is an unusual phenomenon. The concern with rights different citizens have in different societies is legal rather than philosophical. It is frequently somewhat a technical matter for jurisprudence to decide exactly what rights a citizen has in a given situation and how he might best exercise his rights. Often, to be sure, the legal technicalities involve matters of principle, and if so these should be made explicit. For this, too, there is a need less for philosophy and more for jurisprudence, (...) for detailed legal study. For example, the problems concerning interests of third parties - related to the questions of when is a third party an aggrieved person, so-called, and what are the rights of the aggrieved third party - have been taken up, in the sixties, by diverse federal courts of the United States, with the aim of increasing individual rights when these are encroached upon by public agencies.1 Although this may call for much philosophical commentary, it is clearly more a legal matter than a philosophical concern. Even the broadly philosophical question of rights within a legal system requires a greater degree of legal than philosophical considerations. Recently H.L.A. Hart, the foremost living legal philosopher, has cited Sir Henry Maine (1891) and William Warwick Buckland (1950) approvingly to support his view that even "Roman law never achieved a clear concept of a legal right." 2 It is not clear to a philosopher what "a clear concept of legal rights" might be, and a philosopher like Hannah Arendt never. concerned herself with this matter when she expressed her admiration for the rights of a Roman citizen to his privacy.3 Regardless of whether we admire or deplore this, we can agree that at least in principle a Roman citizen had more rights and prerogatives within his family than any modern civilized law would ever permit. A philosopher with only a modicum of sensitivity can say that although Rome was not a democracy, and even though in Rome the rights of women and children (not to mention slaves) were not recognized, the rights of citizens to privacy and to be free of the need ever to prove their innocence have nevertheless become the foundation stones of modern liberal individualistic democracy.. (shrink)

This article claims that the account of specification as a way to solve conflicts between rights, suggested by Göran Collste, is unsatisfactory. It is argued that specification is not a solution on its own, but is better described as a remedy in response to a political failure.

The paper argues that promise rights presuppose independently existing (if not pre-existing) claims. The argument relies on the Bifurcation Thesis, according to which all claims, and all rights, can be exhaustively divided into two categories: capacity based and exercise based.

Abstract: Democracy is regularly heralded as the only form of government that treats political subjects as free and equal citizens. On closer examination, however, it becomes apparent that democracy unavoidably restricts individual freedom, and it is not the only way to treat all citizens equally. In light of these observations, we argue that the non-instrumental reasons to support democratic governance stem, not from considerations of individual freedom or equality, but instead from the importance of respecting group self-determination. If this is (...) correct, it implies that a state may choose democracy, but its right to self-determination means that it is also free, in principle, to decide in favor of some nondemocratic alternative. (shrink)

Continuing tensions exist between mainstream bioethics and advocates of the disability rights movement. This paper explores some of the grounds for those tensions as exemplified in From Chance to Choice: Genetics and Justice by Allen Buchanan and coauthors, a book by four prominent bioethicists that is critical of the disability rights movement. One set of factors involves the nature of disability and impairment. A second set involves presumptions regarding social values, including the importance of intelligence in relation to other human (...) characteristics, competition as the basis of social organization, and the nature of the parent–child relationship. The authors’ disapproval of certain aspects of the disability rights movement can be seen to be associated with particular positions regarding these factors. Although the authors intend to use a method of ‘broad reflective equilibrium,’ we argue that their idiosyncratic commitment to particular concepts of disability and particular social values produces a narrowing of the moral significance of their conclusions regarding disability rights. (shrink)

Tensions exist between the disability rights movement and the work of many bioethicists. These reveal themselves in a major recent book on bioethics and genetics, From Chance to Choice: Genetics and Justice. This book defends certain genetic policies against criticisms from disability rights advocates, in part by arguing that it is possible to accept both the genetic policies and the rights of people with impairments. However, a close reading of the book reveals a series of direct moral criticisms of the (...) disability rights movement. The criticisms go beyond a defense of genetic policies from the criticisms of disability rights advocates. The disability rights movement is said not to have the same moral legitimacy as other civil rights movements, such as those for women or "racial" minorities. This paper documents, and in some cases shows the flaws within, these challenges to the disability rights movement. (shrink)

It is argued that "quanli" meant something different from the "rights" that it purports to translate in the writings of Liu Shipei (1884-1919). This does not mean that "quanli," as Liu used it, has no overlap with any of the meanings of "rights." But it can be argued that these overlaps are in a crucial sense coincidental, since the notion of "quanli" in Liu's major works represents a growth out of, rather than an imposition on, the Confucian tradition. In general, (...) to make sense of nineteenth- and early twentieth-century Chinese political and ethical discourse, we must highlight the degree to which the concepts involved developed out of various strands of native tradition. (shrink)

The analysis of a dispute can focus on either interests, rights, or power. Commentators often frame the conflict over conscience in clinical practice as a dispute between a patient’s right to legally available medical treatment and a clinician’s right to refuse to provide interventions the clinician finds morally objectionable. Multiple sources of unresolvable moral disagreement make resolution in these terms unlikely. One should instead focus on the parties’ interests and the different ways in which the health care delivery system can (...) accommodate them. In the specific case of pharmacists refusing to dispense emergency contraception, alternative systems such as advanced prescription, pharmacist provision, and over-the-counter sales may better reconcile the client’s interest in preventing unintended pregnancy and the pharmacist’s interest in not contravening his or her conscience. Within such an analysis, the ethicist’s role becomes identifying and clarifying the parties’ morally relevant interests. (shrink)

Mary Midgley asserts that my argument concerning the problem of child-abuse was inappropriately framed in the language of rights, and neglected certain pertinent natural facts. I defend the view that the use of rights-talk was both apposite and did not misrepresent the moral problem in question. I assess the status and character of the natural facts Midgley adduces in criticism of my case, concluding that they do not obviously establish the conclusions she believes they do. Finally I briefly respond to (...) the charge that my suggestions were illiberal. (shrink)

I criticise the ‘liberal’view of the proper relationship between the family and State, namely that, although the interests of the child should be paramount, parents are entitled to rights of both privacy and autonomy which should be abrogated only when the child suffers a specifiable harm. I argue that the right to bear children is not absolute, and that it only grounds a right to rear upon an objectionable proprietarian picture of the child as owned by its producer. If natural (...) parents have any rights to rear they derive from duties to bring their children into rational maturity where they can exercise rights for themselves. The presumption that natural parents are best suited to rear their own children should be discounted, as should the assumption that alternatives to natural parenting are unacceptably bad. I reject the suggestion that parents should be ‘licensed’but argue for a much closer monitoring of the family. Familial privacy, which such monitoring breaches, is shown to have a culturally specific and, given the facts of abuse, dubious value. In conclusion, I briefly specify the forms of monitoring I approve. (shrink)

Children are young human beings. Some children are very young human beings. As human beings children evidently have a certain moral status. There are things that should not be done to them for the simple reason that they are human. At the same time children are different from adult human beings and it seems reasonable to think that there are things children may not do that adults are permitted to do. In the majority of jurisdictions, for instance, children are not (...) allowed to vote, to marry, to buy alcohol, to have sex, or to engage in paid employment. What makes children a special case for philosophical consideration is this combination of their humanity and their youth, or, more exactly, what is thought to be associated with their youth. One very obvious way in which the question of what children are entitled to do or to be or to have is raised is by asking, Do children have rights? If so, do they have all the rights that adults have and do they have rights that adults do not have? If they do not have rights how do we ensure that they are treated in the morally right way? Most jurisdictions accord children legal rights. Most countries—though not the United States of America—have ratified the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child which was first adopted in 1989. The Convention accords to children a wide range of rights including, most centrally, the right to have their ‘best interests’ be ‘a primary consideration’ in all actions concerning them (Article 3), the ‘inherent right to life’ (Article 6), and the right of a child “who is capable of forming his or her own views … to express these views freely in all matters affecting the child” (Article 12) (United Nations 1989). However it is normal to distinguish between ‘positive’ rights, those that are recognised in law, and ‘moral’ rights, those that are recognised by some moral.. (shrink)

In chapter four of Anarchy, State, and Utopia, Robert Nozick raised interesting questions about whether or not it is ever morally acceptable to act against what are agreed to be an individual's natural moral rights. The pursuit of these questions opens up issues concerning the specific content of these individual rights. This essay explores Nozick's questions by posing examples and using our considered responses to them to specify the shape of individual rights. The exploration provisionally concludes that a conception of (...) individual moral rights quite different from Nozick's looks attractive and merits further development. Footnotesa I thank Ellen Frankel Paul for helpful, constructive, and substantive comments on a prior draft of this essay. It goes without saying that her comments outstripped my ability to respond. (shrink)

The increasing use of technological advances in business operations very often leads to the displacement of the employee whose skills become obsolete in light of such advances. There is no doubt that the interests of both company and employee are significantly affected by the implementation of laborsaving devices. Given that those interests are pursued in an environment which is usually, if not essentially, competitive, then there arises the serious question of what rights should be accorded the employee and the company (...) in the event that the employee is likely to be displaced by technological innovation. I argue that, given the constraints of a competitive environment, certain rights might be justified through a very limited application of the highly morally intuitive principles of utility, respect for persons, fairness, and the honoring of contracts. (shrink)

Working from a ``capitalist'''' theory of exploitation, based on a neo-classical account of economic value, I argue that guest workers are exploited. It may be objected, however, that since they are not citizens, any inequality that stems from their status as non-citizens is morally unobjectionable. Although host countries are under no moral obligation to admit guest workers as citizens, thereare independent reasons that call for the extension of economicrights – the freedom of occupation in particular – to guestworkers. Since the (...) cause of unequal exchange rests in the factthat guest workers are deprived of these rights, rather than in their exclusion from citizenship per se, I concludethat they are exploited even if their exclusion from citizenshipmay be justified. (shrink)

According to Wolterstorff, an accurate genealogy of rights begins, not with the late Middle Ages and the Enlightenment, but with the Hebrew and Christian Scriptures. The Gospel of Luke, Wolterstorff says, provides especially important witness, and he gives it considerable attention. Wolterstorff's careful analysis of Luke is both lexical and narratological. This paper argues that the lexical data of the Gospel of Luke does indeed lend some support to Wolterstorff's case. But the support is qualified since, in Luke, a critical (...) word group—the dikaio -family—is used in a way that emphasizes relationship to God rather than obligations to neighbor. The most important narratives and teachings of the Gospel lend similarly qualified support to Wolterstorff's genealogy. The paper concludes that while nothing in the Gospel of Luke is incompatible with the observation and defense of human rights, the program Luke sketches has another focus that a comprehensive reading of that Gospel must keep in view. (shrink)

I argue for a moderate view of the justification and the extent of the moral rights of parents that avoids the extremes of both children’s liberationism and parental absolutism. I claim that parents have rights qua parents, and that these prima facie rights are grounded in certain fundamental interests that both parents and children possess, namely, psychological well-being, intimate relationships, and the freedom to pursue that which brings satisfaction and meaning to life. I also examine several issues related to public (...) policy and the moral dimensions of the family—child abuse, children divorcing their parents, and the religious upbringing of children—and consider what implications the argument has for these issues. I conclude that the argument’s implications with respect to these issues further increases its plausibility. (shrink)

I argue for a moderate view of the justification and the extent of the moral rights of parents that avoids the extremes of both children’s liberationism and parental absolutism. I claim that parents have rights qua parents, and that these prima facie rights are grounded in certain fundamental interests that both parents and children possess, namely, psychological well-being, intimate relationships, and the freedom to pursue that which brings satisfaction and meaning to life. I also examine several issues related to public (...) policy and the moral dimensions of the family—child abuse, children divorcing their parents, and the religious upbringing of children—and consider what implications the argument has for these issues. I conclude that the argument’s implications with respect to these issues further increases its plausibility. (shrink)

The current debate over the rights of animals has not been wholly satisfactory. Those who believe that animals have no rights argue that it is not conceivable that creatures without human capabilities could possess rights. Those who defend the rights of animals argue that such claims are 'speciesist', resemble racist and sexist claims, and bear the marks of moral complacency. Both sides have assumed that the issue can ultimately be settled through an analysis of the concept of rights in isolation (...) from other factors. In this paper I argue that the issue can be discussed more satisfactorily in the context of classical teleological ethical theory which provides a basis for favoring the maximum development of all the more highly organized beings consistent with the diversification of nature. The conclusion is that wild animals have the right not to be eaten and that we should discontinue the wasteful practice of domesticating animals for the purpose of meat production. (shrink)

One of the core debates concerning equity in the response to the threat of anthropogenic climate change is how the responsibility to reduce greenhouse gas emissions should be allocated, or, correspondingly, how the right to emit greenhouse gases should be allocated. Two alternative approaches that have been widely promoted are, first, to assign obligations to the industrialized countries on the basis of both their ability to pay (wealth) and their responsibility for the majority of prior emissions, or, second, to assign (...) emissions rights on a (possibly modified) equal per capita basis. Both these proposals ignore intra-national distributional equity. Instead, we develop a policy framework we call 'Greenhouse Development Rights' (GDRs) which allocates obligations to pay for climate policies (both mitigation and adaptation) on the basis of an individually quantified metric of capacity (ability to pay) and responsibility (prior emissions). Crucially, the GDRs framework looks at the distribution of income within countries and treats people of equal wealth similarly, whatever country they live in. Thus even poor countries have obligations proportional to the size and wealth of their middle and upper classes, defined relative to a 'development threshold'. While this method nominally identifies the 'right to development' as applying to people, not countries, as a proposal for a treaty among sovereign nations, there is no obvious way to give legal meaning to that right. In this paper, then, we raise some of the philosophical and political questions that arise in trying to quantify capacity and responsibility and to use the 'right to development' as a principle for allocating costs.*. (shrink)

One of the core debates concerning equity in the response to the threat of anthropogenic climate change is how the responsibility to reduce greenhouse gas emissions should be allocated, or, correspondingly, how the right to emit greenhouse gases should be allocated. Two alternative approaches that have been widely promoted are, first, to assign obligations to the industrialized countries on the basis of both their ability to pay (wealth) and their responsibility for the majority of prior emissions, or, second, to assign (...) emissions rights on a (possibly modified) equal per capita basis. Both these proposals ignore intra-national distributional equity. Instead, we develop a policy framework we call 'Greenhouse Development Rights' (GDRs) which allocates obligations to pay for climate policies (both mitigation and adaptation) on the basis of an individually quantified metric of capacity (ability to pay) and responsibility (prior emissions). Crucially, the GDRs framework looks at the distribution of income within countries and treats people of equal wealth similarly, whatever country they live in. Thus even poor countries have obligations proportional to the size and wealth of their middle and upper classes, defined relative to a 'development threshold'. While this method nominally identifies the 'right to development' as applying to people, not countries, as a proposal for a treaty among sovereign nations, there is no obvious way to give legal meaning to that right. In this paper, then, we raise some of the philosophical and political questions that arise in trying to quantify capacity and responsibility and to use the 'right to development' as a principle for allocating costs.*. (shrink)

The apparent conflict between some fundamental ideas of Confucianism and of rights seems to render Confucianism incompatible with rights. I will illustrate the general strategies, based upon an insight of the later Rawls, to solve the incompatibility problem. I will then show how these strategies can help us to develop a Confucian account of animal rights, which, by way of example, demonstrates how Confucianism can endorse and develop unique and constructive accounts of most rights that are commonly recognized today.

John Kaplan, The Hardest Drug: Heroin and Public Policy Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1983, xi + 247 pp.

The rapid recent expansion of copyright law worldwide has sparked efforts to defend the ‘public domain’ of non-propertized information, often on the ground that an expansive public domain is a condition of a ‘free culture’. Yet questions remain about why the public domain is worth defending, what exactly a free culture is, and what role (if any) authors’ rights might play in relation to it. From the standard liberal perspective shared by many critics of copyright expansionism, the protection of individual (...) expression by means of marketable property rights in authors’ works serves as an engine of progress towards a fully competitive ‘marketplace of ideas’ – though only if balanced by an extensive public domain from which users may draw in the exercise of their own expressivity. This article shows that a significantly different, and arguably richer, conception of what a free culture is and how authors’ rights underpin it emerges from a direct engagement with the philosophy of Immanuel Kant. For Kant, progress towards a fully emancipated (i.e. a ‘mature’ or ‘enlightened’) culture can only be achieved through the critical intellectual activity that public communication demands: individual expressive freedom is only a condition, not constitutive, of this ‘freedom to make public use of one’s reason in all matters’. The main thesis defended in this article is that when Kant’s writings on publicity (critical public debate) are read in relation to his writings on the legal organization of publishing, a necessary connection emerges between authors’ rights – as distinct from copyrights – and what Jürgen Habermas and others have named the public sphere. I conclude that it is the public sphere, and not the public domain as such, that should serve as the key reference point in any evaluation of copyright law’s role in relation to the possibility of a free culture. (shrink)

Each one of T.H. Marshall's trinity of human rights rested on the state as, simultaneously, its birth place, executive manager and guardian. And no wonder. At the time Marshall tied personal, political and social freedoms into a historically determined succession of won/bestowed rights, the boundaries of the sovereign state marked the limits of what humans could contemplate, and what they thought they should jointly do, in order to make their world more user-friendly. The state enclosed territory was the site of (...) private initiatives and public actions, as well as the arena on which private interests and public issues met, clashed and sought reconciliation. In all those respects, the realm of state sovereignty was presumed to be self-contained, selfassertive and self-sufficient. (shrink)

Animals have moral standing; that is, they have properties (including the ability to feel pain) that qualify them for the protections of morality. It follows from this that humans have moral obligations toward animals, and because rights are logically correlative to obligations, animals have rights.

The discourse about traceability in food chains focused on traceability as means towards the end of managing health risks. This discourse witnessed a call to broaden traceability to accommodate consumer concerns about foods that are not related to health. This call envisions the development of ethical traceability. This paper presents a justification of ethical traceability. The argument is couched in liberal distinctions, since the call for ethical traceability is based on intuitions about consumer rights to informed choice. The paper suggests (...) that two versions of ethical traceability find justification. The first version of ethical traceability entails that governments ensure that all consumers are provided with foods that respect some threshold level of, e.g., animal welfare that is supported by an overlapping consensus. The second version of ethical traceability entails that food producers provide consumers with products, and sufficient information about these products, that are relevant for reasonable, non-superficial values that are not supported by an overlapping consensus. Governments should facilitate this in the sense that consumers are not provided with misinformation about characteristics of foods that are relevant for reasonable, non-superficial values that are not supported by an overlapping consensus. (shrink)

In this essay I argue that the evolutionary and comparative study of nonhuman animal (hereafter animal) cognition in a wide range of taxa by cognitive ethologists can readily inform discussions about animal protection and animal rights. However, while it is clear that there is a link between animal cognitive abilities and animal pain and suffering, I agree with Jeremy Bentham who claimed long ago the real question does not deal with whether individuals can think or reason but rather with whether (...) or not individuals can suffer. One of my major goals will be to make the case that the time has come to expand. The Great Ape Project (GAP) to The Great Ape/Animal Project (GA/AP) and to take seriously the moral status and rights of all animals by presupposing that all individuals should be admitted into the Community of Equals. I also argue that individuals count and that it is essential to avoid being speciesist cognitivists; it really doesn't matter whether ‘dogs ape’ or whether ‘apes dog’ when taking into account the worlds of different individual animals. Narrow-minded primatocentrism and speciesism must be resisted in our studies of animal cognition and animal protection and rights. Line-drawing into ‘lower’ and ‘higher’ species is a misleading speciesist practice that should be vigorously resisted because not only is line-drawing bad biology but also because it can have disastrous consequences for how animals are viewed and treated. Speciesist line-drawing also ignores within species individual differences. (shrink)

It is estimated that there could be 200 million‘environmental refugees’ by the middle of this century. One major environmental cause of population displacement is likely to be global climate change. As the situation is likely to become more pressing, it is vital to consider now the rights of environmental refugees and the duties of the rest of the world. However, this is not an issue that has been addressed in mainstream theories of global justice. This paper considers the potential of (...) two leading liberal theories of international justice to address the particular issues raised by the plight of potential and actual environmental refugees. I argue that neither John Rawls’s ‘Law of Peoples’ approach nor Charles Beitz’s `cosmopolitanism' is capable of providing an adequate account of justice in this context. Beitz’s theory does have some advantages over Rawls’s approach but it fails to take proper account of the attachment that some people have to their own ‘home’. (shrink)

The purpose of this article is threefold: (a) to describe the relevant ethical and legal issues associated with decisional capacity among minors and to discuss the importance of these concepts for children and adolescents living with HIV, (b) to provide a framework for assessing the decisional capacity of children and adolescents with HIV, and (c) to present a model for thinking about how to use this assessment data to guide action along the protection-autonomy continuum.

Increasingly in today’s world we are experiencing intensifying antagonisms around religious and ethno-cultural differences. The confrontation between political Islam and the so-called ‘West’ has replaced the rhetoric of the Cold War against communism. This new constellation has not only challenged the hypothesis that ‘secularization’ inevitably accompanied modernity but has also placed on the agenda political theology as a potent force in many societies. This article analyzes the contemporary revival of political theology by focusing on the headscarf debate in comparative constitutional (...) perspective. It compares the well-known decision of the French Parliament banning the wearing of the headscarf in public schools (2004) with the decision of the German Constitutional Court concerning whether Fereshta Ludin, an Afghani-German teacher wearing the hijab , could teach in German schools (2003) and with the more recent judgment of the Turkish Constitutional Court (summer 2008) upholding the ban on the wearing of the scarf or the turban in institutions of higher learning. At stake in these debates is not only the meaning of fundamental human rights but also why women and their bodies become the object of disciplinary conflicts in culture, law and religion. (shrink)

Vera Bergelson: Victims’ Rights and Victims’ Wrongs Content Type Journal Article Category Book Review Pages 103-109 DOI 10.1007/s11572-011-9135-8 Authors Christopher Bennett, Department of Philosophy, University of Sheffield, Sheffield, S3 7QB UK Journal Criminal Law and Philosophy Online ISSN 1871-9805 Print ISSN 1871-9791 Journal Volume Volume 6 Journal Issue Volume 6, Number 1.