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. 

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

Chapter in book

• Carey, B., & Shorten, A. (2022). Justifying language policies in mobile societies. In F. Grin, L. Marácz, & N. K. Pokorn (Eds.), Advances in Interdisciplinary Language Policy (361-380). John Benjamins Publishing. https://doi.org/10.1075/wlp.9.18car

Journal Article

• Carey, B. Public Reason-Honesty, Not Sincerity. Journal of Political Philosophy, 26(1), https://doi.org/10.1111/jopp.12119
• Carey, B. Justice for Jerks: Human Nature, Selfishness, and Noncompliance. Social Theory and Practice, 42(4), https://doi.org/10.5840/soctheorpract201642426
• Carey, B. (2024). Justice in Hiring: Why the Most Qualified Should Not (Necessarily) Get the Job. Journal of Applied Philosophy, 1-14. https://doi.org/10.1111/japp.12727
• Carey, B. (2023). Circumventing the Non-identity Problem. Philosophia, 51, 1143–1158. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11406-022-00589-7
• Carey, B. (2021). The Language of Public Reason. Journal of Social Philosophy, https://doi.org/10.1111/josp.12365
• Carey, B. (2020). Provisional Sufficientarianism: Distributive Feasibility in Non-ideal Theory. Journal of Value Inquiry, 54(4), https://doi.org/10.1007/s10790-020-09732-7
• Carey, B. (2018). Against the right to revoke citizenship. Citizenship Studies, 22(8), https://doi.org/10.1080/13621025.2018.1538319
• Carey, B. (2017). Children and the Limits of Paternalism. Ethical Theory and Moral Practice, 20(3), https://doi.org/10.1007/s10677-017-9804-3
• Carey, B. (2016). The preference satisfaction model of linguistic advantage. Critical Review of International Social and Political Philosophy, 22(2), 134-154. https://doi.org/10.1080/13698230.2016.1270905
• Carey, B. (2014). Towards a ‘Non-Ideal’ Non-Ideal Theory. Journal of Applied Philosophy, 32(2), https://doi.org/10.1111/japp.12083