Robert Huseby
Biographic Data
| ID | 4384649 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Robert Huseby |
| GIVEN NAMES | Robert |
| FAMILY NAME | Huseby |
| SIGNATURE | HUSEBY R |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Oslo |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-3252-8059 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 21 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 129 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 21 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2005 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2025 |
| H-INDEX | 5 |
Self-Threatening Extortionists Constitute a Problem for Utilitarians, Not Contractualists
Johann Frick has claimed that morality requires that we (in many cases) should give in to the demands of rational agents who attempt to extort us by threatening to harm themselves (self-threatening extortionists). He has further argued that since contractualism implies that there is no such moral requirement, such cases represent a problem for this brand of moral theory. In this paper, we argue that things are quite the other way around: Morality…
Protecting Future Generations Through Minilateralism: Climate Clubs and Normative Legitimacy
Despite three decades of global climate negotiations and high expectations for the 2015 Paris Agreement, global emissions continue to grow. To protect future generations from severe harm, scholars, environmentalists, and politicians alike explore potential supplements to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change process. One potential supplement is climate clubs of a type where a small number of “enthusiastic” countries embark on …
The Limits of Limitarianism
Limitarianism is a view of distributive justice according to which there is an upper limit, or threshold, to the amount of goods (for instance money, resources, welfare, or capabilities) that people can permissibly have. 1 This view is interesting, though somewhat perplexing, since most
Sufficiency and the Threshold Question
In this paper I address the objection to sufficientarianism posed by Paula Casal and Richard Arneson, that it is hard to conceive of a sufficiency threshold such that distribution is highly important just below it, and not required at all just above it. In order to address this objection, I elaborate on the idea that sufficientarianism structurally can be seen to require two separate thresholds, which may or may not overlap. I then argue that a v…
Secession and political capacity
We argue that plebiscitary theories of secession have more permissive implications than has thus far been recognized, by proponents and critics alike. The plebiscitary theory aims to devise a principle for the moral right to secede. This principle implies, we claim, that the view under many circumstances is unable to distinguish between secession of collectives and individuals. Thus, not only large groups like the Catalans and the Scots, but also…
The All Affected Principle, and the weighting of votes
In this article we defend the view that, on the All Affected Principle of voting rights, the weight of a person’s vote on a decision should be determined by and only by the degree to which that decision affects her interests, independently of her voting weights on other decisions. Further, we consider two recent alternative proposals for how the All Affected Principle should weight votes, and give reasons for rejecting both
Sufficientarianism
Sufficientarianism is a principle of distributive justice according to which it is important that everyone has enough of some relevant form of advantage. Many, but not all, sufficientarian theories accept both the positive thesis, which holds that there is a level of advantage such that it is especially important that people reach it, and the negative thesis, which holds that there is a level of advantage such that above it, distributive justice …
Luck Egalitarianism and the Distributive Trilemma: Accepting Exploitation
In or Out? Benevolent Absolutisms in The Law of Peoples
here
Should We Relinquish or Distribute the Benefits of Injustice
How should citizens’ collective liability for state action be grounded
This paper assesses one type of justification for collective liability – the democratic authorization account – according to which citizens can be held liable for what their state does, because they collectively authorize the state’s actions. I argue that the democratic authorization view, properly understood, has an implausibly narrow scope, which risks leaving many victims of injustice without compensation. Hence, I propose a subsidiary account…
Should Irregular Immigrants Be (Rapidly) Enfranchised
Theories of voting rights differ quite sharply with regard to whether or not they support (rapid) enfranchisement of irregular immigrants. In this paper, we first outline these theories and their implications. We then assess a number of reasons against rapidly enfranchising irregular immigrants. We find, on reflection, that none of these reasons are persuasive. While this result is not in itself sufficient to draw strong conclusions, it does offe…
Can Luck Egalitarianism Justify the Fact that Some are Worse Off than Others?
According to luck egalitarianism it is bad or unjust if someone is worse off than another through no fault or choice of her own. This article argues that there is a tension in standard luck egalitarian theory between justifying absolute and comparative welfare levels. If a person responsibly acts in a way that brings her welfare level below that of others, this is justified according to the theory. However, even if we can say that the person's ne…
Normative Consent and the Scope of Democratic Authority
David Estlund's theory of normative consent attempts to ground democratic authority that extends even to some decisions and laws that are erroneous, and with which it would be better not to comply, in light of the goal of achieving justice. This paper argues that the theory of normative consent is unable to ground authority with such a wide scope (or, as it will be called in the paper, ‘a wide margin of error’). Therefore, democratic authority mu…
John Rawls and Climate Justice: An Amendment to The Law of Peoples
Should the beneficiaries pay
Many theorists claim that if an agent benefits from an action that harms others, that agent has a moral duty to compensate those who are harmed, even if the agent did not cause the harm herself. In the debate on climate justice, this idea is commonly referred to as the beneficiary-pays principle (BPP). This paper argues that the BPP is implausible, both in the context of climate change and as a normative principle more generally. It should theref…
Spinning the Wheel or Tossing a Coin
In the literature on the so-called numbers problem, some authors have recently argued that the individualist lottery (IL) avoids the flaws of the proportional lottery. This article first presents two recent defenses of the IL, and then argues that both are implausible if we focus, as we should, strictly on their non-consequentialist aspects. This conclusion holds even if we take account of the fact that the IL is arguably that solution to the num…
Sufficiency: Restated and Defended
Liberalism, Tolerance, and Human Rights
Duties and Responsibilities Towards the Poor
When Do (Imposed) Economic Sanctions Work
Previous research has documented only a modest success rate for imposed sanctions. By contrast, the success rate is higher in cases that are settled at the threat stage. In this article, the authors provide new insights about the circumstances under which sanctions cause behavioral change only after being imposed. First, the target must initially underestimate the impact of sanctions, miscalculate the sender's determination to impose them, or wro…
When Do (Imposed) Economic Sanctions Work
Previous research has documented only a modest success rate for imposed sanctions. By contrast, the success rate is higher in cases that are settled at the threat stage. In this article, the authors provide new insights about the circumstances under which sanctions cause behavioral change only after being imposed. First, the target must initially underestimate the impact of sanctions, miscalculate the sender's determination to impose them, or wro…
Sufficiency: Restated and Defended
Should the beneficiaries pay
Many theorists claim that if an agent benefits from an action that harms others, that agent has a moral duty to compensate those who are harmed, even if the agent did not cause the harm herself. In the debate on climate justice, this idea is commonly referred to as the beneficiary-pays principle (BPP). This paper argues that the BPP is implausible, both in the context of climate change and as a normative principle more generally. It should theref…
Should Irregular Immigrants Be (Rapidly) Enfranchised
Theories of voting rights differ quite sharply with regard to whether or not they support (rapid) enfranchisement of irregular immigrants. In this paper, we first outline these theories and their implications. We then assess a number of reasons against rapidly enfranchising irregular immigrants. We find, on reflection, that none of these reasons are persuasive. While this result is not in itself sufficient to draw strong conclusions, it does offe…
The Limits of Limitarianism
Limitarianism is a view of distributive justice according to which there is an upper limit, or threshold, to the amount of goods (for instance money, resources, welfare, or capabilities) that people can permissibly have. 1 This view is interesting, though somewhat perplexing, since most
The All Affected Principle, and the weighting of votes
In this article we defend the view that, on the All Affected Principle of voting rights, the weight of a person’s vote on a decision should be determined by and only by the degree to which that decision affects her interests, independently of her voting weights on other decisions. Further, we consider two recent alternative proposals for how the All Affected Principle should weight votes, and give reasons for rejecting both
Duties and Responsibilities Towards the Poor
John Rawls and Climate Justice: An Amendment to The Law of Peoples
Protecting Future Generations Through Minilateralism: Climate Clubs and Normative Legitimacy
Despite three decades of global climate negotiations and high expectations for the 2015 Paris Agreement, global emissions continue to grow. To protect future generations from severe harm, scholars, environmentalists, and politicians alike explore potential supplements to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change process. One potential supplement is climate clubs of a type where a small number of “enthusiastic” countries embark on …
When Do (Imposed) Economic Sanctions Work
Previous research has documented only a modest success rate for imposed sanctions. By contrast, the success rate is higher in cases that are settled at the threat stage. In this article, the authors provide new insights about the circumstances under which sanctions cause behavioral change only after being imposed. First, the target must initially underestimate the impact of sanctions, miscalculate the sender's determination to impose them, or wro…
Liberalism, Tolerance, and Human Rights
Duties and Responsibilities Towards the Poor
Sufficiency: Restated and Defended
Spinning the Wheel or Tossing a Coin
In the literature on the so-called numbers problem, some authors have recently argued that the individualist lottery (IL) avoids the flaws of the proportional lottery. This article first presents two recent defenses of the IL, and then argues that both are implausible if we focus, as we should, strictly on their non-consequentialist aspects. This conclusion holds even if we take account of the fact that the IL is arguably that solution to the num…
John Rawls and Climate Justice: An Amendment to The Law of Peoples
Should the beneficiaries pay
Many theorists claim that if an agent benefits from an action that harms others, that agent has a moral duty to compensate those who are harmed, even if the agent did not cause the harm herself. In the debate on climate justice, this idea is commonly referred to as the beneficiary-pays principle (BPP). This paper argues that the BPP is implausible, both in the context of climate change and as a normative principle more generally. It should theref…
Normative Consent and the Scope of Democratic Authority
David Estlund's theory of normative consent attempts to ground democratic authority that extends even to some decisions and laws that are erroneous, and with which it would be better not to comply, in light of the goal of achieving justice. This paper argues that the theory of normative consent is unable to ground authority with such a wide scope (or, as it will be called in the paper, ‘a wide margin of error’). Therefore, democratic authority mu…
Can Luck Egalitarianism Justify the Fact that Some are Worse Off than Others?
According to luck egalitarianism it is bad or unjust if someone is worse off than another through no fault or choice of her own. This article argues that there is a tension in standard luck egalitarian theory between justifying absolute and comparative welfare levels. If a person responsibly acts in a way that brings her welfare level below that of others, this is justified according to the theory. However, even if we can say that the person's ne…
Should We Relinquish or Distribute the Benefits of Injustice
How should citizens’ collective liability for state action be grounded
This paper assesses one type of justification for collective liability – the democratic authorization account – according to which citizens can be held liable for what their state does, because they collectively authorize the state’s actions. I argue that the democratic authorization view, properly understood, has an implausibly narrow scope, which risks leaving many victims of injustice without compensation. Hence, I propose a subsidiary account…
Should Irregular Immigrants Be (Rapidly) Enfranchised
Theories of voting rights differ quite sharply with regard to whether or not they support (rapid) enfranchisement of irregular immigrants. In this paper, we first outline these theories and their implications. We then assess a number of reasons against rapidly enfranchising irregular immigrants. We find, on reflection, that none of these reasons are persuasive. While this result is not in itself sufficient to draw strong conclusions, it does offe…
In or Out? Benevolent Absolutisms in The Law of Peoples
here
Sufficientarianism
Sufficientarianism is a principle of distributive justice according to which it is important that everyone has enough of some relevant form of advantage. Many, but not all, sufficientarian theories accept both the positive thesis, which holds that there is a level of advantage such that it is especially important that people reach it, and the negative thesis, which holds that there is a level of advantage such that above it, distributive justice …
Luck Egalitarianism and the Distributive Trilemma: Accepting Exploitation
Sufficiency and the Threshold Question
In this paper I address the objection to sufficientarianism posed by Paula Casal and Richard Arneson, that it is hard to conceive of a sufficiency threshold such that distribution is highly important just below it, and not required at all just above it. In order to address this objection, I elaborate on the idea that sufficientarianism structurally can be seen to require two separate thresholds, which may or may not overlap. I then argue that a v…
Secession and political capacity
We argue that plebiscitary theories of secession have more permissive implications than has thus far been recognized, by proponents and critics alike. The plebiscitary theory aims to devise a principle for the moral right to secede. This principle implies, we claim, that the view under many circumstances is unable to distinguish between secession of collectives and individuals. Thus, not only large groups like the Catalans and the Scots, but also…
The All Affected Principle, and the weighting of votes
In this article we defend the view that, on the All Affected Principle of voting rights, the weight of a person’s vote on a decision should be determined by and only by the degree to which that decision affects her interests, independently of her voting weights on other decisions. Further, we consider two recent alternative proposals for how the All Affected Principle should weight votes, and give reasons for rejecting both
The Limits of Limitarianism
Limitarianism is a view of distributive justice according to which there is an upper limit, or threshold, to the amount of goods (for instance money, resources, welfare, or capabilities) that people can permissibly have. 1 This view is interesting, though somewhat perplexing, since most
Protecting Future Generations Through Minilateralism: Climate Clubs and Normative Legitimacy
Despite three decades of global climate negotiations and high expectations for the 2015 Paris Agreement, global emissions continue to grow. To protect future generations from severe harm, scholars, environmentalists, and politicians alike explore potential supplements to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change process. One potential supplement is climate clubs of a type where a small number of “enthusiastic” countries embark on …
Self-Threatening Extortionists Constitute a Problem for Utilitarians, Not Contractualists
Johann Frick has claimed that morality requires that we (in many cases) should give in to the demands of rational agents who attempt to extort us by threatening to harm themselves (self-threatening extortionists). He has further argued that since contractualism implies that there is no such moral requirement, such cases represent a problem for this brand of moral theory. In this paper, we argue that things are quite the other way around: Morality…
Law (18 works) · Political science (18 works) · Political Philosophy and Ethics (17 works) · Law and economics (15 works) · Law (13 works) · Politics (12 works) · Sociology (11 works) · Economics (10 works) · Philosophy (10 works) · Economic Justice (7 works)