edited by Ciaran Cronin and Pablo De Greiff Since its appearance in English translation in 1996, Jürgen Habermas's Between Facts and Norms has become the focus of a productive dialogue between German and Anglo-American legal and political theorists. The present volume contains ten essays that provide an overview of Habermas's political thought since the original appearance of Between Facts and Norms in 1992 and extend his model of deliberative democracy in novel ways to issues untreated in the earlier (...) work.Habermas's theory of democracy has at least three features that set it apart from competing positions. First, it combines a concern with questions of normative justification with an empirical analysis of the social conditions necessary for the realization of democratic institutions. Second, at the heart of his model is the assertion of an internal relationship between liberalism and democracy. On this account, the rights of the individual that are central to liberalism can be guaranteed only within a constitutional framework that at the same time fosters democratic rights of political participation through the public sphere. Finally, Habermas defends a conception of universal human rights that is not only sensitive to cultural differences but also calls for legal and political institutions that facilitate the cultivation of cultural and religious identities within pluralistic societies.These essays demonstrate the extraordinary power of Habermas's theory of democracy through a further engagement with Rawls's political liberalism and through original contributions to current debates over nationalism, multiculturalism, and the viability of supranational political institutions. (shrink)

This collection of four essays and an interview contains Habermas's most recent contributions to ethical theory. It expands and clarifies the work on discourse ethics presented in Moral Consciousness and Communicative Action. Here, largely in response to criticisms from contemporary neo-Aristotelians, Habermas underscores the claim of discourse ethics to a preeminent position in contemporary moral philosophy with incisive analyses and refinements of the central concepts of his theory that include important developments in his treatment of practical reason and of the (...) problems of application and motivation.The first essay offers a comprehensive analysis of practical rationality, which establishes a clear demarcation between pragmatic, ethical, and moral questions and a corresponding differentiation between forms of volition and spheres of practical discourse. The centerpiece of the book is a multifaceted defense of the central claims of discourse ethics incorporating masterly critiques of the major competing positions, including those of John Rawls, Bernard Williams, Charles Taylor, Alasdair MacIntyre, Karl-Otto Apel, and Albrecht WellmerThe middle essays defend the basic intention of universalist moral theory in the face of the claims of the neo-Aristotelian ethics of the good and Horkheimer's skepticism toward reason that led him to embrace a religiously inspired ethic of compassion. An interview with Habermas covering such topics as the genesis of discourse ethics, the precise import of some of its more controversial elements, and its interconnections with the theory of communicative actions concludes this important collection.Jürgen Habermas is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Frankfurt. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Journal of the History of Philosophy 41.1 (2003) 51-80 [Access article in PDF] Kant's Politics of Enlightenment Ciaran Cronin THE ENDURING RESONANCE OF Kant's brief essay "An Answer to the Question: What is Enlightenment?" (henceforth "WE") can be traced in large part to the connection it makes between two ideas central to the self-understanding of European modernity. The first is the idea of autonomy implicit in its (...) famous definition of enlightenment: "Enlightenment is the human being's emergence from his self-incurred minority.Minority is the inability to make use of one's own understanding without direction from another... Sapere aude! Have courage to make use of your own understanding! is thus the motto of enlightenment." 1 Kant's rallying cry to independence of thought resonates with the view that individual autonomy is a central component of modern self-identity. The second is the defense of freedom in the public use of reason: "For this enlightenment, however, nothing is required but freedom, and indeed the least harmful of anything that could even be called freedom: namely freedom to make public use of one's reason in all matters." 2 With this emphatic endorsement of freedom of expression as a precondition of enlightenment, Kant appears to situate the project of enlightenment squarely in the tradition of liberal political thought. [End Page 51]Yet the interpretation of the essay as a defense of a liberal model of freedom of expression proves to be problematic on a closer reading. Even Kant's famous definition of enlightenment is not without its puzzling aspects. He employs the legal term "minority" (Unmündigkeit, often translated as "immaturity"), the condition of a child or dependent who has not reached the legal age of adulthood, to describe the condition of human beings before they have achieved enlightenment; but as some of his contemporaries remarked, the idea of a minority that is "self-incurred" makes no legal sense. That their puzzlement was not just a matter of injudicious terminology is shown by Kant's apparent indecision over whether the failure of individuals to make independent use of their reason is due to lack of courage on their part 3 or whether it is because they have been prevented from doing so by constraining social authorities. 4 Even more perplexing is Kant's idiosyncratic distinction between the private and public uses of reason: "by the public use of one's own reason I understand that use which someone makes of it as a scholar before the entire public of the world of readers. What I call the private use of reason is that which one may make of it in a certain civil post or office with which he is entrusted." 5 What is perplexing in this is not so much the restriction of the public use of reason to scholars addressing a public of readers as the characterization of the use of one's reason in exercising a civil or public office as "private." Moreover, liberal sensibilities cannot fail to be ruffled by the authoritarian cast of some of Kant's remarks. Most troubling is the observation that only a ruler who "hasa well-disciplined and numerous army ready to guarantee public peace" can tolerate complete freedom of public expression and that a lesser degree of civil freedom (bürgerliche Freiheit) is conducive to the fullest expansion of "a people's freedom of spirit" (or intellectual freedom, Freiheit des Geistes). 6 This would seem to lend ammunition to those who argue that Kant ultimately embraces a conservative politicalposition in contradiction to the radical implications of his own critical philosophy. 7 [End Page 52]But an examination of the historical context of the essay reveals that it is neither a clear expression of a liberal nor of a conservative position as these are conventionally understood, or so I will argue. The perplexing features of the essay become intelligible when it is seen as part of a larger project of reconciling the ideal requirements of a republican constitution with the political reality of Prussian absolutism in response to contemporary debates concerning... (shrink)

Essays exploring the prospects for transnational democracy in a world of increasing globalization.

Foucault's theory of disciplinary power and Bourdieu's theory of symbolic power are among the most innovative attempts in recent social thought to come to terms with the increasingly elusive character of power in modern society. Both theories are based on cri tiques of subject-centered analyses of power and offer original accounts of modern social institutions. But Foucault's critique of the subject is so radical that it makes it impossible to identify any deter minate social location of the exercise of power (...) or of resistance to its operations. Bourdieu's theory of practice in terms of the symbolically mediated interaction between the habitus and social structure avoids these problems by connecting relations of domination both to identi fiable social agents and to the institutions of the modern state. However, Bourdieu's strategic model of social action remains too narrow to allow for the possibility of autonomous agency and an emancipatory political praxis. The theory of symbolic power must be supplemented by a normative conception of practical reason if its emancipatory potential is to be realized. Key Words: agency • habitus • modernity • power • resistance. (shrink)

Background: Ethics consultants (ECs) are increasingly expected to possess core knowledge and skills. Few data address whether ECs actually possess recommended core knowledge. We aimed to measure pediatric ECs’ understanding of ethical principles, identify knowledge gaps, and explore associations between experience/training and knowledge in pediatric ethics consultations. Methods: We identified the 2 ECs most knowledgeable in pediatric ethics from each of 45 freestanding children's hospitals and an equal number of general teaching hospitals in the United States. This yielded a sample (...) of 159 eligible pediatric ECs. Pediatric ECs were sent a survey measuring ethics training, characteristics of the ethics consultation service, and EC knowledge, as assessed by a previously validated scale entitled the Test of Residents’ Ethics Knowledge for Pediatrics (TREK-P). Of 102 completed surveys received, 99 were used in the analysis. Results: Seventy-three percent of ECs had completed ≥1 formal training modality, most commonly bioethics mini-courses, master's degrees, or certificate programs (20–30% each). Respondents infrequently received salary support (32%) or had a budget (28%) to support ethics work. The median TREK-P score was 19 (interquartile range [IQR] 17–21). Forty percent of subjects scored ≥20, surpassing the threshold of adequate performance proposed in previous work. Median scores were significantly higher among ECs with formal training in ethics but did not differ significantly by other variables. In secondary analyses, high scores (≥20) were significantly more common among ECs receiving salary support (55% vs. 33%, p = 0.04) and who had formal ethics training (47% vs. 22%, p = 0.02). Items pertaining to privacy, genetic testing, and assent, were answered incorrectly by >33% of ECs. Conclusions: High scores on a validated ethics knowledge scale were more common among ECs with salary support or formal ethics training. The study highlights knowledge gaps that warrant consideration as EC becomes a professionalized endeavor. (shrink)

Review of Dominic Roser and Christian Seidel, Climate Justice: An Introduction (trans. Ciaran Cronin).

Critique of Forms of Life, by JaeggiRahel, trans. Ciaran Cronin. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2018. Pp. xx + 395.

Translated by Ciaran Cronin. In the midst of the current crisis that is threatening to derail the historical project of European unification, Jürgen Habermas has been one of the most perceptive critics of the ineffectual and evasive responses to the global financial crisis, especially by the German political class. This extended essay on the constitution for Europe represents Habermas’s constructive engagement with the European project at a time when the crisis of the eurozone is threatening the very existence (...) of the European Union. There is a growing realization that the European treaty needs to be revised in order to deal with the structural defects of monetary union, but a clear perspective for the future is missing. Drawing on his analysis of European unification as a process in which international treaties have progressively taken on features of a democratic constitution, Habermas explains why the current proposals to transform the system of European governance into one of executive federalism is a mistake. His central argument is that the European project must realize its democratic potential by evolving from an international into a cosmopolitan community. The opening essay on the role played by the concept of human dignity in the genealogy of human rights in the modern era throws further important light on the philosophical foundations of Habermas’s theory of how democratic political institutions can be extended beyond the level of nation-states. Now that the question of Europe and its future is once again at the centre of public debate, this important intervention by one of the greatest thinkers of our time will be of interest to a wide readership. (shrink)

Translated by Ciaran Cronin. In the midst of the current crisis that is threatening to derail the historical project of European unification, Jürgen Habermas has been one of the most perceptive critics of the ineffectual and evasive responses to the global financial crisis, especially by the German political class. This extended essay on the constitution for Europe represents Habermas’s constructive engagement with the European project at a time when the crisis of the eurozone is threatening the very existence (...) of the European Union. There is a growing realization that the European treaty needs to be revised in order to deal with the structural defects of monetary union, but a clear perspective for the future is missing. Drawing on his analysis of European unification as a process in which international treaties have progressively taken on features of a democratic constitution, Habermas explains why the current proposals to transform the system of European governance into one of executive federalism is a mistake. His central argument is that the European project must realize its democratic potential by evolving from an international into a cosmopolitan community. The opening essay on the role played by the concept of human dignity in the genealogy of human rights in the modern era throws further important light on the philosophical foundations of Habermas’s theory of how democratic political institutions can be extended beyond the level of nation-states. Now that the question of Europe and its future is once again at the centre of public debate, this important intervention by one of the greatest thinkers of our time will be of interest to a wide readership. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Objective Reality of Ideas in Descartes, Caterus, and Su irez NORMAN j. WELLS IT HAS LONG BEEN ACKNOWLEDGEDthat Francisco Sufirez's distinction between a formal and an objective concept exercised some influence upon Descartes's teaching on 'idea'.' It would appear, however, that not enough attention has been given to that distinction of Sufirez (and especially to another to be mentioned shordy) to aid in dispelling what I take to be (...) a widespread confusion and misunderstanding with regard to 'idea' in Descartes, especially with respect to 'idea' taken 'objectively'. Much, if not all, of the confusion in question has to do with Descartes's admittedly equivocal use of the term 'idea'. For he had allowed that 'idea' could be taken 'materially' (materialiter), on the one hand, for the knowing activity of the intellect. On the other hand, it could be taken 'objectively' (objective) for the thing (res) represented by that knowing activity.' At this point, the contemporary reader can only be brought up short, See E. Gilson, Index scolastico-cart~sien (New York: Burt Franklin Reprint, 1912), 48-49; Discours de la m~thode: Texte et commentazre (Paris: J. Vrin, 1947), 321; G. Rodis-Lewisin her edition of Meditationes de Prima PhRosoph.m (Paris: J. Vrin, 1953), 41 n. 1; L'oeuure de Descartes (Paris: J. Vrin, 1971), 53~ n. 8; J. Collins, Modern European Philosophy (Milwaukee: Bruce, 1954), 165;T.J. Cronin, S.J., Objecttve Being m Descartes and SuArez (Rome: Gregorian University Press, 1966); "Objective Reality of Ideas in Human Thought: Descartes and Su~rez," Wisdom in Depth: Essays in Honor of Henri Renard, SJ., eds. V. F. Daues, S.J., M. R. Holloway, S.J., L. Sweeney, S.J. (Milwaukee : Bruce, 1966), 68-79; L. Gilen, S.J., "Uber die Beziehungen Descartes zur zeitgenossischen Scholastik," Scholastik 32 (1957): 41-66; R. Dalbiez, "Les sources scolastiques de la th~orie cart6sienne de l'&re objectif," Revue d'histoire de la philosophic 3 (1929): 464-72;J. Owens, C.S.S.R., in The Cambridge HtstoU of Later Medu,val Philosophy, eds. N. Kretzmann, A. Kenny, J. Pinborg (Cambridge University Press, 1982), 459; G. Nuchelmans,Judgment and Propositwnfrom Descartesto Kant (Amsterdam: North Holland Publishing Co., 1983), 36-54. " Oeuvres de Descartes, ed. C. Adam et P. Tannery, 11 vols. (Paris: J. Vrin, 1897-19o9; hereafter cited according to volume, page and line), Praefatio ad Lectorem, 7: 8. 19-251 "Sed respondeo hic subesse aequivocationem in voce ideae: sumi enim potest vel materialiter, pro operatione intellectus, quo sensu me perfectior dici nequit, vel objective, pro re per istam operationem repraesentata, quae res, etsi non supponatur extra intellectum existere, potest tamen me esse perfectior ratione suae essentiae." It is clear that two realities are to be causally accounted for. The [33] 34 JOURNAL OF THE HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY 28"1 JANUARY 1990 conditioned as we are by an appreciation of 'objectivity' altogether extramental! It makes for a considerable wrench of perspective to do justice to Descartes's acknowledged doctrine of intramental objectivity and an intramental 'thing represented' (resrepraesentata). 'Idea', then, in traditional Cartesian fashion, designates the act of representing as well as the 'thing represented '. S Yet, for all this, and despite repeated expressions of the same doctrine, there is a persistent tendency in the history of Cartesianism and its scholarship to interpret 'idea' taken 'objectively' as in some way representative. Contrary to what I take to be Descartes's constant position, such a rendering unwittingly transfers that function which is proper to the cognitive activity, mind is the efficient cause of its cognitive activity. With respect to ideas taken 'objectively', such as the ideas of God and the triangle on the levels of metaphysical and mathematical intelligibility, an efficient cause, extrinsic to the mind, is certainly at issue. For here we are in the presence of what is independent of the mind, however intramental it may be. On the triangle, see Medit. 5; 7: 64. ]4s7 : "...est tamen profecto determinata quaedam ejus natura, sire essentia, sive forma, immutabUis et aeterna, quae a me non efficta est, nec a mente mea dependet." For the idea of God, see Medit. 5; 7: 68. l o-12: "Nam sane multis modis inteUigo illam [ideam... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:172. THE HUME LITERATURE FOR 1981 The Hume literature from 1925 to 1976 has been thoroughly covered in my book Fifty Years of Hume Scholarship : A Bibliographical Guide (Edinburgh University Press, 1978; jê9.50), which also lists the main earlier writings on Hume. Publications of the years 1977 to 1980 were listed in Hume Studies for the last four Novembers. What follows here will bring the record up to (...) the end of 1981. Readers are invited to inform me of any omissions, and to send me offprints of their own articles and reviews. The intention is to maintain a complete bibliographical record of critical work on Hume, by the regular publication in Hume Studies of an annual bibliography covering the previous year, with addenda consisting of items omitted through ignorance in previous years. References to recently-appearing reviews (of books from earlier lists) are given at the end. The following abbreviations of journal titles are used here: APQAmerican Philosophical Quarterly JHIJournal of the History of Ideas JHPJournal of the History of Philosophy JPJournal of Philosophy PASProceedings of the Aristotelian Society PBPhilosophical Books PQPhilosophical Quarterly PRPhilosophical Review RIPReview Internationale de Philosophie RMReview of Metaphysics TLSTimes Literary Supplement Other abbreviations should be obvious enough, and mainly fol· low the British Standard (no. 4148). BAGOLINI, L. 'Legal Obligation in Hume', Hume Studies 7, 85-93. BAIER, A. 'Frankena and Hume on Points of View', The Monist 64, 342-58. BATTERSBY, C. 'An Enquiry concerning the Humean Woman', Philosophy 56, 303-12. 173. BEAUCHAMP, T. L. & ROSENBERG, A. Hume and the Problem of Causation, (xxv, 340 pp.) New York. [PB 23 (1982) 129-48 (Mackie, Flew, Beauchamp & Rosenberg) ] BOTWINICK, A. 'Hume on Is-Ought', Auslegung 8, 19-30. BURNS, R. M. The Great Debate on Miracles, esp. chs. 6-8. Lewisburg, London & Toronto. COSTA, M. J. 'Hume and Justified Belief, Can. J. Phil. 11, 219-28. CRONIN, R. Shelley's Poetic Thoughts, 77-83. London. DE MARTELAERE, P. 'Hume's "Gematigd" Scepticisme: Futiel of Fataal', Tijdschrift voor Filosofie 43, 427-64. DILMAN, I. Studies in Language and Reason, chs. 4-5. London. FARR, W. Hume and Kant: Studienbuch zum Erkenntsnisproblem. (250 pp.) Freiburg & Munich. FEINSTEIN, R. 'Some Problems in Humean Philosophy', Ind. phil. Q. 8, 527-32. FLAGE, D. E. 'Hume's Relative Ideas', Hume Studies 7, 55-73. GARCIA ROCA, J. Positivismo e Ilustración : La filosofía de David Hume. (304 pp.) Valencia. GARRETT, D. 'Hume's Self-Doubts about Personal Identity', PR 90, 337-58. GUPTA, B. 'Scepticism: Ancient "East" and Modern "West"', Ind. phil. Q. 9, 29-44. HAAKONSSEN, K. The Science of a Legislator, the Natural Jurisprudence? of David Hume and Adam Smith. Cambridge. HALL, R. 'The Hume Literature for 1980', Hume Studies 7, 184-90. íiARRISON, J. Hume's Theory of Justice. (xxvi, 304 pp.) Oxford. [THES no. 440 (3 Apr. 1981) 15] IMLAY, R. A. 'Hume's Of Scepticism with regard to reason: A Study in Contrasting Themes', Hume Studies 7, 121-36. JOHNSON, 0. A. 'Hume's "True" Scepticism', Pacific phil. Q. 62, 403-10. JONES, G. E. 'Vindication, Hume, and Induction', Can. J. Phil. 12, 119-29. 174. KING, J. 'Hume's Classical Theory of Justice', Hume Studies 7, 32-54. KULENKAMPFF, J. 'David Hume (1711-1776)', in 0. Hoffe, Klassiker der Philosophie, vol. 1, 434-56. Munich. LOEB, L. E. From Descartes to Hume, sec. 39 (354-63). Ithaca & London. MACLEOD, A. "Rule-Utilitarianism and Hume's Theory of Justice', Hume Studies 7, 74-84. MAHER, P. 'Probability in Hume's Science of Man', Hume Studies 7, 137-53. MALHERBE, M. 'Les études humiennes: anatomie et problèmes1, Archives de Philosophie 44, 637-71. MILLER, D. Philosophy and Ideology in Hume's Political ThoughtT (218 pp.) Oxford. [London Rev, of Bks 4 (1982), no. 7, 22-4; PB 23 (1982) 206-9] MONTEIRO, J. P. 'Hume's Conception of Science', JHP 19, 327-42. NEWMAN, R. 'Hume on Space and Geometry', Hume Studies 7, 1-31. NIELSON, H. A. 'Inference and Experience in Hume's Enquiry', Phil. Res. Archives 7, no. 1471. NORTH, T. 'What if I'm Indifferent?', Phil. Investigations 4, 24-37. PAPPAS, G. S. 'On McRae's Hume', Hume Studies... (shrink)

Is Rabinowitz seriously suggesting that his “rules” of reading are equally applicable to the analysis of British and American forms of popular writing and their readerships between 1920 and the 1960s? Is he seriously suggesting that Gone with the Wind, for example, would be “read” in the same way and for the same meanings in the southern states, the northern states, in Yorkshire and London? In this particular case the issue of cultural reproduction is also crucial—the complex relations between the (...) book and film “texts” and readerships for both. Is the book now read “through” the film and the mythos of Hollywood? Can the novel’s “history” of the Civil War and the period of Reconstruction be seen in relation to experience of the Depression on the one hand and to dominant historical discourses of the period privileged within American educational institutions on the other?2Or, if we take a British example like A. J. Cronin, whose work was regarded as both “serious” and “popular” in the late 1930s, what happens to Rabinowitz’s distinction? Clearly, Cronin’s fiction is not “acceptable” in the literary canon but his example illustrates the weakness of any critical analysis of the popular rooted in “literary” assumptions. Very important questions are raised by the commercial success of The Citadel, not among “the people” in any generalized sense but among specific constituencies of professional, middle-class readerships in both New Deal American and in Britain during a period of history remarkable for the regrouping of the forces of social-democratic consensus politics—an alliance between “sympathetic” fractions of the professional middle class and “the people” which culminated eventually in the postwar Labour party election victory. Thus readers are not only readers, and the processes of reading—especially perhaps of popular fiction—are not reducible to abstract rules which exclude all considerations of cultural=political institutions and discourses. 2. This example is partly indebted to discussion with Greg Gaut and Jane P. Tompkins during a University of Minnesota Conference, “On the Social Edge” . Derek Longhurst is principal lecturer and course leader in communication studies at Sunderland Polytechnic and general editor of the forthcoming series Culture and Popular Fiction. His publications include chapters in Re-Reading English and An Introduction to Contemporary Cultural Studies. He is currently working on a book about the political thriller. (shrink)

A continuoxis t- norm is a continuous map * from [0, 1]² into [0,1] such that is a commutative totally ordered monoid. Since the natural ordering on [0,1] is a complete lattice ordering, each continuous t-norm induces naturally a residuation → and becomes a commutative naturally ordered residuated monoid, also called a hoop. The variety of basic hoops is precisely the variety generated by all algebras, where * is a continuous t-norm. In this paper we investigate the structure of the (...) variety of basic hoops and some of its subvarieties. In particular we provide a complete description of the finite subdirectly irreducible basic hoops, and we show that the variety of basic hoops is generated as a quasivariety by its finite algebras. We extend these results to Hájek's BL-algebras, and we give an alternative proof of the fact that the variety of BL-algebras is generated by all algebras arising from continuous t-norms on [ 0,1] and their residua. The last part of the paper is devoted to the investigation of the subreducts of BL- algebras, of Gödel algebras and of product algebras. (shrink)

This paper briefly reviews highlights from decades of debates in medicine, law, bioethics, psychology and social research about children’s and parents’ views and consent to medical treatment and research. There appears to have been a rise and later a fall in respect for children’s views, illustrated among many examples by a recent book on the zone of parental discretion, which is reviewed. A return to greater respect for children’s views and consent is advocated.

This essay presents a critique of current views of Hugo Grotius which erroneously see him as a major theorist of natural rights and a formative influence upon the rights theory of Thomas Hobbes. Especially singled out for criticism are the misconceptions due to Richard Tuck in a number of writings that discuss the political ideas of Grotius and Hobbes and the relationship between them. In an examination of Hobbes's conception of natural rights, the essay reaffirms its originality and notes its (...) revolutionary potential contrary to the main intention of Hobbes's own political doctrine. (shrink)

Equipoise is advocated as a means of achieving high scientific and ethical standards in randomised trials. As used in the context of research the word describes a state of uncertainty characterised by the belief that in a trial no arm is known to offer greater harm or benefit than any other arm. Clinicians who lack personal equipoise are advised to accept clinical or communal equipoise, based on current unresolved disagreement among the medical profession. Equipoise is mainly discussed in the literature (...) as an issue for senior doctors and research directors. Limitations of professional equipoise are reviewed, and data on the neglected topic of patients' equipoise are reported using the example of breast cancer trials. In theory, a patient who gives informed and voluntary consent to enter a randomised trial has achieved the equilibrium of equipoise. In practice, equipoise among patients ranges from personal to proxy acceptance. (shrink)

An interrogation of the term 'theory' from the perspective of linguistic discourse Zima offers a new definition of theory from a cultural and sociological perspective, with a view to encountering heterogenerous points of view in critical dialogue.

Exclusionary defeat is Joseph Raz’s proposal for understanding the more complex, layered structure of practical reasoning. Exclusionary reasons are widely appealed to in legal theory and consistently arise in many other areas of philosophy. They have also been subject to a variety of challenges. I propose a new account of exclusionary reasons based on their justificatory role, rejecting Raz’s motivational account and especially contrasting exclusion with undercutting defeat. I explain the appeal and coherence of exclusionary reasons by appeal to commonsense (...) value pluralism and the intermediate space of public policies, social roles, and organizations. We often want our choices to have a certain character or instantiate a certain value and in order to do so, that choice can only be based on a restricted set of reasons. Exclusion explains how pro tanto practical reasons can be disqualified from counting towards a choice of a particular kind without being outweighed or undercut. (shrink)

Political legitimacy is best understood as one type of a broader notion, which I call institutional legitimacy. An institution is legitimate in my sense when it has the right to function. The right to function correlates to a duty of non-interference. Understanding legitimacy in this way favorably contrasts with legitimacy understood in the traditional way, as the right to rule correlating to a duty of obedience. It helps unify our discourses of legitimacy across a wider range of practices, especially including (...) the many evaluations we increasingly make of international institutions of various sorts, but also including domestic institutions. (shrink)

A questionnaire on the attitudes towards the functions of research ethical committees was sent to members of selected research ethical committees in Wessex and some controls. Almost all respondents felt there was a need for ethical review of research projects; 42 per cent thought there was a need for some training before joining a committee; 67 per cent thought the system could be improved and 47 per cent thought that monitoring or follow-up procedures should be adopted. Ethical committees were thought (...) to be purely advisory, as opposed to mandatory, by 33 per cent, and 63 per cent thought they should restrict their review to ethical problems as opposed to scientific or design problems. Views about the function of non-medical members ranged from 'none at all' to 'very important'. Of the 10 controls who were asked whether they would become a member of an ethical committee if asked, seven said that on balance they would and the reasons stated varied from the view that it was a 'very important committee' to the feeling that it was 'a necessary but irksome job'. (shrink)

Standard accounts of civil disobedience include nonviolence as a necessary condition. Here I argue that such accounts are mistaken and that civil disobedience can include violence in many aspects, primarily excepting violence directed at other persons. I base this argument on a novel understanding of civil disobedience: the special character of the practice comes from its combination of condemnation of a political practice with an expressed commitment to the political. The commitment to the political is a commitment to engaging with (...) others as co-members in the on-going political project of living together. I show how such an understanding of civil disobedience is superior to the Rawlsian strain of thought, which focuses on fidelity to law. Rawls was concerned with civil disobedience solely in the context of overriding political obligation. The project of characterizing a contestatory political practice that can be distinguished and used in a wider variety of contexts than Rawls is concerned with, including under illegitimate regimes, beyond the nation-state, or on behalf of anarchism, requires a different understanding of civil disobedience. (shrink)

The article is concerned with the question of how legal institutions are structured with the use of constitutive, institutive, consequential, and terminative rules. To that end, the regulation of international treaties as laid down in the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties of 1969 is analysed. This leads to the discovery of two additional categories of rules: content rules and invalidating rules. Finally, the special status of unique legal institutions is investigated. Unique legal institutions – for example, heads of (...) state, parliaments, and supreme courts – enjoy validity in a legal system to the exclusion of the validity of any other legal institution of the same category in that system. (shrink)