A Defence of Associative Duties
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Authors
Clifton, Owen
Date
Type
thesis
Language
eng
Keyword
Associative Duties , Special Responsibilities , Ethics , Liberalism , Value Theory , Samuel Scheffler , Compatriot Partiality , Nationalism , Cosmopolitanism
Alternative Title
Abstract
In this thesis, I defend associative duties – typically understood as non-contractual, special moral responsibilities that arise from valued relationships – as a genuine class of duties. I do this in the spaces of both normative ethics and liberal, political philosophy. The thesis accordingly has two parts. In the first, I defend a particular account of associative duties against their reduction to obligations and conventional divisions of moral labour, and against popular rival accounts that view associative duties not as duties so much as instruments for realizing a valuable state of affairs in which the relationships to which they are socially attached exist. I suggest the following instead: certain relationships are characterized by properties that constitute moral reasons – which in cases amount to duties given their symmetricity and weight – whose recognition is the same as non-instrumentally valuing the relationships. In the second, I defend the claim that we owe associative duties to our compatriots while in dialogue with liberalism, whose twin values of liberty and equality both cut against associative duties qua non- contractual responsibilities to afford priority to the welfare of our associates. By outlining problems that arise from her traditional eschewing of associative duties, I tempt the liberal to an interpretation of the conflicts between her values and associative duties as “extrinsic”, that is, as between genuinely competing values and their attendant demands.
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CC0 1.0 Universal
Queen's University's Thesis/Dissertation Non-Exclusive License for Deposit to QSpace and Library and Archives Canada
ProQuest PhD and Master's Theses International Dissemination Agreement
Intellectual Property Guidelines at Queen's University
Copying and Preserving Your Thesis
This publication is made available by the authority of the copyright owner solely for the purpose of private study and research and may not be copied or reproduced except as permitted by the copyright laws without written authority from the copyright owner.
Queen's University's Thesis/Dissertation Non-Exclusive License for Deposit to QSpace and Library and Archives Canada
ProQuest PhD and Master's Theses International Dissemination Agreement
Intellectual Property Guidelines at Queen's University
Copying and Preserving Your Thesis
This publication is made available by the authority of the copyright owner solely for the purpose of private study and research and may not be copied or reproduced except as permitted by the copyright laws without written authority from the copyright owner.