In my doctoral and early postdoctoral work, I was interested in understanding when a political proposal counts as “feasible” and why. This took me into thinking about the distinction between ideal and non-ideal normative theory (2010a), and into developing a non-binary account of political feasibility that could accommodate both hard and soft kinds of constraints (2011; 2012c; 2013b). I also started thinking at this time about whether there’s an answer to the question of what agents ought to do when they can’t or won’t do the best thing (2013a), about what kinds of philosophical arguments are most motivating for ordinary people (2010b; 2012a), and about how considerations about feasibility apply from the individual to the group case (2012b). More recently, I’ve collaborated on some experimental work about the relation between ability and obligation (2017).

You can find links to the below under Writing > Papers & chapters, ordered by year.

+ Kurthy, Miklos., Lawford-Smith, Holly., & Sousa, Paulo. ‘Does Ought Imply Can?’ PLOS One 12/4 (2017).

+ Lawford-Smith, Holly. ‘Non-Ideal Accessibility‘, Ethical Theory and Moral Practice 16 (2013a), 653-669.

+ Lawford-Smith, Holly. ‘Understanding Political Feasibility‘, Journal of Political Philosophy 21/3 (2013b), pp. 243-259.

+ Lawford-Smith, Holly. ‘The Motivation Question: Arguments from Justice, and from Humanity‘, British Journal of Political Science 42 (2012a), pp. 661-678.

+ Lawford-Smith, Holly. ‘The Feasibility of Collectives’ Action‘, Australasian Journal of Philosophy 90/3 (2012b), pp. 453-467.

+ Gilabert, Pablo. & Lawford-Smith, Holly. ‘Political Feasibility: A Conceptual Exploration‘, Political Studies 60 (2012c).

+ Lawford-Smith, Holly. ‘Cosmopolitan Global Justice: Brock v. The Feasibility Sceptic‘, Global Justice: Theory Practice Rhetoric (Issue 4, 2011).

+ Lawford-Smith, Holly. ‘Ideal Theory: A Reply to Valentini.’ Journal of Political Philosophy (Vol. 18, No. 3, 2010a, pp. 357-368).

+ Lawford-Smith, Holly. ‘Feasibility Constraints and the Cosmopolitan Vision: Empirical Reasons for Choosing Justice Over Humanity.’ Questioning Cosmopolitanism, ed. Stan van Hooft and Wim Vandekerhove. Dordrecht: Springer, 2010b.