Some say that public policy can be made without the benefit of theory--that it emerges, instead, through trial-and-error. Others see genuine philosophical issues in public affairs but try to resolve them through fanciful examples. Both, argues Robert E. Goodin, are wrong. Goodin--a political scientist who is also an associate editor of Ethics--shows that empirical and ethical theory can and should guide policy. To be useful, however, these philosophical discussions of public affairs must draw upon actual policy experiences rather than contrived (...) cases. Further, they must reflect the broader social consequences of policies rather than just the dilemmas of personal conscience. Effectively integrating the literatures of social science, policy science, and philosophy, Goodin provides a theoretically sophisticated yet empirically well-grounded analysis of public policies, the principles underlying them, the institutions shaping them, and the excuses offered for their failures. This analysis is enhanced by the author's discussion of such specific cases as the disposal of nuclear wastes and the priority accorded national defense--cases that illustrate Goodin's theoretical and methodological framework for approaching policy issues. (shrink)

This chapter contains section titled: Rawls and Human Rights Minimalism State Sovereignty and the Role of Human Rights Rawls's Political Liberalism and the Doctrine of Human Rights in LoP The Importance of the Role in LoP of Rawls's Narrow Doctrine of Human Rights Rawls's Arguments for the Narrow Doctrine ldquo;Ideal” and “Non‐ideal” Theory in LoP Strategies for the International Enforcement of Respect for Human Rights Conclusion Notes.

The version of the invisible hand argument in Adam Smith's Theory of Moral Sentiments differs in important respects from the version in The Wealth of Nations. Both are different, in turn, from the version invoked by Milton Friedman in Free to Choose. However, all three have a common structure. Attention to this structure can help sharpen our sense of their essential thrust by highlighting the questions (about the nature of economic motivation, the structure of markets, and conceptions of the public (...) interest) to which answers of certain kinds would have to be available for any of the versions to succeed. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:74. RULE-UTILITARIANISM AND HUME'S THEORY OF JUSTICE One of the striking features of Hume's theory of justice is the narrowness of the range of judgments it is designed to illumine. For Hume the paradigms of judgments of justice are judgments about particular actions, not judgments about laws or institutions or states of affairs. Moreover, the characterization of actions as just or unjust is possible according to Hume only in (...) a certain kind of legal context - namely when questions arise about the conformity of conduct to a certain class of legal rules, those which comprise the law of property. In such contexts, actions are said to be just if they are in accordance with property rules and unjust if they are contrary to them. Of particular interest is the exclusion of judgments about the law - and in particular judgments about property rules - from the class of judgments of justice. Hume recognizes, of course, that we often have occasion to evaluate rules of law, including the rules which make up the law of property. When such judgments have to be made, however, it is never their justice or injustice which is in question for Hume. The fact that he often refers to the rules of property as "rules of justice" may seem to be inconsistent with this view, but it is not. When Hume refers to property rules in this way, it is not because he wishes to signify that the rules themselves satisfy some principle of justice, but rather because he conceives of them as embodying our criteria for the making of judgments about the justice of particular acts. Property rules cannot be viewed as "rules of justice" in this sense without satisfying some supralegal standard of acceptability. But the standard in quesrtion is social utility, not justice. Property rules qualify as "rules of justice", then, not because they are just but rather because they serve the public interest. Like some contemporary rule-utilitarians, Hume expressly disallows the question whether particular acts of 75. justice are socially useful. Or rather, to be more accurate, he claims that the disutility of particular acts sanctioned by property law counts neither against their being regarded as "acts of justice" nor against recognition of the obligation to perform them. Neither the characterisation of particular actions as "just" nor the stringency of the obligation to perform them is affected by the discovery that they might have to be said not to be in the public interest if attention were to be concentrated on the special circumstances of their performance. The reason is that it is a mistake, Hume thinks, for such acts to be viewed in isolation from other similar acts. Rather they must be seen as forming part of a scheme or system - a scheme or system which, taken in its entirety, serves the public interest. Hume's theory of justice thus embodies an unusually neat distinction between questions of justice and questions of social utility. When questions of justice are allowed to arise which is when the justice of particular acts is to be determined - questions of social utility do not arise. And when questions of social utility are allowed to arise - as they do when property rules have to be evaluated - questions of justice do not arise. Despite the sharp distinction he draws between justice and utility, Hume's theory of justice is clearly a utilitarian one. It is indeed a veritable prototype of the kind of theory now dubbed "rule-utilitarian". As such it has obvious attractions for would-be utilitarians, if it can be made to work. It would enable utilitarians to offer an account of judgments of justice in terms of rules enjoying the status of secondary principles of morality. Justice judgments could be represented as a special sub-class of moral judgments and the principles regulating them as subordinate to, and derivable from, the principle of utility. The vexed question of the relation between justice and utility would thereby be resolved without challenge to the assumption that they are different values and also without 76. abandonment of the claim that the principle of utility is the only underivative moral principle. By contrast, utilitarians for whom the... (shrink)

In section I, I identify several mini-theses embedded in Amartya Sen’s theory of human rights – such theses as that human rights are moral, not legal, rights, that nevertheless they are not rights that are awaiting transformation into legal rights, that an expansive doctrine of human rights can incorporate a broad swath of rights without merely mimicking the catalogues in post-Second World War declarations and covenants, and that not all the obligations generated by human rights are ‘perfect’ obligations.In section II, (...) I argue that, both because ‘freedom’ has many interpretations and because not all human freedoms, even when they are life-enhancing, are to be protected as human rights, the distinctive features of Sen’s version of a freedom-emphasizing doctrine would be clearer if the preferred interpretation of ‘freedom’ and the particular human freedoms to be protected were more explicitly identified.While Sen’s doctrine of human rights is a freedom-emphasizing doctrine, its distinctive features – vis-à-vis competing freedom-focused accounts – would be more clearly etched if it were made clearer what the sense is in which it stresses protection of important human freedoms, especially since he concedes that not all freedoms, even when they are life-enhancing for human beings, should be protected as human rights. (shrink)

According to Libertarians, the freedom of individuals to make crucial lifeshaping choices is effectively and adequately protected if other individuals and agenciesrefrain from interfering with their freedom and if the state takes steps to ensure that such interference is either prevented or punished. This paper presents a “Liberal” critique of this position, in three stages. First, prevention of interference is only one of several conditions that must be fulfilled if an individual’s lot in life is to be legitimately traceable to (...) his or her choices. Second, the additional conditions resemble prevention of interference in that their fulfillment cannot be secured by the unaided efforts of individuals. Third, these further conditions resemble prevention of interference in that their fulfillment cannot be secured on an equitable basis for all if the state does not assume responsibility for trying to ensure their fulfillment. The argument (of non-anarchist Libertarians) that the state has a role to play in securing the fulfillment of the non-interference condition ought consequently to be extended to support the view that securing the fulfillment of the otherconditions of freedom of choice is also a legitimate function of the state. (shrink)

According to Libertarians, the freedom of individuals to make crucial lifeshaping choices is effectively and adequately protected if other individuals and agenciesrefrain from interfering with their freedom and if the state takes steps to ensure that such interference is either prevented or punished. This paper presents a “Liberal” critique of this position, in three stages. First, prevention of interference is only one of several conditions that must be fulfilled if an individual’s lot in life is to be legitimately traceable to (...) his or her choices. Second, the additional conditions resemble prevention of interference in that their fulfillment cannot be secured by the unaided efforts of individuals. Third, these further conditions resemble prevention of interference in that their fulfillment cannot be secured on an equitable basis for all if the state does not assume responsibility for trying to ensure their fulfillment. The argument that the state has a role to play in securing the fulfillment of the non-interference condition ought consequently to be extended to support the view that securing the fulfillment of the otherconditions of freedom of choice is also a legitimate function of the state. (shrink)

According to Libertarians, the freedom of individuals to make crucial lifeshaping choices is effectively and adequately protected if other individuals and agenciesrefrain from interfering with their freedom and if the state takes steps to ensure that such interference is either prevented or punished. This paper presents a “Liberal” critique of this position, in three stages. First, prevention of interference is only one of several conditions that must be fulfilled if an individual’s lot in life is to be legitimately traceable to (...) his or her choices. Second, the additional conditions resemble prevention of interference in that their fulfillment cannot be secured by the unaided efforts of individuals. Third, these further conditions resemble prevention of interference in that their fulfillment cannot be secured on an equitable basis for all if the state does not assume responsibility for trying to ensure their fulfillment. The argument that the state has a role to play in securing the fulfillment of the non-interference condition ought consequently to be extended to support the view that securing the fulfillment of the otherconditions of freedom of choice is also a legitimate function of the state. (shrink)

In his recent book Rescuing Justice and Equality (Harvard University Press, 2008), G. A. Cohen returns to the defense of his critique of the Rawlsian doctrine of the “basic structure as subject.” This doctrine provides the centerpiece of what Rawls has to say about the domain of distributive justice—that is, about the sorts of things judgments of distributive justice are about and about the ways in which these judgments are interconnected. From the extensiveness of Cohen’s critique of this doctrine, it (...) seems clear that he wants to take a very different view of the boundaries and contours of this domain. However, despite the characteristic clarity and precision with which he describes the Rawlsian doctrine and despite the trenchancy of his criticisms, it is still a matter of some difficulty determining the respects in which he and Rawls are actually in disagreement. (shrink)

In his recent book Rescuing Justice and Equality (Harvard University Press, 2008), G. A. Cohen returns to the defense of his critique of the Rawlsian doctrine of the “basic structure as subject.” This doctrine provides the centerpiece of what Rawls has to say about the domain of distributive justice—that is, about the sorts of things judgments of distributive justice are about and about the ways in which these judgments are interconnected. From the extensiveness of Cohen’s critique of this doctrine, it (...) seems clear that he wants to take a very different view of the boundaries and contours of this domain. However, despite the characteristic clarity and precision with which he describes the Rawlsian doctrine and despite the trenchancy of his criticisms, it is still a matter of some difficulty determining the respects in which he and Rawls are actually in disagreement. (shrink)

Taking for granted that there is a strong connection between respect far human dignity and endorsement of institutional arrangements that protect individual liberty, I ask whether this can be cited in support of a free market approach to the organization of the economy. The answer, it might seem, must be Yes. Prominent defenders of a free market system commonly assume that an important part of the rationale for the free market is that it protects individual liberty. Appearances are misleading, however. (...) The free market ideal is not a mere corollary in the economic domain of the ideal of individual liberty. It stands, rather, at some distance from it, in both content and rationale. Indeed, conflict between these ideals in certain contexts can not be ruled out. The possibility has to be reckoned with, consequently, that an unqualified commitment to the free market system is not consistent with respect for human dignity. (shrink)

Taking for granted that there is a strong connection between respect far human dignity and endorsement of institutional arrangements that protect individual liberty, I ask whether this can be cited in support of a free market approach to the organization of the economy. The answer, it might seem, must be Yes. Prominent defenders of a free market system commonly assume that an important part of the rationale for the free market is that it protects individual liberty. Appearances are misleading, however. (...) The free market ideal is not a mere corollary in the economic domain of the ideal of individual liberty. It stands, rather, at some distance from it, in both content and rationale. Indeed, conflict between these ideals in certain contexts can not be ruled out. The possibility has to be reckoned with, consequently, that an unqualified commitment to the free market system is not consistent with respect for human dignity. (shrink)

In opposition to the instrumental doctrine of rationality, I argue that the rationality of the end served by a strategy is a necessary condition of the rationality of the strategy itself: means to ends cannot be rational unless the ends are rational. First, I explore cases-involving ‘proximate’ ends — where even instrumentalists must concede that the rationality of a strategy presupposes the rationality of the end it serves. Second, I draw attention to the counter-intuitive consequences — in cases involving ‘non-proximate’ (...) ends — of substituting questions about de facto ends for questions about the rationality of ends. Third, I argue-against Nozick — that it is a mistake to suppose that the only question dividing instrumentalists from non-instrumentalists is whether the instrumental doctrine needs supplementation. Finally, I try to show that questions about the rationality of ends need not be viewed as impossibly daunting. (shrink)

Journal of Social Philosophy, EarlyView.

First published in 1973, this is the first book on Paul Tillich in which a sustained attempt is made to sort out and evaluate the questions to which Tillich addresses himself in the crucial philosophical parts of his theological system. It is argued that despite the apparent simplicity in his interest in _the _‘question of being’, Tillich in fact conceives of the ontological enterprise in a number of radically different ways in different contexts. Much of Professor Macleod’s work is devoted (...) to the careful separation of these strands in his philosophical thought and to an exploration and assessment of the assumptions associated with them. This book will be of interest to readers of Tillich and philosophers who specialise in ontology and linguistics. (shrink)

Without attempting a full-scale definition of “terrorism,” I assume that terrorist acts are politically motivated, that the political goals of terrorists are both diverse and a “mixed bag,” that terrorist acts inflict deliberate harm on innocent civilians, and that they are therefore to be condemned even when the goals they ostensibly serve are defensible goals. The various versions of the “root causes” argument seek to explain the phenomenon of terrorism, not to justify it. Nevertheless, anti-terrorism strategists must take these explanations (...) seriously and be prepared to adopta suitably broad view of the causal factors that may be involved. Exclusive concentration on the motives of terrorists is a mistake. Also important, for example, are the attitudes of members of populations in which there is sympathy for the goals of terrorists without any endorsement of their methods. (shrink)

Without attempting a full-scale definition of “terrorism,” I assume (for the purposes of the argument of the paper) (1) that terrorist acts are politically motivated, (2) that the political goals of terrorists are both diverse and (morally) a “mixed bag,” (3) that terrorist acts inflict deliberate harm on innocent civilians, and (4) that they are therefore to be condemned even when the goals they ostensibly serve are defensible goals. The various versions of the “root causes” argument seek to explain the (...) phenomenon of terrorism, not to justify it. Nevertheless, anti-terrorism strategists must take these explanations seriously and be prepared to adopta suitably broad view of the causal factors that may be involved. Exclusive concentration on the motives of terrorists is a mistake. Also important, for example, are the attitudes of (nonterrorist) members of populations in which there is sympathy for the goals of terrorists without any endorsement of their methods. (shrink)

Under the first-past-the-post electoral system that is still deeply entrenched in such democracies as Canada and the United States, it is not at all uncommon in a provincial, state, or federal election for there to be a striking lack of correspondence between the share of the seats a political party is able to win and its share of the popular vote. From the standpoint of the democratic ideal what is morally unacceptable about this system is that the right to vote (...) it confers on members of the electorate is not a defensible instantiation of the fundamental right citizens have to participate on terms of equality in the collective decision-making processes that help to determine their options in life. Three common attempts by defenders of the system to shield it from this objection are considered and rejected. (shrink)

Under the first-past-the-post electoral system that is still deeply entrenched in such democracies as Canada and the United States, it is not at all uncommon in a provincial, state, or federal election for there to be a striking lack of correspondence between the share of the seats a political party is able to win and its share of the popular vote. From the standpoint of the democratic ideal what is morally unacceptable about this system is that the right to vote (...) it confers on members of the electorate is not a defensible instantiation of the fundamental right citizens have to participate on terms of equality in the collective decision-making processes that help to determine their options in life. Three common attempts by defenders of the system to shield it from this objection are considered and rejected. (shrink)

I argue that a reasonably comprehensive doctrine of human rights can be reconciled with at least a good deal of diversity in cultural belief and practice. The reconciliation cannot be achieved by trying to show that there is in fact a cross-cultural consensus about the existence of human rights, partly because no valid inference to the normative status of human rights can be drawn from the existence of such a consensus. However, by highlighting the premises rather than the conclusions of (...) normatively persuasive arguments for human rights, I argue that a reasonably comprehensive doctrine of universal human rights can be squared with what is known about the diversity of cultural beliefs and practices. This is because the (empirically plausible) denial that there is in fact a cross-cultural consensus about the existence of human rights can go hand-in-hand with cross-cultural endorsement of the normative considerations that underpin human rights doctrine. (shrink)

I argue that a reasonably comprehensive doctrine of human rights can be reconciled with at least a good deal of diversity in cultural belief and practice. The reconciliation cannot be achieved by trying to show that there is in fact a cross-cultural consensus about the existence of human rights, partly because no valid inference to the normative status of human rights can be drawn from the existence of such a consensus. However, by highlighting the premises rather than the conclusions of (...) normatively persuasive arguments for human rights, I argue that a reasonably comprehensive doctrine of universal human rights can be squared with what is known about the diversity of cultural beliefs and practices. This is because the (empirically plausible) denial that there is in fact a cross-cultural consensus about the existence of human rights can go hand-in-hand with cross-cultural endorsement of the normative considerations that underpin human rights doctrine. (shrink)

Universal Human Rights brings new clarity to the important and highly contested concept of universal human rights. This collection of essays explores the foundations of universal human rights in four sections devoted to their nature, application, enforcement, and limits, concluding that shared rights help to constitute a universal human community, which supports local customs and separate state sovereignty. The eleven contributors to this volume demonstrate from their very different perspectives how human rights can help to bring moral order to an (...) otherwise divided world. (shrink)