He teaches at Washington University in St. Louis, where he is also dean of academic planning for Arts & Sciences.
Wellman's view thus combines a common descriptive claim (that political states are necessary to save us all from the perils of the state of nature) with the distinctive moral premise of samaritanism (the idea that we have a duty to rescue those who are sufficiently imperiled when we can do so at no unreasonable cost to ourselves).
On his view, any group has a moral right to secede as long as its political divorce will leave it and the remainder state in position to perform requisite functions.
In light of this, in his 2001 article, “Toward a Liberal Theory of Political Obligation,” Wellman suggests that the nonconsequential premise of fairness must be invoked to explain an individual's duty to obey the law.
Despite this, the vast majority of theorists working on punishment have focused instead on important aims, such as achieving retributive justice, deterring crime, restoring victims, or expressing society's core values.