:: MARTIN O'NEILL
 

:: SENIOR LECTURER in MORAL & POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY
    Department of Politics
   
University of York


:: MAILING ADDRESS
     Department of Politics

  
Derwent College
    University of York
    Heslington
    York  YO10 5DD  U.K.


:: E-MAIL    martin.oneill [@] york.ac.uk

About     Research    Academic Biography   Teaching   Publications 


:: ABOUT 

Welcome to the webpage of Dr Martin O'Neill
[MA, B.Phil (Oxford); AM, Ph.D (Harvard)]

I am a Senior Lecturer in Moral & Political Philosophy, based in the
Department of Politics at the University of York, where I am a member of the Morrell Centre for Toleration, and am also involved with the School of Politics, Economics and Philosophy (PEP).

Here is my Academia.edu page, my Phil Papers page, and my Google Scholar page.

I am on research leave for the 2013-14 academic year, working on a project on "The Signifiance of Inequality",
funded by the Institute for New Economic Thinking (INET).


Property-Owning
                      Democracy book coverMy book, edited with Thad Williamson,
Property-Owning Democracy: Rawls and Beyond,
was published by Wiley-Blackwell in March 2012.

The book's publisher's page is here.
Its Facebook page is here.

"This splendid volume offers a fresh alternative to stale debates about the welfare state versus unfettered markets. It invites us to think anew about the economic arrangements that make democracy possible. The book reconnects political philosophy with political economy, and sets a new and promising agenda for political theory, and for democratic politics."
-- Michael J. Sandel, Harvard University

"Rawls did not say much about property-owning democracy: that is the purpose of this volume, the basis of the “Rawls and Beyond” in its subtitle. The essays collected here provide a serious, critical exploration of the appeal and potential of property-owning democracy. Beginning with Martin O’Neill and Thad Williamson’s illuminating and instructive introduction, the volume is historically grounded, philosophically informed, and inspiringly alive with good practical and moral sense."
-- Joshua Cohen and Joel Rogers, from their Foreword to the book



:: RESEARCH

My
research is primarily in moral and political philosophy.

My topics of special interest include: 
* theories of equality and social justice, including global justice and intergenerational justice;
* liberty, autonomy, choice and responsibility;
* the political philosophies of John Rawls, Ronald Dworkin, G. A. Cohen, Thomas Nagel and T. M. Scanlon;
* normative dimensions of a variety of issues in public policy - especially taxation, financial regulation, corporate governance, workplace democracy, labour policy, trade unions, welfare state regimes, climate change, health policy and education.

I am working with Shepley Orr (of University College London), on an edited collection on Taxation and Political Philosophy, which is forthcoming from Oxford University Press.

I organized an international conference on Justice, Rights and Institutions: Themes from the Political Philosophy of T. M. Scanlon, which was held at the School of Social Scienes at the University of Manchester on 22-23 May 2009.
A special issue of the Journal of Moral Philosophy on Scanlon's political philosophy, containing papers from this conference, is forthcoming.

I have written regularly for the New Statesman, on political ideas and the philosophical dimension of current politics. [Articles can be accessed here.]
I've also written for The Guardian's Comment is Free website on various topics, and for The Big Issue and Tax Justice Focus.

I am
a co-investigator on a research project on "Climate Change, Justice and Vulnerability"directed by John O'Neill and Sarah Lindley(Manchester), and funded by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation.

With John O'Neill, I am co-author of a Joseph Rowntree Foundation Viewpoint Report, on "Social Justice and the Future of Flood Insurance" (published March 2012).

My research has been supported by grants from the British Academy; Leverhulme Trust; Joseph Rowntree Foundation; Political Studies Association;
Chaire Hoover d'éthique économique et sociale; Hallsworth Fund of the University of Manchester; European Consortium for Political Research; Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation; Harvard University Project on Justice, Welfare and Economics; Edmond J. Safra Foundation; Harvard Graduate Society; and the Royal Institute of Philosophy.



::
PUBLICATIONS

:: ARTICLES, CHAPTERS AND REPORTS
 

[16](2013)   "Constructing a Contractualist Egalitarianism: Equality after Scanlon"
                    
forthcoming in the Journal of Moral Philosophy, in a special symposium on the political philosophy of T. M. Scanlon.
(This symposium will also include contributions from Waheed Hussain, Serena Olsaretti, Zofia Stemplowska, Leif Wenar, and Jonathan Wolff.)

[15](2012)  "Priority, Preference and Value"
                    forthcoming in Utilitas, in a special symposium on egalitarianism and prioritarianism.
(This symposium will also include contributions from Greg Bognar, Michael Otsuka, Derek Parfit, Thomas Porter, Alex Voorhoeve & Marc Fleurbaey, and Andrew Williams.)

[14](2012)   (with Thad Williamson)
                    "Philosophical Foundations for 'Good Capitalism'? Labour's Business Agenda, John Rawls and Property-Owning Democracy",
                     in Renewal -- A Journal of Social Democracy, 20: 1 (2012), 20-32.

[13] (2012) (with Stuart White and Daniel Butt)
                   "Liberalism and Trade Unionism", in International Union Rights

[12](2012)  "Free (and Fair) Markets without Capitalism: Political Values, Principles of Justice and Property-Owning Democracy"
                    in Martin O'Neill and Thad Williamson, eds., Property-Owning Democracy: Rawls and Beyond, (Wiley-Blackwell, 2012), pp. 75-100.

[11](2012)  (with John O'Neill)
                  "Social Justice and the Future of Flood Insurance"
                   A Joseph Rowntree Foundation Viewpoint Report. [Summary] [Full Report - PDF] [JRF Blog Post] [Huffington Post piece]

[10](2011)  (with Sarah Lindley, John O'Neill, Joseph Kandeh, Nigel Lawson, and Richard Christian)
                   "Climate Change, Justice and Vulnerability"
                   A Joseph Rowntree Foundation report [Summary] [Full Report - PDF] [E-book - PDF] [Webpage] [JRF Press Release]

[9]  (2010)  "The Facts of Inequality,"
                   Journal of Moral Philosophy, 7(3), 397-409
[This is a link to pre-publication proofs of this article. The finalized version is available from the Journal of Moral Philosophy website.]

[8] (2009) (with Thad Williamson)
                 "Property-Owning Democracy and the Demands of Justice,"
                  Living Reviews in Democracy, Volume 1

[7] (2009) "Liberty, Equality and Property-Owning Democracy,"
                  Journal of Social Philosophy, 40(3), 379-96
(This article is part of a Symposium on Rawls's Idea of a Property-Owning Democracy, also featuring articles by Nien-hȇ Hsieh, Waheed Hussain and Thad Williamson.)
[Publisher's note: This is an electronic version of an article published in the Journal of Social Philosophy. Complete citation information for the final version of the paper, as published in the print edition of the Journal of Social Philosophy, is available on the Blackwell Synergy online delivery service, accessible via the journal’s website at www.blackwellpublishing.com/papa or http://www.blackwell-synergy.com.]

[6] (2009) "Entreprises et Conventionnalisme: Régulation, Impôt et Justice Sociale," [in French],
                  Raison Publique, 10 (Avril 2009), 171-200

[5] (2008) "Three Rawlsian Routes towards Economic Democracy,"
                 Revue de Philosophie Économique, 8(2), 29-55
[The link here is to a version of the pre-publication proofs, but its format and pagination is identical to the published version.]

[4] (2008) "What Should Egalitarians Believe?",
                 Philosophy & Public Affairs, 36(2): 119-56          
[Publisher's note: This is an electronic version of an article published in Philosophy & Public Affairs. Complete citation information for the final version of the paper, as published in the print edition of Philosophy & Public Affairs, is available on the Blackwell Synergy online delivery service, accessible via the journal’s website at www.blackwellpublishing.com/papa or http://www.blackwell-synergy.com.]
[This article is discussed by Jeremy Moss in "Egalitarianism and the Value of Equality," Journal of Ethics and Social Philosophy (2009).]

[3] (2007) "Death and Taxes: Social Justice and the Politics of Inheritance Tax,"
                 Renewal: A Journal of Social Democracy, 15(4): 62-7

[2] (2006) "Genetic Information, Life Insurance and Social Justice,"
                 The Monist, 89(4): 567-92
[The argument of this article is discussed by Mark Henderson in his popular book, 50 Genetics Ideas You Really Need to Know (Quercus, 2009)]

[1] (2001) "Explaining the Hardness of "the Logical Must": Wittgenstein on Grammar, Arbitrariness and Logical Necessity,"
                  Philosophical Investigations, 24(1): 1-29


:: BOOKS
 
Property-Owning Democracy book
                                cover(Co-edited with Thad Williamson),
Property-Owning Democracy: Rawls and Beyond
(Wiley-Blackwell: 2012)

                         
I've co-authored the "Introduction" (with Thad Williamson),
and also contribute one chapter, on:
"(Free and Fair) Markets without Capitalism: Political Values, Principles of Justice, and Property-Owning Democracy"

List of contributors:
Gar Alperovitz (NCESA/ Maryland), Corey Brettschneider (Brown), Simone Chambers (Toronto), Joshua Cohen (Stanford), Nien-hê Hsieh (Wharton, Pennsylvania), Waheed Hussain (Wharton, Pennsylvania), Ben Jackson (Oxford), Martin O'Neill (York), Ingrid Robeyns (Rotterdam), Joel Rogers (Wisconsin), David Schweickart (Loyola, Chicago), Sonia Sodha (Demos/Office of the Leader of the Opposition), Alan Thomas (Tilburg), Stuart White (Oxford), and Thad Williamson (Richmond, Virginia).

"This splendid volume offers a fresh alternative to stale debates about the welfare state versus unfettered markets. It invites us to think anew about the economic arrangements that make democracy possible. The book reconnects political philosophy with political economy, and sets a new and promising agenda for political theory, and for democratic politics."
-- Michael J. Sandel, Harvard University



[Forthcoming:]     (Co-edited with Shepley Orr, UCL),
                           
Taxation and Political Philosophy (OUP, forthcoming)
I am contributing a chapter on "Corporate Taxation, Personal Taxation and Social Justice", as well as co-authoring the "Introduction" with Shepley Orr.
List of contributors:
Laura Biron (Cambridge), Geoffrey Brennan (RSSS, ANU & UNC, Chapel Hill), Gillian Brock (Auckland), Alexander Cappelen & Bertil Tungodden (NHH, Bergen), Peter Dietsch (Montréal) Marc Fleurbaey (CNRS & CERSES, Paris), Barbara Fried (Stanford), Alan Hamlin (Manchester), Serge-Christophe Kolm (EHESS, Paris), Véronique Munoz-Dardé & M.G.F. Martin (UCL), Martin O'Neill (York), Shepley Orr (UCL), Peter Vallentyne (Missouri), and Stuart White (Oxford).

:: ACADEMIC BIOGRAPHY

Before coming to York, I was previously (2007-2009) Hallsworth Research Fellow in Political Economy,
based at the Manchester Centre for Political Theory (MANCEPT), in Politics at the University of Manchester.

I spent February-March 2009 as a Hoover Fellow in Economic and Social Ethics,
at the Chaire Hoover d'éthique économique et sociale at the Université catholique de Louvain in Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium.

I was previously was (2004-07) a Research Fellow in Philosophy and Politics at St John's College, Cambridge,
where I was affiliated with the Faculty of Philosophy and the Department of History and Philosophy of Science.

At Cambridge, I was also (January 2005-June 2006) External Director of Studies in Philosophy at Trinity Hall.

I completed his Ph.D. in Philosophy in the Department of Philosophy at Harvard University.
My dissertation was on Freedom, Fairness and Responsibility,
written under the supervision of T. M. Scanlon, Derek Parfit, and Richard Moran.
In this dissertation, I developed a novel 'Hybrid View' on issues of freedom, responsibility and blame.
A brief abstract is available here, and the full dissertation is available on request.

At Harvard, I twice received the Francis Bowen Prize for Moral and Political Philosophy (awarded for the best student paper of each year).
My dissertation won Harvard University's Emily & Charles Carrier Prize in Social, Political and Moral Philosophy.

I have previously been: a Graduate Fellow in Ethics at the Edmond J. Safra Foundation Center for Ethics, at the John F. Kennedy School of Government;
a Graduate Fellow in the Program on Justice, Welfare and Economics, an interdisciplinary project chaired by Amartya Sen, and based at the Weatherhead Center for International Affairs; and a Charlotte W. Newcombe Doctoral Dissertation Fellow of the Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation.

As an undergraduate, I took a First Class B.A. in Philosophy and Politics (PPE) at Balliol College, Oxford.
(I was awarded the Highest First in PPE in my year, being ranked 1st in the Final Honour School.)

I later returned to Balliol College to take the B.Phil. in Philosophy, supervised by James Griffin, Derek Parfit and Joseph Raz.

:: TEACHING

At the University of York (Jan 2010 - ):
I teach, or have taught, the following modules at York:
   
    Contemporary Political Philosophy (2nd year module)
   
    The Idea of Liberty (3rd year option module)
   
    Global Justice (3rd year option module)
   
    Issues in Contemporary Political Philosophy (MA module)

    Ethics and World Politics (MA module)
   
    Political Research and Analysis (Module for 1st Year PhD students)

At the University of Manchester (2007-09):

MA Course on Normative Analysis and Moral Reasoning,
(in effect, an advanced Introduction to Theories of Justice)
with Zofia Stemplowska (now of the Universit of Oxford)

At the University of Cambridge (2004-07):

Graduate Seminar on 'The Political Philosophy of John Rawls' (Michaelmas 2006) with Fabian Freyenhagen (now of the University of Essex)

Graduate Seminar on 'Global Justice'
(Lent 2006) with Andrea Sangiovanni (now of King's College, London)
Also with Andrea Sangiovanni, Ico-taught a course for visiting U.S. students at the King's College & Pembroke College joint Summer School,
on 'Political Philosophy: Liberty, Equality and Justice in Context' (an intenstive introduction to political philosophy), in Summer 2006.

Graduate Seminar on  'Justice, Equality and Responsibility' with Serena Olsaretti (now of Institució Catalana de Recerca i Estudis Avançats (ICREA) and the Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Barcelona). This course divided into two parts: the first on 'Justice and Equality' (Michaelmas 2004) [syllabus here], and the second on 'Justice and Responsibility' (Lent & Easter 2005) [syllabus here].

Lectures on 'Liberty' (2005-07) for Political Philosophy Part IB
                    'Healthcare, Genetics and Ethics' for the Part II Biological and Biomedical Sciences course in 'History and Ethics of Medicine' (2005-07).

I gave supervisions for the M.Phil. in History and Philosophy of Science (particularly on political issues in bioethics) and the M.Phil in Philosophy,
and acted as an examiner for both the M.Phil. in History and Philosophy of Science and the M.Phil. in Political Thought and Intellectual History.

I supervised undergraduate Philosophy students for papers in Ethics and in Political Philosophy (Part IA, Part IB and Part II);
taught History of Political Thought to students in Social and Political Sciences (SPS) (Part II);
and gave supervisions on issues in bioethics to students taking Part II Biological and Biomedical Sciences.

At Harvard University (2000-04):

Teaching Fellow (2000-2003) for courses in political philosophy and its history (Michael Sandel's 'Justice');
in moral philosophy and its history (T. M. Scanlon's 'Issues in Ethics', and Melissa Barry's 'Reason and Morality');
and in the philosophy of law (Michael Blake's 'Reasoning in and about the Law').

I was also a (2001-2004) Non-Resident Tutor in Philosophy at Pforzheimer House, one of the Harvard undergraduate Residential Houses.

I am a five-time recipient of the Certificate of Distinction in Teaching, awarded by the Derek Bok Center for Teaching and Learning
(once for each semester in which I taught at Harvard).