Rights

The Article studies the scope and the essence of consumer rights based on the study of international experience and national legislation of the Republic of Armenia. The article presents the principal vulnerabilities of the consumer protection system in the Republic of Armenia. The need for the state to pay more attention to the issues of envisaging effective structures to protect consumers’ rights and legal interests was substantiated. As a result of the study, it was substantiated that the essence of the (...) fundamental rights of consumers is often reflected incorrectly in the acts aimed at regulating consumer relations; not all the necessary legal conditions are provided for the realization of the fundamental rights of consumers. As a result of the study, the need to envisage legal solutions in line with the developments in the socio-economic life of the country was substantiated, which will best guarantee the protection of consumer rights. (shrink)

This article considers why the influential neo-republicans Philip Pettit and Richard Bellamy tend to minimise or deny the role that natural or moral rights play in republican thought. It argues that their specific views about the theoretical role of such rights are motivated by methodological commitments. In Pettit’s case the commitments are to consequentialism and formalism, while in Bellamy’s it is to proceduralism. But these commitments get in the way of providing a fully adequate account of the value of freedom (...) as non-domination: one that allows us to determine when citizens actually enjoy this kind of freedom. Finally, the article argues that a full explanation of what it means to enjoy freedom as non-domination must unavoidably appeal to normative notions. (shrink)

Rights proclamations are often alleged to be meaningless – ‘nonsense upon stilts’. But what makes a rights proclamation meaningful? In general, I argue, meaningful rights proclamations presuppose t...

This article will focus on the ethical issues of vaccine mandates and stake claim to the relatively extreme position that outright requirements for people to receive the vaccine are ethically correct at both the governmental and institutional levels. One novel strategy employed here will be to argue that deontological considerations pertaining to consent rights cut as much in favor of mandating vaccines as against them. The presumption seems to be that arguments from consent speak semi-definitively against forcing people to inject (...) something into their bodies, and so any argument in favor of mandates must produce different and overriding logical and ethical considerations. Our central claim will be that the same logic that might seem to prohibit vaccine mandates as violations of consent actually supports such mandates when viewed from the perspective of the potential bystander who might otherwise be exposed to COVID-19. (shrink)

Gender-Affirming healthcare (GAH) interventions are medical or surgical interventions that aim to allow trans and non-binary people to better affirm their gender identity. It has been argued that rights to GAH must be grounded in either a right to be cured of or mitigate an illness—gender dysphoria—or in harm-prevention, given the high rates of depression and suicide amongst trans and non-binary people. However, these grounds of a right to GAH conflict with the prevalent view amongst theorists, institutions, and activists that (...) trans and non-binary people do not have a mental illness and that one can be trans and entitled to GAH without being depressed or suicidal. This paper challenges the orthodoxy that a right to GAH must be grounded in either of these ways and instead argues for a right to GAH grounded in a right to live and act with integrity. The standard view, which this paper explains and defends, is that our rights to live and act with integrity ground a right to religious accommodation in many cases such as a right to not be denied social security due to one’s refusal to work a job on a holy day. This paper argues that if our rights to live and act with integrity can ground prima facie rights to religious accommodation, our rights to live and act with integrity ground prima facie rights to GAH. (shrink)

Many observers look to water marketing as the primary tool to meet new needs for water in the West and to bring an end to the most environmentally damaging water uses. In this provocative Essay, Professor Eric Freyfogle takes issue with this view, on grounds of economics, ecology, and ethics. Because of externalities and other systemic flaws, he argues, water markets offer little promise of bringing about efficient water-use practices. As importantly, market reasoning perpetuates the misguided view that nature is (...) merely a collection of resources, existing chiefly to serve human needs and easily shifted from place to place. Because it sanctions such ecologically damaging water uses, prior appropriation law now faces a mounting crisis of moral legitimacy. To deal with that crisis and bring water law up to date, lawmakers must put meaning into the beneficial-use requirement; they must insist that water users become responsible members of the natural and human communities of which they are a part. (shrink)

Sometimes it is not one’s place to blame or forgive. This phenomenon is captured under the philosophical notion of standing. However, there is an asymmetry to be explained here. One can successfully blame, even if one lacks the standing to do so. Yet, one cannot successfully forgive if one lacks the standing to do so. In this article we explain this asymmetry. We argue that a complete explanation depends on not only a difference in the natures of the standing to (...) blame and forgive but also a difference in the natures of blame and forgiveness themselves. (shrink)

Is there a necessary, in‐principle connection between ecocentric values and democracy or is the relationship merely contingent? Is it possible to incorporate the interests of the non‐human community into the ground rules of democracy? Through an immanent ecological critique of the regulative ideals and institutions of liberal democracy, it is suggested that ecocentric values and democracy can be connected to some extent ‐ at least in the same way that liberalism and democracy are connected ‐ through an extension of the (...) principle of autonomy and the rights discourse to include ecological interests. However, the move from autonomy, to rights, to an ecologically grounded democracy encounters a number of hazards, not all of which can be successfully negotiated owing to the individualistic premises of the rights discourse. While the rights discourse may be extended to include human environmental rights and animal rights in relation to captive and domesticated species, it becomes considerably strained and unworkable in relation to the remaining constituents of the biotic community. (shrink)

Mr. Fisher evaluates the usefulness of Title VTs prohibition on discrimination in federal funding to the environmental justice movement, focusing on the evidentiary demands that a title VI case presents and concluding that a Title VI approach to litigation would overcome the doctrinal barriers that have frustrated past attempts to apply civil rights laws to the problem of discrimination.

Growing social inequalities represent a major concern associated with the Digital Revolution. The article tackles this issue by exploring how welfare regulations and redistribution policies can be rethought in the age of digital capitalism. It focuses on the history and enduring crisis of social citizenship rights in their connection with technological changes, in order to draw a comparison between the industrial and the digital scenario. The first section addresses the link between the Industrial Revolution and the genesis of social rights. (...) It describes the latter as a legal ‘machine’ designed to offset the imbalances produced by the technological movement of industrialization. The second and third sections introduce the notion of ‘industrial citizenship’ to describe the architecture of social rights in mature industrial societies and to contend that European systems of welfare are still largely modeled on an industrial standard. The fourth part investigates the impact of the Digital Revolution on this model of social citizenship. It identifies debates on basic income as a major trajectory for redesigning welfare regulations in a post-industrial era, and the digital user as a crucial emerging subject of rights. The final part explores how digital users could be entitled to social rights as data suppliers. To this end, it introduces the idea of ‘digital-social rights’ resulting from the incorporation of welfare and redistribution principles into emerging digital rights. Hence, it proposes a legal-political framework for the redistribution of the revenues generated by data in the form of a ‘digital basic income’ for citizens of cyberspace. (shrink)

Since Kenya gained independence from Britain in 1963, women’s rights in the country have made slow gains and suffered some setbacks. However, the rights of women and their guaranteed participation in politics was outlined in Kenya’s 2010 Constitution. This paper will survey some of those gains as well as describe the social backlash experienced by women leaders who have been trailblazers in post-colonial Kenyan politics.

In his lectures on ethics and on the state Schleiermacher develops a theory of a limited communitarian state, one that purports to balance individual interests and rights with the more general aims...

In this paper, I develop two philosophically suggestive arguments that the late Justice Stevens made in Citizens United against the idea that business corporations have free speech rights. First, (1) while business corporations conceived as real entities are capable of a thin agency conceptually sufficient for moral rights, I argue that they fail to clear important justificatory hurdles imposed by interest or choice theories of rights. Business corporations conceived as real entities lack an interest in their personal security; moreover, they (...) are incapable of exercising innate powers of choice. Second, (2) I argue that the structure and functionally individualized purpose of a business corporation—to increase value for its shareholders—undermines the implicit joint commitment necessary to derive corporate rights of free speech from non-operative shareholder-member rights. Since one cannot transfer innate moral rights such as free speech, any exercise of this right on behalf of another must be limited in scope. (shrink)

Many contemporary ethical debates turn on claims about the nature and extent of our alleged procreative moral rights: moral rights to procreate or not to procreate as we choose. In this article, I argue that there are no procreative moral rights, in that generally we do not have a distinctive moral right to procreate or not to procreate as we choose. However, interference with our procreative choices usually violates our nonprocreative moral rights, such as our moral rights to bodily autonomy (...) or to privacy. My argument presents hypothetical cases in which a state interferes with a person's procreative choices in order to promote aggregate social welfare, but this interference does not violate any of the person's nonprocreative moral rights. These cases not only undermine frequently made claims that widely recognized nonprocreative moral rights entail procreative moral rights, they also challenge the intuitively plausible claim that interference with our procreative choices as such violates our moral rights. What at first appear to be substantive moral rights are in fact a kind of illusion created by the frequent overlap of other rights, but lacking in substance beyond that overlap. While this argument against the existence of procreative moral rights has substantive implications for ongoing debates in reproductive ethics, I ultimately suggest that it is consistent with a progressive approach to reproductive justice. (shrink)

Recent scholarship has insisted on a more historically attentive approach to civil disobedience. This article follows their lead by arguing that the dominant understanding of civil disobedience relies on a conceptual confusion and a historical mistake. Conceptually, the literature fails to distinguish between violating a law and defying the authority of a legal order. Historically, the literature misreads the exemplary case of Martin Luther King Jr. in Birmingham, Alabama. When read in its proper context, we can see King was not (...) just a civil disobedient, violating the law in a way that shows fidelity to the law. He was a radical disobedient, challenging the authority of the legal order. As such, he was part of a long tradition of radical disobedience, extending back through militant strikes of the labor movement. The character of this disobedience was evident, both to its main protagonists, like King and Eugene V. Debs, and to its major opponents, especially the courts. In reconstructing these historical cases, I revise the civil disobedience literature and demonstrate the distinctiveness of the radical disobedience concept. (shrink)

ABSTRACT Few denials of tolerance are more severe than rejection of the moral worth of another’s way of life. In the U.S. today, many traditional religious believers, especially fundamentalist Christians, and many LGBQT+ persons see each other’s ways of life as deeply evil in important respects. These gulfs probably cannot be bridged; but public policies can and should seek to accommodate all claims of conscience as far as this can be done without denying anyone meaningful possession of basic rights. By (...) placing religious and moral consciences equally in a constitutionally “preferred position,” governments can foster a wider sense that citizens are engaged in a shared enterprise of helping everyone to pursue their distinctive forms of happiness. (shrink)

Lauritz Munch and Björn Lundgren have recently replied to a paper published by us in this journal. In our original paper, we defended a novel version of the so-called ‘control theory’ of the moral right to privacy. We argued that control theorists should define ‘control’ as what we coined ‘Negative Control’. Munch and Lundgren have recently provided a range of interesting and challenging objections to our view. Independently of each other, they give almost identical counterexamples to our definition of Negative (...) Control. In this comment, we show that while the counterexamples are genuine counterexamples, they do not force us to abandon the idea of Negative Control. Furthermore, we reply to two additional objections raised by Lundgren. One of these replies involves giving a new account of what the relation is between the concept of privacy and the right to privacy. (shrink)

Philosophy & Social Criticism, Volume 48, Issue 4, Page 556-567, May 2022. The presence of Muslims in the European public spheres has raised a hoist of debates concerning issues of neutrality, tolerance, and secularism. All over Europe, Muslims are the target of specific forms of hostility, a phenomenon rising substantial questions about the real inclusivity of European democratic spaces. The category of ‘Islamophobia’ has emerged as a valid heuristic tool to identify specific processes of racialization of religion. However, its validity (...) has been fiercely questioned, and the use of this term has been defined as a pretext to bar the way to any form of criticism and objection to Islam. This paper will use the case of Islamophobia to reflect on the new set of conflicts between freedom of religion and freedom of speech, in the perspective of constructing post secularist, pluralistic public spheres. This paper adopts gender as a privileged lens to identify the mechanisms of essentialization and reification at work in the case of Islam. (shrink)

A topic in contemporary political philosophy that has received substantial attention recently is whether minorities have the right to mistreat nonhuman animals. Mostly the debate is focused on minority practices in the West, such as Muslim religious slaughtering. However, other minority contexts, especially Iberian ones, have been largely ignored. In this article, I place the Portuguese case study at the center of political philosophy debates and assess whether this cultural practice ought to be banned. I do this by looking at (...) four arguments routinely used in these debates. These arguments are that Portuguese bullfighting ought to be allowed because it has an economic role in the community, it helps address social prejudice, it promotes friendship and, and allowing it is a way to be legally consistent. I reject the four arguments and defend that bullfighting, in the Portuguese case, should be banned. (shrink)

Journal of Applied Philosophy, EarlyView.

The presence of Muslims in the European public spheres has raised a hoist of debates concerning issues of neutrality, tolerance, and secularism. All over Europe, Muslims are the target of specific forms of hostility, a phenomenon rising substantial questions about the real inclusivity of European democratic spaces. The category of ‘Islamophobia’ has emerged as a valid heuristic tool to identify specific processes of racialization of religion. However, its validity has been fiercely questioned, and the use of this term has been (...) defined as a pretext to bar the way to any form of criticism and objection to Islam. This paper will use the case of Islamophobia to reflect on the new set of conflicts between freedom of religion and freedom of speech, in the perspective of constructing post secularist, pluralistic public spheres. This paper adopts gender as a privileged lens to identify the mechanisms of essentialization and reification at work in the case of Islam. (shrink)

This paper presents a new challenge for libertarianism.. The problem, in a nutshell, is that libertarianism appears to self-destruct in cases where conjoined twins—who share body parts—disagree over what to do with them. The problem is explored, and some solutions are proposed. The verdict is that accepting any of them will make libertarianism harder to defend.

Developing World Bioethics, Volume 22, Issue 2, Page 86-93, June 2022.

Landmark Supreme Court rulings determine American law by adjudicating among competing reasonable interpretations of basic political rights. Jeremy Waldron argues that this practice is democratically illegitimate because what determines the content of basic rights is a bare majority vote of an unelected, democratically unaccountable, elitist body of nine judges. I argue that Waldron's democratic critique of judicial review has implications for real-world reform, but not the implications he thinks it has. He argues that systems of legislative supremacy over the judiciary (...) are democratically preferable to the American one. I provide reasons why his argument is unsound and explain that, properly construed, Waldron's premises support implementing a system where ordinary citizens chosen by lottery participate in a deliberative mini-public to vote on which reasonable interpretation of a basic political right will become the law of the land. (shrink)

This book critically reviews all principal contributions to the American animal rights debate by activists, campaigners, academics, and lawyers, while placing animal rights in context with other related and competing movements.

We speak of the right to know with relative ease. You have the right to know the results of a medical test or to be informed about the collection and use of personal data. But what exactly is the right to know, and who should we trust to safeguard it? This book provides the first comprehensive examination of the right to know and other epistemic rights: rights to goods such as information, knowledge and truth. These rights play a prominent role (...) in our information-centric society and yet they often go unnoticed, disregarded and unprotected. As such, those who control what we know, or think we know, exert an influence on our lives that is often as dangerous as it is imperceptible. Beginning with a rigorous but accessible philosophical account of epistemic rights, Lani Watson examines the harms caused by epistemic rights violations, drawing on case studies across medical, political and legal contexts. She investigates who has the right to what information, who is responsible for the quality and circulation of information and what epistemic duties we have towards each other. This book is essential reading for philosophers, legal theorists and anyone concerned with the protection and promotion of information, knowledge and truth.. (shrink)

This book explores the extent of parallelism and cross-influence between Catholic Social Teaching and the work of the world's oldest human rights institution, the International Labour Organisation. Sometimes there is a mutual attraction between seeming opposites who in fact share a common goal. This book is about just such an attraction between a secular organisation born of the political desire for peace and justice, and a metaphysical institution much older founded to bring peace and justice on earth. It examines the (...) principles evident in the teachings of the Catholic Church and in the secular philosophy of the ILO; together with the theological basis of the relevant provisions of Catholic Social Teaching and of the socio-political origins and basis of the ILO. The spectrum of labour rights covered in the book extends from the right to press for rights, i.e., collective bargaining, to rights themselves - conditions in work - and on to post-employment rights in the form of social security and pensions. The extent of the parallelism and cross-influence is reviewed from the issue of the Papal Encyclical of Pope Leo XIII Rerum Novarum and from the founding of the ILO in 1919. This book is intended to appeal to lay, professional and academic alike, and will be of interest to researchers and academics working in the areas of international human rights, theology, comparative philosophy, history and social and political studies. On 4 January 2021 it was granted an Imprimatur by the Roman Catholic Archbishop of Liverpool, Malcolm P. McMahon O.P., meaning that the Catholic Church is satisfied that the book is free of doctrinal or moral error. (shrink)

Death Rights is a collection of cutting-edge chapters on assisted dying and euthanasia, written by leading authors in the field. Providing an overview of current regulation on assisted dying and euthanasia, both in the UK and internationally, this book also addresses the associated debates on ethical, moral and rights issues. It considers whether, just as there is a right to life, there should also be a right to death, especially in the context of unbearable human suffering. The unintended consequences of (...) prohibitions on assisted dying and euthanasia are explored, and the argument put forward that knowing one can choose when and how one dies can be life-extending, rather than life-limiting. Key critiques from feminist and disability studies are addressed. The overarching theme of the collection is that death is an embodied right which we should be entitled to exercise, with appropriate safeguards, as and when we choose. Making a novel contribution to the debate on assisted dying, this interdisciplinary book will appeal to those with relevant interests in law, socio-legal studies, applied ethics, medical ethics, politics, philosophy, and sociology. (shrink)

This book argues that justice often governs apologies. Drawing on examples from literature, politics, and current events, Cohen presents a theory of apology as corrective offers. Many leading accounts of apology say much about what apologies do and why they are important. They stop short of exploring whether and how justice governs apologies. Cohen argues that corrective justice may require apologies as offers of reparation. Individuals, corporations, and states may then have rights or duties regarding apology. Exercising rights to apology (...) or fulfilling duties to provide them are ways of holding one another mutually accountable. By casting rights and duties of apology as justifiable to free and equal persons, the book advances conversations about how liberalism may respond to historic injustice. Apologies and Moral Repair will be of interest to scholars and advanced students in ethics, political philosophy, and social philosophy. (shrink)

In advanced western societies, human rights have mutated, expanded and turned into a vernacular touching every aspect of social life. They are seen as the key concept of morals and politics, as well as in the forging of individual and collective identities. They are the ideology after 'the end of ideologies' – the only values left after 'the end of history'. But although rights appear as the only game in town, the response of the left to the rights revolution has (...) been muted and unsure. Classical Marxist critiques of rights have made the left justly suspicious, and this is still the case today. Elaborating and addressing a series of foundational paradoxes of rights, this book – the third in Costas Douzinas' human rights trilogy, following The End of Human Rights and Human Rights and Empire – provides a long overdue re-evaluation of the history and political uses of rights for the left. Its alternative approach to legal philosophy will be of considerable value to legal theorists, political philosophers and anyone with an interest in thinking and acting in ways that go beyond the limits of liberal, and neo-liberal, ideology. (shrink)

In this short introduction, David J. Gunkel examines the shifting world of artificial intelligence, mapping it onto everyday twenty-first century life and probing the consequences of this ever-growing industry and movement. The book investigates the significance and consequences of the robot invasion in an effort to map the increasingly complicated social terrain of the twenty-first century. Whether we recognize it as such or not, we are in the midst of a robot invasion. What matters most in the face of this (...) machine incursion is not resistance, but how we decide to make sense of and respond to the social opportunities and challenges that autonomous machines make available. How to Survive a Robot Invasion is a fascinating and accessible volume for students and researchers of new media, philosophy of technology, and their many related fields. It aims both to assist readers' efforts to understand a changing world and to provide readers with the critical insight necessary for grappling with our science fiction-like future. (shrink)