Chetan Cetty

1. "Self-defense, claim-rights, and guns"

Abstract: The right to self-defense has played a major role in objections to gun regulation. Many contend that gun regulations threaten this right. While much philosophical discussion has focused on the relation between guns and this right, less attention has been paid to the argument for the right of self-defense itself. In this article, I examine this argument. Gunrights defenders contend that the right of self-defense is needed to explain why interferences in self-defense are wrong. I propose an alternative explanation for such wrongs, one which does not posit the existence of a self-defense right, and then show how it undermines their claim that there exists a strong presumption against gun regulation. I conclude by articulating the implications of this alternative explanatory account for other rights.

2. "Talking About Private Government: A Review of the Economic Claims Made to Rebut Anderson’s Analysis"

Abstract: In Private Government: How Employers Rule Our Lives (and Why We Don’t Talk About It), Elizabeth Anderson argues that most people in the United States and other liberal societies spend their working lives under the kind of autocratic rule we would normally associate with communist dictatorships. They are forced to work in oppressive environments, deprived of many freedoms, and given practically no say over working conditions. Even in their nonworking lives workers are frequently subjected to employer scrutiny and sanction. And the legal framework and economic realities surrounding employment are such that exit is viable for only a small minority. Anderson’s work has generated great interest and, along with it, several criticisms that take exception to her observations, economic assumptions, and conclusions. This paper delineates the various economic claims made against Private Government so as to facilitate further inquiry of these issues.

3. "Understanding the claims about labor markets in debates on ‘Private Government"

1. A paper on racism, Mills, and Rawls

Charles Mills argues that due to its deep history and continued structural racism, contemporary American society cannot be said to endorse the normative liberal ideals that Rawls claims can serve as the basis for its endorsement of his theory of justice ("justice as fairness"). Hence, Mills contends that Rawls's theory of liberal justice does not apply to contemporary America. I argue that Mills's contention fails because it relies on a simplistic understanding of how a society might be racist.

2. A paper on ideal theory and Rawls

A paper that argues that despite the focus on his theory, the ideal-nonideal theory debate is not in fact a debate about the permissibility of Rawlsian ideal theory at all but instead about the tension between two goals of theorizing we care about: truths about justice and whether those truths are grounded in facts about who we are.

3. A paper on political ideals, pragmatism, and utopianism

This paper investigates whether the disagreement between ideal theorists and their critics is a genuine disagreement at all. Some have suggested that each side simply seeks to answer a different set of questions. Whether there are important overlapping concerns between each set of theorists has been underexplored in the literature. I argue that such overlapping concerns do exist, and show how this commits many non-ideal theorists to pursue more ambitious (but still feasible) principles of justice.

4. A paper on social media and public health

This paper investigates the implications of the addictiveness of social media use for public health ethics. If, as studies suggest, social media use affects our cognition and behavior in ways similar to alcohol and tobacco use, then this suggests that we should similarly regulate access to it. However, since such regulation is harder to enforce, I argue that we should instead develop public education campaigns designed to foster social norms deploring regular social media use.

5. A paper on guns and resisting tyranny

This paper responds to the prominent argument that guns are needed to insure us against a tyrannical state. I argue that rational agents agreeing to terms of cooperation would not consent to a right to guns on such a basis.

"Ideals from a Distance: Assessing Objections to Idealization within Moral and Political Theory,"

Abstract: In my dissertation, I defend the practice of idealization within moral and political philosophy. We idealize when we represent the world and the agents within it as being more perfect than their actual versions. For instance, philosophers have often defended views about what is good, just, and morally right on the grounds that rational or fully informed versions of us would endorse such views. Idealization, they argue, is indispensable because it enables us to step back from our actual, imperfect points of view and consider such questions in a rational and impartial manner. In recent years, many have challenged such use of idealization. They contend that moral and political theories that idealize fail to tell us what morality and justice constitute for actual agents who lack such capacities. I examine four prominent objections to idealization: (1) that idealizing theories fail to be action-guiding; (2) that the ideal worlds they imagine are infeasible; (3) that their recommendation for what is good for us is alienating; and (4) that these theories’ justification for why we should appeal to idealized responses is ad hoc. I argue that there is nothing generally problematic about such idealizations and that once we cast each of these constraints (action-guidingness, feasibility, non-alienation, and adequate motivation) in their proper light, we can see how influential theories that idealize (specifically, ideal theory, and ideal observer theory) can satisfy these constraints. Idealization is unproblematic, in my view, if theories employing it can meet these constraints. By clarifying the role of idealization, my dissertation generates important lessons for how we should pursue the most fundamental questions within moral and political philosophy.