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Merten Reglitz

University of Birmingham, Philosophy, Faculty Member

Cluster of Excellence the formation of normative orders, Department of Political Sciene, Post-Doc

University of Warwick, Philosophy, Alumnus

Linköping University, Centre for Applied Ethics, Alumnus

Technische Universität Berlin, Philosophie, Alumnus

The University of Auckland, Philosophy, Alumnus

Freie Universität Berlin, John F. Kennedy-Institute for North American Studies, Alumnus

Freie Universität Berlin, Institut für Publizistik- und Kommunikationswissenschaft, Alumnus

Utrecht University, Ethics Institute, Alumnus

Universität Greifswald, Department of Philosophy, Undergraduate

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Andrassy Gyula German Speaking University

Zemfira Gogueva

Christina Tatoueva

dr Konrad Gliscinski LL.M.

Jagiellonian University

Gianpaolo Maria Ruotolo

Università Di Foggia

University College Cork

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Papers by Merten Reglitz

The socio-economic argument for the human right to internet access

Politics, Philosophy & Economics, 2023

This paper argues that Internet access should be recognised as a human right because it has becom... more This paper argues that Internet access should be recognised as a human right because it has become practically indispensable for having adequate opportunities to realise our socioeconomic human rights. This argument is significant for a philosophically informed public understanding of the Internet and because it provides the basis for creating new duties. For instance, accepting a human right to Internet access minimally requires guaranteeing access for everyone and protecting Internet access and use from certain objectionable interferences (e.g. surveillance, censorship, online abuse). Realising this right thus requires creating an Internet that is crucially different from the one we currently have. The argument thus has wide-ranging implications.

Fake News and Democracy

Journal of Ethics and Social Philosophy, 2022

Since the Brexit Referendum in the United Kingdom and the election of Donald Trump as US Presiden... more Since the Brexit Referendum in the United Kingdom and the election of Donald Trump as US President in 2016, the term ‘fake news’ has become a significant source of concern. Recently, the EU Commission and the UK Parliament have condemned the phenomenon as a threat to their democratic processes and values. However, political disinformation is nothing new, and empirical studies suggest that fake news has not decided crucial elections, that most readers do not believe the online fake news stories they read, and that political polarization in Western democracies like the US began to increase long before online fake news existed. The question then is: how exactly does fake news threaten democracies? This paper argues that online fake news threatens democratic processes because it undermines citizens’ epistemic trust in each other. This in turn threatens to undermine the perceived legitimacy of democratic institutions as a whole. While online fake news is a symptom of a much larger issue (how has the Internet affected democracies, and how can we use its positive power while checking its potential harms?), it deserves particular attention given the potential danger it presents for the viability and the legitimacy of the democratic process.

Internet access as a right for realizing the human right to adequate mental (and other) health care

International Journal of Mental Health

The Human Right to Free Internet Access (Journal of Applied Philosophy)

Journal of Applied Philosophy

In 2016, the United Nation's General Assembly adopted a non-binding resolution regarding 'The Pro... more In 2016, the United Nation's General Assembly adopted a non-binding resolution regarding 'The Promotion, Protection and Enjoyment of Human Rights on the Internet'. At the heart of this resolution is the UN's concern that "rights that people have offline must also be protected online." While the UN thus recognises the importance of the Internet, it does so problematically selectively by focusing on protecting existing offline rights online. I argue instead that Internet access is itself a moral human right that requires that everyone has unmonitored and uncensored access to this global medium, which should be publicly provided free of charge for those unable to afford it. Rather than being a mere luxury, Internet access should be considered a universal entitlement because it is necessary for people to be able to lead minimally decent lives. Accepting this claim transforms our conception of the Internet from a technology to that of a basic right. In the affluent world Internet access is so readily available that it is easy to forget how fundamentally it shapes our lives. Very many opportunities are created or enhanced by the Internet including free, instant, worldwide communication; access to traditional and social media; and 24-hour shopping and services that render traditional storefronts unnecessary. Yet the Internet does more than simply provide new services; it also offers possibilities to promote and enhance crucial human interests. In this paper I argue for a human right to Internet access on the grounds that the Internet is necessary (or at least of crucial importance) to enable the realisation of human rights and the promotion of democracy.

Medical Brain Drain: Free-Riding, Exploitation, and Global Justice (Moral Philosophy & Politics)

In her debate with Michael Blake, Gillian Brock sets out to justify emigration restrictions on me... more In her debate with Michael Blake, Gillian Brock sets out to justify emigration restrictions on medical workers from poor states on the basis of their free-riding on the public investment that their states have made in them in form of a publicly funded education. For this purpose, Brock aims to isolate the question of emigration restrictions from the larger question of responsibilities for remedying global inequalities. I argue that this approach is misguided because it is blind to decisive factors at play in the problem of medical brain drain and consequently distorts the different responsibilities this problem generates. Brock’s strategy, if successful, would effectively lead to punishing emigrating workers from poor states for the free-riding and exploitation that is committed by affluent states – which is a counter-intuitive result.

Fairness to Nonparticipants: A Case for a Practice-Independent Egalitarian Baseline (Critical Review of International Social and Political Philosophy)

Proponents of practice-dependent egalitarianism argue that egalitarian duties and entitlements on... more Proponents of practice-dependent egalitarianism argue that egalitarian duties and entitlements only apply among participants in morally relevant practices. In this paper I argue that these views are implausible because they allow for objectionable treatment of nonparticipants. I show that it is impossible, on the basis of practice-internal considerations alone, to determine the extent to which the pursuit of practices can permissibly limit the opportunities of nonparticipants. There are opportunities beyond the current holdings of practices to which no one has a privileged claim (such as unowned natural resources), and the distribution of which is a matter of justice. A just distribution of such unowned distributive goods, though, requires a practice-independent distributive baseline. I further show that such a baseline can only be egalitarian, because all alternative baselines face serious objections. From this I conclude that any plausible theory of distributive justice must accept some form of equal practice-independent distributive entitlements.

Political Legitimacy without a Claim-Right to Rule (Res Publica)

In the contemporary philosophical literature, political legitimacy is often identified with a rig... more In the contemporary philosophical literature, political legitimacy is often identified with a right to rule. However, this term is problematic. First, if we accept an interest theory of rights, it often remains unclear whose interests justify a right to rule (the ‘grounds of authority’ question): either the interest of the holders of this right to rule or the interests of those subject to the authority. And second, if we analyse the right to rule in terms of Wesley Hohfeld’s characterization of rights, we find disagreement among philosophers about what constitutes the conceptual core of political authority: a power-right or a claim-right to rule (the ‘nature of authority question’). In this paper I show that both of these are problematic for a number of reasons. First, if we think that it is only the interests of the holders of a right to rule that justify the possession of authority, the conceptual core of authority must consist in a claim-right. However, this understanding of authority biases our thinking about legitimacy in favor of democratic exercises of power. Second, if we hold such a decisively democratic view of legitimacy, we confront an impasse with respect to addressing global collective action problems. Although it is clear that political authority is necessary or useful for solving these issues, it is doubtful that we can establish global institutions that are democratically authorized anytime soon. The paper suggests an alternative ‘Power-Right to Command View’ of political legitimacy that avoids the democratic bias and allows for thinking about solutions to global problems via global service authorities.

The Practice-Independence of Intergenerational Justice (Utilitas)

The question whether distributive justice is at bottom practice-dependent or practice-independent... more The question whether distributive justice is at bottom practice-dependent or practice-independent has received much attention in recent years. I argue that the problem of intergenerational justice resolves this dispute in favour of practice-independence. Many believe that we owe more to our descendants than leaving them a world in which they can merely lead minimally decent lives. This thought is particularly convincing given the fact that it is us who determine to a significant extent what this future world will look like. However, no practices that would trigger distributive obligations exist between distant generations. Thus, if we have to leave more than a minimum for future generations, we cannot conceive of distributive justice in terms of the justification of ongoing social interactions. Rather we have to think of the entire concept as an idea based on persons’ legitimate interests and capacity for well-being, and which abstracts from participation in particular practices.

A Kantian Argument against World Poverty (European Journal of Political Theory)

Immanuel Kant is recognized as one of the first philosophers who wrote systematically about globa... more Immanuel Kant is recognized as one of the first philosophers who wrote systematically about global justice and world peace. In the current debate on global justice he is mostly appealed to by critics of extensive duties of global justice. However, I show in this paper that an analysis of Kant’s late work on rights and justice provides ample resources for disagreeing with those who take Kant to call for only modest changes in global politics. Kant’s comments in the Doctrine of Right clarify that he thinks we need a coercively enforced global civil condition. But his work also contains ideas that imply that within such a global legal order there must be no extreme forms of poverty and inequality, and that the current holdings of states are by no means conclusive possessions without confirmation by the global legal order we have a duty to establish. Thus, this paper challenges the prevailing interpretation of Kant as a conservative thinker about global justice that is held, for instance, by the leading contemporary liberal thinkers such as John Rawls, Thomas Nagel, and Ronald Dworkin.

Books by Merten Reglitz

Salomon Maimon's Essay on Transcendental Philosophy (2010)

by Alistair Welchman, Merten Reglitz, and Henry Somers-Hall

Essay on Transcendental Philosophy presents the first English translation of Salomon Maimon's pri... more Essay on Transcendental Philosophy presents the first English translation of Salomon Maimon's principal work, originally published in Berlin in 1790.

In this book Maimon seeks to further the revolution in philosophy wrought by Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason by establishing a new foundation for transcendental philosophy in the idea of difference. Kant judged Maimon to be his most profound critic, and the Essay went on to have a decisive influence on the course of post-Kantian German Idealism. A more recent admirer was Gilles Deleuze who drew on Maimon’s Essay in constructing his own philosophy of difference. This long-overdue translation makes Maimon's brilliant analysis and criticism of Kant's philosophy accessible to an English readership for the first time.

The text includes a comprehensive introduction, a glossary, translators' notes, a bibliography of writings on Maimon and an index. It also includes translations of correspondence between Maimon and Kant and a letter Maimon wrote to a Berlin journal clarifying the philosophical position of the Essay, all of which bring the book's context alive for the modern reader.

The socio-economic argument for the human right to internet access

Politics, Philosophy & Economics, 2023

This paper argues that Internet access should be recognised as a human right because it has becom... more This paper argues that Internet access should be recognised as a human right because it has become practically indispensable for having adequate opportunities to realise our socioeconomic human rights. This argument is significant for a philosophically informed public understanding of the Internet and because it provides the basis for creating new duties. For instance, accepting a human right to Internet access minimally requires guaranteeing access for everyone and protecting Internet access and use from certain objectionable interferences (e.g. surveillance, censorship, online abuse). Realising this right thus requires creating an Internet that is crucially different from the one we currently have. The argument thus has wide-ranging implications.

Fake News and Democracy

Journal of Ethics and Social Philosophy, 2022

Since the Brexit Referendum in the United Kingdom and the election of Donald Trump as US Presiden... more Since the Brexit Referendum in the United Kingdom and the election of Donald Trump as US President in 2016, the term ‘fake news’ has become a significant source of concern. Recently, the EU Commission and the UK Parliament have condemned the phenomenon as a threat to their democratic processes and values. However, political disinformation is nothing new, and empirical studies suggest that fake news has not decided crucial elections, that most readers do not believe the online fake news stories they read, and that political polarization in Western democracies like the US began to increase long before online fake news existed. The question then is: how exactly does fake news threaten democracies? This paper argues that online fake news threatens democratic processes because it undermines citizens’ epistemic trust in each other. This in turn threatens to undermine the perceived legitimacy of democratic institutions as a whole. While online fake news is a symptom of a much larger issue (how has the Internet affected democracies, and how can we use its positive power while checking its potential harms?), it deserves particular attention given the potential danger it presents for the viability and the legitimacy of the democratic process.

Internet access as a right for realizing the human right to adequate mental (and other) health care

International Journal of Mental Health

The Human Right to Free Internet Access (Journal of Applied Philosophy)

Journal of Applied Philosophy

In 2016, the United Nation's General Assembly adopted a non-binding resolution regarding 'The Pro... more In 2016, the United Nation's General Assembly adopted a non-binding resolution regarding 'The Promotion, Protection and Enjoyment of Human Rights on the Internet'. At the heart of this resolution is the UN's concern that "rights that people have offline must also be protected online." While the UN thus recognises the importance of the Internet, it does so problematically selectively by focusing on protecting existing offline rights online. I argue instead that Internet access is itself a moral human right that requires that everyone has unmonitored and uncensored access to this global medium, which should be publicly provided free of charge for those unable to afford it. Rather than being a mere luxury, Internet access should be considered a universal entitlement because it is necessary for people to be able to lead minimally decent lives. Accepting this claim transforms our conception of the Internet from a technology to that of a basic right. In the affluent world Internet access is so readily available that it is easy to forget how fundamentally it shapes our lives. Very many opportunities are created or enhanced by the Internet including free, instant, worldwide communication; access to traditional and social media; and 24-hour shopping and services that render traditional storefronts unnecessary. Yet the Internet does more than simply provide new services; it also offers possibilities to promote and enhance crucial human interests. In this paper I argue for a human right to Internet access on the grounds that the Internet is necessary (or at least of crucial importance) to enable the realisation of human rights and the promotion of democracy.

Medical Brain Drain: Free-Riding, Exploitation, and Global Justice (Moral Philosophy & Politics)

In her debate with Michael Blake, Gillian Brock sets out to justify emigration restrictions on me... more In her debate with Michael Blake, Gillian Brock sets out to justify emigration restrictions on medical workers from poor states on the basis of their free-riding on the public investment that their states have made in them in form of a publicly funded education. For this purpose, Brock aims to isolate the question of emigration restrictions from the larger question of responsibilities for remedying global inequalities. I argue that this approach is misguided because it is blind to decisive factors at play in the problem of medical brain drain and consequently distorts the different responsibilities this problem generates. Brock’s strategy, if successful, would effectively lead to punishing emigrating workers from poor states for the free-riding and exploitation that is committed by affluent states – which is a counter-intuitive result.

Fairness to Nonparticipants: A Case for a Practice-Independent Egalitarian Baseline (Critical Review of International Social and Political Philosophy)

Proponents of practice-dependent egalitarianism argue that egalitarian duties and entitlements on... more Proponents of practice-dependent egalitarianism argue that egalitarian duties and entitlements only apply among participants in morally relevant practices. In this paper I argue that these views are implausible because they allow for objectionable treatment of nonparticipants. I show that it is impossible, on the basis of practice-internal considerations alone, to determine the extent to which the pursuit of practices can permissibly limit the opportunities of nonparticipants. There are opportunities beyond the current holdings of practices to which no one has a privileged claim (such as unowned natural resources), and the distribution of which is a matter of justice. A just distribution of such unowned distributive goods, though, requires a practice-independent distributive baseline. I further show that such a baseline can only be egalitarian, because all alternative baselines face serious objections. From this I conclude that any plausible theory of distributive justice must accept some form of equal practice-independent distributive entitlements.

Political Legitimacy without a Claim-Right to Rule (Res Publica)

In the contemporary philosophical literature, political legitimacy is often identified with a rig... more In the contemporary philosophical literature, political legitimacy is often identified with a right to rule. However, this term is problematic. First, if we accept an interest theory of rights, it often remains unclear whose interests justify a right to rule (the ‘grounds of authority’ question): either the interest of the holders of this right to rule or the interests of those subject to the authority. And second, if we analyse the right to rule in terms of Wesley Hohfeld’s characterization of rights, we find disagreement among philosophers about what constitutes the conceptual core of political authority: a power-right or a claim-right to rule (the ‘nature of authority question’). In this paper I show that both of these are problematic for a number of reasons. First, if we think that it is only the interests of the holders of a right to rule that justify the possession of authority, the conceptual core of authority must consist in a claim-right. However, this understanding of authority biases our thinking about legitimacy in favor of democratic exercises of power. Second, if we hold such a decisively democratic view of legitimacy, we confront an impasse with respect to addressing global collective action problems. Although it is clear that political authority is necessary or useful for solving these issues, it is doubtful that we can establish global institutions that are democratically authorized anytime soon. The paper suggests an alternative ‘Power-Right to Command View’ of political legitimacy that avoids the democratic bias and allows for thinking about solutions to global problems via global service authorities.

The Practice-Independence of Intergenerational Justice (Utilitas)

The question whether distributive justice is at bottom practice-dependent or practice-independent... more The question whether distributive justice is at bottom practice-dependent or practice-independent has received much attention in recent years. I argue that the problem of intergenerational justice resolves this dispute in favour of practice-independence. Many believe that we owe more to our descendants than leaving them a world in which they can merely lead minimally decent lives. This thought is particularly convincing given the fact that it is us who determine to a significant extent what this future world will look like. However, no practices that would trigger distributive obligations exist between distant generations. Thus, if we have to leave more than a minimum for future generations, we cannot conceive of distributive justice in terms of the justification of ongoing social interactions. Rather we have to think of the entire concept as an idea based on persons’ legitimate interests and capacity for well-being, and which abstracts from participation in particular practices.

A Kantian Argument against World Poverty (European Journal of Political Theory)

Immanuel Kant is recognized as one of the first philosophers who wrote systematically about globa... more Immanuel Kant is recognized as one of the first philosophers who wrote systematically about global justice and world peace. In the current debate on global justice he is mostly appealed to by critics of extensive duties of global justice. However, I show in this paper that an analysis of Kant’s late work on rights and justice provides ample resources for disagreeing with those who take Kant to call for only modest changes in global politics. Kant’s comments in the Doctrine of Right clarify that he thinks we need a coercively enforced global civil condition. But his work also contains ideas that imply that within such a global legal order there must be no extreme forms of poverty and inequality, and that the current holdings of states are by no means conclusive possessions without confirmation by the global legal order we have a duty to establish. Thus, this paper challenges the prevailing interpretation of Kant as a conservative thinker about global justice that is held, for instance, by the leading contemporary liberal thinkers such as John Rawls, Thomas Nagel, and Ronald Dworkin.

Salomon Maimon's Essay on Transcendental Philosophy (2010)

by Alistair Welchman, Merten Reglitz, and Henry Somers-Hall

Essay on Transcendental Philosophy presents the first English translation of Salomon Maimon's pri... more Essay on Transcendental Philosophy presents the first English translation of Salomon Maimon's principal work, originally published in Berlin in 1790.

In this book Maimon seeks to further the revolution in philosophy wrought by Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason by establishing a new foundation for transcendental philosophy in the idea of difference. Kant judged Maimon to be his most profound critic, and the Essay went on to have a decisive influence on the course of post-Kantian German Idealism. A more recent admirer was Gilles Deleuze who drew on Maimon’s Essay in constructing his own philosophy of difference. This long-overdue translation makes Maimon's brilliant analysis and criticism of Kant's philosophy accessible to an English readership for the first time.

The text includes a comprehensive introduction, a glossary, translators' notes, a bibliography of writings on Maimon and an index. It also includes translations of correspondence between Maimon and Kant and a letter Maimon wrote to a Berlin journal clarifying the philosophical position of the Essay, all of which bring the book's context alive for the modern reader.