Mathias Risse
Biographic Data
| ID | 3863391 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Mathias Risse |
| GIVEN NAMES | Mathias |
| FAMILY NAME | Risse |
| SIGNATURE | RISSE M |
| AFFILIATIONS | Harvard University |
| VERIFIED | No |
| TOTAL WORKS | 46 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 184 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 46 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1998 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2025 |
| H-INDEX | 8 |
Leadership on the Line: Gaslighting, Adaptive Leadership, and the Battle for the Soul of Democracy
In contemporary politics, the rise of a leadership style centered on “gaslighting”—persuasion through systematic besmirching, belittling, and the inversion of shared norms—poses profound challenges to democracy. This essay traces the conceptual roots of gaslighting and its uptake as a style of leadership, explores its distinguishing features compared to other manipulative political tactics, and uses the current American situation (that is, the rh…
The impact of advanced AI systems on democracy
Political Theory of the Digital Age: Where Artificial Intelligence Might Take Us
With the rise of far-reaching technological innovation, from artificial intelligence to Big Data, human life is increasingly unfolding in digital lifeworlds. While such developments have made unprecedented changes to the ways we live, our political practices have failed to evolve at pace with these profound changes. In this path-breaking work, Mathias Risse establishes a foundation for the philosophy of technology, allowing us to investigate how …
On American Values, Unalienable Rights, and Human Rights: Some Reflections on the Pompeo Commission
In July 2019, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo launched a Commission on Unalienable Rights, charged with a reexamination of the scope and nature of human rights–based claims. From his statements, it seems that Pompeo hopes the commission will substantiate—by appeal to the U.S. Declaration of Independence and to natural law theory—three key conservative ideas: (1) that there is too much human rights proliferation, and once we get things right, socia…
Tax Competition and Global Interdependence
The Future Impact of Artificial Intelligence on Humans and Human Rights
What are the implications of artificial intelligence (AI) on human rights in the next three decades? Precise answers to this question are made difficult by the rapid rate of innovation in AI research and by the effects of human practices on the adaption of new technologies. Precise answers are also challenged by imprecise usages of the term “AI.” There are several types of research that all fall under this general term. We begin by clarifying wha…
On Trade Justice: A Philosophical Plea for a New Global Deal
Why We Should Talk about German ‘Orientierungskultur’ rather than ‘Leitkultur’
The notion of Leitkultur has been used in German immigration debates to capture the idea that our living arrangements ought to be shaped by shared cultural identity. Leitkultur contrasts with a multiculturalism that sees multiple cultures side-by-side on equal terms. We should replace Leitkultur with Orientierungskultur, a notionwhose introduction is overdue. German philosophy, especially Kant, has bestowed an intellectual meaning upon an origina…
Responsibility and Global Justice
The two traditional ways of thinking about justice at the global level either limit the applicability of justice to states—the only distributions that can be just or unjust, strictly speaking, are within the state—or else extend it to all human beings. The view I defend in On Global Justice (Risse ) rejects both of these approaches. Instead, my view, and thus my attempt at meeting the aforementioned challenge, acknowledges the existence of multip…
Taking up space on earth: Theorizing territorial rights, the justification of states and immigration from a global standpoint
The author’s 2012 book On Global Justice gives pride of place to the idea that humanity collectively owns the earth. Independently, there has been a flourishing literature on the justification of rights to territory. Central to this discussion are a Kantian and a Lockean approach. This paper recapitulates the author’s approach to humanity’s collective ownership of the earth and argues that, properly understood, both of those approaches should int…
Justifier la règle de majorité
Cet article s’attaque au statut de règle de décision par défaut dont jouit la règle de majorité en mettant en évidence certaines insuffisances des arguments habituels en faveur de celle-ci. Il se propose notamment de montrer que ces arguments sont, ou bien « trop limités » pour pouvoir justifier pleinement la règle de majorité, ou bien au contraire « trop larges » pour ne justifier qu’elle (à l’exclusion de tout autre règle). L’article s’appuie p…
Response to Arneson, de Bres, and Stilz
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
The Human Right to Water and Common Ownership of the Earth
Global Political Philosophy
Risse takes a refreshingly different approach to understanding the important and topical debates in the subject through the lens of issues of global reach such as justice, human rights, fair trade and
On Global Justice
On global justice
Debates about global justice have traditionally fallen into two camps. Statists believe that principles of justice can only be held among those who share a state. Those who fall outside this realm are merely owed charity. Cosmopolitans, on the other hand, believe that justice applies equally among all human beings. On Global Justice shifts the terms of this debate and shows how both views are unsatisfactory. Stressing humanity's collective owners…
The Eternal Recurrence: A Freudian Look at What Nietzsche Took to Be His Greatest Insight
Common Ownership of the Earth as a Non‐Parochial Standpoint: A Contingent Derivation of Human Rights
A Right to Work? A Right to Leisure? Labor Rights as Human Rights
Labor rights are the first to come up for criticism when accounts of human rights are offered in response to philosophical questions about them, and notoriously so Article 24, which talks about `rest and leisure' and `period holidays with pay.' This study first tries to make it plausible why labor rights would appear on the Universal Declaration, and next articulates some philosophical objections to their presence there. The interesting question …
The Right to Relocation: Disappearing Island Nations and Common Ownership of the Earth
The Right to Relocation: Disappearing Island Nations and Common Ownership of the Earth Mathias Risse In recent work I have tried to revitalize the standpoint of humanity's commonly owning the earth. This standpoint has implications for a range of problems that have recently preoccupied us at the global level, including immigration, obligations to future generations, climate change, and human rights. In particular, this approach helps illuminate w…
On the Philosophy of Group Decision Methods II: Alternatives to Majority Rule
In this companion piece to 'On the Philosophy of Group Decision Methods I: The Non-Obviousness of Majority Rule', we take a closer look at some competitors of majority rule. This exploration supplements the conclusions of the other piece, as well as offers a further-reaching introduction to some of the challenges that this field currently poses to philosophers
On the Philosophy of Group Decision Methods I: The Nonobviousness of Majority Rule
Majority rule is often adopted almost by default as a group decision rule. One might think, therefore, that the conditions under which it applies, and the argument on its behalf, are well understood. However, the standard arguments in support of majority rule display systematic deficiencies. This article explores these weaknesses, and assesses what can be said on behalf of majority rule
Two Models of Equality and Responsibility
Much recent political philosophy has focused on the role of responsibility within liberal-egalitarian theories of justice, and much of that has been very critical of Rawls's Theory of Justice.This debate overlooks a central distinction within the taxonomy of theories of justice.There exist at least two visions of how a liberalegalitarian theory of justice can integrate considerations of distributive equality and, derivatively, responsibility.What…
On the Morality of Immigration
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
Mathias Risse replies
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
How Does the Global Order Harm the Poor
Do We Owe the Global Poor Assistance or Rectification
A central theme throughout Thomas Pogge's pathbreaking World Poverty and Human Rights is that the global political and economic order harms people in developing countries, and that our duty toward the global poor is therefore not to assist them but to rectify injustice . But does the global order harm the poor? I argue elsewhere that there is a sense in which this is indeed so, at least if a certain empirical thesis is accepted. In this essay, ho…
The Right to Relocation: Disappearing Island Nations and Common Ownership of the Earth
The Right to Relocation: Disappearing Island Nations and Common Ownership of the Earth Mathias Risse In recent work I have tried to revitalize the standpoint of humanity's commonly owning the earth. This standpoint has implications for a range of problems that have recently preoccupied us at the global level, including immigration, obligations to future generations, climate change, and human rights. In particular, this approach helps illuminate w…
Fairness in trade II: Export subsidies and the Fair Trade movement
It is a widespread view that support for Fair Trade is called for, whereas agricultural subsidies are pegged as unjustifiable. Though one supports farmers in developing countries while the other does the same for those in already developed ones, there are, nonetheless, similarities between both scenarios. Both are economically `inefficient', upholding production beyond what the market would sustain. In both cases, supportive arguments can assume …
Racial Profiling
I.1. Although, or perhaps because, racial profiling is a matter of great concern in the United States and elsewhere, there is little philosophical reflection on this subject.11 There are exceptions: There is a debate started by Michael Levin, “Responses to Race Differences in Crime,”Journal of Social Philosophy 23 (1992): 5–29, and Laurence Thomas, “Statistical Badness,”Journal of Social Philosophy 23 (1992): 30–41, which includes Jonathan Adler,…
On the Morality of Immigration
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
Fairness in trade I: Obligations from trading and the Pauper-Labor Argument
Standard economic theory teaches that trade benefits all countries involved, at least in the long run. While there are other reasons for trade liberalization, this insight, going back to Ricardo's 1817 Principles of Political Economy , continues to underlie international economics. Trade also raises fairness questions. First, suppose A trades with B while parts of A's population are oppressed. Do the oppressed in A have a complaint in fairness ag…
Does left-libertarianism have coherent foundations
Left-libertarian theories of justice hold that agents are full self-owners and that natural resources are owned in some egalitarian manner. Some philosophers find left-libertarianism promising because it seems that it coherently underwrites both some demands of material equality and some limits on the permissible means of promoting such equality. However, the main goal of this article is to argue that, as far as coherence is concerned, at least o…
The Future Impact of Artificial Intelligence on Humans and Human Rights
What are the implications of artificial intelligence (AI) on human rights in the next three decades? Precise answers to this question are made difficult by the rapid rate of innovation in AI research and by the effects of human practices on the adaption of new technologies. Precise answers are also challenged by imprecise usages of the term “AI.” There are several types of research that all fall under this general term. We begin by clarifying wha…
Arguing for Majority Rule
Tax Competition and Global Interdependence
On American Values, Unalienable Rights, and Human Rights: Some Reflections on the Pompeo Commission
In July 2019, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo launched a Commission on Unalienable Rights, charged with a reexamination of the scope and nature of human rights–based claims. From his statements, it seems that Pompeo hopes the commission will substantiate—by appeal to the U.S. Declaration of Independence and to natural law theory—three key conservative ideas: (1) that there is too much human rights proliferation, and once we get things right, socia…
A Right to Work? A Right to Leisure? Labor Rights as Human Rights
Labor rights are the first to come up for criticism when accounts of human rights are offered in response to philosophical questions about them, and notoriously so Article 24, which talks about `rest and leisure' and `period holidays with pay.' This study first tries to make it plausible why labor rights would appear on the Universal Declaration, and next articulates some philosophical objections to their presence there. The interesting question …
The Morally Decent Person
The Human Right to Water and Common Ownership of the Earth
On the Philosophy of Group Decision Methods II: Alternatives to Majority Rule
In this companion piece to 'On the Philosophy of Group Decision Methods I: The Non-Obviousness of Majority Rule', we take a closer look at some competitors of majority rule. This exploration supplements the conclusions of the other piece, as well as offers a further-reaching introduction to some of the challenges that this field currently poses to philosophers
On the Philosophy of Group Decision Methods I: The Nonobviousness of Majority Rule
Majority rule is often adopted almost by default as a group decision rule. One might think, therefore, that the conditions under which it applies, and the argument on its behalf, are well understood. However, the standard arguments in support of majority rule display systematic deficiencies. This article explores these weaknesses, and assesses what can be said on behalf of majority rule
What Is Rational About Nash Equilibria
Taking up space on earth: Theorizing territorial rights, the justification of states and immigration from a global standpoint
The author’s 2012 book On Global Justice gives pride of place to the idea that humanity collectively owns the earth. Independently, there has been a flourishing literature on the justification of rights to territory. Central to this discussion are a Kantian and a Lockean approach. This paper recapitulates the author’s approach to humanity’s collective ownership of the earth and argues that, properly understood, both of those approaches should int…
Response to Arneson, de Bres, and Stilz
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
The Virtuous Group — Foundations for the ‘Argument from the Wisdom of the Multitudef
Throughout the Politics, Aristotle discusses claims to the supreme authority (to kyrion) in a polis. Some claims are made on qualitative grounds, and here Aristotle mentions freedom, wealth, education, good birth, military power, and virtue (1268a21-23, 1279a40-b5, 1283a16-18, 1283bl, 1294a20, 1296b18, 1301a39-1301b4). Other claims are made on quantitative grounds (1296b17), and here Aristotle refers to the superior numbers of the multitude (1296…
Agreeing to Disagree: Harsanyi and Aumann
What Is Rational About Nash Equilibria
The Morally Decent Person
The Second Treatise in In the Genealogy of Morality: Nietzsche on the Origin of the Bad Conscience
Arrow's Theorem, Indeterminacy, and Multiplicity Reconsidered
The Virtuous Group — Foundations for the ‘Argument from the Wisdom of the Multitudef
Throughout the Politics, Aristotle discusses claims to the supreme authority (to kyrion) in a polis. Some claims are made on qualitative grounds, and here Aristotle mentions freedom, wealth, education, good birth, military power, and virtue (1268a21-23, 1279a40-b5, 1283a16-18, 1283bl, 1294a20, 1296b18, 1301a39-1301b4). Other claims are made on quantitative grounds (1296b17), and here Aristotle refers to the superior numbers of the multitude (1296…
What Equality of Opportunity Could Not Be
Bayesianism, Quo Vadis? —Critical Notice: David Corfield and Jon Williamson (eds.), Foundations of Bayesianism
This is a review essay about David Corfield and Jon Williamson's anthology Foundations of Bayesianism. Taken together, the fifteen essays assembled in the book assess the state of the art in Bayesianism. Such an assessment is timely, because decision theory and formal epistemology have become disciplines that are no longer taught on a routine basis in good philosophy departments. Thus we need to ask: Quo vadis, Bayesianism? The subjects of the ar…
Arguing for Majority Rule
Does left-libertarianism have coherent foundations
Left-libertarian theories of justice hold that agents are full self-owners and that natural resources are owned in some egalitarian manner. Some philosophers find left-libertarianism promising because it seems that it coherently underwrites both some demands of material equality and some limits on the permissible means of promoting such equality. However, the main goal of this article is to argue that, as far as coherence is concerned, at least o…
Racial Profiling
I.1. Although, or perhaps because, racial profiling is a matter of great concern in the United States and elsewhere, there is little philosophical reflection on this subject.11 There are exceptions: There is a debate started by Michael Levin, “Responses to Race Differences in Crime,”Journal of Social Philosophy 23 (1992): 5–29, and Laurence Thomas, “Statistical Badness,”Journal of Social Philosophy 23 (1992): 30–41, which includes Jonathan Adler,…
What We Owe to the Global Poor
On God and Guilt: A Reply to Aaron Ridley
Research Article| April 01 2005 On God and Guilt: A Reply to Aaron Ridley Mathias Risse Mathias Risse Search for other works by this author on: This Site Google The Journal of Nietzsche Studies (2005) 29 (1): 46–53. https://doi.org/10.2307/20717851 Cite Icon Cite Share Icon Share Twitter Permissions Search Site Citation Mathias Risse; On God and Guilt: A Reply to Aaron Ridley. The Journal of Nietzsche Studies 1 April 2005; 29 (1): 46–53. doi: htt…
Do We Owe the Global Poor Assistance or Rectification
A central theme throughout Thomas Pogge's pathbreaking World Poverty and Human Rights is that the global political and economic order harms people in developing countries, and that our duty toward the global poor is therefore not to assist them but to rectify injustice . But does the global order harm the poor? I argue elsewhere that there is a sense in which this is indeed so, at least if a certain empirical thesis is accepted. In this essay, ho…
How Does the Global Order Harm the Poor
Is There a Human Right to Free Movement? Immigration and Original Ownership of the Earth
What to Say About the State
1. In a little-known 1677 essay by Leibniz, tw o diplomats wonder about the status of princes of the Holy Roman Empire. These princes obtained a great deal of independence in the Treaty of Westphalia, but nonetheless rema ined subject to the Emperor. Were they, at least those with sizeable territories, sove reign or not? While the Treaty of Westphalia is considered the Magna Charta of the state system, its historical purpose was to keep the Empir…
Nietzschean ‘Animal Psychology’ versus Kantian Ethics
Characterizing the Genealogy as an exercise in ‘animal psychology’ (GM III, 20), Nietzsche pays tribute to the extraordinary cultural impact of the biological sciences, in particular physiology and evolutionary biology, in the second half of the nineteenth century. While much of his mature thinking applies physiological considerations to traditional philosophical problems, he is especially eager to explain in this manner the development of Christ…
Migration, Territoriality, and Culture
Fairness in trade I: Obligations from trading and the Pauper-Labor Argument
Standard economic theory teaches that trade benefits all countries involved, at least in the long run. While there are other reasons for trade liberalization, this insight, going back to Ricardo's 1817 Principles of Political Economy , continues to underlie international economics. Trade also raises fairness questions. First, suppose A trades with B while parts of A's population are oppressed. Do the oppressed in A have a complaint in fairness ag…
Two Models of Equality and Responsibility
Much recent political philosophy has focused on the role of responsibility within liberal-egalitarian theories of justice, and much of that has been very critical of Rawls's Theory of Justice.This debate overlooks a central distinction within the taxonomy of theories of justice.There exist at least two visions of how a liberalegalitarian theory of justice can integrate considerations of distributive equality and, derivatively, responsibility.What…
On the Morality of Immigration
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
Mathias Risse replies
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
Fairness in trade II: Export subsidies and the Fair Trade movement
It is a widespread view that support for Fair Trade is called for, whereas agricultural subsidies are pegged as unjustifiable. Though one supports farmers in developing countries while the other does the same for those in already developed ones, there are, nonetheless, similarities between both scenarios. Both are economically `inefficient', upholding production beyond what the market would sustain. In both cases, supportive arguments can assume …
The Eternal Recurrence: A Freudian Look at What Nietzsche Took to Be His Greatest Insight
Political science (34 works) · Law (31 works) · Sociology (28 works) · Philosophy (25 works) · Epistemology (18 works) · Political Philosophy and Ethics (18 works) · Law (17 works) · Law and economics (17 works) · Politics (17 works) · Computer Science (14 works)