Benjamin McKean
Graduate Student
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E-mail: bmckean@princeton.edu
Specialization:
Global Justice & Human Rights, Critical Theory, Liberalism & its Critics, International Relations
BA, Harvard University, 2002 MA, Princeton University, 2006 PhD, Princeton University, 2009 (anticipated)
Thesis Title: The Practice of Global Justice: Transnational Citizenship & the Aims of Political Theory
Committee: Charles Beitz, Jan-Werner Mueller
Abstract: Political theorists have engaged in a debate about global justice centered on the question of whether or not to extend the institutions and obligations of domestic society across existing borders. My dissertation analyzes the shortcomings of this approach as found in Kant, Rawls, and contemporary theorists, and argues that a better approach to global justice goes beyond institutions to consider the relevance of non-rule-bound social practices -- including dispositions, habits, and norms -- given both their independent importance and their role in sustaining institutions. The dissertation argues that the idea of occupying the informal office of transnational citizen helps us to make sense of the political obligations of individuals when justice necessarily reaches beyond state institutions both by penetrating into society and by crossing borders.
Link to: Personal Web site
Link to: Curriculum Vitae