Jennifer Rubenstein
Biographic Data
| ID | 4371762 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Jennifer Rubenstein |
| GIVEN NAMES | Jennifer |
| FAMILY NAME | Rubenstein |
| SIGNATURE | RUBENSTEIN J |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Virginia |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-9653-2292 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 10 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 103 |
| WORKS AS AUTHOR | 10 |
| WORKS AS EDITOR | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2007 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2023 |
| H-INDEX | 4 |
On the importance of justice-promoting projects besides reform intervention
In Promoting Justice Across Borders: The Ethics of Reform Intervention, Lucia Rafanelli offers a framework for normatively evaluating reform interventions. In this comment, I focus not on Rafanelli’s explicit argument, with which I largely agree, but rather on how this argument implicitly maps the terrain of justice, injustice, and justice-promotion. I suggest that Rafanelli overstates the importance and distinctiveness of reform intervention com…
Small Money Donating as Democratic Politics
Since 2008, the number of people in the United States making small monetary donations to political causes, both within and beyond electoral politics, has skyrocketed. While critics of “big money” in politics laud these donations because they are small, proponents of small-scale democratic political action eye them suspiciously because they are monetary. Neither group interrogates whether the monetariness of these donations might be asourceof thei…
The ‘Virtuous Circle’ Argument, Political Judgement, and Citizens’ Political Resistance
Empirical scholars describe a ‘virtuous circle’ (VC) wherein effective governance, empirical legitimacy, and citizens’ obedience are mutually reinforcing. This essay offers a normative perspective on the VC by bringing it into conversation with the literature on political resistance, which focuses on how citizens improve governance by resisting governmental authority. It is argued that the VC, and the concept of ‘limited statehood’ with which it …
Political and ethical action in the age of Trump
The Lessons of Effective Altruism
Carol Sue Snowden worked for thirty years as a librarian at the Columbus Metropolitan Library in Columbus, Ohio. She led a quiet, frugal life, spending money mostly on books, which were her passion. When she died, she donated the money she had saved—over $1 million—to the Columbus library and seven local schools. Most of us would look upon this generosity with admiration, but according to a new movement called Effective Altruism (EA), Snowden got…
Emergency Claims and Democratic Action
The straightforward normative importance of emergencies suggests that empirically engaged political theorists and philosophers should study them. Indeed, many have done so. In this essay, however, I argue that scholars interested in the political and/or moral dimensions of large-scale emergencies should shift their focus from emergencies to emergency claims. Building on Michael Saward’s model of a “representative claim,” I develop an account of a…
The Misuse of Power, Not Bad Representation
Pluralism about Global Poverty
Theorists have identified a wide range of reasons why individual and collective actors have a moral responsibility to help alleviate global poverty. There is now widespread agreement that several of these reasons are valid. From the perspective of the poverty opponent, it might seem that the more reasons there are to alleviate poverty, the better. The difficulty is that different reasons for alleviating poverty point to different poverty-alleviat…
Distribution and Emergency
Accountability in an Unequal World
According to the "standard model" of accountability, holding another actor accountable entails sanctioning that actor if it fails to fulfill its obligations without a justification or excuse. Less powerful actors therefore cannot hold more powerful actors accountable, because they cannot sanction more powerful actors. Because inequality appears unlikely to disappear soon, there is a pressing need for "second-best" forms of accountability: forms t…
Accountability in an Unequal World
According to the "standard model" of accountability, holding another actor accountable entails sanctioning that actor if it fails to fulfill its obligations without a justification or excuse. Less powerful actors therefore cannot hold more powerful actors accountable, because they cannot sanction more powerful actors. Because inequality appears unlikely to disappear soon, there is a pressing need for "second-best" forms of accountability: forms t…
The Misuse of Power, Not Bad Representation
The Lessons of Effective Altruism
Carol Sue Snowden worked for thirty years as a librarian at the Columbus Metropolitan Library in Columbus, Ohio. She led a quiet, frugal life, spending money mostly on books, which were her passion. When she died, she donated the money she had saved—over $1 million—to the Columbus library and seven local schools. Most of us would look upon this generosity with admiration, but according to a new movement called Effective Altruism (EA), Snowden got…
Small Money Donating as Democratic Politics
Since 2008, the number of people in the United States making small monetary donations to political causes, both within and beyond electoral politics, has skyrocketed. While critics of “big money” in politics laud these donations because they are small, proponents of small-scale democratic political action eye them suspiciously because they are monetary. Neither group interrogates whether the monetariness of these donations might be asourceof thei…
Distribution and Emergency
The ‘Virtuous Circle’ Argument, Political Judgement, and Citizens’ Political Resistance
Empirical scholars describe a ‘virtuous circle’ (VC) wherein effective governance, empirical legitimacy, and citizens’ obedience are mutually reinforcing. This essay offers a normative perspective on the VC by bringing it into conversation with the literature on political resistance, which focuses on how citizens improve governance by resisting governmental authority. It is argued that the VC, and the concept of ‘limited statehood’ with which it …
Distribution and Emergency
Accountability in an Unequal World
According to the "standard model" of accountability, holding another actor accountable entails sanctioning that actor if it fails to fulfill its obligations without a justification or excuse. Less powerful actors therefore cannot hold more powerful actors accountable, because they cannot sanction more powerful actors. Because inequality appears unlikely to disappear soon, there is a pressing need for "second-best" forms of accountability: forms t…
The Misuse of Power, Not Bad Representation
Pluralism about Global Poverty
Theorists have identified a wide range of reasons why individual and collective actors have a moral responsibility to help alleviate global poverty. There is now widespread agreement that several of these reasons are valid. From the perspective of the poverty opponent, it might seem that the more reasons there are to alleviate poverty, the better. The difficulty is that different reasons for alleviating poverty point to different poverty-alleviat…
Emergency Claims and Democratic Action
The straightforward normative importance of emergencies suggests that empirically engaged political theorists and philosophers should study them. Indeed, many have done so. In this essay, however, I argue that scholars interested in the political and/or moral dimensions of large-scale emergencies should shift their focus from emergencies to emergency claims. Building on Michael Saward’s model of a “representative claim,” I develop an account of a…
The Lessons of Effective Altruism
Carol Sue Snowden worked for thirty years as a librarian at the Columbus Metropolitan Library in Columbus, Ohio. She led a quiet, frugal life, spending money mostly on books, which were her passion. When she died, she donated the money she had saved—over $1 million—to the Columbus library and seven local schools. Most of us would look upon this generosity with admiration, but according to a new movement called Effective Altruism (EA), Snowden got…
The ‘Virtuous Circle’ Argument, Political Judgement, and Citizens’ Political Resistance
Empirical scholars describe a ‘virtuous circle’ (VC) wherein effective governance, empirical legitimacy, and citizens’ obedience are mutually reinforcing. This essay offers a normative perspective on the VC by bringing it into conversation with the literature on political resistance, which focuses on how citizens improve governance by resisting governmental authority. It is argued that the VC, and the concept of ‘limited statehood’ with which it …
Political and ethical action in the age of Trump
Small Money Donating as Democratic Politics
Since 2008, the number of people in the United States making small monetary donations to political causes, both within and beyond electoral politics, has skyrocketed. While critics of “big money” in politics laud these donations because they are small, proponents of small-scale democratic political action eye them suspiciously because they are monetary. Neither group interrogates whether the monetariness of these donations might be asourceof thei…
On the importance of justice-promoting projects besides reform intervention
In Promoting Justice Across Borders: The Ethics of Reform Intervention, Lucia Rafanelli offers a framework for normatively evaluating reform interventions. In this comment, I focus not on Rafanelli’s explicit argument, with which I largely agree, but rather on how this argument implicitly maps the terrain of justice, injustice, and justice-promotion. I suggest that Rafanelli overstates the importance and distinctiveness of reform intervention com…
Law (10 works) · Political science (10 works) · Law (9 works) · Political Philosophy and Ethics (8 works) · Sociology (8 works) · Politics (7 works) · Democracy (4 works) · Economics (4 works) · Epistemology (4 works) · Law and economics (4 works)