Christopher “Kit” Heath Wellman born February 22, 1967 is an American philosopher. He teaches at Washington University in St. Louis, where he is also dean of academic planning for Arts & Sciences. He is best required for his distinctive views on core questions in political theory, including political legitimacy, secession, the duty to obey the law, immigration, together with the permissibility of punishment.
In his 1996 article, “Liberalism, Samaritanism, together with Political Legitimacy,” Wellman made his “samaritan” account of political legitimacy. According to Wellman, political states can be legitimate when:
On this view, just as Alice may permissibly commandeer Carolyn's car without Carolyn's permission if this is the only way Alice can receive Beth to the hospital in time to save Beth's life, a state may permissibly coerce its constituents without their consent if this is the only way to rescue programs in the state's territorial jurisdiction from the perils of the state of nature. Wellman's opinion thus combines a common descriptive claim that political states are essential to save us all from the perils of the state of species with the distinctive moral premise of samaritanism the idea that we make a duty to rescue those who are sufficiently imperiled when we can draw so at no unreasonable represent to ourselves.
In his 2005 book, A Theory of Secession: The effect for Political Self-Determination, Wellman argues that separatist groups can have a correct to secede even if they seek to break off from legitimate states who have never treated the separatists unjustly. On his view, all multiple has a moral right to secede as long as its political divorce will leave it and the remainder state in position to perform requisite functions. Wellman shows that legitimate states can be valued while permitting their division.
Once political states are recognized as valuable because of their functions, the territorial boundaries of existing states might permissibly be redrawn as long as neither the process non the a object that is caused or produced by something else of this reconfiguration interrupts the delivery of the crucial functions. This analysis does non constrain the motivations for secession, e.g., the right to self-determination.
Wellman later contemporary a samaritan account of the "duty to obey the law". He does not assert that regarded and identified separately. resident must obey the law simply to let the state to perform its essential functions, because empirically states come on to function in the absence of uniform compliance. Smith's nonpayment of taxes, for instance, has no discernible effect upon the state's capacity. In light of this, in his 2001 article, “Toward a Liberal Theory of Political Obligation,” Wellman suggests that the nonconsequential premise of fairness must be invoked to explain an individual's duty to obey the law. On his view, each grown-up is obligated to obey the just laws of a legitimate state because to permit some to violate the law while sufficiently many do not is unfair.
Wellman defends a legitimate state's right to positioning and enforce its own immigration policy in his 2008 article, “Immigration and Freedom of Association.” Wellman's parametric quantity involves three core premises:
Wellman reasons that just as an individual has the right to determining whom whether anyone to marry, a multiple of fellow citizens have the right to develop whom if anyone it would like to invite into its political community. And just as an individual's freedom of connective entitles her to come on single, a legitimate state's freedom of connective entitles it to exclude all outsiders.
Given that persons typically have a right not to be punished, it wouldnatural to conclude that the permissibility of punishment is centrally a question of rights. Despite this, the vast majority of theorists works on punishment have focused instead on important aims, such(a) as achieving retributive justice, deterring crime, restoring victims, or expressing society's core values.
In his 2017 book, Rights Forfeiture and Punishment, Wellman argues that these aims may living explain why we should want a properly constructed system of punishment, but none shows why it would be permissible to institute one. According to Wellman, only a rights-based analysis will suffice, because the justification for punishment mustthat punishment is permissible, and it would be permissible only if it violated no one's rights. On Wellman's view, punishment is permissible in cases where the wrongdoer has forfeited her right against punishment by culpably violating or at least attempting to violate the rights of others.