Staff profile

Brian completed his PhD in Political Theory at the University of Manchester in 2015, having previously completed a MSc in Human Rights at University College Dublin, and a BA and MA in Philosophy at University College Cork. Before joining the School of Government and International Affairs in 2021, he was a Teaching Fellow in the Department of Philosophy at Trinity College Dublin, a Postdoctoral Researcher in Political Theory at the University of Limerick, and a temporary lecturer in the Philosophy Department at University College Cork.

He is interested in a wide range of issues in contemporary political theory and moral philosophy, with a particular focus on questions involving political feasibility, and public deliberation under non-ideal circumstances. His published work includes articles relating to methodology in contemporary political theory, paternalism, public deliberation, citizenship, and theories of distributive justice. He has a secondary research interest in linguistic justice and has published work on language rights and language policy in the European Union. 

Brian is currently working on a number of projects relating to these interests, including a book-length project on the topic of political feasibility in non-ideal circumstances, and a project on the relationship between theories of linguistic justice and sign language communities. Smaller works in progress include a paper on the role of hypocritical speech in public deliberation, a paper on the concept of echo chambers co-authored with Dr. Elizabeth Ventham (Liverpool), and a paper on discrimination in employment opportunities. 

• Ideal and Non-Ideal Theory
• Political Feasibility
• Linguistic Justice & Language Policy
• Public Deliberation
• Social Epistemology
• Methodology in Contemporary Political Theory
• Public Reason Liberalism
• Paternalism & Autonomy
• Distributive Justice

Chapter in book

• Carey, Brian & Shorten, Andrew (2022). Justifying language policies in mobile societies. In Advances in Interdisciplinary Language Policy. Grin, François, Marácz, László & Pokorn, Nike K. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. 9: 361-380.

Journal Article

• Carey, B. (2022). Circumventing the Non-identity Problem. Philosophia
• Carey, Brian (2021). The Language of Public Reason. Journal of Social Philosophy
• Carey, Brian (2020). Provisional Sufficientarianism: Distributive Feasibility in Non-ideal Theory. The Journal of Value Inquiry 54(4): 589.
• Carey, Brian (2019). The preference satisfaction model of linguistic advantage. Critical Review of International Social and Political Philosophy 22(2): 134.
• Carey, Brian (2018). Against the right to revoke citizenship. Citizenship Studies 22(8): 897.
• Carey, Brian (2017). Children and the Limits of Paternalism. Ethical Theory and Moral Practice 20(3): 581.
• Carey, Brian (2017). Public Reason-Honesty, Not Sincerity. Journal of Political Philosophy 26(1): 47.
• Carey, Brian (2016). Justice for Jerks: Human Nature, Selfishness, and Noncompliance. Social Theory and Practice 42(4): 748.
• Carey, Brian (2014). Towards a ‘Non-Ideal’ Non-Ideal Theory. Journal of Applied Philosophy 32(2): 147.