Economic sanctions are envisaged as a sort of punishment, based on what should be an institutional decision not unlike a court ruling. Hence, the conditions for their lifting should be clearly stated and once those are met sanctions should be lifted. But this is generally not what happens, and perhaps is precluded by the very nature of international sanctioning. Sanctions clearly have political, economic, military and strategic consequences, but the question raised here is whether sanctions can (...) also have moral justification. Illustrated by the example of international sanctions against Yugoslavia, the authors show how the process of escalating demands on a target country, inherent to the very process of sanctioning, can lead ultimately even to overt aggression. As a result of this logic of escalation, economic sanctions cannot be articulated properly in any law-like system. Economic sanctions have much more in common with war than legal punishment, and in fact represent a form of siege. As such, they cannot be ended simply on the basis of their initial rationale, for the very process of sanctions implementation opens up possibilities for setting new goals and a continuous redefinition of the goal that sanctions are seen to have. (shrink)

I here press an often overlooked question: Why does the fairness of a sanction require an adequate opportunity to avoid it? By pressing this question, I believe I have come to better understand something that has long puzzled me, namely, what philosophers (and others) might have in mind when they talk about “true moral responsibility,” or the “condemnatory force” of moral blame, or perhaps even “basic desert.” In presenting this understanding of “condemnation” or of “basic desert,” I am presenting an (...) idea that I do not, myself, endorse—one to which I am, myself, opposed. I present and defend it, hoping that, if what I say accurately captures what people have in mind, it will also show how condemnation or desert, in this sense, can be left behind. (shrink)

Since 2022, the EU, US, and other nations have imposed medical sanctions on Russia to block the export of pharmaceuticals and medical devices and curtail clinical trials to degrade Russia’s military capabilities. While international law proscribes sanctions that cause a humanitarian crisis, an outcome averted in Russia, the military effects of medical sanctions have been lean. Strengthening medical sanctions risks violating noncombatant and combatant rights to healthcare. Each group’s claim is different. Noncombatants and severely injured soldiers (...) who cannot return to duty enjoy the right to adequate health care that sanctions cannot undermine. Combatants falling captive enjoy the same medical care that adversaries provide their own troops. Combatants yet to renounce hostilities, however, have no claim to medical attention and remain subject to sanctions. Nevertheless, medical sanctions prove unworkable in this complex environment of conflicting rights and command no place in a sustainable sanction regime. (shrink)

The paper is aimed at providing general outlines of the more than two-century history of the theory of moral sanctions. It rests on a thesis about unity of all disciplines studying morality. The aim of the paper has been achieved trough an analysis of how some basic concepts were borrowed and basic ideas were transformed. The first tradition links moral sanctions with public condemnation. Some of its adherents simply identified public condemnation with moral sanction. This opinion prevailed until (...) the middle of the XXth century. Later it was suggested that a sanction becomes genuinely moral only when a transgressor herself is sensitive to condemnation because she recognizes that she deserves it and feels shame, guilt or remorse. It means that an external side of the sanction has to be complemented by an internal one. The first tradition presupposes a deep and thorough analysis of an external side of the moral sanction, i.e. various forms of sanctioning behavior (avoidance, censure, denunciation, reproach, scolding etc.) The second tradition was initiated by J.S. Mill and H. Sidgwick, it includes among moral sanctions the very negative emotions of self-appraisal. For adherents of this tradition, model and most important moral sanctions are internal: guilt and remorse. Characteristics of internal (autonomous) and external (heteronomous) sanctions were established in the XXth century anthropology. Later this distinction became current in the contemporary ethics. (shrink)

The ArgumentIn its reconstruction of scientific practice, philosophy of science has traditionally placed scientific theories in a central role, and has reduced the problem of mediating between theories and the world to formal considerations. Many applications of scientific theories, however, involve complex mathematical models whose constitutive equations are analytically unsolvable. The study of these applications often consists in developing representations of the underlying physics on a computer, and using the techniques of computer simulation in order to learn about the behavior (...) of these systems. In many instances, these computer simulations are not simple number-crunching techniques. They involve a complex chain of inferences that serve to transform theoretical structures into specific concrete knowledge of physical systems. In this paper I argue that this process of transformation has its own epistemology. I also argue that this kind of epistemology is unfamiliar to most philosophy of science, which has traditionally concerned itself with the justification of theories, not with their application. Finally, I urge that the nature of this epistemology suggests that the end results of some simulations do not bear a simple, straightforward relation to the theories from which they stem. (shrink)

This article examines when economic sanctions should be imposed on liberal democracies that violate democratic norms. The argument is made from the social-liberal standpoint, which recognises the moral status of political communities. While social liberals rarely refer to the use of economic sanctions as a pressure tool, by examining why they restrict military intervention and economic aid to cases of massive human rights violations or acute humanitarian need, the article is able to show why they are likely to (...) impose strong restrictions on the use of economic sanctions as well. After reconstructing the social-liberal case against economic sanctions, the article develops the argument that liberal democracies have reasons to support sanctions on other liberal democracies, even when they perpetrate injustices on a smaller scale. Liberal democracies share especially strong ideological, cultural and institutional bonds, and these peer group relations open them to mutual influence. When one liberal democracy commits serious injustices while still proclaiming allegiance to the democratic ethos, it can adversely affect the vitality of the democratic culture in those other liberal democracies with which it maintains close relations. Other liberal democracies therefore have the right and the obligation to condemn this behaviour, in order to preserve their allegiance to their values. The article defends the use of economic sanctions in light of some recent critiques, and concludes by providing an overall assessment of the factors which liberal democracies ought to take into account when they consider imposing economic sanctions on other liberal democracies. (shrink)

We investigate the regulatory sanctions imposed on independent directors for their firms’ financial frauds in China. These regulatory sanctions are prima-facie evidence of significant lapses in business ethics. During the period 2003–2010, 302-person-time independent directors were penalized by the regulator, and the two stock exchanges. We find that the independent directors with accounting experiences are more likely to be penalized by the CSRC, though they do not suffer more severe penalties than do the other sanctioned independent directors. We (...) also find that independent directors suffer less severe penalties than do the insider directors. These results are consistent with the hypothesis that the sanctions on independent directors are tied to their assumed ethical and legal responsibilities. Following a regulatory sanction, penalized independent directors experience a significant decline in the number of other board seats held. However, they can gain board seats in better quality firms. We find that interlocked firms that share penalized independent directors with the fraud firm do not suffer from a valuation decline. Overall, our results suggest that regulatory sanctions have not triggered further sanctions on the penalized directors in the labor market but they have, instead, created a disincentive for these directors to serve on the company boards of high-risk firms. (shrink)

Mill's discussion of ‘the internal sanction’ in chapter III of Utilitarianism does not do justice to his understanding of internal sanctions; it omits some important points and obscures others. I offer an account of this portion of his moral psychology of motivation which brings out its subtleties and complexities. I show that he recognizes the importance of internal sanctions as sources of motives to develop and perfect our characters, as well as of motives to do our duty, and (...) I examine in some detail the various ways in which these sanctions give rise to motivating desires and aversions. (shrink)

There are considerable difficulties with targeted sanctions. Some of these difficulties may be resolved as these measures continue to be refined. Others are rooted in fundamental conflicts between competing interests or intractable logistical challenges.

This article looks at some major goals that have been set for sanctions and evaluates how effective sanctions have been at reaching those goals. It also examines the costs of sanctions, i.e., the impact on civilians and on international support for sanctions.

High propensities to form coalitions and to negotiate and prevent conflict escalation may be found in monkeys as in great apes. However, there is no evidence that non-human primate communities intend to suppress individual power that grows too strong. Qualifying as protomoral those abilities needed to keep low the dominance gradient is not useful. When communication about social norms appeared in some hominids, it would not have been limited to sanctions against domination.

Despite triggering one of the largest civilian death tolls in modern history, the policy and human consequences of economic sanctions on Iraq between 1990-2003 remain largely unexamined. This lack of scrutiny mirrors the euphemism and mis-information surrounding the embargo itself and the Oil-for-Food program ostensibly adopted to protect Iraq's civilian population. But it also reflects incomprehension among Western publics - long removed from the realities of hunger and economic destitution - of the intimate link between economic conditions and mortality. (...) Iraq suffered an estimated 1.5 million excess deaths because of a catastrophic undermining of civilian livelihood triggered by the embargo; an outcome termed slow famine in the demographic literature. With much of the population fully dependent on daily food rations of less than 21 cents per person for much of the sanctions period, OfF `relief' was inherently incapable of substituting for a functioning civil economy. Recent positive accounts of the impact of OfF, in the form of the Independent Inquiry Committee into the Oil-for-Food Program, are refuted by close analysis of malnutrition and mortality rates across the sanctions period. The example of Iraq reveals the danger in treating economic sanctions as a cheap, `non-violent' tool for conflict resolution. In reality their deadly power is terrorizing for societies not protected from their application by permanent member status on the UN Security Council, a threat which continues to generate global insecurity. The Iraq experience reveals how current, narrowly framed, international law prohibitions on starvation as a weapon of war need to be extended to cover interference with civilian livelihood and hence access to food. (shrink)

Up until recently, most legal philosophers have argued that an action is a token of sanctioning if, and only if, (i) its performance brings about unwelcome consequences to the targets, and (ii) it is performed as a response to the breach of a duty. In this paper I take issue with this account. I first add some qualifications to it in order to present it in its most plausible form. After doing this, I advance a series of hypothetical cases which (...) suggests that this account fails. I then propose a new account of sanctioning, whereby an action is a token of sanctioning if, and only if, it is performed in an appropriate context and is apt for punishing wrongdoers. (shrink)

At least since Athenian trade sanctions helped to spark the Peloponnesian War, economic coercion has been a prominent tool of foreign policy. In the modern era, sovereign states and multilateral institutions have imposed economic sanctions on dictatorial regimes or would-be nuclear powers as an alternative to waging war. They have conditioned offers of aid, loans, and debt relief on recipients’ willingness to implement market and governance reforms. Such methods interfere in freedom of trade and the internal affairs of (...) sovereign states, yet are widely used as a means to advance human rights. But are they morally justifiable? -/- Drawing on human rights theories, theories of justifiable harm, and examples such as IMF lending practices and international sanctions on Russia and North Korea, Fabre offers a defense of economic statecraft in some of its guises. An empirically attuned work of philosophy, Economic Statecraft lays out a normative framework for an important tool of diplomacy. (shrink)

Sanctions such as those applied by the United Nations against Yugoslavia, or rather the actions of implementing and maintaining them, at the very least implicitly purport to have moral justification. While the rhetoric used to justify sanctions is clearly moralistic, even sanctions themselves, as worded, often include phrases indicating moral implication. On May 30, 1992, United Nation Security Council Resolution 757 imposed a universal, binding blockage on all trade and all scientific, cultural and sports exchanges with Serbia (...) and Montenegro. In addition to expressing the usual "concern' and "dismay" regarding various events, the language of this Resolution also includes, on three occasions, unmistakably moral language "deploring" failures in meeting the demands of earlier resolutions.' There is no question that sanctions have political, economic, military and trategic consequences for the sanctioned state, perhaps exactly as desired by the sanctioning party. However, the question raised in this essay is whether in addition to these consequences, sanctions also produce morally reprehensible consequences that undermine their often-cited moral justification. If so, international economic sanctions are an immoral means of achieving primarily political goals. Six morally significant consequences are: 1) The unethical, elevated susceptibility of the sanctioned to olitical (and other forms of) manipulation, 2) the inherent and unjust paternalism in the process of sanctioning, 3) the abandonment of strict moral criteria on virtually all levels of evaluation, primarily inside the sanctioned country, but also in sanctioning states best exhibited in the attitudes toward the sanctioned, 4) the general decline in moral consciousness, 5) the subsequent rise of many forms of violence within the sanctioned state in connection with the increase in lawlessness, and a general decline of expectations in all areas of life, and 6) the continual, arbitrary redefining of conditions for a final lifting of sanctions. In light of this moral phenomenology we shall argue that sanctions, lacking in moral justification, are simply a means for achieving the mentioned immoral goals. Furthermore, the argument will be that sanctions are a form of siege and, as such, an act of war, requiring the sort of justification that would be needed to justify a war. (shrink)

Summary Twenty?four primary schools were randomly selected from all those listed in a local education authority in the West Midlands of England. Heads or deputy headteachers of 21 of these schools were interviewed using a structured interview schedule very similar to the one used for a recent survey of secondary schools. Data were obtained about the general rule structures of the schools and the system of sanctions and rewards used to maintain them. The findings were then compared with those (...) from the secondary survey. Primary schools were less likely than secondary schools to have written rule structures but most were in the process of producing them in response to new pressures. It was more common for all the teachers in the primary school to be considered responsible for seeing that rules were kept. Generally, primary school headteachers identified fewer sanctions being used to uphold their rules than in secondary schools. The number of rewards used in both types of school was about equal. Comment is made on the difference between sanctions and rewards identified as being used in schools and some observed classroom practice. (shrink)

All 24 secondary schools in a West Midlands local education authority were visited and a structured interview was conducted with the head or another senior teacher. An interview schedule was used to record details concerning the rule structure which had been established to control the conduct of the pupils. Information was also gathered about the sanctions and rewards used to maintain this behaviour and from most schools copies of the rules were available. It was found that almost all schools (...) had rule systems that were in written form and that these were made available to staff and students, chiefly through booklets or other material given to pupils when they first enrolled. All schools backed up their rules, whether written or not by a series of sanctions, most of which related to non?conforming behaviour. Some sanctions were applied to poor work but this was usually treated by special provision or special tutoring. Most also used rewards but these tended to be reserved for good performance. There were few cases where good behaviour was found to be rewarded systematically in any way. (shrink)

Abstract. The paper begins by challenging Hart's argument aimed to show that sanctions are not part of the concept of law. It shows that in the "minimal" legal system as understood by Hart, sanctions may be required for keeping the legal system efficacious. I then draw a methodological conclusion from this argument, which challenges the view of Hart (and his followers) that legal philosophy should aim at discovering some general, politically neutral, conceptual truths about law. Instead, the aim (...) should be to discover the values because of which certain things in the world are classified as law and others as non-law. Focusing on those would give us a more insight to the roles law plays in society, as well as more illuminating answers to traditional jurisprudential questions like the status of law in evil regimes. (shrink)

A revision of papers originally presented at a public symposium on The legitimation of evil held by the Wright Institute. Bibliography: p. 361-374.

This paper focuses on accountability in school-based education in England. It explores notions of accountability and proposes a new framework for its analysis. It then identifies a number of types of accountability which are present in school-based education, and discusses each in terms of who is accountable to whom and for what. It goes on to examine the sanctions associated with each type of accountability and some possible effects of each type. School performance cross-cuts virtually all facets of accountability, (...) but is fundamental to hierarchical and market accountability where it is associated with a high likelihood of severe sanctions. This, it is argued, means that schools are likely to focus on these forms of accountability as opposed to participative or network accountabilities that involve collaboration with others. The final section proposes that there is a case for accountability systems to focus more broadly on a variety of processes and outcomes related to the overall goals of education. The existing regime in England is heavily focused on hierarchical and market accountability: a greater focus on participative and network accountability may foster a less individualistic approach to education and greater social cohesion. (shrink)

Michael Clark; II*—The Sanctions of the Criminal Law, Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, Volume 97, Issue 1, 1 June 1997, Pages 25–40, https://doi.org/10.

H. L. A. Hart’s criticism of Austin’s theory of law is that it is essentially false to the facts. Austin asserts that “Every positive law simply and strictly so called, is set by a sovereign person, or sovereign body of persons, to a … person or persons in a state of subjection to its author.” Laws get their force from the threat of sanction. This view, which we may call “the gunman theory of law,” is what Hart criticizes. Too many (...) laws, he argues, do not look like commands backed by sanctions for us to find this theory compelling. (shrink)

The Ethics of Economic Sanctions Economic sanctions involve the politically motivated withdrawal of customary trade or financial relations from a state, organisation or individual. They may be imposed by the United Nations, regional governmental organisations such as the European Union, or by states acting alone. Although economic sanctions have long been a feature of international … Continue reading Ethics of Economic Sanctions →.

The role of the Home Office in the Peterloo Massacre remains contentious. This article assesses the available evidence from the Home Office and the private correspondence of Home Secretary Viscount Sidmouth to contest E. P. Thompson’s claim that the Home Office ‘assented’ to the arrest of Henry Hunt at St Peter’s Fields. Peterloo is placed within the context of government’s response to political radicalism to show how the Tory ministry had no clear counter-radical strategy in the months leading up to (...) the August event. The article further argues that although the Home Office may not have assented to forceful intervention on the day, the event and its aftermath were needed to justify the Six Acts which would ultimately cripple the reform movement. (shrink)

This dissertation argues for a particular interpretation of John Stuart Mill’s utilitarianism, namely that Mill is best read as a sanction utilitarian. In general, scholars commonly interpret Mill as some type of act or rule utilitarian. In making their case for these interpretations, it is also common for scholars to use large portions of Mill’s Utilitarianism as the chief source of insight into his moral theory. By contrast, I argue that Utilitarianism is best read as an ecumenical text where Mill (...) explains and defends the general tenets of utilitarianism rather than setting out his own preferred theory. The exception to this ecumenical approach to the text comes in the fifth chapter on justice which, I argue on textual and historical grounds, outlines the central features of Mill’s utilitarianism. -/- With this understanding of Utilitarianism in place, many of the passages commonly cited in favor of the previous interpretations are rendered less plausible, and interpretations emphasizing Mill’s other writings are strengthened. Using this methodology, I critique four of the most prominent act or rule utilitarian interpretations of Mill’s moral theory. I then provide an interpretation of Mill’s theory of moral obligation and utilitarianism. On Mill’s account of moral obligation (which purportedly holds for moral theories generally, not just utilitarianism) there is a tight relation between an action being wrong and it being subject to punishment by an agent’s conscience. The utilitarian aspect of Mill’s theory concerns the role of rules in an agent’s conscience. According to Mill’s sanction utilitarian view, the actions that are punished are those actions that violate the moral rules which, if widely internalized across society, would promote general utility. On this account, an action is wrong when an agent violates a justified moral rule and is properly punished, at least by one’s conscience. An action is right when conditions are such that if the action were not performed, then the action would be properly punished by at least the agent’s conscience. I apply this interpretation to other notable components of Mill’s approach such as his account of practical action (the Art of Life) and his theory of liberty. (shrink)

Context In response to outbreaks of vaccine‐preventable disease and increasing rates of vaccine refusal, some political communities have recently implemented coercive childhood immunization programs, or they have made existing childhood immunization programs more coercive. Many other political communities possess coercive vaccination policies, and others are considering developing them. Scholars and policymakers generally refer to coercive immunization policies as “vaccine mandates.” However, mandatory vaccination is not a unitary concept. Rather, coercive childhood immunization policies are complex, context‐specific instruments. Their legally and morally (...) significant features often differ, and they are imposed by political communities in varying circumstances and upon diverse populations. Methods In this paper, we introduce a taxonomy for classifying real‐world and theoretical mandatory childhood vaccination policies, according to their scope (which vaccines to require), sanctions and severity (which kind of penalty to impose on vaccine refusers, and how much of that penalty to impose), and selectivity (how to enforce or exempt people from vaccine mandates). Findings A full understanding of the operation of a vaccine mandate policy (real or potential) requires attention to the separate components of that policy. However, we can synthesize information about a policy's scope, sanctions, severity, and selectivity to identify a further attribute—salience —which identifies the magnitude of the burdens the state imposes on those who are not vaccinated. Conclusion Our taxonomy provides a framework for forensic examination of current and potential mandatory vaccination policies, by focusing attention on those features of vaccine mandates that are most relevant for comparative judgments. (shrink)

A number of jurisdictions, including England and Wales after their adoption of the 1991 Criminal Justice Act, require that sentences be `proportionate' to the severity of the crime. This book, written by the leading architect of `just deserts' sentencing theory, discusses how sentences may be scaled proportionately to the gravity of the crime. Topics dealt with include how the idea of a penal censure justifies proportionate sentences; how a penalty scale should be `anchored' to reduce overall punishment levels; how non-custodial (...) penalties should be graded and used; and how political pressures impinge on sentencing policies. (shrink)

This chapter contains section titled: Definitions The External Sanctions The Internal Sanction Conclusion.

I argue that contemporary artists fix the features of their works not only through their actions of making and presenting objects, but also through auxiliary activities such as corresponding with curators and institutions. I refer to such fixing of features as the artist’s sanction: artists sanction features of their work through publicly accessible actions and communications, such as making a physical object with particular features, corresponding with curators and producing artist statements. I show, through an extended example, that in order (...) to grasp the nature of contemporary artworks, and thus be in a position to interpret them, we must attend to the features the artist has sanctioned. However, this does not amount to saying that the artist’s intention fixes the features of the work. While related to intentions, sanctions are not identical to them; and, indeed, the features the artist has sanctioned may conflict, in some cases, with those she intended. I distinguish my view from actual and hypothetical intentionalism and show that considering the artist’s sanction does not force us to accept any particular interpretation of the work. I also show that, while it has special relevance to our understanding of contemporary artworks, the notion of the sanction is in fact relevant to traditional Western art as well. (shrink)