Burke A Hendrix
Biographic Data
| ID | 457414 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Burke A Hendrix |
| GIVEN NAMES | Burke A |
| FAMILY NAME | Hendrix |
| SIGNATURE | HENDRIX B A |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Colorado Boulder |
| ORCID | 0000-0001-9736-3622 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 15 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 43 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 15 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2001 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 4 |
Interpreting Indigenous Complexity
This wonderful book is deeply researched, conceptually clarifying, and beautifully written. When read together, its chapters produce a powerful image of the alternative political possibilities outlined by North American Indigenous writers including Zitkala-Ša, Ella Deloria, Vine Deloria Jr., George Manuel, Lee Maracle, and Howard Adams. Temin has done his intellectual work well: I came to the book with extensive knowledge of some of the figures i…
Morally Natural Political Units
Supersession, non-ideal theory, and dominant distributive principles
This article argues, against Jeremy Waldron, that Indigenous rectification claims are not fundamentally Nozickean in character. Rather, they appear this way only because they take place against a background of socially robust ownership rights that are treated as consent-requiring, time-insensitive, and inequality-permitting. Indigenous peoples invoke these principles to defend their own holdings in ways that highlight how such pseudo-Nozickean pr…
Strategies of Justice
Political theorists often imagine themselves as political architects, asking what an ideal set of laws or social structures might look like. Yet persistent injustices can endure for decades or even centuries despite such ideal theorizing. In circumstances of this kind, it is essential for political theorists to think carefully about the political choices normatively available to those who directly face persistent injustices and seek to change the…
Building capacity in indigenous governance
This paper compares key aspects of governance structures for Indigenous populations in the United States and Australia. The paper focuses on policy coordination and administration, in particular the nodes of decision‐making in the two countries in relation to government contracting and accountability. The U.S. approach to funding Indigenous organizations stems from the 1975 Indian Self‐Determination and Education Act and its subsequent expansions…
Tocqueville in Jacksonian Context
Tocqueville’s discussion of American Indians in Democracy in America is often read as the paradigmatic expression of a conventional story about American political expansion. This narrative holds that westward expansion was easy, in part because American Indians did not offer much resistance. Historians of political thought and scholars of American Political Development tend to affirm this narrative when they read Tocqueville’s text as suggesting …
Historical Injustice, Rawlsian Egalitarianism, and Political Contestation
Jeremy Waldron has plausibly argued that historical injustices can be superseded by serious efforts to achieve justice in the present and future. This essay considers what it might mean to arrange things justly in the relevant way, focusing on the work of John Rawls as our best existing template for conceptualizing justice of this kind. The essay outlines ways in which a Rawlsian system of social justice seems unable to meet its own normative asp…
Where Should We Expect Social Change in Non-Ideal Theory
This essay considers the relationship between ideal theory and non-ideal theory. It begins with Rawls’s conception of ideal theory and A. John Simmons’s articulation of non-ideal theory. Both defend the priority of ideal theory over non-ideal theory. The essay then considers three different conceptions of the social barriers standing in the way of an ideal society, taken broadly from Mill, Marx, and Foucault. Each conception of power suggests a d…
Context, Equality, and Aboriginal Compensation Claims
Jeremy Waldron argues that the historical ownership rights of Aboriginal peoples can be superseded, yet acknowledges that programs of historically grounded compensation are justifiable in the absence of widespread redistribution. This article argues that existing states lack social justice programs of the requisite kind, and that they will continue to do so in the foreseeable future. Moreover, even the best-designed programs will be far more ambi…
Political theorists as dangerous social actors
What is the appropriate degree of abstraction from existing social facts when engaging in normative political theory? Through a focus on American Indian and other indigenous claims over historically expropriated lands, this essay argues that highly abstracted forms of normative analysis can often misunderstand the core moral problems at stake in real cases, and that they can pose moral dangers when they do so. As argued, the hard moral issues inv…
Political Authority and Indigenous Sovereignty
Research Article| January 01 2010 Political Authority and Indigenous Sovereignty Burke Hendrix Burke Hendrix Burke Hendrix currently teaches at Franklin and Marshall College, after several years at Cornell University. He is the author of Ownership, Authority, and Self-Determination: Moral Principles and Indigenous Rights Claims, as well as articles on indigenous issues that have appeared in Political Theory, American Indian Quarterly, and elsewhe…
Moral Error, Power, and Insult
Defenders of Aboriginal rights such as James Tully have argued that members of majority populations should allow Aboriginal peoples to argue within their own preferred intellectual frameworks in seeking common moral ground. But how should non-Aboriginal academics react to claims that seem insufficiently critical or even incoherent? This essay argues that there are two reasons to be especially wary of attacking such errors given the historical inj…
Memory in Native American Land Claims
While claims for the return of expropriated land by Native Americans and other indigenous peoples are often evaluated using legal frameworks, such approaches fail to engage the fundamental moral questions involved. This essay outlines three justifications for Native Americans to pursue land claims: to regain properties where original ownership has not been superseded, to aid the long-term survival of their endangered cultures, and to challenge an…
Moral Minimalism in American Indian Land Claims
This is an essay about Indian claims for the return of historically stolen lands, written from the perspective of a "Western" academic moral philosopher. I want to try to outline points of agreement and disagreement between Indian and Western moral conceptions and to seek common ground on which land claims can be more clearly evaluated and justified to both sides. To foreshadow my conclusions, I will argue that Indian nations seem morally entitle…
International law as a moral theory of state territory
Current states face challenges from other states and secessionist movements, and no moral theory exists to evaluate these conflicting claims. One step towards a theory is to evaluate international law on territory, specifically as articulated through decolonisation. I argue that international law does not provide a plausible moral theory of territory because the principles of territorial integrity and uti possidetis cannot coherently coexist with…
Memory in Native American Land Claims
While claims for the return of expropriated land by Native Americans and other indigenous peoples are often evaluated using legal frameworks, such approaches fail to engage the fundamental moral questions involved. This essay outlines three justifications for Native Americans to pursue land claims: to regain properties where original ownership has not been superseded, to aid the long-term survival of their endangered cultures, and to challenge an…
Where Should We Expect Social Change in Non-Ideal Theory
This essay considers the relationship between ideal theory and non-ideal theory. It begins with Rawls’s conception of ideal theory and A. John Simmons’s articulation of non-ideal theory. Both defend the priority of ideal theory over non-ideal theory. The essay then considers three different conceptions of the social barriers standing in the way of an ideal society, taken broadly from Mill, Marx, and Foucault. Each conception of power suggests a d…
Political theorists as dangerous social actors
What is the appropriate degree of abstraction from existing social facts when engaging in normative political theory? Through a focus on American Indian and other indigenous claims over historically expropriated lands, this essay argues that highly abstracted forms of normative analysis can often misunderstand the core moral problems at stake in real cases, and that they can pose moral dangers when they do so. As argued, the hard moral issues inv…
Tocqueville in Jacksonian Context
Tocqueville’s discussion of American Indians in Democracy in America is often read as the paradigmatic expression of a conventional story about American political expansion. This narrative holds that westward expansion was easy, in part because American Indians did not offer much resistance. Historians of political thought and scholars of American Political Development tend to affirm this narrative when they read Tocqueville’s text as suggesting …
Supersession, non-ideal theory, and dominant distributive principles
This article argues, against Jeremy Waldron, that Indigenous rectification claims are not fundamentally Nozickean in character. Rather, they appear this way only because they take place against a background of socially robust ownership rights that are treated as consent-requiring, time-insensitive, and inequality-permitting. Indigenous peoples invoke these principles to defend their own holdings in ways that highlight how such pseudo-Nozickean pr…
Context, Equality, and Aboriginal Compensation Claims
Jeremy Waldron argues that the historical ownership rights of Aboriginal peoples can be superseded, yet acknowledges that programs of historically grounded compensation are justifiable in the absence of widespread redistribution. This article argues that existing states lack social justice programs of the requisite kind, and that they will continue to do so in the foreseeable future. Moreover, even the best-designed programs will be far more ambi…
Moral Error, Power, and Insult
Defenders of Aboriginal rights such as James Tully have argued that members of majority populations should allow Aboriginal peoples to argue within their own preferred intellectual frameworks in seeking common moral ground. But how should non-Aboriginal academics react to claims that seem insufficiently critical or even incoherent? This essay argues that there are two reasons to be especially wary of attacking such errors given the historical inj…
Moral Minimalism in American Indian Land Claims
This is an essay about Indian claims for the return of historically stolen lands, written from the perspective of a "Western" academic moral philosopher. I want to try to outline points of agreement and disagreement between Indian and Western moral conceptions and to seek common ground on which land claims can be more clearly evaluated and justified to both sides. To foreshadow my conclusions, I will argue that Indian nations seem morally entitle…
International law as a moral theory of state territory
Current states face challenges from other states and secessionist movements, and no moral theory exists to evaluate these conflicting claims. One step towards a theory is to evaluate international law on territory, specifically as articulated through decolonisation. I argue that international law does not provide a plausible moral theory of territory because the principles of territorial integrity and uti possidetis cannot coherently coexist with…
Memory in Native American Land Claims
While claims for the return of expropriated land by Native Americans and other indigenous peoples are often evaluated using legal frameworks, such approaches fail to engage the fundamental moral questions involved. This essay outlines three justifications for Native Americans to pursue land claims: to regain properties where original ownership has not been superseded, to aid the long-term survival of their endangered cultures, and to challenge an…
Moral Minimalism in American Indian Land Claims
This is an essay about Indian claims for the return of historically stolen lands, written from the perspective of a "Western" academic moral philosopher. I want to try to outline points of agreement and disagreement between Indian and Western moral conceptions and to seek common ground on which land claims can be more clearly evaluated and justified to both sides. To foreshadow my conclusions, I will argue that Indian nations seem morally entitle…
Moral Error, Power, and Insult
Defenders of Aboriginal rights such as James Tully have argued that members of majority populations should allow Aboriginal peoples to argue within their own preferred intellectual frameworks in seeking common moral ground. But how should non-Aboriginal academics react to claims that seem insufficiently critical or even incoherent? This essay argues that there are two reasons to be especially wary of attacking such errors given the historical inj…
Political theorists as dangerous social actors
What is the appropriate degree of abstraction from existing social facts when engaging in normative political theory? Through a focus on American Indian and other indigenous claims over historically expropriated lands, this essay argues that highly abstracted forms of normative analysis can often misunderstand the core moral problems at stake in real cases, and that they can pose moral dangers when they do so. As argued, the hard moral issues inv…
Political Authority and Indigenous Sovereignty
Research Article| January 01 2010 Political Authority and Indigenous Sovereignty Burke Hendrix Burke Hendrix Burke Hendrix currently teaches at Franklin and Marshall College, after several years at Cornell University. He is the author of Ownership, Authority, and Self-Determination: Moral Principles and Indigenous Rights Claims, as well as articles on indigenous issues that have appeared in Political Theory, American Indian Quarterly, and elsewhe…
Context, Equality, and Aboriginal Compensation Claims
Jeremy Waldron argues that the historical ownership rights of Aboriginal peoples can be superseded, yet acknowledges that programs of historically grounded compensation are justifiable in the absence of widespread redistribution. This article argues that existing states lack social justice programs of the requisite kind, and that they will continue to do so in the foreseeable future. Moreover, even the best-designed programs will be far more ambi…
Where Should We Expect Social Change in Non-Ideal Theory
This essay considers the relationship between ideal theory and non-ideal theory. It begins with Rawls’s conception of ideal theory and A. John Simmons’s articulation of non-ideal theory. Both defend the priority of ideal theory over non-ideal theory. The essay then considers three different conceptions of the social barriers standing in the way of an ideal society, taken broadly from Mill, Marx, and Foucault. Each conception of power suggests a d…
Historical Injustice, Rawlsian Egalitarianism, and Political Contestation
Jeremy Waldron has plausibly argued that historical injustices can be superseded by serious efforts to achieve justice in the present and future. This essay considers what it might mean to arrange things justly in the relevant way, focusing on the work of John Rawls as our best existing template for conceptualizing justice of this kind. The essay outlines ways in which a Rawlsian system of social justice seems unable to meet its own normative asp…
Tocqueville in Jacksonian Context
Tocqueville’s discussion of American Indians in Democracy in America is often read as the paradigmatic expression of a conventional story about American political expansion. This narrative holds that westward expansion was easy, in part because American Indians did not offer much resistance. Historians of political thought and scholars of American Political Development tend to affirm this narrative when they read Tocqueville’s text as suggesting …
Strategies of Justice
Political theorists often imagine themselves as political architects, asking what an ideal set of laws or social structures might look like. Yet persistent injustices can endure for decades or even centuries despite such ideal theorizing. In circumstances of this kind, it is essential for political theorists to think carefully about the political choices normatively available to those who directly face persistent injustices and seek to change the…
Building capacity in indigenous governance
This paper compares key aspects of governance structures for Indigenous populations in the United States and Australia. The paper focuses on policy coordination and administration, in particular the nodes of decision‐making in the two countries in relation to government contracting and accountability. The U.S. approach to funding Indigenous organizations stems from the 1975 Indian Self‐Determination and Education Act and its subsequent expansions…
Supersession, non-ideal theory, and dominant distributive principles
This article argues, against Jeremy Waldron, that Indigenous rectification claims are not fundamentally Nozickean in character. Rather, they appear this way only because they take place against a background of socially robust ownership rights that are treated as consent-requiring, time-insensitive, and inequality-permitting. Indigenous peoples invoke these principles to defend their own holdings in ways that highlight how such pseudo-Nozickean pr…
Morally Natural Political Units
Interpreting Indigenous Complexity
This wonderful book is deeply researched, conceptually clarifying, and beautifully written. When read together, its chapters produce a powerful image of the alternative political possibilities outlined by North American Indigenous writers including Zitkala-Ša, Ella Deloria, Vine Deloria Jr., George Manuel, Lee Maracle, and Howard Adams. Temin has done his intellectual work well: I came to the book with extensive knowledge of some of the figures i…
Law (13 works) · Political science (13 works) · Politics (12 works) · Sociology (12 works) · Law (9 works) · Political Philosophy and Ethics (9 works) · Environmental ethics (7 works) · Law and economics (7 works) · Indigenous (6 works) · Epistemology (5 works)