Alyssa R. Bernstein

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Alyssa Bernstein in OHIO News

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Additional email: bastinbernstein@gmail.com

• Education

• Publications - Recent & Forthcoming

• Presentations - Recent & Forthcoming

• Honors, Awards, Fellowships, Grants

• Academic Employment and Teaching Experience

• Academic Service and Professional Affiliations

• Courses Recently Taught

• Languages

Education

Ph.D. Harvard University, 2000

Dissertation:Human Rights Reconceived: A Defense of Rawls’s Law of Peoples
This dissertation develops a critical analysis and reconstruction of the conception of human rights John Rawls presented in The Law of Peoples (1999), and defends it against Onora O’Neill, Charles Beitz, and Thomas Pogge.

Committee:

• Thomas Scanlon, Harvard University (chair)
• John Rawls, Harvard University (1990-98; ceased working in 1998)
• Hilary Putnam, Harvard University
• Michael Blake, Harvard University (1999-2000)
• Joshua Cohen, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (1999-2000)

B.A. Cornell University, 1984

Recent or Forthcoming Publications

• Forthcoming: "Global Climate Change: Political Realism and the Case for a World Climate Bank" in The Palgrave Handbook of International Political Theory: Volume II, edited by Howard Williams, David Boucher, Peter Sutch, David Reidy, and Alexandros Koutsoukis (Cham, Switzerland: Springer International). My chapter in this volume will be Open Access, meaning that Springer will make it available to everyone via the internet, gratis.
• 2023: "Rawlsians and Other Kantians" in The Kantian Mind, edited by Sorin Baiasu and Mark Timmons (Abingdon-on-Thames, England: Routledge).
• 2023: "Autonomy and Objective Moral Constructivism: Rawls Versus Kleingeld & Willaschek" in Philosophia (Cham, Switzerland: Springer Nature), Volume 51, Issue 2.
• 2019: "Cosmopolitanism and the Climate Crisis" in Contextos Kantianos: International Journal of Philosophy, Number 10 (2019). View this article as a pdf.
• 2018: "Civil Disobedience: Towards a Kantian Conception" in Kant’s Doctrine of Right in the Twenty-first Century, eds. L. Krasnoff, N. Sánchez Madrid, and P. Satne (Cardiff: University of Wales Press).
• 2016: "No Justice in Climate Policy?" in Ethics and Global Climate Change: Midwest Studies in Philosophy, Volume XL.
• 2015: "Climate Change and Justice: A Non-Welfarist Treaty Negotiation Framework" in Ethics, Policy, and Environment, Volume 18, Number 2 (a special issue on the Paris climate change treaty negotiations).
• 2014: "The Rights of States, the Rule of Law, and Coercion: Reflections on Pauline Kleingeld's Kant and Cosmopolitanism" in Kantian Review, Volume 19, Issue 2.
• 2013: "War as Means to Peace? Kant on International Right," in Jahrbuch für Recht und Ethik/Annual Review of Law and Ethics, Volume 21.

Full publications list below.

Recent or Upcoming Presentations

• 2020 (Invited): "The Current Relevance of Immanuel Kant's Work, Toward Perpetual Peace," presented at Northwestern University in Chicago, Illinois, as the guest lecturer for a course taught by Professor Rachel Zuckert, on February 26th, 2020.
• 2020 (Invited): "Kant on History, Creative Imagination, and Humanity's Possible Futures," presented for the North American Kant Society at the annual conference of the American Philosophical Association's Central Division in Chicago, Illinois, on February 26th, 2020.
• 2018 (Invited): "Autonomy and Obligation in Kant" -- paper presented at a conference organized by KOSAK (the Keele - Oxford - St. Andrews Kant Society) in conjunction with the annual Rousseau Lecture (given this year by Pauline Kleingeld), March 9, 2018, at Keele University, in Keele, England.
• 2017: "Innate Right, Humanity, Human Rights" -- paper presented at the annual conference of the European Consortium for Political Research (ECPR), in the Section entitled Kant on Political Change, which was co-organized by Howard Williams and Sorin Baiasu, September 9, 2017, at the University of Oslo, in Oslo, Norway.
• 2016 (Invited): "Civil Disobedience and Climate Change: Kantian and Rawlsian Perspectives" -- paper presented at the annual conference of the European Consortium for Political Research (ECPR), in the Section entitled Kantian Peace, which was co-organized by Howard Williams and Sorin Baiasu, September 7-10, 2016, at the Charles University, in Prague, Czech Republic.
• 2016: "Kant on Revolution, Inalienable Rights, and the Grounds and Limits of Political Obligation" -- paper presented at the Multilateral Colloquium of the North American Kant Society (annual conference involving participants from Germany, Spain, Portugal, Italy, Brazil, Russia, and the USA; each of the seven participating countries was allowed up to five slots for speakers), August 7-9, 2016, at Hofstra University, in New York City.
• 2016 (Invited): Panelist (with Stephen Gardiner and David Weisbach, co-authors of Debating Climate Ethics, newly published by Oxford University Press) at event entitled Climate Policy and Climate Ethics: A Debate on Justice and Our Global Future, which was organized by the George Mason University Institute for Philosophy & Public Policy, June 15, 2016, at the Wilson Center, in Washington, D.C.

More presentations below.

Honors, Awards, Fellowships, Grants

• Invited to be keynote speaker at conference, Kant's Legal Theory and Global Justice, June 29-30, 2018, in Bayreuth, Germany. (Declined).
• Nancy Schaenen Sabbatical Year Fellowship Award for Residency at DePauw University’s Prindle Institute for Ethics: 2007-2008
• Fellow of the Carr Center for Human Rights Policy of the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University: 2001 and 2002
• Graduate Fellow in Ethics, Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University, 1991-1992
• Mellon Fellow in the Humanities, Harvard University (1985-87, 1990-91)
• Fulbright Scholar, Hebrew University, Jerusalem, Israel (1984-85)

Travel grants for attending conferences:

• Danish Public Research Council for the Humanities, in conjunction with the Network on Ethics and Justice in the Community of Nations (2004, 2005, 2006)
• Ohio University Institute for Applied and Professional Ethics, Ohio University Department of Philosophy, and Spetnagel Fund (2001, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2007, 2012, 2013, 2016)

Academic Employment and Teaching Experience

Areas of Specialization and Teaching Competence:

• History of Modern Western Ethics and Social/Political Philosophy (especially Immanuel Kant)
• Contemporary Social/Political Philosophy (especially John Rawls and his critics, Global Justice, Climate Change)
• Contemporary Ethics (including Environmental Ethics)
• Philosophy of Law

Academic Employment:

Associate Professor, Philosophy Department, Ohio University (2009-present)

Director, Institute for Applied and Professional Ethics, Ohio University (2011-2016)

Assistant Professor, Philosophy Department, Ohio University (2002-2009)

Researcher and Writer,Carr Center for Human Rights Policy, Harvard University (2001-2002)

Working with the Directors of the Center (Michael Ignatieff and Samantha Power), I helped develop a proposal for improving the human rights curriculum at the Kennedy School of Government, and I researched and wrote about the definition, justification, and practical implications of a human right to development, with special reference to the AIDS crisis in Africa. (This job partially overlapped my two-year position as post-doctoral Fellow.)

Resident Tutor in Philosophy and Social Studies, Dunster House, Harvard University (1996-2002)

Dunster House is one of Harvard’s twelve undergraduate residential complexes. I taught informally, critiqued papers, and provided non-academic as well as academic guidance. I served as an Assistant Senior Tutor (1996-2002), as the head of the House Library (1997-2002), and as the Fellowships Officer (1996-1997, an especially successful year for Dunster’s undergraduate applicants for prizes and fellowships).

Teaching Assistant, Harvard University Extension School (2001)

Teaching Assistant, Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University (1992, 1998, 2000)

Teaching Fellow, Faculty of Arts and Sciences, Harvard University (1987-90, 1993-99)

Research Assistant for Professor Martha Minow, Harvard Law School (1999)

I wrote a research paper, “The Critical Legal Studies (CLS) Critique of Rights,” to assist Professor Minow in writing her introduction to critical theory for The Bridge Project, a website providing information to law students.

Research Assistant for Professor John Rawls, Philosophy Department, Harvard University (1996-1998):
I read and commented on manuscript versions of The Law of Peoples, and obtained requested books and information.

Teaching Assistant, Harvard University Summer School (1994)

Casewriter for the Program in Ethics and the Professions, Harvard University (1992)

I interviewed doctors about federal regulation of abortion counseling, studied briefs pertaining to ‘the Gag Rule’ and Rust v. Sullivan (1991), and wrote an analytic account later used by the Senior Fellows of the Program in Ethics and the Professions.

Teaching Experience

As Associate Professor, Philosophy Department, Ohio University, 2009-present:
Taught regularly:

• Social and Political Philosophy (Philosophy 240 or 2400)
• Ethics (Philosophy 3300)
• Environmental Ethics (Philosophy 335 or 3350)
• Contemporary Social and Political Philosophy (Philosophy 440 or 4400 and 540 or 5400)
• Philosophy of Law (Philosophy 442 or 4420 and 542 or 5420)

Taught occasionally:

• Applied Ethics (Philosophy 4921 and 5920)
• War & Peace Studies Capstone Course (International Studies 4950): I have taught the 4-week
• module on justice and war

Taught upon students’ requests and tailored to their interests:

• Senior Thesis Honors Tutorial
• Independent Study (for undergraduate or graduate students)

As Assistant Professor, Philosophy Department, Ohio University, 2002-2009:
Taught regularly:

• Introduction to Ethics (Philosophy 130)
• Social and Political Philosophy (Philosophy 240)
• Contemporary Social and Political Philosophy: Human Rights (Philosophy 440/540)

Taught occasionally:

• The Philosophy of Law (Philosophy 442/542)
• Taught upon students’ requests and tailored to their interests:
• Senior Thesis Honors Tutorial
• Independent Study (for undergraduate or graduate students)

Taught once:

• What We Owe to Each Other: The Philosophy of T.M. Scanlon (Philosophy 685, also faculty seminar conducted weekly in Spring, 2004)

Ph.D. dissertation reader, English Department, 2004-2005 and 2006-7: Creative Writing Program:

• poetry (twice), non-fiction (once).

As Teaching Fellow, Faculty of Arts and Sciences, Harvard, 1987-90, 1993-99:

Conducted weekly discussion sections and graded papers and examinations for the following semester-long courses (taught by Professors of Philosophy unless otherwise noted):

• Political and Social Philosophy, J. Rawls (twice), M. Blake (once)
• Marx, F. Neuhouser
• Fundamental Questions of Ethics, C. Korsgaard
• Justice, M.Sandel(Department of Government) (twice)
• Property Rights: Morals and Law, F. Michelman (Harvard Law School) (I was Head Teaching Fellow)
• Political Ethics and Public Policy, D. Thompson (Kennedy School of Government).

Designed and taught the following semester-long small-group seminars (tutorials) for undergraduate concentrators in Philosophy:

• Liberalism and Rights
• Utilitarianism
• Moral Relativism
• Integrity and Impartiality
• Self-Deception and Weakness of the Will.

Graded senior theses, conducted senior oral examinations, and conducted the weekly two-hour seminars of the year-long required course for sophomores in the Social Studies HonorsConcentration, for two and a half years. Authors taught included:

• Smith, historians of the French Revolution, de Tocqueville, Weber, Durkheim, Mill, Marx, Foucault, Habermas, Benhabib, de Beauvoir, Freud, Chodorow, Butler, MacKinnon.

As Teaching Assistant, Harvard Extension School, 2001:
Taught discussion sections for the graduate students and graded the graduate students’ papers for the following course:

• Ethics and Public Policy, S. Young.

As Teaching Assistant, Kennedy School of Government, Harvard: 1992, 1998, 2000:
Taught discussion sections and graded papers and examinations for the ethics course required of students in the M.A. program in Public Policy; in 1998 taught class as Guest Speaker:

• The Responsibilities of Public Action, A. Applbaum, J. Mansbridge.

As Teaching Assistant, Harvard Summer School, 1994:
Provided teaching assistance and graded papers and examinations for the following course:

• Biomedical Ethics, E. Hirsch.

Academic Service and Professional Affiliations

Co-organized (with Christoph Hanisch) the panel, "Rights and Duties in Kantian Political and Legal Philosophy," for the annual conference of the European Consortium for Political Research (ECPR), September 6-9, 2017, in Oslo, Norway.

Activities as Director of Ohio University's Institute for Applied and Professional Ethics (2011-2016)

Book manuscript reviewer (occasional) for:

• Oxford University Press (invited, not yet done)
• Routledge
• Westview Press

Journal article manuscript reviewer (occasional) for:

• American Journal of Political Science
• American Political Science Review
• Canadian Journal of Philosophy
• Ethics and International Affairs
• International Theory
• Journal of Political Philosophy
• Journal of Social Philosophy
• Kantian Review
• Politics, Philosophy & Economics
• Res Publica

Ohio University Committees:

• Member of the Honorary Degree Committee (2015-2017)
• Member of the Women’s Studies Curriculum Committee (since 2002).
• Chair of Philosophy Department Faculty Hiring Committee (2015-2016)
• Member of Philosophy Department Faculty Hiring Committee (2014-2016)
• Member of Philosophy Department Faculty Evaluation Committee (2012, 2018)
• Member of College of Arts and Sciences Curricular Themes committees (2013-2014)
• War & Peace Studies (Steering Committee, Curriculum Committee)
• Sustainability Studies: (Steering Committee, Curriculum Committee)
• Member of Promotion and Tenure Appeal Committee (2009-2010)

Member of the North American Kant Society (since 2016)

Member of the American Philosophical Associaton (since 2000).

Trustee of Telluride Association (1983-2009):

Telluride Association, founded in 1911, is a non-profit organization that conducts educational programs providing both intellectual training and practical experience in democratic self-government, and offers scholarships to talented high school and college students to enable them to take part in its summer programs or to live at Telluride House while attending Cornell University (I received both). I did volunteer work for Telluride Association in various capacities. In 2007 I conceived, and won preliminary approval and funding for, the Telluride Association New Orleans Summer Program, a service-learning program for gifted high school students. I served for two years on the Awards Committee (and as chair in 2005-2006), assessing senior theses by Telluride-affiliated students at top universities across the country.

Courses Recently Taught

• PHIL 2400: Social and Political Philosophy
• PHIL 3300: Ethics
• PHIL 4400/5400: Contemporary Social and Political Philosophy
• PHIL 4420/5420: Philosophy of Law
• PHIL 4921/5920: Applied Ethics

Languages

Good or fair reading, very rusty (long ago good or fair) conversation:

• Spanish, Portuguese, French, German, Hebrew, Finnish.

Two years’ academic study (long ago) of:

• Russian, Modern Standard Arabic.

Publications (full list)

Forthcoming: "Climate Governance" in The Palgrave Handbook of International Political Theory, edited by Howard Williams, David Boucher, Peter Sutch, and David Reidy (London, England: Palgrave Macmillan).

Forthcoming: "Rawlsians and Other Kantians" in The Kantian Mind, edited by Sorin Baiasu and Mark Timmons (Abingdon-on-Thames, England: Routledge).

Forthcoming: "Autonomy and Its Paradoxes: Kant on Moral Obligation, Self-Legislation, and Freedom" in Philosophia (Cham, Switzerland: Springer Nature).

2019: "Cosmopolitanism and the Climate Crisis" in Contextos Kantianos: International Journal of Philosophy, Number 10 (2019). View this article as a pdf.

2018: "Civil Disobedience: Towards a Kantian Conception" in Kant’s Doctrine of Right in the Twenty-first Century, eds. L. Krasnoff, N. Sánchez Madrid, and P. Satne (Cardiff: University of Wales Press).

2016: "No Justice in Climate Policy?" in Ethics and Global Climate Change: Midwest Studies in Philosophy, Volume XL.

2015: "Climate Change and Justice: A Non-Welfarist Treaty Negotiation Framework" in Ethics, Policy, and Environment, Volume 18, Number 2 (a special issue on the Paris climate change treaty negotiations).

2014: "The Rights of States, the Rule of Law, and Coercion: Reflections on Pauline Kleingeld's Kant and Cosmopolitanism" in Kantian Review, Volume 19, Issue 2.

2013: "War as Means to Peace? Kant on International Right," in Jahrbuch für Recht und Ethik/Annual Review of Law and Ethics, Volume 21.

2013: "Kant and the End of War: A Critique of Just War Theory, by Howard Williams; and Kant and Cosmopolitanism: The Philosophical Ideal of World Citizenship, by Pauline Kleingeld" (review of two books) in Ethics and International Affairs, Volume 27, Issue 3.

2012: “Climate Justice” (3,000+-word entry) in Encyclopedia of Global Justice, ed. Deen Chatterjee et alia (Springer).

2012: “Political Cosmopolitanism” (3,000+-word entry) in Encyclopedia of Global Justice, ed. Deen Chatterjee et alia (Springer).

2012: “Moral Cosmopolitanism” (3,000+-word entry) in Encyclopedia of Global Justice, ed. Deen Chatterjee et alia (Springer).

2012: “The Law of Peoples” (3,000+-word entry) in Encyclopedia of Global Justice, ed. Deen Chatterjee et alia (Springer).

2012: “The Original Position” (3,000+-word entry) in Encyclopedia of Global Justice, ed. Deen Chatterjee et alia (Springer).

2012: “The Second Original Position” (3,000+-word entry) in Encyclopedia of Global Justice, ed. by Deen Chatterjee et alia (Springer).

2012: “Simon Caney” (1,200+-word entry) in Encyclopedia of Global Justice, ed. Deen Chatterjee et alia (Springer).

2011: “Political, not Metaphysical, yet Kantian? A Defense of Rawls,” in Politics and Metaphysics in Kant, eds. Howard Williams, Sorin Baiasu, and Sami Pihlström (Cardiff: University of Wales Press).

2010: "Force and Freedom: Kant's Legal and Political Philosophy" (book review) in Journal of the History of Philosophy, Volume 48, Issue 4.

2009: "Universal Human Rights in a World of Difference -- by Brooke A. Ackerly" (book review) in Ethics and International Affairs, Volume 23, Issue 4.

2009: “Kant, Rawls, and Cosmopolitanism: Toward Perpetual Peace and The Law of Peoples,” in Jahrbuch für Recht und Ethik/Annual Review of Law and Ethics, Volume 17 (Berlin: Duncker & Humblot).

2008: “Kant on Rights and Coercion in International Law: Implications for Humanitarian Military Intervention,” in Jahrbuch für Recht und Ethik/Annual Review of Law and Ethics, Volume 16 (Berlin: Duncker & Humblot).

2008: "Nussbaum versus Rawls: Should Feminist Human Rights Advocates Reject the Law of Peoples and Endorse the Capabilities Approach?" in Global Feminist Ethics, eds. Peggy Des Autels and Rebecca Whisnant (New York: Rowman and Littlefield).

2008: "International Law and Democracy: A Critique of Kant via Tesón," in Proceedings of the Tenth International Kant Congress, eds. Valerio Rohden, Ricardo Ribeiro, and Guido Antonio de Almeida (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter).

2007: "Human Rights, Global Justice, and Disaggregated States: John Rawls, Onora O'Neill, and Anne-Marie Slaughter," in: (a) American Journal of Sociology and Economics, and (b) The Challenges of Globalization: Rethinking Nature, Culture, and Freedom, eds. Steven Hicks and Daniel Shannon (Malden, MA: Blackwell).

2007: "Justifying Universal Human Rights via Rawlsian Public Reason," in ARSP (Archiv für Rechts und Sozialphilosophie) Beiheft Nr. 108 (Franz Steiner Verlag).

2006: "A Human Right to Democracy? Legitimacy and Intervention,"in Rawls's Law of Peoples: A Realistic Utopia?, eds. Rex Martin and David Reidy (Malden, MA: Blackwell).

2005: "Stuart Hampshire," (extensive entry) in The Dictionary of American Philosophers (Bristol, UK: Thoemmes Press).

2004: "Democratization as an Aim of Intervention: Rawls's Law of Peoples on Just War, Human Rights, and Toleration," in ARSP (Archiv für Rechts und Sozialphilosophie) Beiheft Nr. 95 (Franz Steiner Verlag).

2002: "Women, Gender, and Human Rights: A Global Perspective" (book review) in Ethics and International Affairs, Volume 16, Number 2.

2002: "AIDS and Development in Africa" (book review) in The Harvard International Review (Summer Issue).

2002: "The Law of Peoples," (book review) in Philosophical Inquiry.

Presentations (full list)

2020 (Invited): "The Current Relevance of Immanuel Kant's Work, Toward Perpetual Peace," presented at Northwestern University in Chicago, Illinois, as the guest lecturer for a course taught by Professor Rachel Zuckert, on February 26th, 2020.

2020 (Invited): "Kant on History, Creative Imagination, and Humanity's Possible Futures," presented for the North American Kant Society at the annual conference of the American Philosophical Association's Central Division in Chicago, Illinois, on February 26th, 2020.

2018 (Invited): "Autonomy and Obligation in Kant" -- paper presented at a conference organized by KOSAK (the Keele - Oxford - St. Andrews Kant Society) in conjunction with the annual Rousseau Lecture (given this year by Pauline Kleingeld), March 9, 2018, at Keele University, in Keele, England.

2017: "Innate Right, Humanity, Human Rights" -- paper presented at the annual conference of the European Consortium for Political Research (ECPR), in the Section entitled Kant on Political Change, which was co-organized by Howard Williams and Sorin Baiasu, September 9, 2017, at the University of Oslo, in Oslo, Norway.

2016 (Invited): "Civil Disobedience and Climate Change: Kantian and Rawlsian Perspectives" -- paper presented at the annual conference of the European Consortium for Political Research (ECPR), in the Section entitled Kantian Peace, which was co-organized by Howard Williams and Sorin Baiasu, September 7-10, 2016, at the Charles University, in Prague, Czech Republic.

2016: "Kant on Revolution, Inalienable Rights, and the Grounds and Limits of Political Obligation" -- paper presented at the Multilateral Colloquium of the North American Kant Society (annual conference involving participants from Germany, Spain, Portugal, Italy, Brazil, Russia, and the USA; each of the seven participating countries was allowed up to five slots for speakers), August 7-9, 2016, at Hofstra University, in New York City.

2016 (Invited): Panelist (with Stephen Gardiner and David Weisbach, co-authors of Debating Climate Ethics, newly published by Oxford University Press) at event entitled Climate Policy and Climate Ethics: A Debate on Justice and Our Global Future, which was organized by the George Mason University Institute for Philosophy & Public Policy, June 15, 2016, at the Wilson Center, Washington, D.C.

2016: "ExxonMobil, Climate Change Skepticism, and the Morality of Public Discourse" -- presentation as panelist (with Naomi Oreskes, Bernhard Debatin, Austin Babrow) at event entitled Climate Change Skepticism and Public Discourse, which was organized by the Ohio University Institute for Applied and Professional Ethics in conjunction with the Scripps College of Communication, April 8, 2016, at Ohio University, in Athens, Ohio.

2016 (Invited): "Toward a Kantian Account of Socioeconomic Rights: Comments on 'The Material Conditions of Freedom' by Suzanne Love" -- paper written for the Annual Conference of the Pacific Division of the American Philosophical Association, presented on my behalf by Lucy Allais, March 31, 2016, in San Francisco, CA.

2013 (Invited): "International Peace and the Rule of Law" -- paper presented at Author-Meets-Critics session on Pauline Kleingeld, Kant and Cosmopolitanism: The Philosophical Ideal of World Citizenship, at the Annual Meeting of the Pacific Division of the American Philosophical Association, March 2013, in San Francisco, CA.

2012 (Invited): "Climate Change and Global Justice: A Critique of V. Zanetti, E. Posner, and D. Weisbach" -- paper presented at invitation-only conference co-organized by the Philosophy Department of Georgia State University and the Philosophy Department of Bielefeld University, Germany (principal speakers included Gillian Brock, Lukas Meyer, Richard Miller, Thomas Pogge, Kok-Chor Tan) entitled Global Justice and International Law, September 2012, at the Georgia State University, in Atlanta, Georgia.

2007 (Invited): “On Public Reason and the Overlapping Consensus” -- paper presented at the Workshop on Public Reason organized by Jerry Gaus, November 16-17, at the University of Arizona, in Tucson, Arizona.

2007 (Invited): “Political, Not Metaphysical, Yet Kantian: Rawls versus Flikschuh” -- paper presented at the annual conference of the European Consortium for Political Research (ECPR), in the Section entitled Politics and Metaphysics in Kant, which was co-organized by Howard Williams and Sorin Baiasu, September 6-8, 2007, at the University of Pisa, in Pisa, Italy.

2007 (Invited): “Kant on Rights and Coercion in International Law: Implications for Humanitarian Military Intervention” -- paper presented at the Symposium on Kant’s Metaphysics of Morals, which was organized by Professors Sharon Byrd, Joachim Hruschka, and Jan Joerden, July 22-28, 2007, at the University of Jena, in Jena, Germany.

2007: “Contemporary Kantian Views on Humanitarian Intervention, Just War, and Peace” -- paper presented at the seventh biennial World Congress of the International Society for Universal Dialogue, June 1-5, 2007, in Hiroshima, Japan,

2006: "Nussbaum versus Rawls on Human Rights" -- paper presented at the International Society for Universal Dialogue's group meeting at the Annual Meeting of the Eastern Division of the American Philosophical Association, Washington, D.C.

2006 (Invited keynote speaker): "Toward Perpetual Peace and The Law of Peoples : How Rawls Develops Kant" -- paper presented at a conference entitled Kant's Vision of Peace in his "Zum ewigen Frieden,” sponsored by the Network on Ethics and Justice in the Community of Nations and the Danish Public Research Council for the Humanities, in Copenhagen, Denmark.

2006 (Invited): “The 2005 Universal Declaration on Bioethics and Human Rights (UDBHR) and the Duty of International Assistance” -- paper presented at a conference entitled Is There a Global Bioethics? Moral, Legal, and International Norms in Bioscience, which was sponsored by the International Humanist Ethical Union, the Appignani Center for Bioethics, the Genetics Policy Institute, and the Alden March Bioethics Institute, in New York City.

2006 (Invited): "Rawls on Respect for Persons and Religious Restraint” -- paper presented as panelist with Paul Weithman and Christopher Eberle at the Annual Meeting of the Pacific Division of the American Philosophical Association, March 23-26, in Portland, Oregon.

2005: “International Law and Democracy: A Critique of Kant via Teson” -- paper presented at the quinquennial World Congress of the International Kant Society, September 4-9, in Sao Paulo, Brazil.

2005: "Human Rights, Global Justice, and Disaggregated States: John Rawls, Onora O'Neill, and Anne-Marie Slaughter" -- paper presented at the biennial World Congress of the International Society for Universal Dialogue, July 15-20, at the University of Helsinki, in Helsinki Finland.

2005: "Justifying Universal Human Rights via Rawlsian Public Reason" -- paper presented at the biennial World Congress of the International Association for Philosophy of Law and Social Philosophy, May 24-29, in Granada, Spain.

2005 (Invited): "Is Kant's Political Philosophy Statist?" -- paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the Western Political Science Association, March 17-18, in Oakland, CA.

2004 (Invited): "HIV/AIDS in Sub-Saharan Africa: Human Rights and Realistic Possibilities" -- paper presented at the AFYA Network of the African Studies Center at Ohio University, in Athens, Ohio.

2004: "A Human Right to Democracy? What Rawls (Should Have) Said" -- paper presented at the Annual Conference of the Pacific Division of the American Philosophical Association, as part of the the Mini-Conference on Global Justice organized by Gillian Brock and Darrel Moellendorf, March 27-30, in Pasadena, California.

2004: “John Rawls’s Law of Peoples and Its Conception of Internationally Enforceable Basic Human Rights” -- paper presented for the Workshop on Rights of Individuals, Nations, and the Community of Sovereign States – Challenges to Contemporary Political Philosophy, at the ninth international conference of the International Society for the Study of European Ideas (ISSEI), at the Universidad de Navarra, August 2-7, in Pamplona, Spain.

2003 (Invited): "Democratization as an Aim of Intervention: Rawls's Law of Peoples on Just War, Human Rights, and Toleration" -- paper presented for the Special Session on John Rawls's The Law of Peoples of the Politics of Human Rights Workshop, at the World Congress of the International Society for Social Philosophy and Philosophy of Law, in Lund, Sweden.

2003 (Invited): "Anti-HIV Drugs in Poor Countries: Influential Objections to Providing Them, and Replies" (Ohio University, the African Studies Center’s AFYA Network).

2002: “The Human Right to Health Care and the HIV Epidemic in Sub-Saharan Africa” (Harvard University, The University Committee on Human Rights).

2002: “Human Rights, HIV, and Gender: A Critique of the Report of the WHO's Commission on Macroeconomics and Health” (Harvard University, Kennedy School of Government, Fellows’ Colloquium, Carr Center for Human Rights Policy).

2002 (Invited): “International Obligations” (Boston, MA, Harvard Model United Nations).

2001: “A Cosmopolitan Conception of Human Rights and Global Justice” (Portland State University, a conference entitled Internationalization of Human Rights and Globalization).

2001 (Invited): "Kantian Constructivism and 'Welfare Rights'" (Hong Kong University’s Department of Philosophy, California State University at Fresno’s Department of Philosophy, and Ohio University’s Department of Philosophy).

2001: "Basic Economic Rights" (Harvard University, Kennedy School, Carr Center for Human Rights Policy, Fellows' Colloquium).

2001: "Two Kantian Constructivist Conceptions of Human Rights" (Harvard University, Department of Philosophy).

2001: “AIDS, Human Rights, and Gender in Sub-Saharan Africa” (Harvard University, Kennedy School, Carr Center for Human Rights Policy, Fellows' Colloquium).

2000: “Toward a Contractualist Conception of Global Justice” (Harvard University, Kennedy School of Government, Program in Ethics; I conducted one three-hour seminar meeting for the Graduate Fellows, who had been assigned by the program director to read the first hundred pages of my dissertation).

2000: “Human Rights, Democracy, and Rawls's Law of Peoples” (Harvard University, Kennedy School, Carr Center for Human Rights Policy, Fellows' Colloquium).

1999: “Rawls versus Pogge on Global Distributive Justice” (Harvard University, Workshop in Philosophy and Economics).

1999: “Human Rights, Liberalism, and Democracy” (Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Workshop in Political Science).

1998: “Moral Rights as Correlates of Perfect Duties of Justice: Rawls, O'Neill, Kant” (Harvard University, Workshop in Moral and Political Philosophy).

1997: “Human Rights and International Relations” (Harvard University, Workshop in Moral and Political Philosophy).

1995: “Rawls's Law of Peoples and Its Conception of Human Rights” (Harvard University, Department of Philosophy, Graduate Student Colloquium).

1993: “The Rights of Cultural Minorities” (New York University, a conference entitled Human Rights, Ethics and Justice in Multicultural Perspectives).