Steven P Wall

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Scholarly Contributions

Books

• Wall, S. P., & Sobel, D. (2021). Oxford Studies in Political Philosophy Volume 8.
• Wall, S. P., & Sobel, D. (2020). Oxford Studies in Political Philosophy Volume 7. Oxford University Press.

Chapters

• Wall, S. (2025). Autonomy and Options. In NA. Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/9780198925378.003.0015
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  Autonomy is a widely affirmed ideal in modern societies. Autonomous people lead their lives, at least to some substantial extent, on their own terms. Assuming that autonomy is a genuine good, this chapter asks what makes an option set adequate or optimal for people insofar as we are concerned with its contribution to their autonomy. The chapter offers neither a grand formula nor a set of necessary and sufficient conditions for an option set being either adequate or optimal along this dimension. Instead, it critically discusses a range of factors that plausibly bear on these determinations. More specifically, the chapter contends that option sets are best conceived in terms of optimality, not adequacy, and that the conditions of both optimality and adequacy for option sets are considerably more demanding than they are commonly taken to be, that there is no plausible case for providing all members of society with an optimal or even adequate range of options, that access to bad options (options that are immoral or otherwise valueless) can be necessary for option sets to be adequate at least for some, that an autonomy-supporting choice environment has a conservative dimension that stands in tension with dynamic markets and a welcoming embrace of technological and cultural change, and, finally, that the impact of interpersonal interference, as contrasted with natural obstruction, on the value of our option sets is not as significant as commonly maintained.
• Wall, S. (2025). Equality and the distributive argument for paternalism. In Paternalism. University of Michigan Press.
• Wall, S. (2024). PERFECTIONISM. In Routledge handbook. Taylor and Francis. doi:10.4324/9781003411598-34
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  The label “perfectionism” attaches to a family of views in moral and political philosophy. Some of these views center on the human good, others on the promotion and preservation of impersonal goods, such as achievement in the arts or natural beauty. This chapter characterizes a perfectionist approach to politics in terms of what it is morally fitting for the state to do; namely that it is legitimate for the state to promote, deliberately and actively, sound conceptions of the good. This chapter clarifies some of the commitments in value theory and some of the substantive proposals embraced by political perfectionists, highlighting a number of key issues and objections associated with these commitments and proposals. Topics discussed include successful human lives, cultural excellence, state neutrality, reasonable disagreement, and autonomy.
• Wall, S. (2024). Political perfectionism and spheres of state neutrality. In recent book on beyond liberlaism. Taylor and Francis. doi:10.4324/9781032702766-4
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  Two families of views regarding the proper functions of the modern state are commonly contrasted in contemporary political philosophy. On one side, political perfectionists reject state neutrality and hold that it is permissible, and may be a requirement, for the state to support or promote some conceptions of the good life over others. On the other side, liberal neutralists accept state neutrality and hold that it is illegitimate for the state to take sides between rival conceptions of the good life. While the differences between these two families of views is considerably more nuanced than these broad statements suggest, the contrast between them is widely seen to be one that is sharp and deep. This chapter aims to complicate the divide between the two camps. It does so by presenting a perfectionist case for state neutrality with respect to competing conceptions of the good within certain spheres of social life. State neutrality, on the view presented here, is not a global property of state action, but a property that applies to some spheres of state action and not others. The chapter aims to illustrate the complexity and flexibility of this general approach to state neutrality by discussing the specific spheres of religion, language, and speech. On the approach presented here, the character and specification of the relevant neutrality requirements operative in these different spheres of social life rest on substantive, and no doubt controversial, judgments concerning the goods of human life.
• Wall, S., & Sobel, D. (2024). Hybrid goods. In Oxford Studies in Normative Ethics. Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/oso/9780198930785.003.0007
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  Hybrid goods include both an objective and a subjective component. On the account of hybrid goods presented in this chapter, a component of well-being is subjective if and only if its value is determined by warrantless favoring attitudes. A component of well-being is objective if either it is valuable for one irrespective of one's favoring attitudes toward it or, while a normative role for one's attitudes in grounding prudential value is allowed, this role is restricted to attitudes that are appropriately responsive to the goodness of their object. Hybrid goods so understood have not been subjected to much analysis. This chapter aims to show how understanding them brings into view complexities in how the attitudes of persons affect the value of the goods in their lives, casts light on certain substantive prudential goods such as friendship, and illuminates the nature of rational choice between incommensurably good options.
• Wall, S. (2022). Autonomy as an ideal of the good. In NA. Taylor and Francis. doi:10.4324/9780429290411-32
• Wall, S. (2022). Collective Rights and Individual Autonomy. In NA. Taylor and Francis. doi:10.4324/9781315253770-23
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  In discussing the issue of collective rights for aboriginal peoples, national minorities, and other subcultures within modem nation-states, many writers have set as their task the problem of reconciling these rights with a proper respect for individual autonomy. Will Kymlicka, for example, describes his own work on the subject as an effort to develop a distinctively liberal approach to multicultural rights. Most writers interested in justifying collective rights of one sort or another stress that the groups in question must have a shared history and a common culture. The shortcomings of both the diversity argument and the context of choice argument cast light on what a successful distinctively liberal argument for collective rights needs to establish. The argument needs to ground collective rights in the autonomy interests of those who are given the rights, and it needs to explain the significance of the distinction between externally imposed and (non) externally imposed cultural changes.
• Wall, S. P. (2021). Self-Mastery and the Qualifty of a Life. In Positive Freedom(p. 22). Cambridge University Press.
• Wall, S. (2018). Perfectionism and paternalism. In Handbook. Taylor and Francis. doi:10.4324/9781315657080
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  This entry considers the complex relationship between perfectionist politics and state paternalism. It discusses four main claims. These are that perfectionism in politics does not entail state paternalism, that a subset of state paternalistic policies has a perfectionist rationale, that perfectionist justice can require state paternalism, and that perfectionist state paternalism need not contravene a plausible principle of respect for persons. In discussing these four claims, the entry emphasizes that not all state paternalism is perfectionist, but that there is a type of state paternalism that has a distinctively perfectionist rationale. It critically analyzes a range of considerations that speak in favor of, and against, this type of distinctively perfectionist state paternalism.
• Wall, S. P. (2018). Liberal Moralism and Modus Vivendi Politics. In The Political Theory of Modus Vivendi.
• Wall, S. P. (2018). The Good Society. In Oxford Handbook on Distributive Justice.
• Wall, S. (2017). JUST SAVINGS AND THE DIFFERENCE PRINCIPLE. In NA. Taylor and Francis. doi:10.4324/9781315251431-11
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  The issue of just savings between generations presents an important, and for the most Part unappreciated, problem for Rawls’s theory of distributive justice. This chapter expresses that the just savings principle, as Rawls formulates it in his recent work, stands in tension with the difference principle. When thought through, the just savings principle - and more precisely the foundation on which it rests - give the reason to reject the difference principle in favor of a less egalitarian principle of distributive justice. The subject of just savings presents an important, and for the most Part unappreciated, problem for Rawls’s theory of distributive justice. On its face, Rawls’s commitment to the difference principle stands in tension with his commitment to a prioritarian savings principle. The tension can be overcome only if people interpret Rawls’s commitment to the difference principle to be a consequence, given certain facts, of his commitment to prioritarian justice.
• Wall, S. P. (2017). Perfectionism and Paternalism. In The Routledge Companion to Paternalism.
• Wall, S. P. (2016). Freedom, Planning and the Rule of Law. In Oxford Handbook on Freedom. Oxford University Press.
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  Chapter in Handbook
• Wall, S. (2015). Liberalism, neutrality, and democracy. In Cambridge Companion to Liberalism. Cambridge University Press. doi:10.1017/cbo9781139942478.010
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  The principle of state neutrality has figured prominently in recent philosophical debate over the character of liberalism as a political theory. The principle holds that the state should be neutral among different conceptions of the good life and/or comprehensive doctrines that are held by members in the society to which it applies. Two questions about state neutrality are related, but can be distinguished. The first question concerns its interpretation. In what way, or in what respect, should the state be neutral? The second question concerns the grounding or support for the principle. What considerations, if any, speak in its favor? In this chapter I will be concerned mainly with the second of these questions. I will assume that an adequate interpretation of the principle of state neutrality is available, one that holds that the political institutions and the political decisions of a society should be justified in a way that does not presuppose the truth or correctness of any conception of the good or comprehensive doctrine that is controversial among its members. I want to discuss the prospects for grounding the principle of state neutrality, so understood, on the distinctively democratic value of political autonomy. This will require me to characterize this value, to explain its democratic credentials, to show how it can support state neutrality, and to discuss its normative status and force.
• Wall, S. (2014). Perfectionist justice and rawlsian legitimacy. In Rawls volume. wiley.
• Wall, S. (2014). Perfectionist neutrality. In NA. Palgrave Macmillan. doi:10.1057/9781137319203
• Wall, S. P. (2014). Rawlsian Legitimacy and Perfectionist Justice. In A Companion to Rawls. Blackwell Publishing.
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  Published in A Companion to Rawls, eds. D. Reidy and J. Mandle, Blackwell Press.
• Wall, S. (2013). Rescuing justice from equality. In soc phil and policy. Cambridge University Press. doi:10.1017/cbo9781139096812.009
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  This essay discusses Rawlsian justice in general and the difference principle in particular. It does so in the light of G. A. Cohen's masterful critique of Rawls in Rescuing Justice and Equality, a work that not only inspires the present paper, but also serves as a point of contrast for much within it. Like Cohen, I argue that the difference principle and the justifications given for it pull us in opposing directions. Specifically, I argue that Rawlsian arguments for the difference principle present a puzzle and that to respond adequately to the puzzle we must engage in rational reconstruction. To respond to the puzzle we must go beyond asking whether or not a proposed interpretation is one that Rawls himself would have endorsed, and start asking whether it is one that puts Rawlsian justice in its best light. This much, I believe, is common ground between Cohen and myself. However, in stark contrast to Cohen, I present an interpretation-a rational reconstruction-of Rawlsian justice that shows it to be less intolerant of economic inequality than it is commonly taken to be. My aim, in short, is to rescue Rawlsian justice from its commitment to equality. A key motivation behind this reconstructive effort is the following simple thought.
• Wall, S. P. (2013). Moral Environmentalism. In Paternalism: Theory and Practice. Cambridge University Press.
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  Published in Paternalism: Theory and Practice, eds. C. Coons and M. Weber (Cambridge University Press);
• Wall, S. P. (2013). Perfectionism. In The Routledge Companion to Social and Political Philosophy. Routledge.
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  To be published in The Routledge Companion to Social and Political Philosophy, eds. F. D'Agostino and J. Gaus, Routledge Press.;
• Wall, S. P. (2012). "Perfectionism". Routledge.
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  ;Full Citation: "Perfectionism," in Routledge Companion to Political and Social Philosophy, ed. by F. D'agostino and G. Gaus (2012).;
• Wall, S. (2010). Moral environmentalism. In Paternalism. Cambridge University Press. doi:10.1017/cbo9781139179003.006
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  Writing in 1991, and discussing the political climate of the United States, Thomas Nagel made the following observations: There is renewed hostility to homosexuals, and to pornography. Such feelings also play a part in the opposition to the right to abortion, which is closely connected with the opposition to sexual freedom, particularly the sexual freedom of women. While I do not sympathize with the ideals behind this moral environmentalism, it must be recognized that given their values the conservatives do have a genuine interest here, since extensive individual liberty in sexual matters, creates an emotional and cultural climate in which their preferred forms of sexual life are more difficult to maintain and to inculcate in their children. My purpose is not to defend the conservative ideals that Nagel did not sympathize with. This is not an essay on sexual morality. But I do wish to defend the general practice of moral environmentalism that Nagel’s remarks invite us to consider; or to put it more accurately, I wish to defend one understanding of that practice from what I take to be the most important objection raised against it. This objection appeals to the value of personal autonomy.
• Sobel, D., & Wall, S. (2009). Introduction. In NA. Cambridge University Press. doi:10.1017/cbo9780511720185.001
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  Philosophical reflection on practical reason and practical rationality is expanding in all directions. The work being done under these headings has become so broad and diverse that it is difficult to say much useful about the whole area. We will not try. Rather we shall pick a few points of entry into the discussions and try to situate some of the chapters in this volume within these frameworks. PRACTICAL AND THEORETICAL RATIONALITY Normative reasons are facts that count in favor of doing some action, believing some claim, or having some attitude or emotion. Rationality refers to a capacity to recognize and respond appropriately to these facts (or one's take on these facts). There can be more or less demanding standards of rationality. On a common view, a person acts rationally if she does something that, were her beliefs true, she would have sufficient reason to do. On this view, what it is rational for a person to do depends on her beliefs. This brings out an important dependence of practical rationality on theoretical rationality. It is natural to wonder how significant are the differences between practical and theoretical rationality. Recently, some philosophers have argued that the differences are not as significant as they first appear. The demands of practical rationality, they argue, can be explained in terms of the requirements of theoretical rationality.
• Wall, S. (2009). Perfectionism in Politics: A Defense. In NA. John Wiley and Sons. doi:10.1002/9781444310399.ch6

Journals/Publications

• Wall, S. P. (2019). Equality, Political Fairness and Desert. Philosophical Studies.
• Wall, S. P. (2019). Rooted Reciprocity. Journal of Moral Philosophy.
• Wall, S. P. (2018). Drawing the Line on Physician-Assisted Death. Journal of Medical Ethics.
• Wall, S. P. (2018). Subjectivist Perfectionism. American Journal of Jurisprudence.
• Wall, S. P. (2017). Reconsidering Paternalism in Clinical Research. Bioethics.
• Wall, S. P. (2016). Autonomy as a Perfection. American Journal of Jurisprudence.
• Wall, S. P. (2016). Political Morality and the Authority of Tradition. Journal of Political Philosophy.
• Wall, S. P. (2016). The Pure Theory of Public Justification. Social Philosophy and Policy.
• Wall, S. P. (2013). "Enforcing Morality". Criminal Law and Philosophy.
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  ;Full Citation: Criminal Law and Philosophy;Status: Submitted But Not Yet Accepted;
• Wall, S. P. (2013). "Political Morality and Constitutional Settlements". Critical Review of International Social and Political Philosophy.
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• Wall, S. P. (2013). "Rawlsian Perfectionism". Journal of Moral Philosophy.
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• Wall, S. P., & Jansen, L. A. (2013). "Rethinking Exploitation: A Process Centered Account". Kennedy Institute of Ethics Journal.
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• Wall, S. P. (2010). Rescuing Justice from Equality. Social Philosophy and Policy.
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  Invited Paper;
• Wall, S. P. (2012). "Backing Away from Equality". Criminal Justice Ethics.
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  ;Full Citation: "Backing Away from Equality," Criminal Justice Ethics (2012) 31: 96-105.;
• Wall, S. P. (2012). "Public Reason and Moral Authoritarianism". Philosophical Quarterly.
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  ;Full Citation: "Public Reason and Moral Authoritarianism," Philosophical Quarterly (Dec 2012)63:160-169.;
• Wall, S. P. (2012). Public Justification and Moral Authoritarianism.
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  ;Full Citation: Submitted to the Journal of Ethics and Social Philosophy;Status: Submitted But Not Yet Accepted;
• Wall, S. P. (2011). Rescuing Justice from Equality. Social Philosophy and Policy Winter 2011.
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  ;Full Citation: Social Philosophy and Policy 29/1 Winter 2011;
• Wall, S. P. (2010). Neutralism for Perfectionists: The Case of Restricted State Neutrality. Ethics.
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  ;Full Citation: Ethics (2010) 120/2 232-256;
• Wall, S. P. (2010). On Justificatory Liberalism. Philosophy, Politics and Economics.
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  ;Full Citation: Philosophy, Politics and Economics (2010) 9/2: 123-49;

Proceedings Publications

• Wall, S. (2010). Neutralism for perfectionists: The case of restricted state neutrality. In NA, 120.

Presentations

• Wall, S. P. (2021). Autonomy as an Ideal of the Good. University of Wuhan.
• Wall, S. P. (2021). Natural Aristocracy, Instrumentalism, Equality and Excellence. Central Division APA.
• Wall, S. P. (2021). Rights to do Wrongs. University of Wuhan.
• Wall, S. P. (2021). Sovereignty and Consent. University of Wuhan.
• Wall, S. P. (2021). The Objectivist Attempt to Appropriate Subjective Value. Workshop for Oxford Studies in Metaethics.
• Wall, S. P. (2012, 2012-04-01). "Backing Away from Equality". Conference on Amartya Sen. New York, NY.
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  ;Invited: Yes;Type of Presentation: Academic Conference;
• Wall, S. P. (2012, 2012-10-01). "Political Autonomy". American Section of the International Association for Philosophy of Law and Social Philosophy. Baltimore, MD.
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  ;Invited: Yes;Type of Presentation: Academic Conference;
• Wall, S. P. (2012, 2012-11-01). "Rawlsian Perfectionism". Tennesse Value and Agency. University of Tennessee.
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  ;Submitted: Yes;Type of Presentation: Academic Conference;
• Wall, S. P. (2011, 2011-02-01). Comment on Eric Cave's "The Ethics of Seduction. NOISE. New Orleans.
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  ;Invited: Yes;Type of Presentation: Academic Conference;
• Wall, S. P. (2011, 2011-03-01). Moral Environmentalism. Workshop on Applied Ethics. Bowling Green State University.
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  ;Refereed: Yes;Type of Presentation: Academic Conference;
• Wall, S. P. (2011, 2011-06-01). Political Morality and Constitutional Settlements. Conference on Pluralism and Justice. Hamburg, Germany.
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  ;Invited: Yes;Type of Presentation: Academic Conference;
• Wall, S. P. (2010, 2010-03-01). Justice and Efficiency. NOISE. New Orleans.
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  ;Type of Presentation: Academic Conference/Workshop;
• Wall, S. P. (2010, 2010-04-01). rescuing justice from equality. Pol Philsophy Colloquium. Brown University.
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  ;Type of Presentation: University;
• Wall, S. P. (2010, 2010-10-01). rescuing justice from equality. Freedom Center Brownbag. University of Arizona.
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  ;Type of Presentation: University;
• Wall, S. P. (2010, 2010-11-01). rescuing justice from equality. Social Philosophy and Policy Center Conference. Bowling Green State University.
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  ;Type of Presentation: Academic Conference;

Reviews

• Wall, S. P. (2018. Review of Fabien Wendt's Compromise, Peace and Public Justification.
• Wall, S. P. (2011. Book Review of David McCabe's Modus Vivendi Liberalism.
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  ;Full Citation: Ethics, 122/1 October 2011;

Others

• Wall, S. P. (2017, November). Perfectionism in Moral and Political Philosophy.
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  Entry for Stanford Encyclopedia for Philosophy. Updated.
• Wall, S. P. (2014, February). Rawlsian Legitimacy and Perfectionist Justice.
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  Published in A Companion to Rawls (Blackwell)