Andrew Lister

Research Interests

Distributive justice; reciprocity and egalitarianism; classical liberalism and libertarianism; public reason, ‘political’ liberalism, toleration and compromise.

Andrew Lister would be interested in supervising graduate students in the areas of distributive justice, democratic theory, public reason and political liberalism.

Brief Biography

Before coming to Queen's, Andrew Lister taught at Concordia University and spent a year as FRQSC post-doctoral fellow at the University of Montreal's Centre de recherche en éthique. He has been been a visitor at Oxford University's Center for the Study of Social Justice, and at the UCLouvain's Chaire Hoover d'éthique économique et sociale. He specializes in contemporary normative political theory, particularly related to democracy and distributive justice. His research has focused on two main themes:  public reason, or neutrality in political decision-making, and reciprocity, in relation to egalitarianism. He also has an ongoing interest in the work of John Rawls, and its relationships with the work of others (for example, David Hume, Friedrich Hayek, and Frank Knight).

Recent Works

"Non-Ideal Justice in Holdings, or, Rectification Revisited," Critical Review of International Social and Political Philosophy, forthcoming.

"Reciprocity among Equals," in Christie Hartley, Blain Neufeld, and Lori Watson (eds), The Oxford Handbook of John Rawls (Oxford University Press, 2025).

Justice and Reciprocity, Oxford University Press (2024).

"Contractualist alternatives to the veil of ignorance," Journal of Political Philosophy, Vol. 31, No. 2, 177-197, 2023.

“Theology, Desert, and Egalitarianism,” The Journal of Politics, Vol. 84, No.3, 2022, pp. 1528-1538.

“Reconsidering the Reciprocity Objection to Unconditional Basic Income,” Politics, Philosophy & Economics, 2020.

“Publicity, Reciprocity, and Incentives,” Canadian Journal of Philosophy, Vol. 50, No. 1, pp. 67-82, 2020.

"Wages, Talents, and Egalitarianism," Erasmus Journal for Philosophy and Economics, Volume 11, Issue 2, Autumn 2018.

"The Difference Principle, Capitalism, and Property-Owning Democracy," Moral Philosophy and Politics.Vol. 5, No. 1, 2018, pp.151-72.

“The Coherence of Public Reason,” The Journal of Moral Philosophy. Vol. 15, No.1, 2018, pp.64-84.

“Public Reason and Reciprocity,” Journal of Political Philosophy, Vol. 25, No. 2, 2017, pp. 155-172.

"Markets, Desert, and Reciprocity," Politics, Philosophy & Economics, Vol. 16, No. 1, 2017, pp. 47-69.

“Fact-Sensitivity and the Defining-Down Objection,” Res Publica, Vol. 23, 2017, pp.117-35.