Impact Factor: 0.6

Published since May 30, 2014

Moral Philosophy and Politics

ISSN: 2194-5624

Editor-in-chief: Michael Schefczyk

Edited by: Lukas Heinrich Meyer, Jennifer Page, Mark Peacock, Peter Schaber

Managing Editor: Peter Königs

About this journal

Moral Philosophy and Politics (MOPP) is an international, peer-reviewed journal that publishes original philosophical articles addressing matters of public relevance. The notion ‘public relevance’ is construed broadly to encompass various domains and aspects. The journal has a special focus on the philosophical assessment of policies and their normative foundations, analyses of the philosophical underpinnings or implications of political discourse, and discussions of the justice or injustice inherent in social and political structures that govern human conduct.

MOPP is committed to the ideals of clarity, evidence-based reasoning, and intellectual openness. interdisciplinary work and historical approaches are encouraged when they are relevant to contemporary issues. MOPP considers both theoretical and meta-ethical works, as well as those tackling conceptual problems, provided they offer insights into political, moral, economic or social issues that characterize contemporary societies. Contributors are expected to make clear how their work relates to these issues.

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Current Calls for Papers

‘Relational Equality and Migration’, ed. by Daniel Sharp (for more information, click here)

‘Longtermism: Philosophical Questions’, ed. by Stefan Riedener (for more information, click here)
‘Ontic Injustice’, ed. by Christine Bratu, Mirjam Müller (for more information, click here)

Call for Special Issues and Symposia

Moral Philosophy and Politics welcomes guest editors who are interested in organizing special issues for our journal. If you have a topic in mind that aligns with the scope and focus of MOPP and would like to collaborate with us, please get in touch with our editorial team. Interested guest editors are kindly requested to include a one-page proposal outlining their envisioned special issue. For more information about the process of publishing a special issue with MOPP, please click here.

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Supplementary Materials

Topics

Volume 10 Issue 1

April 2023

Publicly Available March 29, 2023

Frontmatter

Page range: i-iv

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Articles

March 7, 2022

Institutions and Moral Demandingness

Jelena Belic

Page range: 1-22

Abstract

How much should we sacrifice for the sake of others? While some argue in favour of significant sacrifices, others contend that morality cannot demand too much from individuals. Recently, the debate has taken a new turn by focusing on moral demands under non-ideal conditions in which the essential interests of many people are set back. Under such conditions, in some views, moral theories must require extreme moral demands as anything less is incompatible with equal consideration of everyone’s interests. The insistence on the extremeness of moral demands, however, presupposes a simplistic account of non-ideal conditions as characterized mainly by the non-compliance of many individuals. Non-ideal conditions are also characterized by institutional non-compliance, whereby institutions often do not do what they ought to do. Institutional non-compliance is significant as it increases the size of moral demands significantly, thereby exacerbating the conflict between these demands and the self-interest of individuals subjected to these institutions. I argue that individuals have a meta-interest in not experiencing such internal conflicts as these can undermine their affirmation of self-respect. Meta-interest can be advanced by adopting the promotion of just institutions as an ultimate aim, as such institutions lessen the conflict and, accordingly, enable us to live more harmonious lives. Moreover, the promotion of just institutions allows us to affirm our sense of self-respect under non-ideal conditions too. Because the promotion of just institutions is in our self-interest, this is not an extreme but a moderate moral demand.

Open Access August 9, 2021

Political Equality and Political Sufficiency

Adrian Blau

Page range: 23-46

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Abstract

The distinction between equality and sufficiency, much discussed in the distributive justice literature, is here applied to democratic theory. Overlooking this distinction can have significant normative implications, undermining some defences and criticisms of political equality, as I show by discussing the work of three prominent democratic theorists: Thomas Christiano, David Estlund, and Mark Warren. Most importantly, Christiano sometimes defends egalitarian conclusions using sufficientarian premises, or worries about inequality in situations where insufficiency is also part of the problem; inequality above the level of sufficiency is not always as troubling. Estlund makes the reverse error. He attacks rather than defends political egalitarianism, but insufficiency seems to explain some of his concerns. Nonetheless, I show that political egalitarians may need to specify a sufficientarian threshold, to avoid levelling-down objections. Democratic theorists should thus take seriously the distinction between political equality and political sufficiency. More generally, political theorists and philosophers should be aware of omitted variable bias and interaction effects due to conceptual stretching arising from under-theorised distinctions in their thought experiments.

Open Access December 21, 2021

Means Paternalism and the Problem of Indeterminacy

Johan Brännmark

Page range: 47-67

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Abstract

Many contemporary defenders of paternalist interventions favor a version of paternalism focused on how people often choose the wrong means given their own ends. This idea is typically justified by empirical results in psychology and behavioral economics. To the extent that paternalist interventions can then target the promotion of goals that can be said to be our own, such interventions are prima facie less problematic. One version of this argument starts from the idea that it is meaningful to ascribe to us preferences that we would have if were fully rational, informed and in control over our actions. It is argued here, however, that the very body of empirical results that means paternalists typically rely on also undermines this idea as a robust enough notion. A more modest approach to paternalist interventions, on which such policies are understood as enmeshed with welfare-state policies promoting certain primary goods, is then proposed instead.

March 22, 2022

Dissent and Legitimacy

Geoffrey D. Callaghan

Page range: 69-93

Abstract

An often overlooked tension in liberal theory turns on its commitment to procedural accounts of legitimacy on the one hand, and to the robust protection of the right of citizens to dissent on the other. To the extent that one evaluates legitimate decision-making on the basis of the procedures that bear on it, determining how extra-procedural expressions of dissent fit into the picture becomes a complex undertaking. This is especially true if one accepts that protecting extra-procedural expressions of dissent is itself foundational to the overall legitimacy of the state. My aim in this paper is to explore some of the implications that follow from this tension. The paper proceeds in two parts. In the first part, I review the political grounds that support a protection on dissent. By drawing on its republican foundations, I argue that the functional role that the right to dissent serves in complex political communities is intimately connected to concerns over legitimacy. I claim that for the right to perform its function successfully, protections must be placed on both procedural and extra-procedural forms of dissent. The second part of the paper issues a direct challenge to procedural accounts of legitimacy. If a protection on citizen dissent is vital to legitimating government action, and if that protection necessarily extends to both procedural and extra-procedural forms of dissent, it follows that legitimacy cannot be captured by procedure alone—even procedures that secure the fair and equal participation by all affected parties.

Open Access August 6, 2021

Individual Responsibility under Systemic Corruption: A Coercion-Based View

Emanuela Ceva, Carla Bagnoli

Page range: 95-117

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Abstract

Should officeholders be held individually responsible for submitting to systemically corrupt institutional practices? We draw a structural analogy between individual action under coercive threat and individual participation in systemic corruption, and we argue that officeholders who submit to corrupt institutional practices are not excused by the existence of a systemic coercive threat. Even when they have good personal reasons to accept the threat, they remain individually morally assessable and, in the circumstances, they are also individually blameworthy for actions performed in their institutional capacity.

Open Access September 28, 2021

Egalitarian Trade Justice

James Christensen

Page range: 119-138

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Abstract

This article begins by distinguishing between two approaches to egalitarian trade justice – the explicative approach and the applicative approach – and notes that the former has been used to defend conclusions that are less strongly egalitarian than those defended by advocates of the latter. The article then engages with the primary explicative account of trade egalitarianism – that offered by Aaron James – and argues that its egalitarian conclusions are unduly minimalistic. The aim of the article is not to criticize the explicative approach, but rather to show that the arguments and commitments of its best-known defender – James – either fail to rule out, or in fact positively support, more robustly egalitarian conclusions.

Open Access April 28, 2022

Moral and Political Foundations: From Political Psychology to Political Realism

Adrian Kreutz

Page range: 139-159

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Abstract

The political psychologists Hatemi, Crabtree and Smith accuse orthodox moral foundations theory of predicting what is already intrinsic to the theory, namely that moral beliefs influence political decision-making. The authors argue that, first, political psychology must start from a position which treats political and moral beliefs as equals so as to avoid self-justificatory theorising, and second, that such an analysis provides stronger evidence for political attitudes predicting moral attitudes than vice versa. I take this empirical result as a starting point to intervene in a debate in contemporary normative political theory which has, to my mind, become largely unwieldy: the political realism controversy. I advise the realists to ‘downplay’ the (thus far) inconclusive debate over realism’s metanormative standing in favour of a non-metanormative inquiry. Hatemi, Crabtree and Smith’s study makes for an excellent backdrop. It affirms the realist hypothesis that politics is in some relevant sense – a causal, psychological sense – prior to morality.

January 7, 2022

‘I’m Just Stating a Preference!’ Lookism in Online Dating Profiles

Søren Flinch Midtgaard

Page range: 161-183

Abstract

This paper considers the potentially wrongful discriminatory nature of certain of our dating preferences. It argues that the wrongfulness of such preferences lies primarily in the simple lookism they involve. While it is ultimately permissible for us to date people partly because of how they look, I argue that we have a duty to ‘look behind’ people’s appearance, which I take to mean that we ought not, on the basis of their appearance, to regard them as absolutely out of the question for us to engage with in a romantic setting. Further, constraints similar to those suggested by a duty to look behind people’s appearance gain support from another duty we have, namely, a duty to counteract, also in our daily lives, the fact that people are undeservedly disadvantaged in various ways.

Open Access September 27, 2021

Combining Philosophical and Democratic Capability Lists

Sebastian Östlund

Page range: 185-201

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Abstract

Political practices often aim to reach valuable outcomes through democratic processes. However, philosophical considerations and democratic deliberations sometimes support different conclusions about what a valuable outcome would be. This paper contributes to a research agenda that aims to reconcile recommendations that follow from these different bases. The setting for this research agenda is capabilitarian. It affirms the idea that what we should distribute are substantive freedoms to be and do things that people have reason to value. Disagreements about these valuable outcomes become particularly problematic in urgent situations such as pandemics, floods, and wildfires. These situations are urgent since they are time-sensitive and involve an impending loss of well-being. A method of compromise would help mitigate losses of well-being while respecting the aim of reaching valuable outcomes through democratic processes. I thus offer an equitable and decisive method of compromise that helps integrate philosophical considerations with democratic deliberations.

Open Access June 6, 2022

Climate Justice and the Duty of Restitution

Santiago Truccone-Borgogno

Page range: 203-224

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Abstract

Much of the climate justice discussion revolves around how the remaining carbon budget should be globally allocated. Some authors defend the unjust enrichment interpretation of the beneficiary pays principle (BPP). According to this principle, those states unjustly enriched from historical emissions should pay. I argue that if the BPP is to be constructed along the lines of the unjust enrichment doctrine, countervailing reasons that might be able to block the existence of a duty of restitution should be assessed. One might think that the duty to provide restitution no longer has moral weight if many benefits were already consumed, if the particular benefits obtained from historical emissions cannot be transferred from one country to another, or if present members of developed countries framed their life plans based upon the expectation of continued possession of those benefits. I show that none of these reasons negate the duty to provide restitution.

Ahead of Print / Just Accepted

Ahead of Print / Just Accepted

Volume 10 (2023)

Issue 1

Volume 9 (2022)

Volume 8 (2021)

Volume 7 (2020)

Volume 6 (2019)

Volume 5 (2018)

Volume 4 (2017)

Volume 3 (2016)

Volume 2 (2015)

Volume 1 (2014)

Journal Impact Factor	0.6	2022, Journal Citation Reports (Clarivate, 2023)
Journal Citation Indicator	0.58	2022, Journal Citation Reports (Clarivate, 2023)
CiteScore	1.0	2022, Scopus (Elsevier B.V., 2023)
SCImago Journal Rank	0.291	2022, SJR (Scimago Lab, 2023; Data Source: Scopus)
Source Normalized Impact per Paper	0.550	2022, CWTS Journal Indicators (CWTS B.V., 2023; Data Source: Scopus)

More information about journal rankings

Submit

Moral Philosophy and Politics (MOPP) invites submissions on any topic falling within the scope of the journal. It welcomes both submissions for special issues as well as submissions unrelated to any current call for papers. Submissions should be between 3.000 and 12.000 words in length.

MOPP uses a double-blind refereeing process. The identity of the author(s) of a submission is not known to the referees, nor vice versa. The editor in charge of the submission knows the identity of both. Submissions must be anonymized to allow for blind reviewing. Each submission is typically reviewed by two referees within six to twelve weeks.　

Submissions need not conform to any particular formatting style upon submission, but must be adjusted to the MOPP house style upon acceptance.

Manuscripts are submitted via ScholarOne at http://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/mopp.

De Gruyter allows authors the use of the final published version of an article (publisher pdf) for self-archiving (author's personal website) and/or archiving in an institutional repository (on a non-profit server) after an embargo period of 12 months after publication. The published source must be acknowledged and a link to the journal home page or articles' DOI must be set. Authors may not self-archive their articles in public and/or commercial subject based repositories. Click here for more information on De Gruyter’s self-archiving policy.

MOPP has a policy of making selected papers of every issue openly available for free.

For information on De Gruyter’s Open Access policy, please click here.

Editorial

Editor-in-Chief

Michael Schefczyk (Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, Germany)

Editors

Lukas Meyer (Graz University, Austria)
Jennifer Page (Zürich University, Switzerland)
Mark Peacock (York University, Canada)
Peter Schaber (Zürich University, Switzerland)
Michael Schefczyk (Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, Germany)

Managing Editor

Peter Königs (RWTH Aachen, Germany)

Editorial Board

Elizabeth Anderson (University of Michigan, MI, USA)
Arthur Applbaum (Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, USA)
Dieter Birnbacher (Düsseldorf University, Germany)
Rüdiger Bittner (Bielefeld University, Germany)
Idil Boran (York University, United Kingdom)
John Broome (Oxford University, United Kingdom)
Simon Caney (Oxford University, United Kingdom)
Paula Casal (ICREA/Pompeu Fabra University, Barcelona, Spain)
Stephen Darwall (Yale University, New Haven, CN, USA)
Andreas Føllesdal (Oslo University, Norway)
Rainer Forst (Frankfurt University, Germany)
Stephen Gardiner (University of Washington, Seattle, WA, USA)
Stefan Gosepath (FU Berlin, Germany)
David Heyd (Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel)
Wilfried Hinsch (Cologne University, Germany)
Duncan Ivison (Sydney University, Australia)
Rahel Jaeggi (Humboldt University Berlin, Germany)
Matt Matravers (University of York, United Kingdom)
Kirsten Meyer (Humboldt University Berlin, Germany)
David Miller (Oxford University, United Kingdom)
Nenad Miscevic (Maribor University, Slovenia)
Susan Neiman (Einstein Forum)
Elif Özmen (Ludwig-Maximilians-University Munich)
Nigel Pleasants (University of Exeter)
Thomas Pogge (Yale University)
Mathias Risse (Harvard University)
Sam Scheffler (New York University)
Thomas Schmidt (Humboldt University Berlin)
Ralf Stoecker (Potsdam University)
Adam Swift (University of Warwick)
John Tasioulas (University College London)
Leif Wenar (King’s College London)
Andrew Williams (ICREA/Pompeu Fabra University, Barcelona)
Lea Ypi (London School of Economics)

(Deutsch)

Online ISSN: 2194-5624
Print ISSN: 2194-5616
Type: Journal
Language: English
Publisher: De Gruyter
First published: May 30, 2014
Publication Frequency: 2 Issues per Year
Keywords: Politics; Ethics; Public Debates