Pablo Gilabert
Biographic Data
| ID | 491642 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Pablo Gilabert |
| GIVEN NAMES | Pablo |
| FAMILY NAME | Gilabert |
| SIGNATURE | GILABERT P |
| AFFILIATIONS | Concordia University |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-0183-8716 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 47 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 205 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 47 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2005 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2025 |
| H-INDEX | 5 |
Further reflections on human dignity and social justice
Some Challenges for Moreau's Theory of Wrongful Discrimination
At the heart of Sophia Moreau's theory of wrongful discrimination is the moral duty to treat others as equals. This article raises some challenges regarding the contours of this duty and suggests some ways to make the theory stronger. In particular, it suggests that we incorporate a cosmopolitan view of the duty's scope, that we illuminate the features at the basis of individuals’ equal moral status to determine its grounds, and that we identify …
Human Dignity and Social Justice
Human dignity: social movements invoke it, several national constitutions enshrine it, and it features prominently in international human rights documents. But what is it, why is it important, and what is its relationship to human rights and social justice? Pablo Gilabert offers a systematic defence of the view that human dignity is the moral heart of justice. In Human Dignity and Human Rights (OUP 2019), he advanced an account of human dignity f…
Self-esteem and competition
This paper explores the relations between self-esteem and competition. Self-esteem is a very important good and competition is a widespread phenomenon. They are commonly linked, as people often seek self-esteem through success in competition. Although competition in fact generates valuable consequences and can to some extent foster self-esteem, empirical research suggests that competition has a strong tendency to undermine self-esteem. To be sure…
Inclusive dignity
The idea of dignity is pervasive in political discourse. It is central to human rights theory and practice, and it features regularly in conceptions of social justice as well as in the social movements they seek to understand or orient. However, dignity talk has been criticized for leading to problematic exclusion. Critics challenge it for undermining our recognition of the rights of non-human animals and of many human individuals (such as childr…
Perfectionism and dignity
Perfectionism about well‐being is, at a minimum, the view that people's lives go well when, and because, they realize their capacities. It is common to link perfectionism with an idea of human essence or nature, to view well‐being as the unfolding of characteristically human capacities. This article argues that perfectionism would be more plausible if it abandons reliance on the idea of human nature and focuses instead on the unfolding of some va…
Facts, norms, and dignity
There are three ways in which descriptive claims stating non-normative facts might bear on normative claims such as principles of social justice and human rights. They may identify (a) specific occasions that trigger application, (b) conditions of feasible implementation, and (c) certain sources of value. The first relation is obvious but important: norms cannot be applied without stating circumstances that make their application relevant. The se…
Alienation, Freedom, and Dignity
The topic of alienation has fallen out of fashion in social and political philosophy. It used to be salient, especially in socialist thought and in debates about labor practices in capitalism. Although the lack of identification of people with their working lives—their alienation as workers—remains practically important, normative engagement with it has been set back by at least four objections. They concern the problems of essentialist views, a …
Précis of Human Dignity and Human Rights
This précis offers a summary of key claims in my book Human Dignity and Human Rights
Defending human dignity and human rights
I am very grateful to Christian Barry, Michael Blake, Adam Etinson, and Cristina Lafont for their essays on Human Dignity and Human Rights.1 I admire and have learnt from their own philosophical wo
Exploitation, Solidarity, and Dignity
Dignity at Work
This chapter offers a justification of labour rights based on an interpretation of the idea of human dignity. According to the dignitarian approach , we have reason to organise social life so that we respond appropriately to the valuable capacities of human beings that give rise to their dignity. That dignity is a deontic status in accordance with which people are owed certain forms of respect and concern. Dignity at work involves treatment of pe…
Human Dignity and Human Rights
Human dignity: social movements invoke it, several national constitutions enshrine it, and it features prominently in international human rights documents. But what is it, and why is it important? This book offers a sophisticated and comprehensive defence of the view that human dignity is the moral heart of human rights. First, it develops the network of concepts associated with dignity, highlighting the notion of human dignity as an inherent, no…
A broad definition of agential power
Can we develop a definition of power that is satisfactorily determinate but also enables rather than foreclose important substantive scientific and normative debates about social and political life? I present a broad definition according to which agents have power with respect to a certain outcome (including, inter alia, the shaping of certain social relations) to the extent that they can voluntarily determine whether that outcome occurs. This si…
Justice and Feasibility
It is common in political theory and practice to challenge normatively ambitious proposals by saying that their fulfillment is not feasible. But there has been insufficient conceptual exploration of what feasibility is, and very little substantive inquiry into why and how it matters for thinking about social justice. This paper provides one of the first systematic treatments of these issues, and proposes a dynamic approach to the relation between…
Kantian Dignity and Marxian Socialism
This article offers an account of human dignity based on a discussion of Kant’s moral and political philosophy and then shows its relevance for articulating and developing in a fresh way some normative dimensions of Marx’s critique of capitalism as involving exploitation, domination and alienation, and the view of socialism as involving a combination of freedom and solidarity. What is advanced here is not Kant’s own conception of dignity, but an …
Facts, norms, and dignity
There are three ways in which descriptive claims stating non-normative facts might bear on normative claims such as principles of social justice and human rights. They may identify (a) specific occasions that trigger application, (b) conditions of feasible implementation, and (c) certain sources of value. The first relation is obvious but important: norms cannot be applied without stating circumstances that make their application relevant. The se…
An intellectual laboratory for the democratic and cosmopolitan left
Ability and Volitional Incapacity
The conditional analysis of ability faces familiar counterexamples involving cases of volitional incapacity. An interesting response to the problem of volitional incapacity is to try to explain away the responses elicited by such counterexamples by distinguishing between what we are able to do and what we are able to bring ourselves to do. We argue that this error-theoretic response fails. Either it succeeds in solving the problem of volitional i…
Justice and beneficence
What is a duty of justice? And how is it different from a duty of beneficence? We need a clear account of the contrast. Unfortunately, there is no consensus in the philosophical literature as to how to characterize it. Different articulations of it have been provided, but it is hard to identify a common core that is invariant across them. In this paper, I propose an account of how to understand duties of justice, explain how it contrasts with sev…
Labor human rights and human dignity
The current legal and political practice of human rights invokes entitlements to freely chosen work, to decent working conditions, and to form and join labor unions. Despite the importance of these rights, they remain under-explored in the philosophical literature on human rights. This article offers a systematic and constructive discussion of them. First, it surveys the content and current relevance of the labor rights stated in the most importa…
The Socialist Principle “From Each According To Their Abilities, To Each According To Their Needs”
This paper offers an exploration of the socialist principle “From each according to their abilities, to each according to their needs.” The Abilities/Needs Principle is arguably the ethical heart of socialism but, surprisingly, has received almost no attention by political philosophers. I propose an interpretation of the principle and argue that it involves appealing ideas of solidarity, fair reciprocity, recognition of individual differences, an…
Human Rights, Human Dignity, and Power
This chapter explores the connections between human rights, human dignity, and power. It begins with an analysis of the content and an interpretation of the role of the idea of human dignity in current human rights discourse. The interpretation includes a pluralist view of human interests and dignity that avoids a narrow focus on rational agency. The chapter then characterizes the two aspects of human dignity (status-dignity and condition-dignity…
Solidarity, equality, and freedom in Pettit’s republicanism
This article discusses Pettit’s views of social justice and political legitimacy in On the People’s Terms. Although Pettit’s book presents a powerful account of the ideal of nondomination, this article probes some deficiencies regarding important questions about solidarity, equality, and feasibility
Global Moral Egalitarianism and Global Distributive Egalitarianism
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
Political Feasibility
To date there is no systematic exploration of the concept of ‘political feasibility’. We believe that feasibility is a central issue for political philosophy, conceptually as well as practically, and that it has been given background status for far too long. Roughly, a state of affairs is feasible if it is one we could actually bring about. But there are many questions to ask about the conditions under which we are justified in thinking that we c…
Humanist and Political Perspectives on Human Rights
This essay explores the relation between two perspectives on the nature of human rights. According to the “political” or “practical” perspective, human rights are claims that individuals have against certain institutional structures, in particular modern states, in virtue of interests they have in contexts that include them. According to the more traditional “humanist” or “naturalistic” perspective, human rights are pre-institutional claims that …
Debate
Kant and the Claims of the Poor
The Feasibility of Basic Socioeconomic Human Rights
To be justifiable, the demands of a conception of human rights and global justice must be such that (a) they focus on the protection of important human interests, and (b) their fulfilment is feasible. Here I discuss the feasibility condition. I present a general account of the relation between moral desirability, feasibility and obligation within a conception of justice. Feasibility is a complex idea including different types, domains and degrees…
Inclusive dignity
The idea of dignity is pervasive in political discourse. It is central to human rights theory and practice, and it features regularly in conceptions of social justice as well as in the social movements they seek to understand or orient. However, dignity talk has been criticized for leading to problematic exclusion. Critics challenge it for undermining our recognition of the rights of non-human animals and of many human individuals (such as childr…
The substantive dimension of deliberative practical rationality
The aim of this paper is to propose a model for understanding the relation between substance and procedure in discourse ethics and deliberative democracy capable of answering the common charge that they involve an ‘empty formalism’. The expressive-elaboration model introduced here answers this concern by arguing that the deliberative practical rationality presupposed by discourse ethics and deliberative democracy involves the creation of a practi…
A broad definition of agential power
Can we develop a definition of power that is satisfactorily determinate but also enables rather than foreclose important substantive scientific and normative debates about social and political life? I present a broad definition according to which agents have power with respect to a certain outcome (including, inter alia, the shaping of certain social relations) to the extent that they can voluntarily determine whether that outcome occurs. This si…
Cosmopolitanism and Discourse Ethics
This article introduces a critical survey of recent discussions of cosmopolitanism by elucidating a common core present in them and by providing a proposal for how that core can be best elaborated. Two theses are defended. The first is that an appropriate conception of cosmopolitanism must include three coordinates: a search for universal rights, sensitivity to contextual specificities, and autonomous empowerment of all individuals. A cosmopolita…
Self-esteem and competition
This paper explores the relations between self-esteem and competition. Self-esteem is a very important good and competition is a widespread phenomenon. They are commonly linked, as people often seek self-esteem through success in competition. Although competition in fact generates valuable consequences and can to some extent foster self-esteem, empirical research suggests that competition has a strong tendency to undermine self-esteem. To be sure…
Labor human rights and human dignity
The current legal and political practice of human rights invokes entitlements to freely chosen work, to decent working conditions, and to form and join labor unions. Despite the importance of these rights, they remain under-explored in the philosophical literature on human rights. This article offers a systematic and constructive discussion of them. First, it surveys the content and current relevance of the labor rights stated in the most importa…
Global Moral Egalitarianism and Global Distributive Egalitarianism
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 Capability Approach and the Debate Between Humanist and Political Perspectives on Human Rights. A Critical Survey
Justice and beneficence
What is a duty of justice? And how is it different from a duty of beneficence? We need a clear account of the contrast. Unfortunately, there is no consensus in the philosophical literature as to how to characterize it. Different articulations of it have been provided, but it is hard to identify a common core that is invariant across them. In this paper, I propose an account of how to understand duties of justice, explain how it contrasts with sev…
Does global egalitarianism provide an impractical and unattractive ideal of justice
In his important new book National responsibility and global justice, David Miller presents a systematic challenge to existing theories of global justice. In particular, he argues that cosmopolitan egalitarianism must be rejected. Such views, Miller maintains, would place unacceptable burdens on the most productive political communities, undermine national self-determination, and disincentivize political communities from taking responsibility for…
The Duty to Eradicate Global Poverty
A Substantivist Construal of Discourse Ethics
This paper presents a substantivist construal of discourse ethics, which claims that we should see our engagement in public deliberation as expressing and elaborating a substantive commitment to basic moral ideas of solidarity, equality, and freedom. This view is different from Habermas’s standard formalist defence of discourse ethics, which attempts to derive the principle of discursive moral justification from primarily non‐moral presupposition…
The substantive dimension of deliberative practical rationality
The aim of this paper is to propose a model for understanding the relation between substance and procedure in discourse ethics and deliberative democracy capable of answering the common charge that they involve an ‘empty formalism’. The expressive-elaboration model introduced here answers this concern by arguing that the deliberative practical rationality presupposed by discourse ethics and deliberative democracy involves the creation of a practi…
Two Sets of Concerns about Heath's “Pragmatic Theory of Convergence”
A central concern of Joseph Heath's Communicative Action and Rational Choice is to find a plausible response to “the problem of convergence ... to explain why we should ever expect to secure agreement on moral questions” (pp. 8–9). In Chapter 7 of his book, Heath proposes what he calls “a pragmatic theory of convergence.” This account is presented as contrasting with the one proposed by Jürgen Habermas, which emphasizes the existence of an intern…
Global Justice, Democracy And Solidarity
Cosmopolitanism and Discourse Ethics
This article introduces a critical survey of recent discussions of cosmopolitanism by elucidating a common core present in them and by providing a proposal for how that core can be best elaborated. Two theses are defended. The first is that an appropriate conception of cosmopolitanism must include three coordinates: a search for universal rights, sensitivity to contextual specificities, and autonomous empowerment of all individuals. A cosmopolita…
Contractualism and Poverty Relief
Is there a genuine tension between cosmopolitan egalitarianism and special responsibilities?
Lectures on the History of Political Philosophy
Global Justice and Poverty Relief in Nonideal Circumstances
Does global egalitarianism provide an impractical and unattractive ideal of justice
In his important new book National responsibility and global justice, David Miller presents a systematic challenge to existing theories of global justice. In particular, he argues that cosmopolitan egalitarianism must be rejected. Such views, Miller maintains, would place unacceptable burdens on the most productive political communities, undermine national self-determination, and disincentivize political communities from taking responsibility for…
The Feasibility of Basic Socioeconomic Human Rights
To be justifiable, the demands of a conception of human rights and global justice must be such that (a) they focus on the protection of important human interests, and (b) their fulfilment is feasible. Here I discuss the feasibility condition. I present a general account of the relation between moral desirability, feasibility and obligation within a conception of justice. Feasibility is a complex idea including different types, domains and degrees…
The Importance of Linkage Arguments for the Theory and Practice of Human Rights
In his article, "Rethinking Indivisibility: Towards a Theory of Supporting Relations between Human Rights," James Nickel challenges the common view that human rights are mutually linked in such a way that they are "indivisible." Although Nickel compellingly shows that the ideas of indivisibility and linkage arguments, as they have been used by many proponents, are ultimately unsatisfactory; I argue that we should not drop them or downplay their i…
Debate
Kant and the Claims of the Poor
Humanist and Political Perspectives on Human Rights
This essay explores the relation between two perspectives on the nature of human rights. According to the “political” or “practical” perspective, human rights are claims that individuals have against certain institutional structures, in particular modern states, in virtue of interests they have in contexts that include them. According to the more traditional “humanist” or “naturalistic” perspective, human rights are pre-institutional claims that …
From Global Poverty to Global Equality
"Do we have positive duties to help others in need or are our moral duties only negative, focused on not harming them? Is their scope global? Should we aim for global equality besides the eradication of severe global poverty? Is a humanist approach to egalitarian distribution based on universal human rights defensible, or must egalitarian distribution be seen in an associativist way, as tracking existing frameworks such as statehood and economic …
Cohen on Socialism, Equality and Community
In this article I discuss G. A. Cohen’s account of the principles animating the socialist ideal. In his book Why Not Socialism? Cohen argues that socialism is based on two principles of radical equality of opportunity and community. Although I am quite sympathetic to Cohen’s contribution, I identify what I take to be some problems in it and suggest ways to overcome them. I challenge Cohen’s claim that although the principle of radical equality of…
Comparative Assessments of Justice, Political Feasibility, and Ideal Theory
Political Feasibility
To date there is no systematic exploration of the concept of ‘political feasibility’. We believe that feasibility is a central issue for political philosophy, conceptually as well as practically, and that it has been given background status for far too long. Roughly, a state of affairs is feasible if it is one we could actually bring about. But there are many questions to ask about the conditions under which we are justified in thinking that we c…
The Capability Approach and the Debate Between Humanist and Political Perspectives on Human Rights. A Critical Survey
How should we think about the relation between principles and agency
In this article, I will reflect on Lea Ypi’s methodological contribution in her wonderful book Global Justice and Avant-Garde Political Agency . Ypi addresses the important and underexplored issue of the relation between normative principles and political agency. She proposes a ‘dialectical approach’ to normative political theory, which she contrasts with ‘ideal’ and ‘non-ideal’ approaches, arguing that the first does a better job in articulating…
The Socialist Principle “From Each According To Their Abilities, To Each According To Their Needs”
This paper offers an exploration of the socialist principle “From each according to their abilities, to each according to their needs.” The Abilities/Needs Principle is arguably the ethical heart of socialism but, surprisingly, has received almost no attention by political philosophers. I propose an interpretation of the principle and argue that it involves appealing ideas of solidarity, fair reciprocity, recognition of individual differences, an…
Human Rights, Human Dignity, and Power
This chapter explores the connections between human rights, human dignity, and power. It begins with an analysis of the content and an interpretation of the role of the idea of human dignity in current human rights discourse. The interpretation includes a pluralist view of human interests and dignity that avoids a narrow focus on rational agency. The chapter then characterizes the two aspects of human dignity (status-dignity and condition-dignity…
Solidarity, equality, and freedom in Pettit’s republicanism
This article discusses Pettit’s views of social justice and political legitimacy in On the People’s Terms. Although Pettit’s book presents a powerful account of the ideal of nondomination, this article probes some deficiencies regarding important questions about solidarity, equality, and feasibility
Sociology (42 works) · Political science (41 works) · Law (40 works) · Political Philosophy and Ethics (38 works) · Philosophy (37 works) · Law and economics (28 works) · Politics (28 works) · Epistemology (26 works) · Environmental ethics (20 works) · Law (20 works)