIs. Individual recipient countries are then assumed to take ownership of policy \nchange without recourse to IFI sanctions. However, many of…
The Pragmatics of Peremptory Assertion
The Political Psychology of Contemporary Anti‐Politics
This article advocates a discursive approach for examining political rhetoric. Such an approach is particularly useful for studying contemporary political ideology. The current political climate, especially in Britain, has been described as exemplifying a “Third Way,” which is said to have replaced the old ideological division between “left” and “right” by a consensual, non‐ideological politics. TThe discursive approach allow the analyst to look …
The Pragmatics of Peremptory Assertion
New Labour’s Third Way philosophy, with its fervent critique of ideological politics, claims to be able to revitalize interest and participation in politics amongst the lay public. This article critically considers such claims by means of a detailed ideological analysis of interviews with English local politicians. Focusing on speakers’ tendency to deny or downgrade the political nature of their involvement in local politics, the recurrent occurr…
The Pragmatics of Peremptory Assertion
The pragmatics of peremptory assertion
From Political Landscape to Political Timescape
Recent changes in British politics can be partly understood in terms of the gradual replacement of political division in space by political division in time. This article explores that development by examining local politicians' accounts of political time. In the main, the rise of Third Way consensus politics was found to be represented as either a progressive or regressive development, although the former version was by far the most common. In a…
International Financial Institutions and Post-communist Labour Reform
Since 1999 the international financial institutions (IFI) such as the World Bank and IMF have reformed their approach to loan and grant conditionality. As part of the reforms recipient states are encouraged to consult widely with civil society organisations on the internal policy programmes promoted by the IFIs. Individual recipient countries are then assumed to take ownership of policy \nchange without recourse to IFI sanctions. However, many of…
The ideal of non-coherence in the World Bank’s social capital reforms
This paper presents an analysis of a World Bank document representing a version of the new “Social Capital” approach of International Financial Institutions (IFIs). This stance involves a rhetorical reorientation away from a much criticized unilateral approach to the poor indebted countries and to a more bi-lateral and participatory attitude. Analysis suggests that this “post-ideological” posture is reflected in the text in the form of a copious …
Helping Buchanan on Helping the Rebels
Massimo Renzo has recently argued in this journal that Allen Buchanan’s account of the ethics of intervention is too permissive. Renzo claims that a proper understanding of political self-determination shows that it is often impermissible to intervene in order to establish a regime that leads to more self-determination for a group of people if that group was or would be opposed to the intervention. Renzo’s argument rests on an analogy between ind…
On the Alleged Laziness of Moral Realists
Colonialism, injustices of the past, and the hole in Nine
In ‘Colonialism, territory and pre-existing obligations,’ Cara Nine argues that Lea Ypi’s account of the wrongness of colonialism has a hole in it: Ypi leaves open the possibility of justified settler colonialism. Nine suggests that we can patch this hole by attaching value to existing political associations. But Nine’s solution has its own hole. Many political associations exist due to settler colonialism, and thus if we endorse the value of the…
Must I Accept Prosecution for Civil Disobedience
Piero Moraro argues that people who engage in civil disobedience do not have a pro tanto reason to accept punishment for breaking the law, although they do have a duty to undergo prosecution. This is because they have a duty to answer for their actions, and the state serves as an agent of the people by calling the lawbreaker to answer via prosecution. I argue that Moraro does not go far enough. Someone who engages in civil disobedience does not e…
Territorial Exclusion
Supporters of open borders sometimes argue that the state has no pro tanto right to restrict immigration, because such a right would also entail a right to exclude existing citizens for whatever reasons justify excluding immigrants. These arguments can be defeated by suggesting that people have a right to stay put. I present a new form of the exclusion argument against closed borders which escapes this “right to stay put” reply. I do this by desc…
Covert Animal Rescue
We should conceive of illegal covert animal rescue as acts of “subrevolution” rather than as civil disobedience. Subrevolutions are revolutions that aim to overthrow some part of the government rather than the entire government. This framework better captures the relevant values than the opposing suggestion that we treat illegal covert animal rescue as civil disobedience. If animals have rights like the right not to be unjustly imprisoned and mis…
A new well‐being atomism
Many philosophers reject the view that well‐being over a lifetime is simply an aggregation of well‐being at every moment of one's life, and thus they reject theories of well‐being like hedonism and concurrentist desire satisfactionism. They raise concerns that such a view misses the importance of the relationships between moments in a person's life or the role narratives play in a person's well‐being. In this article, we develop an atomist meta‐t…
What Makes Requests Normative? The Epistemic Account Defended
This paper defends the epistemic account of the normativity of requests. The epistemic account says that a request does not create any reasons and thus does not have any special normative power. Rather, a request gives reasons by revealing information which is normatively relevant. I argue that compared to competing accounts of request normativity, especially those of David Enoch and James H.P. Lewis, the epistemic account gives better answers to…
How Requests Give Reasons
A cosmopolitan instrumentalist theory of secession
I defend the cosmopolitan instrumentalist theory of secession, according to which a group has a right to secede only if this would promote cosmopolitan justice. I argue that the theory is preferable to other theories of secession because it is an entailment of cosmopolitanism, which is independently attractive, and because, unlike other theories of secession, it allows us to give the answers we want to give in cases like secession of the rich or …
Civil Disobedience and Animal Rescue
Tony Milligan argues that some forms of covert non-human animal rescue, wherein activists anonymously and illegally free non-human animals from confinement, should be understood as acts of civil disobedience. However, most traditional understandings of civil disobedience require that the civil disobedient act publicly rather than covertly. Thus Milligan’s proposal is that we revise our understanding of civil disobedience to allow for covert in ad…
What Do We Want? To Eliminate Gender! When Do We Want It? Later
Gender eliminativism, also known as gender abolitionism, is the view that we should get rid of gender. I defend gender eliminativism by suggesting that many arguments that ostensibly call for rejecting it are in fact just arguments for delaying it. Although it may be true that presently gender eliminativism should not occur because of the role gender plays in people's identities, because of the need for gender to remedy oppression, because elimin…
Saving cosmopolitanism from colonialism
Cosmopolitanism – the view that moral concern, and consequently moral duties, are not limited by borders – seems to justify colonialism with a ‘civilizing’ mission, because it supports the enforcement of moral norms universally, with no distinctions between territories, and settler colonialism, because it promotes ideas like common ownership of the Earth and open borders. I argue that existing attempts to defend cosmopolitanism from this worry fa…
What Is (Fundamentally or Per Se) Wrong with Colonialism
Ritwik Agrawal and Allen Buchanan argue that the fundamental wrong of colonialism is a denial of autonomy to those who are colonized. They claim that earlier discussions of colonialism, including those by Lea Ypi, Anna Stilz, and Massimo Renzo, mischaracterize the fundamental wrong of colonialism as something else. I argue that Agrawal and Buchanan incorrectly charge Ypi, Stilz, Renzo, and others with looking for the fundamental wrong of colonial…
Political science (18 works) · Law (17 works) · Politics (15 works) · Philosophy (14 works) · Sociology (14 works) · Epistemology (11 works) · Law (10 works) · Political Philosophy and Ethics (9 works) · Philosophy (8 works) · Computer Science (6 works)