Thomas Christiano
Biographic Data
| ID | 1167231 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Thomas Christiano |
| GIVEN NAMES | Thomas |
| FAMILY NAME | Christiano |
| SIGNATURE | CHRISTIANO T |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Arizona |
| ORCID | 0000-0003-1615-4031 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 49 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 141 |
| WORKS AS AUTHOR | 46 |
| WORKS AS EDITOR | 3 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1994 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2025 |
| H-INDEX | 5 |
War, Legitimacy, and Democracy
This discussion article examines Massimo Renzo’s highly illuminating critique of the revisionist view of the moral obligations of soldiers in war and his effort to defend an intermediate position between the classical (or “traditional”) approach and the revisionist approach. The classical approach argues that soldiers have a duty to fight if commanded to do so by a legitimate state. This supports the idea that soldiers on all sides are moral equa…
Symposium on Tommie Shelby's The Idea of Prison Abolition
Empowering Affected Interests
Many demands for democratic inclusion rest on a simple yet powerful idea. It's a principle of affected interests. The principle states that all those affected by a collective decision should have a say in making that decision. Yet, in today's highly globalized world, the implications of this 'All-Affected Principle' are potentially radical and far-reaching. Empowering Affected Interests brings together a distinguished group of leading democratic …
The problem of selective prosecution and the legitimacy of the International Criminal Court
Algorithms, Manipulation, and Democracy
Algorithmic communications pose several challenges to democracy. The three phenomena of filtering, hypernudging, and microtargeting can have the effect of polarizing an electorate and thus undermine the deliberative potential of a democratic society. Algorithms can spread fake news throughout the society, undermining the epistemic potential that broad participation in democracy is meant to offer. They can pose a threat to political equality in th…
Introduction to symposium on international migration
The Basis of Political Equality
This chapter vindicates democracy against recent criticism and shows how democracy can be improved and made more egalitarian. Critics argue that democracy is rule by the ignorant or by those who must appease the ignorant, basing this idea on an economic theory of information, backed by data suggesting widespread ignorance among citizens. They argue either for radically diminishing the size of the state or for rule by experts. But this pessimism i…
The arbitrary circumscription of the jurisdiction of the international criminal court
As it is currently legally constituted, the International Criminal Court has no jurisdiction over the world’s most important military powers – United States, China and Russia-for the most serious crimes that can be committed in the international system (unless their members commit the crimes on the territory of a state that has ratified the ICC). It is hard to see the restricted jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court as anything other t…
Morality, Governance, and Social Institutions
Challenges of Inequality to Democracy
Democracy, as we understand it, is a process of collective decision- making among persons, which issues in collectively binding norms for the society of those persons. It is a process of decision- making in which persons participate as equals in determining the legal and conventional norms that bind them and in which the group of persons, taken collectively, are sovereign. Democracy can be understood as a descriptive term, referring to political …
The Rule of the Many
There is no problem more crucial to contemporary political thought than the status of democracy, its role, and its problems in the contemporary world. In this survey of democratic theory, Thomas Christiano introduces the reader to the principles underlying democracy and to the problems involved in applying these principles to real life situations.Begining with the simple, democratically inspired presumption that the interests of all citizens are …
Introduction to symposium on contemporary moral and political philosophy
The Tension between the Nature and the Norm of Voluntary Exchange
I develop a conception of voluntary exchange and its value that helps us understand the fundamental source of difficulty with voluntary exchange. We can make a great deal of progress in understanding the promise and the perils of voluntary exchange by elaborating an analogy between voluntary exchange and democracy. To be sure, this is a hazardous activity since there are many differences between these areas. But a careful effort here will illumin…
Ronald Dworkin, State Consent, and Progressive Cosmopolitanism
In "A New Philosophy for International Law," Dworkin defends an account of the basic moral standards by which the international system is to be evaluated. Two elements of this account are the focus of this chapter. The first element is the rejection of the doctrine of state consent as the basis of international law. The second is Dworkin's commitment to a kind of non-cosmopolitan associativism. Here, I argue that Dworkin's basic principles of int…
Democracy
Self-determination and the Human Right to Democracy
This chapter argues that democracy is at the core of the self-determination of peoples, but that this does not imply that only democratic societies can be self-determining; that there can be fully self-determining, non-democratic societies with rights to collective self-determination; and that the human right to democracy is at the core of the right of collective self-determination of peoples even though the right may protect some non-democratic …
The Cambridge Companion to Liberalism
The political philosophy of liberalism was first formulated during the Enlightenment in response to the growth of the modern nation-state and its authority and power over the individuals living within its boundaries. Liberalism is now the dominant ideology in the Western world, but it covers a broad swathe of different (and sometimes rival) ideas and traditions and its essential features can be hard to define. The Cambridge Companion to Liberalis…
Voter Ignorance Is Not Necessarily a Problem
Ilya Somin's case for smaller government and "foot voting" rests on at least two questionable assumptions. The first is that voter ignorance is based on rational calculation. This assumption requires arbitrary stipulations about the degree of voter altruism and the low values voters assign to the victory of their candidates. The second is that voter ignorance betokens bad public policy. But there is plenty of evidence to the contrary. How can thi…
Rationality, Equal Status, and Egalitarianism
This chapter argues that the problem that the features of persons that seem to ground their status come in degrees could perhaps indeed be overcome by an egalitarianism that is grounded in the idea that persons are rational. The fact that a being is rational and self-determining makes it “fitting” not to treat it merely as means; and this status does not come in degrees since it does not depend on how rational the being is, as long as it is ratio…
Introduction to symposium on climate change
Contemporary climate change, and the efforts to mitigate it and adapt to it, may pose the most formidable challenges the world has ever faced. The fundamentals are well known. Since the beginning of the 19th century, the atmosphere is increasingly being filled with greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide and methane that are produced by human endeavors dependent on carbon-based energy. Human beings have also been cutting down forests, which has t…
Human Rights
The United Nations General Assembly adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948. A burgeoning human rights movement followed, yielding many treaties and new international institutions and shaping the constitutions and laws of many states. Yet human rights continue to be contested politically and legally and there is substantial philosophical and theoretical debate over their foundations and implications. In this volume, distinguishe…
Introduction to Symposium on Exploitation
A systemic approach to deliberative democracy
'Deliberative democracy' is often dismissed as a set of small-scale, academic experiments. This volume seeks to demonstrate how the deliberative ideal can work as a theory of democracy on a larger scale. It provides a new way of thinking about democratic engagement across the spectrum of political action, from towns and villages to nation states, and from local networks to transnational, even global systems. Written by a team of the world's leadi…
Rational deliberation among experts and citizens
Reply to Critics of The Constitution of Equality
No abstract
The Authority of Democracy
An Instrumental Argument for a Human Right to Democracy
Voter Ignorance Is Not Necessarily a Problem
Ilya Somin's case for smaller government and "foot voting" rests on at least two questionable assumptions. The first is that voter ignorance is based on rational calculation. This assumption requires arbitrary stipulations about the degree of voter altruism and the low values voters assign to the victory of their candidates. The second is that voter ignorance betokens bad public policy. But there is plenty of evidence to the contrary. How can thi…
Democracy and Bureaucracy
Debate
The arbitrary circumscription of the jurisdiction of the international criminal court
As it is currently legally constituted, the International Criminal Court has no jurisdiction over the world’s most important military powers – United States, China and Russia-for the most serious crimes that can be committed in the international system (unless their members commit the crimes on the territory of a state that has ratified the ICC). It is hard to see the restricted jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court as anything other t…
Introduction to symposium on climate change
Contemporary climate change, and the efforts to mitigate it and adapt to it, may pose the most formidable challenges the world has ever faced. The fundamentals are well known. Since the beginning of the 19th century, the atmosphere is increasingly being filled with greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide and methane that are produced by human endeavors dependent on carbon-based energy. Human beings have also been cutting down forests, which has t…
Debate
Justificatory Liberalism
Justificatory Liberalism advances a theory of personal, public and political justification. Drawing on current work in epistemology and cognitive psychology, the book develops a theory of personally justified belief. Building on this account, it then advances an account of public justification that is more normative and less 'populist' than that of 'political liberals'
Democratic Equality and the Problem of Persistent Minorities
L'A. se propose de reconcilier les deux affirmations apparemment contradictoires selon lequelles l'egalite democratique est intrinsequement juste et l'existence de minorites persistantes profondement injuste. la cle de cette reconciliation reside dans le fait que le critere d'egalite est different selon l'un et l'autre cas: il s'agit d'une part de l'egalite des ressources et, d'autr part, d'une egale distribution de la satisfaction des interets
Voting and Democracy
Analysis of the nature of voting is fundamental to an understanding of the nature and value of democracy. Three questions ought to be distinguished concerning voting. First, how are we to conceive of the activity of voting? What is its nature? Second, what is it that people aim at when they vote? What are the grounds on which people vote, the reasons with which they justify their vote? And third, what ought people to aim at when they vote? What a…
Justificatory Liberalism
Justificatory Liberalism advances a theory of personal, public and political justification. Drawing on current work in epistemology and cognitive psychology, the book develops a theory of personally justified belief. Building on this account, it then advances an account of public justification that is more normative and less 'populist' than that of 'political liberals'
Justice and Disagreement at the Foundations of Political Authority
Is There Any Basis for Rawls’s Duty of Civility? (A Commentary on Weithman)
An Argument for Democratic Equality
Society is organized by terms of association by which all are bound. The problem is to determine who has the right to define these terms of association. Democrats state that only the people have a right to rule over the society. And they argue that citizens ought to be equals in important respects in making these decisions. What is the basis of these views? We have seen that liberty accounts of democracy fail to provide a thorough understanding o…
Is Democracy Merely a Means to Social Justice?
Philosophy and democracy
This volume collects some of the leading essays in contemporary democratic theory published in the past thirty years. The anthology presents the work of a select group of contributors (including Peter Singer, Joshua Cohen, Ronald Dworkin, Richard Arneson, and others) and covers many foundational approaches defended by scholars from a range of different disciplines. The chapters address many issues that are central to philosophical reflections on …
Is Normative Rational Choice Theory Self‐Defeating?
The Authority of Democracy
Democracy and Bureaucracy
A Democratic Theory of Territory and Some Puzzles about Global Democracy
Debate
Inequality, Injustice and Levelling Down
The levelling down objection is the most serious objection to the principle of equality, but we think it can be conclusively defeated. It is serious because it pits the principle of equality squarely against the welfares of the persons whose welfares or resources are equalized. It suggests that there is something perverse about the principle of equality. In this paper, we argue that levelling down is not an implication of the principle of equalit…
The Constitution of Equality
"What is the ethical basis of democracy? And what reasons do we have to go along with democratic decisions even when we disagree with them? And when do we have reason to say that we may justly ignore democratic decisions? These questions must be answered if we are to have answers to some of the most important questions facing our global community, which include whether there is a human right to democracy and whether we must attempt to spread demo…
The Limits to Democratic Authority
Must Democracy Be Reasonable?
Democratic theorists stress the importance of free and equal discussion and debate in a well-functioning democratic process. In this process, citizens attempt to persuade each other to support legislation by appealing to considerations of justice, liberty or the common good and are open to changing their minds when hearing the arguments of others. They are concerned to ground policy and legislation on the most defensible considerations of moralit…
Contemporary Debates in Political Philosophy
Debate
Response to Brettschneider
The Uneasy Relationship Between Democracy and Capital
The basic question I want to ask is: can the exercise of private property rights abridge fundamental norms of democratic decision-making? And, under what conditions can it do so? To the extent that we view democratic decision making as required by justice, the issue is whether there is a deep tension between certain ways of exercising the rights of private property and that part of social justice that is characterized by democracy. To the extent …
James Bohman, Democracy across Borders
Book Review| October 01 2010 James Bohman, Democracy across Borders: From Dêmos to Dêmoi James Bohman, Democracy across Borders: From Dêmos to Dêmoi. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2007. viii + 219 pp. Thomas Christiano Thomas Christiano Search for other works by this author on: This Site Google The Philosophical Review (2010) 119 (4): 595–599. https://doi.org/10.1215/00318108-2010-016 Cite Icon Cite Share Icon Share Facebook Twitter LinkedIn MailTo P…
Reply to Critics of The Constitution of Equality
No abstract
Introduction to Symposium on Ethical Dimensions of International Institutions
The three papers in this symposium were initially presented at a conference on the ethical dimensions of international institutions in New Orleans in February 27-28, 2009, which was sponsored by Politics, Philosophy and Economics with the generous help of the Murphy Institute of Political Economy at Tulane University. The conference brought together leading thinkers in political philosophy, international relations and political theory to engage i…
An Instrumental Argument for a Human Right to Democracy
Political science (45 works) · Law (42 works) · Politics (36 works) · Political Philosophy and Ethics (32 works) · Sociology (31 works) · Democracy (25 works) · Philosophy (19 works) · Epistemology (16 works) · Law and economics (15 works) · Computer Science (11 works)