Alexander Schaefer
Biographic Data
| ID | 3943758 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Alexander Schaefer |
| GIVEN NAMES | Alexander |
| FAMILY NAME | Schaefer |
| SIGNATURE | SCHAEFER A |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Arizona |
| ORCID | 0000-0001-6567-5445 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 11 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 11 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 11 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1960 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 2 |
From collection to collective: Institutional conditions for the organic state
Despite its prominence in the history of political thought, the analogy between states and organisms has fallen into disrepute. Evolutionary theory, however, gives reason to reconsider it. The Price equation, a model drawn from theoretical biology, identifies specific conditions that facilitate the transition from a collection of individuals to a collective organism. It thereby provides a powerful framework for resolving the longstanding debate i…
Is Omnivorism a Form of Blameworthy Free Riding
Jacob Barrett and Sarah Raskoff advance a novel defense of the moral obligation to go vegan. This defense, they hold, sidesteps the Inefficacy Objection by avoiding all reference to the efficacy of individual choice behavior. Their argument relies on the premise that free riding is morally wrong. However, since free riding is a technical term, devoid of moral significance, their premise is true only given certain conditions. This paper shows that…
The Function of Hypocrisy Norms
Moral condemnation of hypocrisy is both ubiquitous and peculiar. Its incessant focus on word–action consistency gives rise to two properties that distinguish it from other types of moral judgment: non-additivity and content independence. Non-additivity refers to the fact that, in judgments of hypocrisy, good words do not offset bad actions, nor do good actions offset bad words. Content independence refers to the fact that we condemn hypocrisy reg…
Expert knowledge and the administrative state
Over the past century, the administrative state has vastly expanded its power and political independence of Congress. Some prominent academic voices, such as Cass Sunstein and Joseph Heath, have argued that we should endorse the administrative state’s large and growing powers to reap the benefits of technical expertise. We introduce an important qualification to that claim by highlighting the contingency of expert knowledge. The reliability of ex…
Is Justice a Fixed Point
Following the work of John Rawls, political theorists have fixated on the comparative stability of different equilibrium states of justice. This article identifies a crucial gap in this literature, namely, the lack of attention paid to nonequilibrating systems. Drawing on Kakutani's theorem, I present plausible cases in which society will fail to exhibit any equilibrium states of justice. An important implication for political theory is that, rat…
Unravelling into war: Trust and social preferences in Hobbes’s state of nature
According to Hobbes, individuals care about their relative standing in a way that shapes their social interactions. To model this aspect of Hobbesian psychology, this paper supposes that agents have social preferences , that is, preferences about their comparative resource holdings. Introducing uncertainty regarding the social preferences of others unleashes a process of trust-unravelling, ultimately leading to Hobbes’s ‘state of war’. This Trust…
Exit & isolation: Rousseau’s state of nature
Rationality, uncertainty, and unanimity: An epistemic critique of contractarianism
This paper considers contractarianism as a method of justification. The analysis accepts the key tenets of contractarianism: expected utility maximization, unanimity as the criteria of acceptance, and social-scientific uncertainty of modelled agents. In addition to these three features, however, the analysis introduces a fourth feature: a criteria of rational belief formation, viz. Bayesian belief updating. Using a formal model, this paper identi…
Reasonable But Non-Liberal: Another Route to Polycentrism
In an influential article, Brian Kogelmann argues that a polycentric political order offers an appealing way of reconciling deep diversity with Rawls’ ideal of the well-ordered society. Although I agree with this conclusion, I suggest an amendment to Kogelmann's argument. In particular, his argument abandons the deep diversity that originally motivates the project by stipulating that all citizens will accept liberal political conceptions of justi…
Incoherent but Reasonable: A Defense of Truth-Abstinence in Political Liberalism
A strength of liberal political institutions is their ability to accommodate pluralism, both allowing divergent comprehensive doctrines as well as constructing the common ground necessary for diverse people to live together. A pressing question is how far such pluralism extends. Which comprehensive doctrines are simply beyond the pale and need not be accommodated by a political consensus? Rawls attempted to keep the boundaries of reasonable disag…
The Position and Function of Man in the Created World according to Saint Bonaventure
THE POSITION AND FUNCTION OF MAN IN THE CREATED WORLD ACCORDING TO SAINT BONAVENTURE1 INTRODUCTION One of the great achievements of Medieval Scholasticism is to have formed and developed doctrinal systems that comprise the entire wealth of human knowledge and bring everything into one harmonious synthesis. An outstanding master of theological synthesis is the "Seraphic Doctor" Saint Bonaventure.2 In his doctrine the various parts are not only har…
Is Justice a Fixed Point
Following the work of John Rawls, political theorists have fixated on the comparative stability of different equilibrium states of justice. This article identifies a crucial gap in this literature, namely, the lack of attention paid to nonequilibrating systems. Drawing on Kakutani's theorem, I present plausible cases in which society will fail to exhibit any equilibrium states of justice. An important implication for political theory is that, rat…
Expert knowledge and the administrative state
Over the past century, the administrative state has vastly expanded its power and political independence of Congress. Some prominent academic voices, such as Cass Sunstein and Joseph Heath, have argued that we should endorse the administrative state’s large and growing powers to reap the benefits of technical expertise. We introduce an important qualification to that claim by highlighting the contingency of expert knowledge. The reliability of ex…
Exit & isolation: Rousseau’s state of nature
The Position and Function of Man in the Created World according to Saint Bonaventure
THE POSITION AND FUNCTION OF MAN IN THE CREATED WORLD ACCORDING TO SAINT BONAVENTURE1 INTRODUCTION One of the great achievements of Medieval Scholasticism is to have formed and developed doctrinal systems that comprise the entire wealth of human knowledge and bring everything into one harmonious synthesis. An outstanding master of theological synthesis is the "Seraphic Doctor" Saint Bonaventure.2 In his doctrine the various parts are not only har…
Incoherent but Reasonable: A Defense of Truth-Abstinence in Political Liberalism
A strength of liberal political institutions is their ability to accommodate pluralism, both allowing divergent comprehensive doctrines as well as constructing the common ground necessary for diverse people to live together. A pressing question is how far such pluralism extends. Which comprehensive doctrines are simply beyond the pale and need not be accommodated by a political consensus? Rawls attempted to keep the boundaries of reasonable disag…
Rationality, uncertainty, and unanimity: An epistemic critique of contractarianism
This paper considers contractarianism as a method of justification. The analysis accepts the key tenets of contractarianism: expected utility maximization, unanimity as the criteria of acceptance, and social-scientific uncertainty of modelled agents. In addition to these three features, however, the analysis introduces a fourth feature: a criteria of rational belief formation, viz. Bayesian belief updating. Using a formal model, this paper identi…
Reasonable But Non-Liberal: Another Route to Polycentrism
In an influential article, Brian Kogelmann argues that a polycentric political order offers an appealing way of reconciling deep diversity with Rawls’ ideal of the well-ordered society. Although I agree with this conclusion, I suggest an amendment to Kogelmann's argument. In particular, his argument abandons the deep diversity that originally motivates the project by stipulating that all citizens will accept liberal political conceptions of justi…
Unravelling into war: Trust and social preferences in Hobbes’s state of nature
According to Hobbes, individuals care about their relative standing in a way that shapes their social interactions. To model this aspect of Hobbesian psychology, this paper supposes that agents have social preferences , that is, preferences about their comparative resource holdings. Introducing uncertainty regarding the social preferences of others unleashes a process of trust-unravelling, ultimately leading to Hobbes’s ‘state of war’. This Trust…
Exit & isolation: Rousseau’s state of nature
Is Justice a Fixed Point
Following the work of John Rawls, political theorists have fixated on the comparative stability of different equilibrium states of justice. This article identifies a crucial gap in this literature, namely, the lack of attention paid to nonequilibrating systems. Drawing on Kakutani's theorem, I present plausible cases in which society will fail to exhibit any equilibrium states of justice. An important implication for political theory is that, rat…
Expert knowledge and the administrative state
Over the past century, the administrative state has vastly expanded its power and political independence of Congress. Some prominent academic voices, such as Cass Sunstein and Joseph Heath, have argued that we should endorse the administrative state’s large and growing powers to reap the benefits of technical expertise. We introduce an important qualification to that claim by highlighting the contingency of expert knowledge. The reliability of ex…
Is Omnivorism a Form of Blameworthy Free Riding
Jacob Barrett and Sarah Raskoff advance a novel defense of the moral obligation to go vegan. This defense, they hold, sidesteps the Inefficacy Objection by avoiding all reference to the efficacy of individual choice behavior. Their argument relies on the premise that free riding is morally wrong. However, since free riding is a technical term, devoid of moral significance, their premise is true only given certain conditions. This paper shows that…
The Function of Hypocrisy Norms
Moral condemnation of hypocrisy is both ubiquitous and peculiar. Its incessant focus on word–action consistency gives rise to two properties that distinguish it from other types of moral judgment: non-additivity and content independence. Non-additivity refers to the fact that, in judgments of hypocrisy, good words do not offset bad actions, nor do good actions offset bad words. Content independence refers to the fact that we condemn hypocrisy reg…
From collection to collective: Institutional conditions for the organic state
Despite its prominence in the history of political thought, the analogy between states and organisms has fallen into disrepute. Evolutionary theory, however, gives reason to reconsider it. The Price equation, a model drawn from theoretical biology, identifies specific conditions that facilitate the transition from a collection of individuals to a collective organism. It thereby provides a powerful framework for resolving the longstanding debate i…
Epistemology (9 works) · Philosophy (8 works) · Law (7 works) · Political Philosophy and Ethics (7 works) · Political science (7 works) · Economics (6 works) · Law and economics (5 works) · Politics (5 works) · Positive economics (5 works) · Sociology (5 works)