Adam Lovett
Biographic Data
| ID | 461848 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Adam Lovett |
| GIVEN NAMES | Adam |
| FAMILY NAME | Lovett |
| SIGNATURE | LOVETT A |
| AFFILIATIONS | New York University |
| ORCID | 0000-0001-8728-5624 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 18 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 11 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 18 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2019 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 2 |
Is decentralization democratic?
I argue that decentralization improves democracy. The main normative idea in the argument is that part of what makes democracy valuable is that it facilitates a kind of democratic autonomy. It gives citizens the opportunity to author their social and political affairs. Moreover, the opportunities that contribute most to citizen autonomy are opportunities to author outcomes they care and can easily learn more about. The main empirical premise is t…
Wealth, Power, and Equality
I spell out a distinctive account of what is wrong with inequalities of wealth: they constitute asymmetries of power. Two ideas lie behind this view. The first is that asymmetries of power constitute inegalitarian relationships. Think of the relationship of king to subject or master to slave: these are in part constituted by asymmetric power. The second is that wealth gives one power over people. When you have a lot of money, you can pay people t…
The Fair Share Theory of Conventional Normativity
Often, we should obey conventional, or socially constructed, norms. You should tip in America, queue up in England, take your hat off when you enter a church in Italy. But why? Laura Valentini has recently suggested that obeying conventional norms respects the agency of those who support such norms. In this article, I argue that this is not why we should obey conventional norms. Instead, we should think of the moral force of such norms in terms o…
Touching the Good: Special Relationships as Contact with Value
It seems appropriate for you to care more about your friends than about strangers, more about your keepsakes and projects than about the keepsakes and projects of others. Some things are personally significant to you. But when is something significant to you? In this paper, we advance the contact account of significance. You are in contact with a value when it is manifest in your life or when your life is manifest in it. And it is this contact wi…
The choice argument for proportional representation
What electoral system should a democracy choose? I argue for proportional representation (PR). My main empirical premise is Duverger's law: Under PR there are more viable candidates in district‐level elections than there are under single‐member plurality (SMP) systems. My main normative premise is that democracy is valuable because it enables ordinary citizens to rule themselves. To enjoy the value of self‐rule, citizens must be able to make an a…
The Egalitarian Objection to Coercion
I develop an egalitarian account of what's objectionable about coercion. The account is rooted in the idea that certain relationships, like those of master to slave or lord to peasant, are relationships of subordination or domination. These relationships are morally objectionable. Such relationships are in part constituted by asymmetries of power. A master subordinates a slave because the master has more power over the slave than vice versa. Coer…
Wealth and Power: Philosophical Perspectives, Michael Bennett, Huub Brouwer, and Rutger Claassen, eds. Routledge, 2023, x + 356 pages
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 good life as the life in touch with the good
What makes your life go well for you? In this paper, we give an account of welfare. Our core idea is simple. There are impersonally good and bad things out there: things that are good or bad period, not (or not only) good or bad for someone. The life that is good for you is the life in contact with the good. We’ll understand the relevant notion of ‘contact’ here in terms of manifestation: you’re in contact with a value when it is manifest in part…
The loving state
I explore the idea that the state should love its citizens. It should not be indifferent towards them. Nor should it merely respect them. It should love them. I begin by looking at the bases of this idea. First, it can be grounded by a concern with state subordination. The state has enormous power over its citizens. This threatens them with subordination. Love ameliorates this threat. Second, it can be grounded by the state’s lack of moral status…
Commonsense morality and contact with value
There seem to be many kinds of moral duties. We should keep our promises; we should pay our debts of gratitude; we should compensate those we've wronged; we should avoid doing or intending harm; we should help those in need. These constitute, some worry, an unconnected heap of duties: the realm of commonsense morality is a disorganized mess. In this paper, we outline a strategy for unifying commonsense moral duties. We argue that they can be unde…
Property and non-ideal theory
According to the standard story, there are two defensible theories of property rights: historical and institutional theories. The former says that you own something when you’ve received it via an unbroken chain of just transfers from its original appropriation. The latter says that you own something when you’ve been assigned it by just institutions. This standard story says that the historical theory throws up a barrier to redistributive economic…
What Immigrants Owe
Unlike natural-born citizens, many immigrants have agreed to undertake political obligations. Many have sworn oaths of allegiance. Many, when they entered their adopted country, promised to obey the law. This paper is about these agreements. First, it’s about their validity. Do they actually confer political obligations? Second, it’s about their justifiability. Is it permissible to get immigrants to undertake such political obligations? Our answe…
Voter Motivation
Voters have many motivations. Some vote on the issues. They vote for a candidate because they share that candidate's policy positions. Some vote on performance. They vote for a candidate because they think that candidate will produce the best outcomes in office. Some vote on group identities. They vote for a candidate because that candidate is connected to their social group. This paper is about these motivations. I address three questions. First…
The ethics of asymmetric politics
Polarization often happens asymmetrically. One political actor radicalizes, and the results reverberate through the political system. This is how the deep divisions in contemporary American politics arose: the Republican Party radicalized. Republican officeholders began to use extreme legislative tactics. Republican voters became animated by contempt for their political rivals and by the defense of their own social superiority. The party as a who…
The Possibility of Democratic Autonomy
What makes democracy valuable?One traditional answer holds that participating in democratic self-government amounts to a kind of autonomy: it enables citizens to be the authors of their political affairs.Many contemporary philosophers, however, are skeptical.We are autonomous, they argue, when important features of our lives are up to us, but in a democracy we merely have a say in a process of collective choice.In this paper, we defend the possib…
Group Agents and Moral Status: What Can We Owe to Organizations
Organizations have neither a right to vote nor a right to life. But we can owe them to keep our promises or show them gratitude. So we owe some things to organizations, but not everything we owe to people. What explains this? Individualistic views explain it just in terms of features of organizations’ individual members. Collectivistic views explain it just in terms of features of those organizations. Neither view works. Instead, we need to synth…
Must Egalitarians Condemn Representative Democracy
Many contemporary democratic theorists are democratic egalitarians. They think that the distinctive value of democracy lies in equality. Yet this position faces a serious problem. All contemporary democracies are representative democracies. Such democracies are highly unequal: representatives have much more power than do ordinary citizens. So, it seems that democratic egalitarians must condemn representative democracies. In this paper, I present …
On Keeping Things in Proportion
Formula One is not very important. You cannot care about it too much. The refugee crisis is more important. You can care about it much more. In this paper we investigate how important something is. By ‘importance’ we mean how much it is fitting to care about a thing. We explore a view about this which we call Proportionalism. This view says that a thing’s importance depends on that thing’s share of the world’s total value. The more of what matter…
The Possibility of Democratic Autonomy
What makes democracy valuable?One traditional answer holds that participating in democratic self-government amounts to a kind of autonomy: it enables citizens to be the authors of their political affairs.Many contemporary philosophers, however, are skeptical.We are autonomous, they argue, when important features of our lives are up to us, but in a democracy we merely have a say in a process of collective choice.In this paper, we defend the possib…
The ethics of asymmetric politics
Polarization often happens asymmetrically. One political actor radicalizes, and the results reverberate through the political system. This is how the deep divisions in contemporary American politics arose: the Republican Party radicalized. Republican officeholders began to use extreme legislative tactics. Republican voters became animated by contempt for their political rivals and by the defense of their own social superiority. The party as a who…
On Keeping Things in Proportion
Formula One is not very important. You cannot care about it too much. The refugee crisis is more important. You can care about it much more. In this paper we investigate how important something is. By ‘importance’ we mean how much it is fitting to care about a thing. We explore a view about this which we call Proportionalism. This view says that a thing’s importance depends on that thing’s share of the world’s total value. The more of what matter…
Group Agents and Moral Status: What Can We Owe to Organizations
Organizations have neither a right to vote nor a right to life. But we can owe them to keep our promises or show them gratitude. So we owe some things to organizations, but not everything we owe to people. What explains this? Individualistic views explain it just in terms of features of organizations’ individual members. Collectivistic views explain it just in terms of features of those organizations. Neither view works. Instead, we need to synth…
Must Egalitarians Condemn Representative Democracy
Many contemporary democratic theorists are democratic egalitarians. They think that the distinctive value of democracy lies in equality. Yet this position faces a serious problem. All contemporary democracies are representative democracies. Such democracies are highly unequal: representatives have much more power than do ordinary citizens. So, it seems that democratic egalitarians must condemn representative democracies. In this paper, I present …
What Immigrants Owe
Unlike natural-born citizens, many immigrants have agreed to undertake political obligations. Many have sworn oaths of allegiance. Many, when they entered their adopted country, promised to obey the law. This paper is about these agreements. First, it’s about their validity. Do they actually confer political obligations? Second, it’s about their justifiability. Is it permissible to get immigrants to undertake such political obligations? Our answe…
Voter Motivation
Voters have many motivations. Some vote on the issues. They vote for a candidate because they share that candidate's policy positions. Some vote on performance. They vote for a candidate because they think that candidate will produce the best outcomes in office. Some vote on group identities. They vote for a candidate because that candidate is connected to their social group. This paper is about these motivations. I address three questions. First…
The ethics of asymmetric politics
Polarization often happens asymmetrically. One political actor radicalizes, and the results reverberate through the political system. This is how the deep divisions in contemporary American politics arose: the Republican Party radicalized. Republican officeholders began to use extreme legislative tactics. Republican voters became animated by contempt for their political rivals and by the defense of their own social superiority. The party as a who…
The Possibility of Democratic Autonomy
What makes democracy valuable?One traditional answer holds that participating in democratic self-government amounts to a kind of autonomy: it enables citizens to be the authors of their political affairs.Many contemporary philosophers, however, are skeptical.We are autonomous, they argue, when important features of our lives are up to us, but in a democracy we merely have a say in a process of collective choice.In this paper, we defend the possib…
Property and non-ideal theory
According to the standard story, there are two defensible theories of property rights: historical and institutional theories. The former says that you own something when you’ve received it via an unbroken chain of just transfers from its original appropriation. The latter says that you own something when you’ve been assigned it by just institutions. This standard story says that the historical theory throws up a barrier to redistributive economic…
The Egalitarian Objection to Coercion
I develop an egalitarian account of what's objectionable about coercion. The account is rooted in the idea that certain relationships, like those of master to slave or lord to peasant, are relationships of subordination or domination. These relationships are morally objectionable. Such relationships are in part constituted by asymmetries of power. A master subordinates a slave because the master has more power over the slave than vice versa. Coer…
Wealth and Power: Philosophical Perspectives, Michael Bennett, Huub Brouwer, and Rutger Claassen, eds. Routledge, 2023, x + 356 pages
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 good life as the life in touch with the good
What makes your life go well for you? In this paper, we give an account of welfare. Our core idea is simple. There are impersonally good and bad things out there: things that are good or bad period, not (or not only) good or bad for someone. The life that is good for you is the life in contact with the good. We’ll understand the relevant notion of ‘contact’ here in terms of manifestation: you’re in contact with a value when it is manifest in part…
The loving state
I explore the idea that the state should love its citizens. It should not be indifferent towards them. Nor should it merely respect them. It should love them. I begin by looking at the bases of this idea. First, it can be grounded by a concern with state subordination. The state has enormous power over its citizens. This threatens them with subordination. Love ameliorates this threat. Second, it can be grounded by the state’s lack of moral status…
Commonsense morality and contact with value
There seem to be many kinds of moral duties. We should keep our promises; we should pay our debts of gratitude; we should compensate those we've wronged; we should avoid doing or intending harm; we should help those in need. These constitute, some worry, an unconnected heap of duties: the realm of commonsense morality is a disorganized mess. In this paper, we outline a strategy for unifying commonsense moral duties. We argue that they can be unde…
Wealth, Power, and Equality
I spell out a distinctive account of what is wrong with inequalities of wealth: they constitute asymmetries of power. Two ideas lie behind this view. The first is that asymmetries of power constitute inegalitarian relationships. Think of the relationship of king to subject or master to slave: these are in part constituted by asymmetric power. The second is that wealth gives one power over people. When you have a lot of money, you can pay people t…
The Fair Share Theory of Conventional Normativity
Often, we should obey conventional, or socially constructed, norms. You should tip in America, queue up in England, take your hat off when you enter a church in Italy. But why? Laura Valentini has recently suggested that obeying conventional norms respects the agency of those who support such norms. In this article, I argue that this is not why we should obey conventional norms. Instead, we should think of the moral force of such norms in terms o…
Touching the Good: Special Relationships as Contact with Value
It seems appropriate for you to care more about your friends than about strangers, more about your keepsakes and projects than about the keepsakes and projects of others. Some things are personally significant to you. But when is something significant to you? In this paper, we advance the contact account of significance. You are in contact with a value when it is manifest in your life or when your life is manifest in it. And it is this contact wi…
The choice argument for proportional representation
What electoral system should a democracy choose? I argue for proportional representation (PR). My main empirical premise is Duverger's law: Under PR there are more viable candidates in district‐level elections than there are under single‐member plurality (SMP) systems. My main normative premise is that democracy is valuable because it enables ordinary citizens to rule themselves. To enjoy the value of self‐rule, citizens must be able to make an a…
Is decentralization democratic?
I argue that decentralization improves democracy. The main normative idea in the argument is that part of what makes democracy valuable is that it facilitates a kind of democratic autonomy. It gives citizens the opportunity to author their social and political affairs. Moreover, the opportunities that contribute most to citizen autonomy are opportunities to author outcomes they care and can easily learn more about. The main empirical premise is t…
Political Philosophy and Ethics (12 works) · Law (11 works) · Political science (11 works) · Sociology (11 works) · Computer Science (8 works) · Politics (8 works) · Epistemology (7 works) · Law and economics (7 works) · Philosophy (7 works) · Democracy (6 works)