A New Normative Foundation for Statism

Patrick Taylor Smith Writing Sample A New Normative Foundation for Statism Abstract: In this paper, I describe a new normative foundation for statism that is based on freedom as non-domination. Statists argue that we owe distributive equality to our fellow citizens and something less than distributive equality to non-citizens. Coercive statists offer a particular account of this difference, arguing that distributive equality is a specific normative response to being mutually subject to a coercive, legal system. Some have rejected coercive statism as conceptually inadequate, arguing that distributive equality is neither appropriate compensation for being coerced nor does it uniquely override the wrongness of coercion. As a consequence, coercive statism is unmotivated. I show that these objections are based on an assumption— namely, that coercion is always a pro tanto wrong that must be compensated or overridden—that statists ought to reject. Rather, I argue that distributive equality is necessary to turn dominating political relations into freely cooperative ones. Distributive equality is a way of being free in the face of power and not a means of being compensated for being less free. I then show that once everyone is a member of a non-dominating domestic order, equality between members of different political orders is not necessary to prevent domination and that this appropriately motivates the central statist contention that we owe different obligations of justice to citizens and non-citizens. Introduction Statists 1argue that particularly robust moral obligations, normally of an egalitarian character, are only triggered between co-members of state-like polities. In this paper, I call these 1 Paradigmatic statists are Rawls (1999), Blake (2001), Risse (2006), Sangiovanni (2007), and Nagel (2005). Most statists accept that there are lesser—and non-egalitarian—obligations of distributive justice that apply globally. See footnote 5. Patrick Taylor Smith Writing Sample additional, stronger moral requirements, ‘obligations of egalitarian distributive justice.’ I further assume that these obligations include something like the following: the prioritized protection of an adequate and equal system of basic liberties (including and especially those guaranteeing the fair value of political liberty), a strong presumption in favor of economic equality, and a guaranteed social minimum. 2 Statism, as a theory of global justice, is composed of both normative and empirical elements. Normatively, statists must present an account of which institutional relations trigger obligations of egalitarian distributive justice and, empirically, they need to show that these relations only obtain between members of the same state. The version of statism I will be discussing in this paper relies on the normative claim that obligations of egalitarian distributive justice are triggered, and only triggered, by co-membership in a coercive legal or political system. 3 Statists of the coercive variant then claim, as an empirical matter, that only co-citizenship in a modern state instantiates these relations in the current global order. Statism’s empirical hypothesis has been subject to serious objection, 4 but some (Sangiovanni 2012 and Arneson 2005) have objected to the normative claim, arguing that the moral commitments of statism are incoherent or implausible independent of whether they accurately characterize the global political order. They argue that statists with a coercive bent have not provided any compelling justification for such a strong and unique connection between coercion and egalitarian distributive justice. I call this series of objections that right institutionalism is under-motivated the rationale objection. This objection raises two questions: 2 These requirements are what Rawls (1999, 14) describes as the necessary features of the family of reasonably liberal political conceptions of justice. 3 This view should be distinguished from cooperative statism (whose prominent advocates include Sangiovanni 2007, Cohen and Sabel 2006, and Mollendorf 2011) where the relevant triggering relations are cooperative rather than coercive. For more, see Blake and Smith (2013) on a taxonomy of statist and non-statist views. 4 Most prominent in this vein have been Cavallero (2010), Valentini (2011), and Armstrong (2009 and 2011). It should be noted that Valentini partially motivates her criticism of the empirical thesis by suggesting that there is a species of coercion that right institutionalists have problematically ignored. Patrick Taylor Smith Writing Sample why does equality justify coercion and why does only equality justify coercion? These objectors argue that the connection between these concepts is left mysterious. I respond to this objection in three steps. First, I show that the rationale objection relies on an uncharitable and problematic assumption about the relationship between distributive equality and coercion: equality is meant to either compensate or outweigh the pro tanto wrongness of coercion. This is a mistake. In the second step, I present an account of political freedom—understood as non-domination or independence—where the equal provision of particular goods transform dominating political relations into freely cooperative ones, from unfreedom to freedom. Distributive equality is not, on this view, something you get in exchange for a loss of freedom; it is what makes you free in the face of power. Third, I then show that once everyone is a member of a non-dominating, domestic political order, inequalities citizens of different political orders need not be dominating. This gives rise to the central normative commitment of a domination-oriented statists: non-domination requires distributive equality within a state but does not necessarily require distributive equality between foreigners and citizens. The Rationale Objection I am defending the view that the more demanding obligations of egalitarian distributive justice are triggered and only triggered between co-members of a coercive political order. Of course, we may owe strong obligations of justice to those outside of our particular coercive system, but those obligations will be in important senses less robust. 5 The coercive statist does 5 There are complications about precisely how to characterize the relationship between our obligations to foreigners as compared to our domestic relations. Blake (2001) argues we have obligations of egalitarian distributive justice to cocitizens but only obligations of sufficiency to foreigners. Nagel (2005) argues for an even more dramatic division: we owe duties of justice only to co-citizens but only moral duties of humanitarian aid to foreigners. Rawls (1999) suggests that we owe duties of assistance to ensure that everyone lives within a reasonably well-ordered polity. The key point is that, in every case, our obligations are discontinuous, with a sharp rupture between members and non-members. It is also important to note that statism as I describe it makes no claims about stringency. That is, I am not claiming that my Patrick Taylor Smith Writing Sample not deny that we should treat outsiders as moral equals. But, just as moral equality might require that we give Milo the Wrestler more food in virtue of his greater size and need, a concern for moral equality may or may not, depending on the context, require that we grant individuals equal rights, privileges, opportunities, or resources. According to coercive statists, being subject to coercion or the imposition of social rules represents a uniquely deep and significant threat to our freedom and demands especially stringent justification. This justification comes in the form of distributive equality and sets the condition for the permissibility of coercively imposing a system of social rules. Without that imposition, we are not required to constrain the freedom of ourselves or others in order to meet the nonexistent justificatory burden. I will focus primarily on the arguments of Andrea Sangiovanni who, along with Richard Arneson, has argued that coercive statists fail to present a plausible connection between the imposition of a coercive system and the demand for distributive equality. Why, Sangiovanni asks, must the coercion be justified by reference to distributive equality and only distributive equality? Furthermore, why does distributive equality justify the imposition in the first place? Ultimately, the argument is that the central commitments of the view are unmotivated: there is no interpretation of the view that can show that distributive equality and coercion are uniquely related to each other. Interpretations that establish the need for coercion to be specially justified do not show that only distributive equality can perform that function while views that show that that certain demands of justice can only be satisfied by distributive equality appear to apply to contexts beyond the coercive imposition of the social order. To support his claim, Sangiovanni distributive obligations to fellow citizens take priority over obligations to foreigners, only that I am required to do more for my fellow citizens. I think it is non-obvious and contextual which obligations take priority and under what circumstances. I leave that question to the side here. Patrick Taylor Smith Writing Sample offers two possible interpretations of right institutionalism, but I will only focus on the first. 6 Rather than show that Sangiovanni’s and Arneson’s arguments concerning the first interpretation are incorrect, I will argue that they rely upon an assumption that some plausible coercive statists need not accept. Pro Tanto Wrongness Views On the first interpretation of statism, coercion represents a pro tanto wrong that demands special justification. The statist then presents the obligations of egalitarian distributive justice as response to inflicting this pro tanto wrong. Sangiovanni writes: ‘The first interpretation begins with the thought that bending people’s will into compliance is pro tanto wrong…According to the Compensation variant, by bending your will, I will infringe on your right to autonomy (or equivalent), and hence I owe your special compensation for the wrong…According to the Outweighing variant, my infringement of your right to autonomy (or equivalent) is not compensated but outweighed (without “moral residue”) by the urgency or weightiness of the general interests protected by the more demanding distributive standard. (Sangiovanni 2012, 86-88) In both cases, the justificatory burden of either compensating 7 or outweighing is met by the provision of distributive equality. The justification may take the form of compensation given to the coerced as a form of rectificatory justice. Conversely, we may think that coercion, as a contingent matter, is necessary for the well-ordered functioning of any large-scale system of social interaction. If so, the distributive equality made possible by that coercive ordering could be an outweighing benefit that justifies the coercion. So, the essential feature of this 6 The second interpretation is founded on the notion that distributive equality results from the particular fiduciary duties of coercive political orders. My view will not make reference to fiduciary duties, so I set this interpretation aside. 7 This is Arneson’s (2005, 137) interpretation. He is skeptical that egalitarian distributive shares appropriately compensate for being coerced. If the coercion is morally justified, then no compensation is necessary. If coercion is unjustified, then one should stop coercing. Arneson is skeptical that ‘compensation’ could be necessary for the moral justification of coercion (Arneson, 2005, 146), but that is precisely what my account purports to show. I submit that part of the reason that Arneson has such difficulty imaging such arguments is that, like Sangiovanni, he views the distributive shares as a kind of material compensation for coercion. I will show that this is not the best interpretation of right institutionalism. Patrick Taylor Smith Writing Sample interpretation is that coercion is always bad but that it can be made permissible if a special burden of justification is met. Finally, that burden can only be met by through the provision of egalitarian distributive justice. Sangiovanni argues that neither the compensation nor the outweighing view establishes right institutionalism. Sangiovanni’s objection to the compensation view is that it cannot explain why coercion generates a specific claim to egalitarian distributive justice. It does seem plausible that we owe compensation for our wrongdoing. If I break the window of your cabin in order to get out of the storm, I might well have been justified but still have an obligation to pay for your broken window. But what the right institutionalist fails to show, on this view, is why obligations of egalitarian distributive justice are the relevant compensation. Egalitarian distributive shares, especially elements like the basic liberties and fair equality of opportunity, are usually not the sort of thing that one is provided in compensation for some other wrongdoing. But even if they were, there is no argument that the specific features of egalitarian distributive shares are the only compensation that would be acceptable. To put it another way, the compensation view offers no principled reason why we could not compensate for coercing someone by providing them with additional welfare. So, the compensation view cannot show why the unique response to coercion is distributive equality. When it comes to the outweighing view, statism is under motivated in the other direction. That is, the right institutionalist cannot show why the demand for distributive equality is only generated by coercive relations. The outweighing view is predicated on the idea that egalitarian distributive shares protect and further sufficiently important interests that they overwhelm the wrongness of the coercion. But if the interests that are being protected or furthered are so important, then why would we not have an obligation to protect or further them in the absence of Patrick Taylor Smith Writing Sample the coercive order? After all, making a non-coercive demand on our assistance seems to be a less intrusive on our autonomy than the requirement that we submit ourselves to a coercive order. In other words, the outweighing view is inconsistent with the relational nature of statism as the significance of the interests served by the coercive order would be morally binding even in the absence of that order. The might be instrumentally important, but it does not change the underlying moral reasons for the egalitarian distribution. The key point is that Sangiovanni’s objections to statism depend upon the claim that coercion—no matter who does it and why—always remains pro tanto wrong. The provision of egalitarian distributive justice is meant to overcome that wrongness. Domination and Statism The problem facing statism, as a normative view, is that the unique, two way relationship between coercive imposition and the appropriate demand for egalitarian distributive shares has not been established. Yet, there is something puzzling about the way theorists have presented the rationale objection. Namely, they do not discuss or engage with particular accounts of freedom that might undergird various interpretations of the coercion view. The central motivation for the statist is that coercion is a particularly deep threat to human freedom, but none of the previous arguments say very much about why and how coercion engenders these concerns. I will show that a right institutionalism that is based on the equal claim that each person has on nondomination is well-motivated and avoids the rationale objection. However, doing so will involve making use of substantial and controversial philosophical commitments about the nature of political freedom. I do not plan to offer a full-throated defense of these commitments but I do hope to both offer good reasons for adopting them and to enhance their plausibility by showing how they motivate a view of global justice that many find plausible. Patrick Taylor Smith Writing Sample The substantive account I will rely upon is freedom as non-domination. 8 Domination occurs when one agent is subject to the arbitrary superior power of another. Two things are important here. First, being subject to an arbitrary authority does not require that one be actually interfered with by that authority. It is a conditional notion: a courtier is subject to the king because if the king had the slightest desire to dispossess or abuse the courtier, it would happen. Of course, the courtier may be a court favorite and the placated king may shower her with lands and gifts but that hardly changes the power dynamic between the two individuals. The point is that arbitrariness is not merely a function of the content, goal or result of the exercise of force but rather about relations of accountability and responsiveness between the agents. 9 A benevolent despot that reliably instantiated principles of justice would still be a despot. 10 Second, coercive interference is not always or simply a constraint on a person’s liberty; it can—perhaps somewhat paradoxically—increase the subject’s freedom if those coercive constraints are themselves nonarbitrary and protect the subject and others from dominating power. In an effective and legitimate constitutional order that satisfies the various conditions for non-arbitrary exercise of power, the law does not reduce the freedom of the citizenry but increases it by protecting its citizens from the private, dominating predations of both fellows and foreigners. Or to paraphrase 8 Some of the main inspirations for this view include, in various ways, Philip Pettit (1997 and 2012), Anna Stilz (2011), and Arthur Ripstein (2009). In what follows, I will try to remain agnostic concerning the Kantian and republican branches of domination oriented political theory, though I think the Kantian variant is superior for reasons that are similar to those presented in Hodgson (2010). Similarly, I do not think that, ultimately, there is an important difference between freedom as non-domination and freedom as independence, so I will be using those phrases interchangeably. For a difference of opinion, see Valentini (2011), especially Chapter Seven. 9 It is this feature that, pace Arneson (2005, 148), opens up a space between whether coercion is reasonable (i.e., a reasonable person would perform the action independent of the coercion) and whether it is rightful. A coercive scheme that forced everyone to do the ‘right’ action could nonetheless be dominating and therefore problematic in terms of autonomy. 10 Pettit (2012, 130-132) makes the distinction between whether a society has achieved a high degree of social justice and whether that society is legitimate. The former concerns whether the social order instantiates certain features and creates certain relations between citizens while the latter concerns whether that social order has been imposed in the right way. For a similar sort of distinction, see A.J. Simmons’ (1999) distinction between justification and legitimacy. I am not sure that questions of legitimacy should be considered as different from those of justice, but there is an important normative question about how a state does something apart from what it does. Patrick Taylor Smith Writing Sample Kant, creating an order where everyone is reciprocally subject to “hindrances to hindrances to freedom” makes everyone free. I will show that if you adopt this account of freedom, in either its neo-republican or Kantian guises, then the rationale objection does not apply. This is more readily apparent if we look at some comparatively simple examples: 1) Red Button One: Members of a community must return to a fortified apartment complex each evening after working the fields because of a nocturnal threat. Above the living area, in a well-appointed yet completely separate, impenetrable, and self-sustaining office, a lookout is set before a red button that can unlock the only doorway out of the main living areas, which locks automatically whenever the door is closed. Every day the button-pusher (i.e., the operator) conscientiously scans for danger and presses the button for every person as they leave and as they return. 2) Red Button Two: Same as Red Button One, but the operator has gotten bored and now requires that every person dance for him before he will allow them to leave. 3) Red Button Three: Same as Red Button One, except this time the buttonpusher correctly sees that the people in the community would see their quality of lives improve with some exercise. So, he requires that each person do some strenuous calisthenics before unlocking the door. He does so because he wishes to increase the health and happiness of the people of the community, and he picks fairly effective means for doing so. In each scenario, the operator is kept entirely separate from the rest of the community and can act with impunity. The operator is thus in a position to unilaterally structure the choices and actions Patrick Taylor Smith Writing Sample available to members of the subject community and that is true regardless of whether that position is used responsibly as in Red Button One, paternalistically as in Red Button Three, or exploitatively as in Red Button Two. Notice, however, that the operator does not have the same power over those who do not reside in the apartment complex; if they do not need admittance, then the operator has no power over non-members. So, the key thing to realize is that Red Buttons One through Three are all examples of domination of the individuals in this particular complex since they all express relations of arbitrary power, and I would submit that we all take those scenarios to be morally non-ideal. 11 Notice that in Red Button One no one is ever actually interfered with and no threat is ever made, but the underlying power dynamics by which the lookout controls what happens to other members of the complex remain and serve as the foundation for the latter scenarios. Button Two is an obvious example of a problematic constraint on individual freedom. The operator issues a threat: he will trap them in or out of the building (a building they must return to) unless they do as he wishes, but the actual exercise of power is completely unrelated to the interests of those subject to that power. In structural terms, Red Button Three is essentially the same constraint (the body movements might not even be all that different) but the operator is using his unchecked and arbitrary power to force people to do something beneficial. In other words, Red Button Three represents a case where a person is made unfree and yet benefits. And here we might agree with Sangiovanni here that the exercise does not even seem to be the right sort of thing to compensate for our oppression. These benefits might make the unfreedom more palatable, but the dominating condition still holds: whether we 11 I hope to convince you of this by referring to the examples, the problematic relationship of unilateral power of decision and autonomy, and, finally, the need to capture the way in which power adapts preferences even without interference. However, if you remain unconvinced, then you can take the rest of the paper to be conditional. If you take domination, as I have described it, to be a serious political wrong, then this leads to significant implications for statism and the rationale objection. Patrick Taylor Smith Writing Sample are in One, Two, or Three is entirely at the discretion of the button-pusher. It is Red Button One which really makes the difference here. If we are so concerned about someone being able to issue threats on the basis of their particular whims—no matter how benevolent those whims might be—then it should remain worrisome when a person refrains from issuing a threat at all based upon their particular whims. In other words, the domination theorist argues that being subject to a person who could make those threats constrains one's freedom as long as that person is in a position of superior power regardless of whether that power is used well. In Red Button One, the condition still holds: the lack of interference or the threat of it remains at the discretion of the button-pusher. In each case, there is nothing that requires that the button-pusher be responsive to the interests of the community and, consequently, no genuine accountability. In other words, the focus on domination illustrates that it is not simply whether one is coerced but whether there are agents with superior power that are in the position to unaccountably and arbitrarily coerce that determines whether one is free. This account of freedom has several beneficial features. First, it is consonant with a broader move towards an understanding of autonomy as relational where it is increasingly recognized that our status as free and independent depends on external factors beyond our control. Second, it captures—in a plausible way—the complaint associated with various political relations where a person with unchecked power nonetheless uses that power to the benefit of the subjects: the nice slaveowner, the benevolent lord, or the enlightened despot. But most importantly, accounts of freedom that are predicated on interference will consistently fail to detect what we might call ‘consensual unfreedom.’ That is, individuals subject to dominators may avoid being interfered with or being coerced simply by accurately tailoring their actions to be acceptable to the powerful. They may very well accept their position in virtue of the benefits Patrick Taylor Smith Writing Sample they receive from the relationship—as a woman may willingly accept as a position as a housewife and carefully act to satisfy the interests of her husband in the face of a system that limits her non-domestic opportunities—and nonetheless be unfree despite the lack of interference and the presence of consent. To put it another way, there are relations that operate effectively with threats or force only because the weaker party engages in complicated maneuvering and preference adaptation. In that case, the weaker party is less free than they otherwise would be. What’s more, coercive power that corrected the relationship in a non-arbitrary fashion would make no one in that relationship less free, at least in terms of domination, than before the coercive intervention. If the above analysis is plausible, then it follows that an individual with unchecked, superior power necessarily dominates regardless of how that power is used and that, in principle, there could be non-arbitrary exercises of power that were nondominating. The difference, on this view, is that non-arbitrary power is accountable power while arbitrary power is not. So, imagine a slightly different case: Red Button Four: The button-pusher, who scans for danger, lives in a watchtower and is tasked with unlocking the door only when it is safe. However, the community has an elevator that allows, with suitable deliberation and the vote of the group, them to replace the button-pusher. It seems clear that members of the apartment community are much freer, politically speaking, in Red Button Four than in Red Button One, and the reason is that the power of the operator plays a clear role in the community's common good while nonetheless being responsive to those who are subject to it. The power of the operator in Four is constrained by external forces in ways qualitatively different from One, Two, and Three. And this is precisely why the operator could Patrick Taylor Smith Writing Sample not act as he does in Two and would only act in Three if the community consented; they can remove him if he does a poor job or abuses his position. In other words, there is a structural feature of the political order that enables the community to prevent the person with superior power from merely acting on a whim. The operators are accountable to the group over which they wield power in a way that goes beyond whether they are inclined to behave virtuously. If they are not accountable, then they may be a nice tyrant or a despotic one, but tyrants are morally problematic no matter how nice they may be. 12 A few things are worth noting here. Domination is a relational concept. If I have superior power over you, then I need to be concerned about whether I am in a position to act arbitrarily and thereby dominating you. If I have no such power, then I lack the same set of moral concerns and may be permitted or required to act very differently. Second, individuals—acting alone in an interpersonal context—cannot prevent domination by simply being virtuously motivated, at least on most accounts. For example, if two people shipwrecked on a desert island and one of them was paralyzed during the voyage, then the other will be in a dominating position regardless of their virtue. 13 In other words, creating mechanisms of accountability, responsiveness, and control requires a social and political order. Accountability and responsiveness, then, are not simply a matter of whether you can convince someone with power to take your interests seriously but 12 Pettit (2012) has, more recently, re-interpreted this point in the following way: freedom involves having equal control over how coercion is being deployed. If the deliberations over the replacement of the button-pusher exhibit fair equality of political liberty, then the equal control condition is met. Since we can control the button-pusher in his exercise of coercion over all of us, then we remain free even while subject to superior power. 13 Some kinds of individual virtue, such as those that represent a kind of integrity by which individuals feel pressure to conform to their public statements, can play some role in non-domination. What’s more, we could imagine ways by which the paralyzed person could come to have some independence. Perhaps she learns to start fires or weave fronds for shelter. This, again, can go some distance towards non-domination. Finally, there is a question of what our moral response to conceptually unavoidable domination ought to be, which I will set aside. Patrick Taylor Smith Writing Sample rather the powerful agent is required to take you into account. And this sort of requirement can only be satisfied in a political order. 14 The new foundation for statism I present is based, in part, on the notion that a constitutional order of a particular kind is morally and politically necessary because individual, private interactions without government (i.e., in the state of nature) cannot solve the problem of domination. There are three problems that are unsolvable in the state of nature, and institutional makeup of a non-dominating state (which I will call ‘well-ordered’ from now on) corresponds with its nondominating resolution of these problems. First, general principles of justice must be specified in ways that pick out particular entitlement schemes. Second, disputes between particular individuals over particular entitlements need to be adjudicated in ways consistent with the equality of both parties. Third, the coercive enforcement of entitlements should not depend on or be structured by contingent power relations between private citizens. A republican state, then, adopts a mixed constitution characterized by a separation of powers in order to resolve each of these three problems. A democratic legislature is an accountable mechanism of specifying the principles of justice that allow for participation and control by the citizenry, an independent judiciary provides for an impartial resolution of disputes, and a public executive with a monopoly on the legitimate use of force ensures that the enforcement of one's rightful claims does not depend on whether one is sufficiently powerful. To put it a bit more broadly: the essential idea is that unilaterally deciding which entitlement schemes are uniquely reasonable without taking the judgment of others into account, unilaterally deciding a dispute without accounting for the status of the other disputant, and unilaterally forcing others to rely on their 14 To put it in Kantian terms, the state of nature is a world inherently devoid of justice since only the creation of a political, omnilateral will can provide the relevant sort of reciprocal and public assurance that makes the provision of private right possible. See footnote 13. Patrick Taylor Smith Writing Sample contingent physical and social power for rights enforcement all represent dominating impositions by one onto others. Finally, the modern-republican state, through a public constitution, relates these three powers so that they operate coherently while providing checks and balances. Freedom as non-domination can serve as the basis for coercive statism once we see that the real threat to autonomy is not ‘coercion’ but rather being subject to the arbitrary, superior power of another. In light of that reinterpretation, we can see that the goal is this: the potential relations of domination between co-members of a state-like polity trigger demands of egalitarian distributive justice and the potential relations of domination between citizens and foreigners do not. Let’s take each claim in turn. The possession of superior power triggers more robust claims of distributive justice because distributive justice is the mechanism for generating accountability and control. For simplicity’s sake, let’s consider Red Button Four. Why should we be interested in the fair value of political liberty in the context of deciding who should occupy the red button post? The answer is that fair value of political liberty is the mechanism for bestowing equal control or accountability upon those subject to the authority and power of the operators. It is how the necessary power of the red button is made consistent with each person’s liberty. We could make a similar argument for a distributive requirement that individuals be guaranteed some level of material prosperity. That social and political guarantee is a means of avoiding domination in the private and economic spheres as well as making it relatively costless to participate in the political and legal debates and processes as needed. So, a constitutional order with substantial guarantees of various basic liberties as well as a concern for material position of the citizens subject to that order is based on the normative requirement that we interact within a nondominating political order. The order and the guarantees are both morally necessary in order to prevent the exercise of arbitrary power, protecting people from dominating exercises of power Patrick Taylor Smith Writing Sample but not protecting individuals from power as such. I would suggest that other distributive requirements would also be engendered by the need to make the constitutional order nondominating, but I cannot describe a full account here. There are two important takeaways to this discussion. First, political orders are necessary in order to regulate interpersonal relations in order to prevent private domination. Second, the political order, partly in order to regulate these interpersonal relations and partly in order to make sure that its own power is nondominating, provides robust rights guarantees that characterize egalitarian distributive justice. The essential point is that these political, social and economic guarantees are not a benefit you receive for giving up some freedom to the political authority. Nor are they a compensation that is intended to motivate your consent to the order. The connection is much closer than that. Consider, we do not think of the person’s vote in Red Button Four as a separate good thing that leads them to accept the power of the operator. Nor are we making reference to the benefits of the red button or the demanded calisthenics. After all, if we were to do that, then we might be convinced to give up our vote if we knew with sufficient confidence that the operator would behave herself. The need to respond to the dangers of the outside world might motivate a particular set of button operating guidelines, but they do not explain why we should have control or should be able to force accountability upon those who operate them. Rather, we give the person in the compound the vote as a way of making that power and the potential for interference consistent with our freedom. The equal control does not make up for us being less free. Rather, having equal control and accountability is a way of being free while also being subject to power. Social interactions that are not mediated by power are impossible. The question is whether the power will be non-dominating or dominating, arbitrary or not. On this view, egalitarian distributive justice is triggered by power not because we need to justify a decrease in our liberty Patrick Taylor Smith Writing Sample but rather because we must have those rights, liberties, resources, and opportunities in order to control that power and make us free. ‘Bending someone’s will’ is not always pro tanto wrong. When that bending of the will is needed to prevent domination and the bending itself is not dominating, then it becomes a necessary constitutive element of individual freedom. The Relational Foundations of Statism We might still worry about Sangiovanni’s point, as expressed in his objection to the outweighing view, concerning the generality of the interest in nondomination. After all, freedom as non-domination is, on my view, a general interest that everyone possesses. Why does this general interest only result in this particular set of concrete distributive obligations when we are taming the superior power we are faced with as co-citizens? The concern for the avoidance of domination appears to be, on this objection, a non-relational moral concept. Superior power may trigger additional obligations, but a concern for domination might trigger those obligations in the absence of that power. There are many powerless people around the world who are routinely and egregiously dominated. Perhaps my view fails to explain why those relationships should not activate obligations of distributive justice simply in virtue of the extreme domination these individuals face. Of course, we might readily concede, for the moment at least, that we are not dominating those people, but why should that matter in determining what our obligations should be? If it is indeed the case that we can make it so that people are not dominated by extending them the protections of egalitarian distributive justice, then it looks like I can offer no good reason to refrain. Before I respond more fully, I should note that if this is an objection to coercive statism, it seems like an objection to any relational understanding of justice. Sangiovanni’s (2007) own view is relational: obligations of egalitarian distributive justice are triggered between individuals Patrick Taylor Smith Writing Sample who mutually and reciprocally support particularly valuable institutions. But, presumably, this view is predicated on the claim that everyone has the relevant sort of moral standing or the right to fair terms for the reciprocal production of key goods. So, we can readily imagine cases where individuals outside of our reciprocal institutions are being egregiously denied what they can legitimately demand in virtue of their support for the relevant reciprocity-generating institutions and where their claims would be fulfilled if we extended the relevant distributive shares to them. Of course, they are not in a relation of reciprocity with us and it is someone else who is denying them what they are rightfully owed. But if this is a relevant response when the relation is one of productive reciprocity, then it is hard to see why an equivalent response is not readily available when the relationship is one of superior power. Yet, Sangiovanni’s objection purports to be specific to coercion-oriented views. My view needs to explain how all relevant relations can be nondominating, at least in principle, in contexts where obligations of egalitarian distributive justice are not extended to everyone. In what follows, I shall consider the potential for domination in a world with two societies. I will further assume that one society is poorer than the other. What’s more, I will grant that the inequality between the societies would be obviously objectionable—from the standpoint of egalitarian distributive justice—if the same inequality obtained within a single society. Then, I will show that all relevant political relations are nondominating within and between both societies despite the inequality. In other words, the scenario I need to describe has three features: 1) there are multiple political orders, 2) the orders are unequal in wealth and life chances for their citizens such that inequality would be unjustified if it occurred between members of the same society, and 3) there are no dominating relations. 15 With regards to the last element, there are, I 15 It is important to see that to respond to the conceptual objections of Sangiovanni and Arneson, I only need to show that there is some world with these features. It remains an open question whether the empirical objection—our world is Patrick Taylor Smith Writing Sample submit, five general types of relation that we need to be concerned with in a world with two societies. The first two concern purely domestic relations: we must prevent private domination between co-citizens in each state and prevent domination by the state of their own citizens. Third, we need to ensure that no domination exists at the interstate level. Fourth, we need to be concerned about whether states dominate foreigners. Lastly, citizens of one state may privately dominate citizens of another. With this relational conception of justice in mind, we can see the problems with Sangiovanni’s ‘general interest’ objection. The standard right institutionalists are not generally committed to there being no obligations of justice outside of the relevant coercive relations. Rather, they are committed to the notion that respect for the underlying value—in this case, freedom as non-domination—can manifest in different ways in different institutional contexts. My view is successful if I can show that the five potentially dominating relations can all be just (or as a Kantian might put it, ‘rightful’) while the domestic relations are resolved in qualitatively different—and more egalitarian—ways than the foreign relations without correcting for the assumed economic inequality between the states. So, consider the following standard, coercive statist case: Red Button Five: Imagine that there are two high-rise, red-button communities: Winchester and McLaren. They are geographically isolated from each other and essentially autarkic. There is some trade and interaction, but it is rare, expensive, and marginal. Both communities are well-ordered, but the residents of Winchester are much wealthier than those of McLaren. simply does not fit the model of coercive statism—still obtains. I am certainly not claiming that interstate relations are non-dominating in our actual world. In fact, I argue in ***** that international domination is endemic in our current global order. Patrick Taylor Smith Writing Sample According to my view, the greater wealth of Winchester does not ground a complaint from McLaren even though a similar class inequality within either society would do so. The reason is that there is no unresolved domination: each community is well-ordered and lacks power over the other. So, no person is dominated from within their society or from without. There are social worlds where the claims of egalitarian distributive justice are not extended that are nonetheless morally acceptable from the standpoint of political freedom. Winchester would have no compelling moral reason to extend its political commitments to distributive equality, whatever they were, to the citizens of McLaren. Of course, if McLaren was not well-ordered and there was substantial intra-societal domination, then Winchester could very well have significant obligations to help. Yet, this remains a different obligation than that which obtains between citizens of Winchester. 16 The general structure of the account is that the domestic relations are resolved through the provision of political and economic equality while the equality between the states blocks domination in foreign relations. More specifically, the distinction between the domestic and the foreign relations is predicated on the qualitative and quantitative differences in the potentials for intra- and intersocietal domination. Quantitatively, exercises of power amongst co-members of the same social, political, and economic order are likely to be more intense in terms of number and duration. 17 Furthermore, they generally concern more fundamental interests and more routinely structure domestic choices. So, insofar as the opportunities are more numerous, more fundamental, and more urgent, it’s unsurprising that that the solutions will need to be more robust and powerful. In 16 Valentini (2011, pages 8, 74) has argued that an important feature of these ‘duties of assistance’ is that they are less demanding, in terms of priority or stringency, than duties of egalitarian distributive justice. I see no reason why this should be so. Both are duties of justice resulting from a general concern for freedom as non-domination. 17 These are the elements that Risse (2006) emphasizes. I hasten to add that, by themselves, these quantitative differences do not suffice to generate a principled distinction between citizen and non-citizen because they show only that usually or probably intrastate domination will be more significant than interstate domination. The quantitative differences amplify the qualitative differences, which does the main work of producing the principled distinction. Patrick Taylor Smith Writing Sample the case of Red Button Five, the geographical separation and power-parity between the two groups makes it very difficult for either to exercise power over the other. But even if we considered a different scenario by which one group raided, attacked, or put pressure on the other, the geographical and social distance between the groups would limit the intensity of the domination. If these tendencies are combined with the fact that Winchester and McLaren both have, in virtue of their social organization, capabilities to monitor and protect themselves from the predations of the other, then we can see why in-group domination is usually both more robust and recalcitrant. Yet, we should readily see that the quantitative differences are, themselves, insufficient. They only establish that usually in-group exploitations of power differentials are more severe and intense. Yet, this is insufficient if we want to show that there is deep, principled difference— in essentially all cases—between domestic and interstate domination. To justify this much stronger right institutionalist commitment, we need to describe a morally relevant difference that obtains simply in virtue of the difference between being a member of the relevant group and not. And in order to understand this qualitative difference, we need to consider the problem of private domination. Private domination occurs when an individual exercises power in virtue of their social and economic position, independent of whether they possess any power through political office. This sort of domination is both possible, and if we accept our prior analysis, unavoidable in a state of nature. In the in-group case, our private interactions are, in an important sense, politically unmediated. Obviously, our interactions are structured by a public, constitutional order. Yet, it is important that, in the case of co-nationals, our interactions are structured by the same order. This may seem like a minor point, but it is not. In the case of a private interaction between myself and a fellow citizen, I do indeed have an advocate for my interests in virtue of Patrick Taylor Smith Writing Sample my membership in a well-ordered polity. Yet, the other person has precisely the same advocate. That is why it is so important that we be given equal protection: we are faced with and represented by the same power and have no other place to go. If the other person has a superior position with regards to the constitutional order, then there is no other legitimate agency to which I can turn to ensure that I am not dominated. In the case of a private dispute between citizens, the political order needs to do something quite difficult: it will need to come down on one side or the other and, yet, protect the loser from domination. The order represents the final arbiter, the sovereign decision-maker. Robust and egalitarian protections are needed to make this extraordinary authority—and the corresponding vulnerability—consistent with the freedom of even those who lose out. This is not so in the case of out-group interactions. If someone from Winchester runs afoul of someone from McLaren, they both have their own powerful advocates whose duty is to consider their interests and protect them from domination. It is important to note that superiority or equality of power is a consequence of one’s social position and having powerful advocates and allies is what partly constitutes that social position. Consider the following case: LINE IN THE SAND: Gaius Popilius Laenas, by himself, met with King Antiochus IV, who was at the head of a large army. Antiochus was in the process of attacking Egypt, a Roman client. Popilius, a Roman Senator, took his walking stick and then proceeded to draw a circle in the sand completely around Antiochus, one of the most powerful monarchs in the eastern Mediterranean. Popilius then ordered Antiochus to cease his invasion and told him that if Antiochus did not respond to his request before leaving the circle, he would be at Patrick Taylor Smith Writing Sample war with Rome. Antiochus answered that he would leave, and his army withdrew. 18 Antiochus IV was personally much stronger than Popilius, who was an old man. He also had an army within shouting distance while Popilius had none. Did Antiochus dominate Popilius? No, quite the opposite. The reason that Popilius is not dominated is that he has a powerful advocate; he does not face Antiochus qua human being, but as a Senator of Rome. Potentially dominating interactions within a state (or, at least, within well-ordered states) do not have this dynamic. Imagine if Popilius was having a dispute with another Senator. The Roman state, in that case, is the advocate and supporter of both parties. 19 And we can readily imagine scenarios where Popilius dominates Antiochus while being dominated by other Romans and vice versa. The nature of political power is complex, and one’s political and social status structures it. It seems implausible that political relations that differ on this key element nonetheless should demand the same normative response. So, in-group and out-group dominating relations are quite different. In-group domination is usually more frequent and intense. More importantly, out-group domination is accomplished in spite of the protection offered by the community of which the person is a member. 20 Out-group interactions, at least in Red Button Five, are characterized by both parties having powerful allies. Now, let us return to McLaren and Winchester. In that case, there is close equality in terms of power and geographic difficulties with power projection, ensuring that citizens of the two groups 18 Livy’s Ab Urbe Condita and Polybius’s The Histories. This offers an interesting role for estates, unions, corporations, advocacy groups, and similar organizations to act as advocates even within domestic politics: they serve, in their role as advocates, a domination-limiting function. If wellordered, such groups can play a vital role in checking private and public domination. The only caveat is that such groups cannot replace or ignore the sovereign determinations of the political community. 20 It is possible that global relations and governance could become sufficiently enmeshed that the world eventually constitutes a single constitutional order. If this occurred, then obligations of egalitarian distributive justice would also apply globally. In fact, I argue in ***** that is, in all likelihood, the ideal scenario. 19 Patrick Taylor Smith Writing Sample are symmetrically oriented. Yet, equality of power between groups does not entirely resolve the problem of out-group domination amongst individuals. Disputes between individuals in locations where the power of the group is attenuated, especially in border regions, can still give rise to domination. Disputes might arise in the unclaimed and border territories between Winchester and McLaren and we can readily see how those disputes may be resolved, at that particular moment, by relatively arbitrary constellations of power between the people who happen to be there. So, the two societies will need to create a joint political order—perhaps through treaties that are incorporated into their respective legal orders—that is designed to reliably resolve these sorts of disputes in a non-dominating fashion. So, there is a role for global governance: it ensures the effectiveness of state commitments and maintains their status as equal and effective advocates for their citizens. It is now possible to describe how the five relation types are resolved: 1) Co-citizens do not dominate each other due to the provision of political and economic equality through the constitutional order. 2) States do not dominate their own citizens as long as the state is ordered in ways that produce genuine control and accountability to the citizenry. 3) Winchester and McLaren do not dominate each other at the state level because they lack superior power over each other and the treaty agreements are effectively incorporated into their domestic-constitutional orders. 4) States do not dominate foreign citizens because they have an effective and equally powerful advocate on their behalf that protects them while also negotiating and enforcing a treaty regime to resolve disputes. Patrick Taylor Smith Writing Sample 5) Individuals do not dominate members of other societies because foreigners are protected by an equally powerful advocate that establishes and guarantees their equivalent social position. Furthermore, they are subject to a domestic legal order that incorporates the relevant treaty regime. So, none of the relevant relations are dominating. Yet, the provision of non-domination between members of a constitutional order that are subject to the unmediated authority of their own state generates obligations of egalitarian distributive justice in a way that relations between individuals who are mediated by different polities does not. So, all persons of Winchester and McLaren have rightful relations with one another and each state despite the fact that citizens of Winchester are, on average, wealthier, than the citizens of McLaren. In other words, we have established that there are possible political orders where the general obligation to respect, further, and create rightful relations results in different distributive obligations in the domestic and international contexts. The political obligations that members of Winchester owe members of McLaren, and vice versa, are complex. First, the non-domination is a general moral requirement, so Winchester has a duty to ensure that McLaren is a non-dominating political order and vice versa. In this particular case, this duty is not onerous as both societies are internally non-dominating. Of course, it is entirely possible that one society’s political order will collapse, becoming either a failed or an authoritarian state. If so, then the other society could be faced with a burdensome duty to engage in institution building, aiding and fomenting revolution, and providing a safe haven for refugees. 21 Second, each society has an obligation to create mechanisms for the 21 One key element to note is that efforts at externally driven reform would need to done in a way that was also nondominating. This would probably set important constraints on external intervention, opening up a space for concerns about self-determination. Patrick Taylor Smith Writing Sample resolution of intergroup disputes in a non-dominating fashion. Again, in this case, this is a relatively simple matter as the two communities have little ability to project power: treaties and the symmetrical bargaining position of the parties seem jointly sufficient. Yet, if technological or social developments made it such that one or both societies could much more easily influence the other, the corresponding intergroup institutions would need to be much more robust. The takeaway point is that neither of these obligations amount, in principle, to a direct concern for political, social, and economic equality between members of different societies. Citizens of Winchester get no vote in McLaren elections and vice versa. Nor is it directly relevant that citizens of one are wealthier than citizens of the other. It is true that there is a general and universal moral concern for non-domination, but this concern does not express itself the same way in all political contexts. Egalitarian distributive shares are owed as a matter of justice as a particular response to a particular political dynamic that obtains between co-members of a domestic political order. What’s more, these shares are not offered as a compensation or as an outweighing benefit for political coercion. Rather, these shares are constitutive of freedom in the face of political power. So, I conclude that the rationale objection does not apply to domination-oriented coercive statism. Empirical Objections Reconsidered Of course, it is entirely legitimate to point out here that the world of Winchester and McLaren is far removed from ours, especially in the assumption of rough equality and internal well-orderedness for all polities in the international order. I agree wholeheartedly that the burden is on my account to show how these insights can be usefully applied in our vastly more complex global order. But the point of the current analysis is to show why the rationale objections fails and to provide a principled, relational foundation for right institutionalism. Whether my view Patrick Taylor Smith Writing Sample then produces plausible and attractive answer to normative questions when faced with the problems of the actual world remains an open question. However, I will make a couple brief points. The domination-oriented account only implies statism when it is combined with the following empirical premise: the relevant triggering relations of egalitarian distributive justice only occur—or can only plausibly occur—within the bounds of the state. Yet, many have suggested that statism is vulnerable to extension arguments. That is, even according to the statists’ own normative presuppositions, egalitarian distributive justice needs to be expanded beyond state borders. For example, if we think that relations of political coercion trigger obligations of egalitarian distributive justice, then statism appears to be undermined by the simple fact that states coerce people who are not citizens and do not lie within their borders. Unsurprisingly, many have argued that a coercion based statism actually implies a global egalitarianism in virtue of border enforcement, global economic governance, or military intervention. In each case, the coercive power of the state outruns its membership. My view has much greater and more compelling resources for combatting extension arguments than other interpretations of statism. The key difference is that only unmediated subjugation to political power triggers obligations of egalitarian distributive justice; being subjected—in a mediated fashion—to the political power of another state does not necessarily demand distributive egalitarianism as a response. As long as states are well-ordered and operate within an international context where their equal status is protected, then those states will be effective advocates on behalf of their members. 22 It is much more plausible that, in light of large 22 There are, of course, interesting and deep questions of who ought to be granted social and political membership, particularly in the contexts of undocumented immigration and asylum law. For an application of my view to some of these questions, see my *********. Patrick Taylor Smith Writing Sample differentials in economic and political power between states, that social memberships tracks distinctions in mediation rather than the extent and scope of political coercion. International politics, then, represents a secondary site of justice: global governance institutions need to be designed to ensure the equal status of states as effective mediators. Thus, we have the theoretical basis for a moral division of labor in the domestic and international contexts. 23 23 There is a key question remaining for statism. Namely, can global governance institutions play the role I describe for them in the context of the large-scale differentials in power between states. It may be the case that a multipolar system of states is normatively ‘untameable’ in the sense that there is no non-dominating mechanism for appropriately structuring and directing state behavior in a non-arbitrary fashion. Patrick Taylor Smith Writing Sample Bibiliography Arneson, Richard (2005). “Do Patriotic Ties Limit Global Justice Duties?” The Journal of Ethics, 9: 127-150 Armstrong, Chris (2011). “Citizenship, Egalitarianism, and Global Justice,” Critical Review of International Social and Political Philosophy, 14, (5) -(2009) “Coercion, Reciprocity and Equality Beyond the State,” Journal of Social Philosophy, 40, (3), Autumn Issue, 297-316 Blake, Michael. 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