In the Transcendental Aesthetic (TA), Kant is typically held to make negative assertations about “things in themselves,” namely that they are not spatial or temporal. These negative assertions stand behind the “neglected alternative” problem for Kant’s transcendental idealism. According to this problem, Kant may be entitled to assert that spatio-temporality is a subjective element of our cognition, but he cannot rule out that it may also be a feature of the objective world. In this paper, I show in a new (...) way how Kant’s view (focusing on his conclusions about space) is not subject to this objection, by showing that he does not make the denial about mind-independent reality that he is typically held to make. The argument develops consequences of a new reading of Kant’s expression “an sich selbst” (‘in itself’; ‘in themselves’). I argue that “an sich selbst” or “per se” has a special, judgment-level role, so that this expression does not form new noun-terms adjectivally. It follows that the conceptual unit of Kant’s “Conclusions” in the TA is simply “things” (Dinge), since “things in themselves” is not a nominal expression; Kant adopts the Wolffian ontological use of “thing” as the basic kind-term for any existent. The arguments that things per se are not in space are arguments that space cannot be a necessary property or relations of things as a kind. I show that this does not involve the positive claim about mind-independent reality that inspires the neglected alternative objection. (shrink)

In this paper we elaborate on the question how to bridge the gap between contemporary (New) music and the tradition of the past, often called ‘classical’ music. First we analyze the notion of tradition (in classical music) as being distinct from traditional music, nationalism and traditionalism. A central role in this paper is dedicated to the role of counterpoint education following J.J. Fux’s Gradus ad Parnassum in the development of Central-European classical music between the late Renaissance and late Romantic periods. (...) The developments in the 20th century New Music reveal several important trend breaks. The controversies raised during the early Renaissance, regarding the practice of polyphonic singing, are discussed with respect to their impact on music development in later ages. From these controversies and the re-discovery of Nicholas de Cusa’s view on mysticism, the experience of the non-experience in polyphonic music is elucidated. Herewith, an illuminative heuristic is found in the enfolding-unfolding paradigm both in music and pictural arts, from the Renaissance till the present. (shrink)

Asperó and Schindler have completely solved the Axiom [Formula: see text] vs. [Formula: see text] problem. They have proved that if [Formula: see text] holds then Axiom [Formula: see text] holds, with no additional assumptions. The key question now concerns the relationship between [Formula: see text] and Axiom [Formula: see text]. This is because the foundational issues raised by the problem of Axiom [Formula: see text] vs. [Formula: see text] arguably persist in the problem of Axiom [Formula: see text] vs. (...) [Formula: see text]. The first of our two main theorems is that Axiom [Formula: see text] is equivalent to Axiom [Formula: see text], and as a corollary we show that Axiom [Formula: see text] fails in all the known models of [Formula: see text]. This suggests that [Formula: see text] actually refutes Axiom [Formula: see text]. Our second main theorem is that the [Formula: see text] Conjecture holds assuming [Formula: see text]. This is the strongest partial result known on this conjecture which is one of the central open problems of [Formula: see text]-theory and [Formula: see text]-logic. These results identify a fundamental asymmetry between the Continuum Hypothesis and any axiom which is both [Formula: see text]-expressible and which implies [Formula: see text], on the basis of generic absoluteness for the simplest of the nontrivial sentences of Third-Order Number Theory. These are the [Formula: see text]-sentences with no parameters. Such sentences are those which simply assert the existence of a set [Formula: see text] for which some property involving only quantification over [Formula: see text] holds. (shrink)

The seventh edition of this pragmatic guide to determining right and wrong in the workplace is updated with new case studies and ancillary materials to combine stakeholder perspectives with a deep dive on workplace ethics issues. Using a unique stakeholder-based approach, this book takes business ethics out of the theory realm and provides practical ways to analyze any business decision. Including dozens of cases, Joseph Weiss looks beyond the impacts of ethical lapses on share price and profit to focus on (...) relationships between stakeholders, including individuals, groups, corporations, and governments. The new seventh edition includes seven new cases and ten new Point/Counterpoint exercises, which challenge students to argue both sides of a contemporary issue. It incorporates the latest research as well as updated cases dealing with recent scandals at organizations such as Boeing, Facebook, and Uber. Professors will have access to online support, including teaching notes, PowerPoint slides, and sample tests. The book is equipped with a step-by-step guide to implementing stakeholder analysis, tips to help students apply ethical principles in their personal and professional lives, and comprehensive coverage of employee workplace issues. Addressing relevant topics such as risk management, preferential hiring, and sexual harassment in conjunction with the digital divide, bribery, the environment, and more, Business Ethics, seventh edition explores ethical implications in today's increasingly interconnected global business environment. (shrink)

This masterful work on Kant's Religion within the Boundaries of Mere Reason explores Kant's treatment of the Idea of God, his views concerning evil, and the moral grounds for faith in God. Kant and Religion works to deepen our understanding of religion's place and meaning within the history of human culture, touching on Kant's philosophical stance regarding theoretical, moral, political, and religious matters. Wood's breadth of knowledge of Kant's corpus, philosophical sharpness, and depth of reflection sheds light not only on (...) Kant, but also on the fate of religion and its relation to philosophy in the modern world. (shrink)

While the idea of philosophy as conceptual analysis has attracted many adherents and undergone a number of variations, in general it suffers from an authority problem with two dimensions. First, it is unclear why the analysis of a concept should have objective authority: why explicating what we mean should express how things are. Second, conceptual analysis seems to lack intersubjective authority: why philosophical analysis should apply to more than a parochial group of individuals. I argue that Hegel’s conception of social (...) ontology, focused on his concept of “ethical life” (Sittlichkeit), helps to explain how concepts (and their explication) have both objective and intersubjective authority in the social domain. Hegel claims that modern institutions are the product of self-conscious purposes, so that they are conceptually constituted. Concepts do not just represent these objects and so depend on a contingent relation to them. As many contemporary social ontologists agree, this means that our concepts of these institutions are uniquely epistemically “transparent.” They have objective authority. Concepts have intersubjective authority in the modern world as well, according to Hegel. However, I show that this feature of Hegel’s account does not rely on the solution to a philosophical problem. Rather, since the concepts of modern ethical life are “essentially contested,” their content depends on the practical and political agreement of modern subjects. This means that concepts can only have objective authority if some prior intersubjective agreement has been reached. The role of philosophy as conceptual analysis is thus importantly dependent on political developments. (shrink)

Resumo O artigo trata da análise crítica de Jürgen Habermas a respeito das consequências do modelo neoliberal de integração global via mercado, em especial o desequilíbrio entre política e mercado, o fim do compromisso com o Estado social e o déficit democrático no nível transnacional. Para o filósofo alemão, a concepção neoliberal de sociedade desestatizada do capitalismo global atinge o nexo entre Estado nacional, democracia e justiça social, marginalizando o Estado e a política, em favor da privatização dos serviços públicos (...) e sendo insensível às questões de justiça social, aos custos sociais do crescente aumento da pobreza, desigualdade e exclusão social, mesmo em países abastados da Europa e América do Norte. Ao deslocar o fiador da integração social para além das fronteiras nacionais, o capitalismo global foge ao controle estatal e esvazia o poder dos Estados nacionais, em termos de substância democrática e de política social, e gera um déficit de legitimação, ao transferir competências nacionais para agências ou organismos transnacionais, cuja legitimação não deriva da sociedade civil ou de uma esfera pública politicamente constituída. Em contrapartida, Habermas defende um poder democrático capaz de domesticar politicamente o mercado globalizado, reconstruir a democracia estatal-social num nível transnacional, em vista de uma ordem socialmente mais equilibrada, e compensar o déficit social e de legitimação democrática, no âmbito transnacional. Depois de recapitular alguns problemas que se solucionaram nas formas de Estado nacional, o artigo descreve como a globalização econômica afeta a soberania cultural, econômica, administrativa e jurídica, política, social e trabalhista dos Estados nacionais, e quais as possibilidades de reenquadrar politicamente os mercados, estendendo a democracia estatal para além das fronteiras nacionais. Com isso, quer-se mostrar que a obra de Habermas não é cega para a relação democracia-capitalismo, para os efeitos colaterais da “colonização da política pela economia”, para a influência corrosiva da economia capitalista na despolitização da esfera pública e da política.The article presents Jürgen Habermas critical analysis of the consequences of the neoliberal model of global market integration, in particular the imbalance between politics and market, the end of the commitment to the welfare state and the democratic deficit at the transnational level. For the German philosopher, the neoliberal conception of the privatized society of global capitalism undermine the nexus between national state, democracy and social justice, marginalizing the state and politics in favour of privatization of public services and being insensitive to questions of social justice, the costs increasing poverty, inequality and social exclusion, even in wealthy countries in Europe and North America. Moving the guarantor of social integration across national borders, global capitalism is beyond the state control and exhaust the power of national states in terms of democratic substance and social policy and creates a legitimacy deficit by transferring national powers to agencies or transnational corporations whose legitimacy does not derive from civil society or from a politically constituted public sphere. In contrast, Habermas advocates a democratic power able to politically neutralize the global market, rebuild the welfare-state democracy in a transnational level in view of a more socially balanced order, and compensate the social deficit and democratic legitimacy in the transnational order. After reviewing some problems that have been solved in national state forms, the article describes how economic globalization affects the cultural, economic, administrative, juridical, political, social and labor sovereignty of the national states, and what are the possibilities of politically reframing markets, extending welfare-estate democracy beyond national borders. In this way, we want to show that Habermas’ work is not blind to the relation between democracy and capitalism, to the collateral effects of the “colonization of politics by the economy”, to the corrosive influence of the capitalist economy on the depoliticization of the public sphere and politics. (shrink)

Os argumentos a favor da concepção deliberativa de esfera pública e democracia têm sido alvos de muitas críticas. Muitos teóricos que se ocupam com teorias democráticas têm questionado as assunções básicas da teoria política deliberativa que resulta da obra sobre Faktizität und Geltung, apontando pontos frágeis, sobre as implicações práticas, possibilidades de efetividade, entre outros. Embora não seja possível acompanhar em toda sua amplitude a bibliografia crítica sobre o tema, para nossos propósitos, vamos aqui nos limitar a apresentar alguns comentários (...) acerca das controvérsias envolvendo as concepções de esfera pública e democracia deliberativa que resultam da obra sobre direito e democracia; questões que se tornaram problemáticas para a literatura e que poderiam ser melhor investigadas.The arguments about the deliberative conception of democracy and public sphere have been largely criticized. Many theorists who deal with democratic theories have questioned the basic assumptions of the deliberative policy theory, which results from Habermas' work Faktizität und Geltung, pointing some weakness of practical implications, opportunities of effectiveness, among others. Although it is almost impossible following the critical literature about the theme in its whole extent, for our purposes, we will just present a few comments about the controversies involving the conceptions of public sphere and deliberative democracy, which stem from works related to democracy and the law; issues that have become not just problematic for literature but that could also be better investigated. (shrink)

Inleidend studieboek op universitair niveau over de Nederlandse rechtswetenschap.

This paper aims to elucidate the negative understanding of politics (depoliticization) that results from the classic work of Jürgen Habermas about communicative action. The political potential of communicative action that results from political public sphere and the institutionalization of practical and political discourse constitute the leitmotiv of Habermas’s political philosophy. However, the understanding of politics that results from the communicative action presents the problem of limited capacity of realization of a discursive social practice in institutional contexts. The social-integrative power (social (...) integration) of communicative action and the communicative power (power of influence) do not refer directly to the democratic procedures into political-institutional level. The political public sphere, as it defends the lifeworld in relation to systemic imperatives of power and money, it is not directly linked to institutional complexes and, therefore, it can only “besiege them”. This deficit of institutionalization undermines the political public sphere model (the potential political discourse in a communicative public sphere) that results from the theoretical framework of Theorie. Consequently, the “defensive” vision of politics undermines Habermas’ emancipatory project, because it does not expand the areas submitted to social and communicative rationality and does not open communicative channels for inflows in the political-administrative system. From the perspective of the theory addressed to emancipation (as is Habermas’ theory) these defensive movements, although they are important, are not sufficient, because defending it only does not expand the social areas in which the communicative understanding predominates. This is the reason for critical discourses and posterior need of reformulations. (shrink)

De Interpretatione is among Aristotle's most influential and widely read writings; C. W. A. Whitaker presents the first systematic study of this work, and offers a radical new view of its aims, its structure, and its place in Aristotle's system. He shows that De Interpretatione is not a disjointed essay on ill-connected subjects, as traditionally thought, but a highly organized and systematic treatise on logic, argument, and dialectic.

The latest volume in the Cambridge Histories of Philosophy series, The Cambridge History of Philosophy in the Nineteenth Century brings together twenty-nine leading experts in the field and covers the years 1790-1870. Their twenty-seven chapters provide a comprehensive survey of the period, organizing the material topically. After a brief editor's introduction, it begins with three chapters surveying the background of nineteenth century philosophy: followed by two on logic and mathematics, two on nature and natural science, five on mind and language, (...) including psychology, the human sciences and aesthetics, four on ethics, three on religion, seven on society, including chapters on the French Revolution, the decline of natural right, political economy, and social discontent, and three on history, dealing with historical method, speculative theories of history and the history of philosophy. The essays are framed by an editor's introduction and a bibliography. (shrink)

O artigo sublinha o método do discurso prático na fundamentação da ética do discurso e as possíveis diferenças que traçam a separação da ética discursiva da ética kantiana. Mais do que investigação e demonstração, trata-se de uma exposição dos movimentos conceituais importantes sobre o método do discurso prático da ética habermasiana.

O artigo apresenta os argumentos centrais da política deliberativa de Jürgen Habermas (1), e as perspectivas críticas de Axel Honneth (2) e Nancy Fraser (3) de forma a conferir à política habermasiana uma dimensão mais realista, um conteúdo político de vínculo mais concreto com a orientação emancipatória da práxis, e capaz de lidar melhor com a diferença, a diversidade e o conflito.

This paper makes reading a key theme explored by Jürgen Habermas – The depoliticization of the public sphere – in the epistemological perspective. In this way, the depoliticization is characterized by conducting scientific practice policy with the use of technical knowledge to influence the public sphere in its political practice; the idea that positivist knowledge, reduce to a mere instrument of science and technology, incorporates in the public sphere. This is an analysis of the process of modernization and rationalization, revealing (...) the false personification of reason in modern science and bourgeois political institutions. The progressive rationalization of modern society did penetrate the criteria of instrumental action, inevitably, also in the public sphere, in a progressive influence of technical systems on the institutional framework of society, reducing the practical problems to a solution of technical rationality. In the public sphere, political praxis dissolves into political technique. Whit the scientific conduct of practical politics, there is the emptying of the practical activity and the political discussions fall outside the scope of public discussion. The substitutions of practical for technical reasons to exclude these practical issues of the discussion from the public sphere. Thus politics, when to convert into technical task, excludes any possibility of a communicative sphere linguistically sanctioned. The paper is divided into three sections: the resumption of the transition from classical to modern political doctrine of political science (1); the scientific aspect of the policy, the political implications of scientific rationality in practical life, excluding practical issues from the public sphere (2); and the relationship between technical progress and social lifeworld (3). (shrink)

Este artigo trata da crítica habermasiana ao projeto kantiano de constitucionalização do direito internacional, reconstruído da perspectiva procedimental do direito e da democracia deliberativa. Embora Kant tenha dado um passo importante modificando a compreensão do direito internacional de um direito de Estados para um direito cosmopolita, e esse se institucionalizado em organizações e instituições internacionais, a simples extensão da constitucionalização do direito para o âmbito das relações interestatais não seria mais suficiente para reequacionar a atual relação assimétrica entre poder e (...) direito na esfera internacional que resulta da política de poder unilateral e militar norte-americana e que em nome de uma moralização etnocentrista substitui o direito pelo ethos. Para Habermas, a constitucionalização do direito internacional apenas teria alguma chance nas circunstâncias históricas atuais através da reformulação dos conceitos kantianos de república mundial, soberania nacional, direito estatal, nação e cidadão, bem como das modificações na estrutura da sociedade mundial, por exemplo, a reforma das Nações Unidas. Em contrapartida, a proposta habermasiana de democracia constitucional transnacional teria a vantagem de definir melhor o curso da constitucionalização do direito internacional e ser uma ordem constitucional global mais justa e democrática. (shrink)

Este artigo visa elucidar o problema-chave inscrito no contexto da publicidade burguesa: a subversão do princípio da publicidade. Este é analisado sob o ponto de vista histórico na obra Mudança Estrutural da Esfera Pública, e está inserido no contexto onde se desenvolve a noção de esfera pública: a instância em que se forma a opinião pública. Opinião esta que tinha no início funções críticas com relação ao poder e que mais tarde foi refuncionalizada para canalizar o assentimento dos governados. Para (...) tal, cabe esclarecer como Habermas aborda as funções críticas e manipulativas da publicidade. Nesse sentido, o objetivo é esclarecer e identificar o que vem a ser o princípio de publicidade e porque o mesmo é subvertido. O texto é dividido em três partes: a relação da esfera pública literária com a esfera pública política ; a publicidade como princípio de mediação entre a política e a moral ; e, por fim, a subversão do princípio da publicidade. (shrink)

O objetivo do artigo é elucidar os argumentos centrais da teoria da modernidade de Habermas. Em vez de abandoná-lo, Habermas procura reconstruir o projeto de emancipação moderno através da reconstrução dos fundamentos da racionalidade da ação e da racionalização social moderna a partir: da reconstrução da explicação e superação crítica das interpretações unilaterais e funcionalistas de Max Weber e Talcott Parsons, e da fundamentação de uma teoria da racionalidade comunicativa capaz de se desvencilhar dos pressupostos subjetivistas e individualistas teoria social (...) moderna. (shrink)

This book explores Kant's views on the concept of God and on the attempt to demonstrate God's existence as a means of understanding Kant's work as a whole and of achieving a proper appreciation of the contents of Kant's moral faith.

Machine learning algorithms pervade contemporary society. They are integral to social institutions, inform processes of governance, and animate the mundane technologies of daily life. Consistently, the outcomes of machine learning reflect, reproduce, and amplify structural inequalities. The field of fair machine learning has emerged in response, developing mathematical techniques that increase fairness based on anti-classification, classification parity, and calibration standards. In practice, these computational correctives invariably fall short, operating from an algorithmic idealism that does not, and cannot, address systemic, Intersectional (...) stratifications. Taking present fair machine learning methods as our point of departure, we suggest instead the notion and practice of algorithmic reparation. Rooted in theories of Intersectionality, reparative algorithms name, unmask, and undo allocative and representational harms as they materialize in sociotechnical form. We propose algorithmic reparation as a foundation for building, evaluating, adjusting, and when necessary, omitting and eradicating machine learning systems. (shrink)

The late Jacob Klein’s important book is, remarkably, a lucid presentation of esoteric argument. Dealing with the famed Platonic triad, Theaetetus, Sophist, and Statesman, Klein settles the dispute about the missing dialogue, "The Philosopher," by first denying that it is missing and second showing that it is unnecessary. He argues, in short, that the triad is a dyad. That argument is reinforced by the distinction Klein strongly implies between the Socratic Theaetetus and the Eleatic Sophist and Statesman. "We can now (...) understand why the conversations of the ‘trilogy’ occur in two, not three, days and why the Sophist, the Statesman, and the Philosopher are dealt with in two, not three, dialogues". (shrink)

This is an in-depth study of J.G. Fichte’s philosophy of mathematics and theory of geometry. It investigates both the external formal and internal cognitive parallels between the axioms, intuitions and constructions of geometry and the scientific methodology of the Fichtean system of philosophy. In contrast to “ordinary” Euclidean geometry, in his Erlanger Logik of 1805 Fichte posits a model of an “ursprüngliche” or original geometry – that is to say, a synthetic and constructivistic conception grounded in ideal archetypal elements that (...) are grasped through geometrical or intelligible intuition. -/- Accordingly, this study classifies Fichte’s philosophy of mathematics as a whole as a species of mathematical Platonism or neo-Platonism, and concludes that the Wissenschaftslehre itself may be read as an attempt at a new philosophical mathesis, or “mathesis of the mind.” -/- “This work testifies to the author's exact and extensive knowledge of the Fichtean texts, as well as of the philosophical, scientific and historical contexts. Wood has opened up completely new paths for Fichte research, and examines with clarity and precision a domain that up to now has hardly been researched.” Professor Dr. Marco Ivaldo -/- “This study, written in a language distinguished by its limpidity and precision, and constantly supported by a close reading of the Fichtean texts and secondary literature, furnishes highly detailed and convincing demonstrations. In directly confronting the difficult historical relationship between the Wissenschaftslehre and mathematics, the author has broken new ground that is at once stimulating, decidedly innovative, and elegantly audacious.” Professor Dr. Emmanuel Cattin. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:The Sovereignty of Reason: The Defense of Rationality in the Early English Enlightenment by Frederick C. BeiserJohn W. YoltonFrederick C. Beiser. The Sovereignty of Reason: The Defense of Rationality in the Early English Enlightenment. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1996. Pp. xi + 332. Cloth, $39.50.Beiser characterizes the methodology of his study as historical and philosophical: historical in placing texts in their own context and in uncovering the intentions (...) of their authors; philosophical in reconstructing and appraising arguments (ix). Both methods are necessary for good historical work. The second is often practiced without the first, to the detriment of philosophy and its history. “A philosopher who reconstructs arguments without the aid of history indulges in mere guesswork and anachronism, measuring the standards of philosophical relevance and importance by the concerns of his own age” (x). Equally, understanding the arguments and ideas of, e.g., seventeenth-century writers, “also involves testing their truth: seeing how they cohere with one another, what their consequences are, whether they follow from the evidence adduced for them, and if they reply to the objections made against them” (x). This splendid study of the role of reason in seventeenth-century religion, science, and philosophy is a fine example of careful textual-historical scholarship with rigorous philosophical analysis.The goal of his study is to tell “the story of how rationalism, in the very specific sense of the sovereignty of reason, arose in seventeenth-century England” (5). Starting with an introduction which discusses such topics as “The Paradox of the English Enlightenment,” “Rationalism in the English Church,” “The Enlightenment and the New Sciences,” Beiser proceeds to detailed presentations and discussions of “The Protestant Challenge” (Chap. 1); Richard Hookers’s defense of reason (Chap. 2); the views of the Great Tew Circle, e.g., Falkland, Chillingworth, Hammond, Hales (Chap. 3); the Cambridge Platonists (Chap. 4); the nature of Enthusiasm (Chap. 5); John Toland and Deism (Chap. 6); and ethical rationalism (Chap. 7).Many of the topics covered have been the subjects of other books and articles. What marks Beiser’s account is the freshness of his approach, the many new insights and suggestions about the tensions between the holders of traditional doctrines and newer challenges. Beiser’s writing is clear, and the issues are carefully presented and analyzed. One of the central themes is the mistake of equating “rationalism with the critique or rejection of religion” (15), of identifying enlightenment with secularization (14). The appeals to reason often emerge from within orthodox religion, whose defenders were trying to cope with their own internal tensions. “Once we consider the Cambridge Platonists’ early reaction to predestination, it becomes clear that it was not Hobbes but Calvin who first posed the danger of atheism for them. For it was Calvin’s theology, and not Hobbes’s materialism, that inspired the fear of God that [End Page 138] they regarded as the source of atheism. In the eyes of the Cambridge Platonists, Hobbes’s materialism was only a false remedy for that fear...” (147). A similar point is made later: “the foundations of a rational theology” in Whichcote “did not arise from any need to combat a creeping Hobbesianism. Rather, it grew up from the inner struggles and torments of the Protestant soul” (165).Equally significant is Beiser’s analysis of enthusiasm, the appeals to divine inspiration rather than to reason or evidence: “We should be aware of accepting the contemporary caricature of the enthusiasts, which portrayed them as zealous and ignorant anti–intellectuals with no cogent or coherent philosophical position of their own” (187). His analysis of the enthusiasts stresses the epistemological nature of their position, rather than the usual theological, ethical, or political dimensions (193). He insists that “enthusiasm is essentially a philosophical concept. Historically, it arose as a response to the problem of the sources and criteria of religious knowledge” (187). The search for criteria is a pervasive feature of Beiser’s study: Luther’s and Calvin’s efforts to draw the boundary between faith and reason (24); Richard Hooker’s failure to “provide an epistemological foundation for his theory of natural law” (67); the need for a criterion to distinguish genuine from false revelation... (shrink)

Awarding rights to rivers, forests, and other environmental entities (EEs) is a new and increasingly popular approach to environmental protection. The distinctive feature of such rights of nature (RoN) legislation is that direct duties are owed to the EEs. This paper presents a novel rebuttal of the strongest argument against RoN: the no interest argument. The crux of this argument is that because EEs are not sentient, they cannot possess the kinds of interests necessary to ground direct duties. Therefore, they (...) cannot be legitimate rights-bearers. After considering and rejecting standard responses to this argument, the paper challenges its fundamental assumption: that rights-correlative duties must be grounded in the interests of the rights-bearer. The paper then presents the RoN critic with a dilemma. The critic must either accept that EEs are legitimate rights-bearers, or delegitimise many well-established rights-bearers along with EEs. Either way, the no interest argument loses its force. (shrink)