Justice and Global Priorities Research Reading List

The reading list below is based on a reading list originally used for an internal GPI reading group. These reading groups are used as a way of doing an early-stage exploration of new areas that seem promising from an academic global priorities research perspective. Each topic is often used as the theme for one or two weekly discussions, and in most cases those attending the discussion will have read the suggested materials beforehand.

As we thought that it could be a valuable resource for those interested in academic global priorities research, we’re sharing it here, with permission from the authors. All the credit for the list below goes to them.

Motivation

Global Priorities Research (GPR) focuses on issues that arise in response to the question: “What should an actor do with a given amount of limited resources insofar as her aim is to do the most good?” Considerations of justice may be relevant to this question in at least two ways. First, justice may be valuable, and so serve as a goal. Insofar as agents aim to do the most good, they may need to take the promotion of justice (rather than merely, say, the promotion of total welfare) into account. Second, justice might serve as a constraint on the morally permissible pursuit of the good. It may be impermissible for agents to do good in unjust ways, or in cases where they have competing duties of justice of greater moral weight, say, to repair historical injustice or to offset their privilege.

Part I: Justice as a Goal

1. Effective Justice

Miller, David (2021) Justice. In Zalta, ed., Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
Crisp, Roger and Theron Pummer (2020) Effective Justice. Journal of Moral Philosophy 17, 398-415.

2. A Primer on Ideal vs. Nonideal Theory

Sen, Amartya (2006) What do we want from a theory of justice? Journal of Philosophy 103, 215-238.
Robeyns, Ingrid (2008) Ideal theory in theory and practice. Social Theory and Practice 34, 341-362.
Simmons, A. John (2010) Ideal and nonideal theory. Philosophy & Public Affairs 38, 5-36.
Gaus, Gerald (2016) The Tyranny of the Ideal. Princeton: Princeton University Press, Ch. 2.
Barrett, Jacob (2020) Social reform in a complex world. Journal of Ethics and Social Philosophy 17, 103-132.
Valentini, Laura (2012) Ideal vs. non-ideal theory: a conceptual map. Philosophy Compass 7, 654-664.

3. Justice and Beneficence

Gilabert, Pablo (2016) Justice and beneficence. Critical Review of International Social and Political Philosophy 19, 508-533.
Buchanan, Allen (1987) Justice and charity. Ethics 97, 558-575.
Cohen, G. A. (2009) Rescuing Justice and Equality. Cambridge: Harvard University Press., Ch. 7.
Goodin, Robert E (2017) Duties of charity, duties of justice. Political Studies 65, 268-283.
Kukathas, Chandran (2019) Justicitis. In Knoll, Snyder, and Şimsek, eds., New Perspectives on Distributive Justice. Berlin: De Gruyter, pp. 187-204.

Part II: Justice as a Constraint

4. Historical Injustice

Boonin, David (2011) Should Race Matter? Cambridge: Cambridge University Press—pp. 24-54, 106-112.
Cohen, Andrew I. (2009) Compensation for historic injustices: completing the Boxill and Sher argument. Philosophy & Public Affairs 37, 81-102.
Robinson, Randall (2000) America’s debt to Blacks. In Boonin and Oddie, eds., What’s Wrong?, Second Edition. Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 372–3.
Thompson, Janna (2001) Historical injustice and reparation: justifying claims of descendants. Ethics 112, 114-135.
Boxill, Bernard (2003) A Lockean argument for Black reparations. Journal of Ethics 7, 63-91.
Sher, George (2005) Transgenerational compensation. Philosophy & Public Affairs 33, 181-200.
Lu, Catherine (2011) Colonialism and structural injustice: historical responsibility and contemporary redress. The Journal of Political Philosophy 19, 261-81.
Goodin, Robert (2013) Disgorging the fruits of historical wrongdoing. American Political Science Review 107, 478-91.
Boxill, Bernard (2015) Black Reparations. In Zalta, ed., Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.

5. Benefiting from Injustice

Dunham, Jeremy and Holly Lawford-Smith (2017) Offsetting race privilege. Journal of Ethics and Social Philosophy 11, 1-22.
Barry, Christian and David Wiens (2016) Benefiting from wrongdoing and sustaining wrongful harm. Journal of Moral Philosophy 13, 530-552.
Goodin, Robert (2013) Disgorging the fruits of historical wrongdoing. American Political Science Review 107, 478-91.
Butt, Daniel (2014) ‘A doctrine quite new and altogether untenable’: defending the beneficiary pays principle. Journal of Applied Philosophy 31, 336-48.
Haydar, Bashshar and Øverland, Gerhard (2014) The normative implications of benefiting from injustice. Journal of Applied Philosophy 31, 349-62.
Lawford-Smith, Holly (2016) Offsetting class privilege. Journal of Practical Ethics 4, 23-51.
Foerster, Thomas (2019) Moral offsetting. Philosophical Quarterly 69, 617-635.

Part III: Further reading

6. Distributive Justice and Future People

Holtug, Nils (1999) Utility, priority and possible people. Utilitas 11, 16-36.
Brown, Campbell (2007) Prioritarianism for variable populations. Philosophical Studies 134, 325-361.
Adler, Matthew D. (2008) Future generations: a prioritarian view. George Washington Law Review 77 (2008): 1478
Voorhoeve, Alex and Marc Fleurbaey (2016). Priority or equality for possible people? Ethics 126, 929-954.
Nebel, Jacob M (2017) Priority, not equality, for possible people. Ethics 127, 896-911.
Voorhoeve, Alex (2021) Equality for prospective people: a novel statement and defence. Utilitas 33, 304-320.