G. A. Cohen

G. A. Cohen
FBA
Cohen in 1986
Born
Gerald Allan Cohen

(1941-04-14)14 April 1941
Montreal, Quebec, Canada
Died5 August 2009(2009-08-05) (aged 68)
Oxford, England
Other nameJerry Cohen
Spouses
  • Margaret Pearce
    ​
    ​
    (m. 1965; div. 1996)​
  • Michèle Jacottet
    ​
    (m. 1999)​
Children3
Education
Education
Academic advisor
Gilbert Ryle
Philosophical work
EraContemporary philosophy
RegionWestern philosophy
Institutions
Doctoral students
Notable students
Main interests
Notable ideas

Gerald Allan Cohen (/ˈkoʊən/ KOH-ən; 14 April 1941 – 5 August 2009) was a Canadian political philosopher who held the positions of Quain Professor of Jurisprudence, University College London and Chichele Professor of Social and Political Theory, All Souls College, Oxford. He was known for his work on Marxism, and later, egalitarianism and distributive justice in normative political philosophy.

Background

Born into an ethnically Jewish but "militantly anti-religious" family in Montreal, Quebec, on 14 April 1941, Cohen was a "red diaper baby". His mother was a longtime Canadian Communist Party member; his father had similar political views but chose not to join. Cohen was educated at the Morris Winchevsky School, Strathcona Academy, and Outremont High School. He then attended McGill University, obtaining a BA in philosophy and political science, and the University of Oxford, where he studied under Gilbert Ryle (and was also taught by Isaiah Berlin) and obtained a BPhil in philosophy.

Academic career

Cohen was assistant lecturer (1963–1964), lecturer (1964–1979), then reader (1979–1984) in the Department of Philosophy at University College London, before being appointed to the Chichele chair at Oxford in 1985. Several of his students, such as Christopher Bertram, Simon Caney, Alan Carter, Cécile Fabre, Will Kymlicka, John McMurtry, David Leopold, Michael Otsuka, Seana Shiffrin, and Jonathan Wolff went on to be important moral and political philosophers. Cohen retired from the Chichele chair in 2008. At the time of his death, he was a visiting Quain Professor of Jurisprudence at UCL Faculty of Laws.

Cohen was a proponent of analytical Marxism and a founding member of the September Group. His 1978 work Karl Marx's Theory of History: A Defence defends an interpretation of Karl Marx's historical materialism its critics often call technological determinism. In History, Labour, and Freedom and Self-Ownership, Freedom, and Equality, Cohen offers an extensive moral argument in favour of socialism, contrasting his views with those of John Rawls and Robert Nozick by articulating an extensive critique of the Lockean principle of self-ownership as well as the use of that principle to defend right as well as left-libertarianism. In If You're an Egalitarian, How Come You're So Rich? (which reprints his 1996 Gifford Lectures), Cohen addresses the question of what egalitarian political principles imply for the personal behaviour of those who hold them.

Who gets what out of a market transaction reflects, among other things, the relative power of the players. Jettisoning the labor theory of value, Cohen argues that the "structure of proletarian unfreedom" requires workers to work for some capitalist. Reconceptualizing the Marxian critique of capitalism in this way turns it into an argument about power and freedom rather than labor-power and value. It suggests that, for all Marx's conceptual and predictive failures, his intuition that some under capitalism lack a basic freedom that others enjoy at their expense merits our continuing attention. But for this, it is important to solve various conceptual problems.

Cohen was known for his flamboyant style during philosophical debates. According to his best friend, the philosopher Gerald Dworkin, "Nothing was too inappropriate, private, bizarre, or embarrassing to be suddenly brought into the conversation".

Personal life and death

In 1965, Cohen married Margaret Pearce; they had three children and divorced in 1996. Three years later, he married Michèle Jacottet. He personally abjured technology, a stance he called "technological conservatism"; Michèle answered all his emails.

Cohen was close friends with Marxist political philosopher Marshall Berman.

On 5 August 2009, Cohen died from a stroke at John Radcliffe Hospital in Oxford, aged 68.

Select works

See also

References

  1. ↑ Rosen, Michael (2010). "Jerry Cohen: An Appreciation" (PDF). Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University. p. 2. Archived from the original (PDF) on 14 July 2020. Retrieved 9 January 2019.
  2. ↑ Vallentyne, Peter (2014). "Libertarianism". In Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Stanford University.
  3. ↑ Frank Vandenbroucke, Social Justice and Individual Ethics in an Open Society: Equality, Responsibility, and Incentives, Springer, 2012, p. 149.
  4. ↑ Alexander Kaufman (ed.), Distributive Justice and Access to Advantage, Cambridge University Press, 2014, p. 52.
  5. 1 2 Paul, Levy (12 August 2009). "Professor Jerry Cohen: Maverick philosopher who subjected Marxism to the rigours of analytical philosophy". The Independent. Archived from the original on 17 June 2025.
  6. 1 2 O'Grady, Jane (10 August 2009). "GA Cohen". The Guardian. Archived from the original on 24 January 2024. Retrieved 21 March 2025.
  7. ↑ Cohen, G. A. (2001). "Politics and Religion in a Montreal Communist Jewish Childhood". If You're an Egalitarian, How Come You're So Rich?. Harvard University Press. p. 21. ISBN 978-0674006935.
  8. ↑ Anon. (11 August 2009). "Professor Jerry Cohen: philosopher". The Times. Archived from the original on 24 May 2010. Retrieved 8 March 2025.
  9. ↑ Farmelant, James (8 August 2009). "G. A. Cohen, 1941-2009". Monthly Review. ISSN 0027-0520. OCLC 241373379. Archived from the original on 27 March 2025. Retrieved 13 July 2025.
  10. 1 2 3 4 Elster, Jon (2013). "Cohen, Gerald Allan [Jerry] (1941–2009), philosopher". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online ed.). Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/101555. (Subscription, Wikipedia Library access or UK public library membership required.)
  11. ↑ Stephen, Guest (6 August 2009). "Obituary: Professor Jerry Cohen". UCL News. Retrieved 8 March 2025.
  12. ↑ Otsuka, Michael (11 August 2009). "Remarks at Jerry Cohen's funeral, All Souls College Chapel" (PDF). London School of Economics and Political Science – Personal Web Pages. Archived from the original (PDF) on 16 May 2022. Retrieved 9 March 2025.
  13. 1 2 Cohen, G. A. (1979). "The Labor Theory of Value and the Concept of Exploitation". Philosophy & Public Affairs. 8 (4): 338–360. Archived from the original on 19 April 2023. Retrieved 25 February 2026. Included in History, Labour, and Freedom (1988), pp.209-238.
  14. ↑ Callinicos, Alex (11 August 2009). "Remembering Jerry Cohen". Socialist Worker. Archived from the original on 13 August 2009. Retrieved 9 March 2025.
  15. ↑ Singer, Peter (2000). Marx: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford: Oxford University Press. p. 105. ISBN 978-0-19-285405-6.
  16. 1 2 Lamey, Andy (June 2010). "The Thinking Man's Marxist". Literary Review of Canada. Archived from the original on 25 January 2025. Retrieved 14 June 2025.
  17. ↑ Wolff, Jonathan (1991). Robert Nozick: Property, Justice and the Minimal State. Stanford, California: Stanford University Press. pp. 85–88. ISBN 0-8047-1856-3.
  18. 1 2 3 Shapiro, Ian (2003). The Moral Foundations of Politics (First ed.). New Haven: Yale University Press. p. 107. ISBN 0-300-07907-9.
  19. 1 2 Cohen, G. A. (1979). "Capitalism, Freedom, and the Proletariat." rev. and rep. In his On the Currency of Egalitarian Justice and Other Essays in Political Philosophy. (Michael. Otsuka, ed.) Princeton Univ. Press (2011), pp. 147-165.
  20. ↑ Cohen, G. A. (Winter 1983). "The Structure of Proletarian Unfreedom" (PDF). Philosophy & Public Affairs. 12 (1): 3–33. Archived (PDF) from the original on 14 June 2025. Retrieved 18 June 2025. Included in History, Labour, and Freedom (1988), pp.255–285.
  21. 1 2 Wysocki, Igor (2018). "Freedom and Property Rights – Avoiding Circularity". Dialogi Polityczne. 24: 39–48. doi:10.12775/DP.2018.003.
  22. 1 2 Dominiak, Lukasz (2018). "Libertarianism, Freedom and the Problem of Circularity". Athenaeum: Polish Political Science Studies. 59: 7–17. doi:10.15804/athena.2018.59.01.
  23. ↑ Arnold, Samuel (2016). "Socialism-6. Why Socialism? Freedom and Human Development". Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy. University of Tennessee at Martin. Archived from the original on 25 February 2026. Retrieved 25 February 2026.
  24. ↑ Dworkin, Gerald (14 August 2009). "In Memoriam G. A. (Jerry) Cohen". 3 Quarks Daily. Retrieved 17 October 2024.
  25. ↑ "Isaiah Berlin Catalogue – OA.668: "Freedom and Money"". Isaiah Berlin Virtual Library. Wolfson College, University of Oxford. Archived from the original on 18 June 2025. Retrieved 18 June 2025.
  26. ↑ Cohen, G. A. (21 September 2001). "Freedom and Money". Revista Argentina de Teoría Jurídica. Universidad Torcuato Di Tella. Archived from the original on 9 September 2024. Retrieved 18 June 2025.
  27. ↑ Cohen, Gerald A. (2009). If You're an Egalitarian, How Come You're So Rich?. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. ISBN 978-0-674-00693-5.
  28. ↑ Barker, Alexander (9 November 2009). "On a Socialist Camping Trip". The Oxonian Review. Archived from the original on 11 March 2010. Retrieved 8 March 2025.
  29. ↑ Robeyns, Ingrid (July 2015). "On G. A. Cohen's "On the Currency of Egalitarian Justice"". Ethics. 125 (4): 1132–1135. doi:10.1086/680879. ISSN 0014-1704. JSTOR 10.1086/680879.

Further reading