The moral significance of road space

Movement and transportation in a regime of enclosure

Bibliographic Data

ID19224903
AuthorsDaniel Guillery (0000-0001-8159-1575, London School of Economics and Political Science, corresponding author)
Year2026
Publication date2026-05-25
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueEuropean Journal of Political Theory (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1474-8851 • E-ISSN: 1741-2730
PublisherSAGE Publishing (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.1177/14748851261454461
OpenAlexW7161968084
LanguageEN
References cited30

Roads are highly dangerous and unequal places. This paper argues that their risks and benefits are not simply one category of the many benefits and burdens of social cooperation to be considered by a theory of justice. Rather, against the backdrop of a regime of land enclosure, certain sorts of inequalities in the roads are pro tanto morally objectionable simply as such. A system of publicly accessible roads is a precondition for justifiable enclosure of land. Further, the justifiability of enclosure depends on the system of roads fulfilling certain functions for all those subject to the regime of enclosure. This condition imposes constraints on the use of heavy vehicles within the road system. It is doubtful whether existing road systems in fact live up to this justificatory condition

Enclosure · Government (linguistics) · Movement (music) · Geographies of human-animal interactions · Spatial and Cultural Studies · Water Governance and Infrastructure

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