The Civil Code of Lithuania (1964), in force until 2000, did not regulate the objects of civil rights, thus Chapter V of Part III of Book I of the Civil Code of Lithuania is a significant novelty. Several approaches to an abstract definition of the objects of civil rights still exists in the legal doctrine: whether the object of civil rights and the object of the civil relationship coincide; is (...) the object of civil rights an element of the civil relationship and can separate objects (e.g. actions) be considered as the objects of civil rights. Some authors consider such discussion useless to the practical implementation of the law, however, other authors emphasise that the lack of attention of the theory to this subject causes methodological problems while analysing the functional and systemic links among different types of civil relationships. Therefore, the purpose of this research is to analyse the link between the concepts of the object of civil rights and the object of civil relationship, the link between the objects of civil rights and property objects and the types of objects of civil rights in order to reveal the system of objects of civil rights. The subject-matter of the research is the analysis of legal regulation and legal doctrine of the objects of civil rights and their types and their interrelation with the property objects in order to identify the abstract definition of the object of civil rights and examine the system of objects of civil rights. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Convention for Protection of Human Rights and Dignity of the Human Being with Regard to the Application of Biology and Biomedicine: Convention on Human Rights and BiomedicineCouncil of EuropePreambleThe Member States of the Council of Europe, the other States and the European Community signatories hereto,Bearing in mind the Universal Declaration of Human Rights proclaimed by the General Assembly of the United Nations on 10 December 1948;Bearing (...) in mind the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms of 4 November 1950;Bearing in mind the European Social Charter of 18 October 1961;Bearing in mind the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights of 16 December 1966;Bearing in mind the Convention for the Protection of Individuals with Regard to Automatic Processing of Personal Data of 28 January 1981;Bearing also in mind the Convention on the Rights of the Child of 20 November 1989;Considering that the aim of the Council of Europe is the achievement of a greater unity between its members and that one of the methods by which that aim is to be pursued is the maintenance and further realisation of human rights and fundamental freedoms;Conscious of the accelerating developments in biology and medicine;Convinced of the need to respect the human being both as an individual and as a member of the human species and recognising the importance of ensuring the dignity of the human being; [End Page 277]Conscious that the misuse of biology and medicine may lead to acts endangering human dignity;Affirming that progress in biology and medicine should be used for the benefit of present and future generations;Stressing the need for international co-operation so that all humanity may enjoy the benefits of biology and medicine;Recognising the importance of promoting a public debate on the questions posed by the application of biology and medicine and the responses to be given thereto;Wishing to remind all members of society of their rights and responsibilities;Taking account of the work of the Parliamentary Assembly in this field, including Recommendation 1160 (1991) on the preparation of a Convention on bioethics;Resolving to take such measures as are necessary to safeguard human dignity and the fundamental rights and freedoms of the individual with regard to the application of biology and medicine;Have agreed as follows:Chapter IGeneral provisionsArticle 1. (Purpose and object)Parties to this Convention shall protect the dignity and identity of all human beings and guarantee everyone, without discrimination, respect for their integrity and other rights and fundamental freedoms with regard to the application of biology and medicine.Each Party shall take in its internal law the necessary measures to give effect to the provisions of this Convention.Article 2. (Primacy of the human being)The interests and welfare of the human being shall prevail over the sole interest of society or science.Article 3. (Equitable access to health care)Parties, taking into account health needs and available resources, shall take appropriate measures with a view to providing, within their jurisdiction, equitable access to health care of appropriate quality. [End Page 278]Article 4. (Professional standards)Any intervention in the health field, including research, must be carried out in accordance with relevant professional obligations and standards.Chapter IIConsentArticle 5. (General rule)An intervention in the health field may only be carried out after the person concerned has given free and informed consent to it.This person shall beforehand be given appropriate information as to the purpose and nature of the intervention as well as on its consequences and risks.The person concerned may freely withdraw consent at any time.Article 6. (Protection of persons not able to consent)1. Subject to Articles 17 and 20 below, an intervention may only be carried out on a person who does not have the capacity to consent, for his or her direct benefit.2. Where, according to law, a minor does not have the capacity to consent to an intervention, the intervention may only be carried out with the authorisation of his or her representative or an authority or a person or... (shrink)

Hegel’s detailed analysis of subjective religion and his forceful rejection of the movement in his own political environment to deny civil liberties to Jewish citizens give us the conceptual tools to respond to our contemporary cases of religious extremism without violating the value of the autonomy and inherent worth of the thinking person that fanaticism tramples. This paper first addresses Hegel’s analysis of fanaticism, demonstrating that its rejection of the order of existing structures in favor of an abstract ideal (...) entails the Hegelian concept of spirit. When spirit’s implications are explored, it is evident that immediate religious certainty has the potential to elevate its adherents to thinking consciousness and therefore have the potential to follow its internal dialectics to the point where its convictions correspond with the major ethical principles upheld by modern states. Given the political freedom to explore their own latent truths and inconsistencies, subjective, even fanatical, religious consciousness can strengthen the state by its independent verification of the ideals embodied in the political community. In the meantime, autonomous reflection should be encouraged through free religious expression, including of religious views that run counter to the objective order of the state. However, any destructive attacks on this order must be confronted and stopped. These principles allow us to respond to the current Syrian refugee crisis, the controversy regarding municipal bans on burkinis in France, and violent, religiously-inspired terrorist attacks with clarity and consistency. (shrink)

The Supreme Court’s construction of the Religious Freedom Restoration Act of 1993 (RFRA) in Hobby Lobby created a great fear among various civil rights groups, especially in the LGBT community, over what the Court might do next regarding rights of same-sex and transgender couples seeking legal protections in employment, housing, and public accommodations. Indeed, if Justice Alito’s majority position is taken for all that its logic implies, then, as Justice Ginsburg’s dissent warns, there is indeed much for (...) the civil rights community to be concerned about. However, as I show in this article, there are good reasons for not treating the Hobby Lobby case as broadly as the majority opinion’s logic might indicate. Hopefully, courts will be inclined to follow this direction. First, Justice Kennedy’s concurring opinion suggests that he joined the majority while also holding a much narrower understanding of the reasoning behind that opinion: namely, that because HHS had established an alternative means for meeting the needs of nonprofit employees where the employer had a religious objection, there was little reason in light of the importance of religious liberty not to extend that same alternative to closely held for-profit organizations. Second, a narrower interpretation of the Court’s opinion seems to better fit with RFRA’s legislative history, notwithstanding the majority’s concern that RLUIPA was passed to imply a broadened expansion of RFRA’s religious protections. It is equally possible and more consistent with RFRA’s adoption that, as the dissent notes, RLUIPA was meant to clarify “that courts should not question the centrality of a particular religious exercise.” Third, a narrow interpretation is more in keeping with the Court’s recognition of health care and equality as compelling concerns of many federal and state laws, alongside the protection of religious freedom. Finally, a narrow reading better resolves the conflict of rights lying in the background between the human right of freedom of conscience and the human right to well-being. It resolves this conflict by ensuring that no one suffers objective harm from either the denial of preventative health care or loss of civil rights protections when a compelling state interest is present, or the harm to conscience is less than substantial. (shrink)

It is often held that people have a moral right to believe and say whatever they want. For instance, one might claim that they have a right to believe racist things as long as they keep those thoughts to themselves. Or, one might claim that they have a right to pursue any philosophical question they want as long as they do so with a civil tone. In this paper I object to those claims and argue that no one (...) has such unlimited moral rights. In Part 1 I explore the value of the freedoms of thought and expression. In Part 2 I argue against the unlimited moral right to free expression, focusing in particular on the special obligations and moral constraints that obtain for academics. In Part 3 I argue against the unlimited moral right to free thought. (shrink)

The Civil Code of Lithuania re-established enterprise (business) as a self-sufficient object of civil rights and introduced several legal transanctions with it, the so- called asset deals (sale-purchase of enterprise and lease of enterprise). Since every transfer of enterprise comprises the transfer (delegation) of debts to the new owner, the legal regulation on asset deals must be orientated to the protection of creditors’ rights. However, the legal practice showed that the existing legal regulation regarding asset (...) deals, in particular the mechanism of the protection of creditors’ rights, is complex, and thus unappealing to legal practitioners. Therefore, this research focuses on an analysis of the legal regulation of the mechanism of the protection of creditors’ rights applicable to asset deals and its impact on the civil turnover of enterprise as an object of civil rights. In order to thoroughly examine the problem of the efficient mechanism of the protection of creditors’ rights, the national legal regulation is analysed in comparison to the legal systems of France, Germany and Russia. (shrink)

In this late story, Truman Capote celebrates a peculiar form of object relations to expand definitions of sexuality beyond conventional identity categories and thus suggest a more expansive model of social inclusion and civil rights. Building on work in animal studies, queer theory, and the new materialities, I argue that the literalism of these object relations decenters the human and reimagines a wider ethics of belonging. The story describes an elderly widow who keeps all of her (...) deceased cats in a freezer because she cannot bear to be parted from them. Although the story prepares us to expect that the frozen cats could be symbols or surrogates for her dead husband, it becomes clear that she loves her cats literally as cats and nothing more. Capote pushes us to acknowledge and accept this love for her cats just as it is. And by doing so, he invites us to imagine a more hospitable world in which we accommodate other kinds of object-choice beyond the confines of heterosexual marriage, including but certainly not limited to his own homosexuality. (shrink)

The 1948 Declaration of Human Rights demanded a collaboration among exponents from around the world. Embodying many different cultural perspectives, it was driven by a like-minded belief in the importance of finding common principles that would be essential for the very survival of civilization. Although an arduous and extensive process, the result was a much sought-after and collective endeavor that would be referenced for decades to come. Motivated by the seventieth anniversary of the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human (...) class='Hi'>Rights and enriched by the contributions of eminent scholars, this volume aims to be a reflection on human rights and their universality. The underlying question is whether or not, after seventy years, this document can be considered universal, or better yet, how to define the concept of “universality.” We live in an age in which this notion seems to be guided not so much by the values that the subject intrinsically perceives as good, but rather by the demands of the subject. Universality is thus no longer deduced by something that is objectively given, within the shared praxis. Conversely, what seems to have to be universal is what we want to be valid for everyone. This volume will be of interest to those currently engaged in research or studying in a variety of fields including Philosophy, Politics and Law. (shrink)

Is it possible to compare civilizations one with another? Is it possible, in other words, to construct some neutral and objective framework in terms of which we could establish in what respects one civilization might deserve to be ranked more highly than its competitors? Morality will surely provide one axis of such a framework (and we note in passing that believers in Islam might quite reasonably claim that their fellow-believers are characteristically more moral than are many in the West). Criteria (...) such as material well-being will need to play a role, too, as also will happiness or pleasure (and again we note that it is not clear a priori that there is more happiness in the West than there is in other civilizations). But even happiness (pace some proponents of the utilitarian philosophy) comes in different types, and to count in the civilization stakes the happiness involved would presumably need to be of the right kind. We explore what this might mean in terms of the idea of a self-chosen life plan. (shrink)

The article deals with a specific type of contract that an heir is entitled to conclude—the transfer (or sale) of the rights of succession. As a starting point, the author of the article analyses the formation and further development of the transfer of succession as a whole (hereditas) in the Roman law. Two major proceedings used by Roman lawyers for the purposes of the alienation of hereditas are analysed, one being in iure cessio hereditatis and the second taking the (...) form of emptio venditi hereditatis. The interrelations between this kind of transfer and the recognition of the possibility of the assignment of rights (cessio) under the Roman law are pointed out. The author traces the impact of the principles developed by the Roman law on the legal regulation of the contract in question in modern codification by drawing attention to the French Civil Code and the Civil Code of Quebec. The author states that the legal rules on the sale of the rights of succession contained in the new Lithuanian Civil Code adopted in 2000 have been transposed, to a large extent, from the two abovementioned codes. After analysing the object of this contract, the author concludes that it is the sale of a certain incorporeal property (res incorporales) that is meant by the terms ‘succession’ (hereditas) or the ‘rights of succession’. This feature distinguishes the analysed contract from the ordinary contracts that an heir may conclude for the purposes of the alienation of specific objects making part of the succession. (shrink)

Once upon a time, when there was no psychoanalysis or cultural anthro-pology or meta-ethics, most philosophers believed that there was objective truth in such statements as, ‘Murder is wrong’, ‘One should not steal’, and ‘Heliogabalus was an evil man’. Many philosophers still believe that there is, and though their view is not wholly respectable in most English-speaking philosophical circles, it probably has the important merit of being true. There are serious reasons for worrying about the traditional view: it is not (...) clear how an ‘ought’ can be derived from an ‘is’; there are problems s e in trying to translate evaluative terms into descriptive ones; reflective men disagree profoundly on ethical issues; ethical judgments appear to have an emotive component; etc. Still, there are also very good reasons for believing that murder is wrong and that Heliogabalus was an evil man. I shall not defend the objectivity of statements of the form, ‘ X is good ’, for I am not at all worried about such statements passing out of the language of rational men. Even behaviourists and relativists and emotivists still make reasonably intelligent statements of this form. But I am worried about the future of a related class of statements, those of the form, ‘ X is civilized ’. These statements have been gradually disappearing from our discourse; perhaps they have been casualties of recent revolutions in social science and philosophy. And this state of affairs is a tragic one indeed, for not only is there a need for statements of this form, but of all ethical statements, these are the ones whose descriptive content is most incontrovertible. Non-cognitivistic moral philosophers generally dismiss statements about the ‘civilized’ and ‘barbarous’ along with statements about the ‘good’, ‘evil’, ‘right’, and ‘wrong’. But social scientists have made statements about the ‘civilized’ and ‘barbarous’ special objects of attack. They have even suggested that people who make such statements are narrow-minded, naive, and ‘ethnocentric’. ‘Ethnocentrism’, an eminent social scientist tells us, ‘is the technical name for this view of things in which one's own group is the center of everything, and all others are scaled and rated with reference to it.’ Ethnocentrism is innocent enough up to a point, but reflective men should be careful not to allow it to blind their moral sense. The noted anthropologist, Herskovits, has given us the following warning: Cultures are sometimes evaluated by the use of the designations ‘civilized’ and ‘primitive’. These terms have a deceptive simplicity, and attempts to document the differences implied in them have proved to be of unexpected difficulty. (shrink)

An emerging body of literature has highlighted a gap in our understanding of the extent to which the salience attached to human rights is likely to influence the extent to which an individual takes account of Corporate Social Responsibility in decision making. The primary aim of this study is to begin to address this gap by understanding how individuals attribute different emphasis on specific aspects of human rights when making decisions to purchase, work, invest or support the community (...) operations for socially responsible organisations. In order to achieve this objective, a survey instrument was administered to professionals in Russia and Bulgaria. Our data indicate that there is a significant correlation between individuals’ sensitivity towards different components of human rights and their perceptions of the importance of CSR in decision making. Specifically, the recognition of political rights was strongly associated with the willingness to purchase, invest, seek employment and support socially responsible firms. Our analysis also outlines significant differences between the Russian and the Bulgarian samples with regard to the manners in which individuals rate the importance of civil, political and economic human rights. (shrink)

There are certain recurring objections to Locke's theory of legitimate government and the conception of natural rights on which it is based. These objections generally take the form of showing that most of Locke's claims in the Second Treatise stand largely as ad hoc assertions, defended—if at all—not by philosophical argumentation but by appeals to theology or intuition. These criticisms might be called external criticisms of Locke's theory because they focus, not upon the coherence of the theory or the (...) perplexities which prompted Locke to adopt it, but rather upon the justifications for that theory. Important as these criticisms are to an ultimate evaluation of Locke's success, my purpose here is neither to reiterate them nor to defend Locke against them. Rather I want to develop a purely internal criticism of his view. For I shall argue that upon any acceptable interpretation of at least one of Locke's central natural rights claims, this claim will not be able to perform the crucial task envisioned for it by Locke—namely, provide a key premise for the moral justification for passing from a pre-civil society to a civil society that is responsible to its citizens. (shrink)

The question of civil disobedience has preoccupied philosophical discourse at least since Thoreau's articulation of disobedience as a form of non-compliance and Rawls' classic definition outlined in the wake of the civil rights and student protest movements of the 1960s. It has become increasingly clear, however, that these classic definitions are being challenged and rethought from a variety of traditions in the wake of contemporary protests. These articles engage with the most recent debates surrounding civil disobedience (...) and conscientious objection, opening up original new paths for thinking about forms of protest. They also reveal disagreements about how to understand civil disobedience and about the place of conscience in political protest, inviting further discussion on these questions and issues. (shrink)

Those arguing that conscientious objection in medicine should be declared unethical by professional societies face the following challenge: conscientious objection can function as an important reforming mechanism when it involves health care workers refusing to participate in certain medical interventions deemed standard of care and legally sanctioned but which undermine patients’ rights. In such cases, the argument goes, far from being unethical, conscientious objection may actually be a professional duty. I examine this sort of challenge and ultimately argue that (...) these acts of conscience done in the interest of reforming professional norms or medical regulations are best understood as episodes of civil disobedience rather than episodes of conscientious objection. In contrast to the private, exempting nature of conscientious objection, civil disobedience is a public breach of a norm or law undertaken with the aim of bringing about a change in governmental policies or professional standards. Consequently, clinicians may have a duty to engage in civil disobedience even while professional societies are right to declare limitations on the ethical appropriateness of conscientious objection. (shrink)

In what respects is Western civilization superior or inferior to its rivals? In raising this question we are addressing a particularly strong form of the problem of relativism. For in order to compare civilizations one with another we would need to be in possession of a framework that is neutral and objective, a framework based on principles of evaluation which would be acceptable, in principle, to all human beings. Morality will surely provide one axis of such a framework (and we (...) note in passing that believers in Islam might quite reasonably claim that their fellow-believers are characteristically more moral than are many in the West). Criteria such as material wellbeing, too, will need to play a role, as also will happiness or pleasure (and again we note that it is not clear a priori that there is more happiness in the West than there is among the citizens of other civilizations). Since, however, these axes of evaluation do not run in tandem, we cannot expect to be able to formulate some single criterion which would enable us to rank civilizations in a simple unilinear order. Even happiness (pace some proponents of the utilitarian philosophy) comes in different types, and to count in the civilization stakes the happiness involved would presumably need to be of the right kind. Thus it is not clear that happiness derived from, say, taking drugs or torturing small animals is going to be able to count in favor of a civilization as much as, say, happiness derived from reading poetry or planting corn. Hence, for these and other reasons, we will have to deal with a multidimensional framework, in which some civilizations may excel along some axes but do badly on others. A further problem turns on the fact that there is no such relation as better than. Rather, when A is better than B then this is always in some respect C. Yet even when we compare one thing with another in some given respect we are not always dealing with a simple linear order. This is because the relation ‘being better than in respect C’ is not in every case transitive.. (shrink)

The rise to taking over state power after elections of 2014 by majoritarian forces in India has since witnessed weakening of institutions of governance. The ruling Bhartiya Janata Party has returned to power with an enhanced parliamentary majority in the 2019 elections. The rise of hindutva, the Hindu nationalist political philosophy of the formations comprising the BJP and the Sangh parivaar or affiliates of the right wing Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, has reshaped the discourse on the “idea of India”. Under the (...) extensive reframing in majoritarian nationalist terms of Indian political verities, it is conceivable that the Indian military, widely regarded as a professional, apolitical and secular force, will also be impacted. There has been little academic scrutiny of the possible influence of majoritarianism on the Indian military. The paper examines impact of the onset of majoritarianism democracy on India’s military by taking a close look at the movement in civil-military relations under the BJP government. There is a shift in civil-military relations from objective civilian control, that enhances professionalism and keeps the military apolitical, to subjective civilian control, wherein the military is co-opted through subscribing to the ideologybased security perspective of the ruling party. This shift poses for the military a risk of losing their a political ethic. Erosion of the apolitical ethic of the military will open up the military’s secular ethic to modification. The conclusions are both relevant for policy and theory. The relevance for policy lies in the need for the Indian state and the military to preserve professionalism by persisting with the objective civilian control model. The theoretical relevance is in discerning limits to the concept of obedience of the military to the civilian political rulers. Where there is a threat from a political ideology or its penetration into the military’s intellectual domain with the potential to dilute the military’s professionalism, the military needs to pushback for the sake of national security. (shrink)

Recently, the idea that all rights are positive and costly has come to prominence in international human rights law. This has been taken to imply that there are no reasons to object to providing economic, social, and cultural rights with the same level of protection than civil and political rights. The present contribution aims to reject this undifferentiated view. It argues that even if it is accepted that all rights are in a sense (...) positive and costly, there are still strong grounds for finding the welfare implications of human rights problematic from the perspective of adjudication. (shrink)

An emerging body of literature has highlighted a gap in our understanding of the extent to which the salience attached to human rights is likely to influence the extent to which an individual takes account of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) in decision making. The primary aim of this study is to begin to address this gap by understanding how individuals attribute different emphasis on specific aspects of human rights when making decisions to purchase, work, invest or support the (...) community operations for socially responsible organisations. In order to achieve this objective, a survey instrument was administered to professionals in Russia and Bulgaria. Our data indicate that there is a significant correlation between individuals’ sensitivity towards different components of human rights and their perceptions of the importance of CSR in decision making. Specifically, the recognition of political rights was strongly associated with the willingness to purchase, invest, seek employment and support socially responsible firms. Our analysis also outlines significant differences between the Russian and the Bulgarian samples with regard to the manners in which individuals rate the importance of civil, political and economic human rights. (shrink)

In this article we investigate how Latino immigrant farmers in the Mid-Atlantic region of the United States navigate United States Department of Agriculture programs, which necessitate standardizing farming practices and an acceptance of bureaucracy for participation. We show how Latino immigrant farmers’ agrarian norms and practices are at odds with the state’s requirement for agrarian standardization. This interview-based study builds on existing historical analyses of farmers of color in the United States, and the ways in which their farming practices and (...) racialized identities are often unseen by and illegible to the state. This disjuncture leads to the increased racial exclusion of immigrant farmers from USDA opportunities. Such exclusions impede the transition to a “new era of civil rights,” as has been proclaimed by USDA leadership. Although efforts to address institutionalized racism on a national level may be genuine, they have failed to acknowledge this schism between rural Latino immigrants and the state, thereby inhibiting a meaningful transition in the fields, and continuing a legacy of unequal access to agrarian opportunities for non-white immigrant farmers. (shrink)

The objective of the paper is to create a concept of what securing the claim is, based on the positive legislation of Kosovo’s law, comparing its regulation with laws of somewhat similar legislations of neighbouring regions, understanding its implementation in practice, to achieve conclusions and remarks based on law, facts, practice, and the comparative aspect. The Civil Procedure Law in the Republic of Kosovo is regulated with contested, non-contested or enforcement procedure. Securing the claim is an institute expressively regulated (...) by the “Law on Contested Procedure of the Republic of Kosovo” on its XXI Chapter that defines its means and types. Considering securing the claim measures are present in civil law to prevent any possible threat of protected rights until the final verdict is given, this paper tends to achieve a realization of how these measures practically succeed in actual cases, if they meet the criteria set in the law, or if securing the claim proposal is approved by the court, if they unintentionally restrain the respondent from using their rights. Moving forward, how one distinguishes claim security and interim measures from one-another although they describe the main concept, is strictly reviewed under this article, to finally achieve conclusions and remarks based on questions raised as above. (shrink)

I.WhatVintage ofCivilRights?In this paper I wish to compare and contrast two separate conceptions of civil rights and to argue that the older, more libertarian conception of the subject is preferable to the more widely accepted version used in the modern civil rights movement. The first conception of civil rights focuses on the question of individual capacity. The antithesis of a person with civil rights is the slave. But even if individuals are declared (...) free, they are nonetheless denied their civil rights if they are unable to own property, to enter into contracts, to make wills, to give evidence, and to sue (and be sued) in courts. With all these civil rights claims, the target of the individual grievance is the state; it has denied large classes of individuals the formal capacities that it recognized and protected in others. The Civil War was fought largely over slavery. In its aftermath, civil rights claims protecting individual capacity received explicit, if imperfect, statutory and constitutional protection. The postbellum protections didnotguarantee these rights in absolute fashion – that is, in a way that would not be susceptible to abridgment under any circumstances. Instead, civil rights were protected in what might be called a relative fashion: whatever rights of this sort were enjoyed by white citizens were to be enjoyed by the newly freed black citizens as well. (shrink)

More than two decades after the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the issues of racial discrimination and affirmative action are still matters of controversy. The fragile national consensus on civil rights policy has been increasingly fragmented by resistance and confusion in recent years, especially under the impact of the Reagan administration's efforts to change its direction dramatically. Similarly, since the mid-1960s, the women's rights movement has worked to end discrimination and bring about (...) greater equality for women in employment and public life. Yet, recent years have witnessed increased national ambivalence about these goals and how they should be achieved, especially on the issue of comparable worth. (shrink)

The effects of the late civil strife have been to free the slave and make him a citizen. Yet he is not possessed of the civil rights which citizenship should carry with it. This is wrong, and should be corrected. To this correction I stand committed, so far as Executive influence can avail.

Given the conceptual gap in the global justice debate today (where most of the talk is about the duties of the rich, but little is said about what the poor may do for themselves), in this article I reintroduce the idea of a right of necessity. I first delineate a normative framework for such a right, inspired by these historical accounts. I then offer a contemporary case where the exercise of the right of necessity would be morally legitimate according to (...) that framework – even though illegal and probably condemned by the standard moral norms. The case is that of a small group of Paraguayan campesinos (small farmers) suffering from the effects of a severe drought. In the third part, I introduce the concept of noncivil disobedience: I call an act of noncivil disobedience a conscientious, public, illegal and forcible act whose performance, while not necessarily intended directly as a means to bring about social and/or political change, may help to trigger these changes indirectly. In the fourth part, I suggest that certain instances where the right of necessity is overtly exercised – as in the case of the famine-struck Paraguayan campesinos – may also be interpreted in terms of noncivil disobedience, insofar as they serve a double function: as a means of satisfying immediate need, and as a marker of discontent in a society where the equal rights of individuals are a nominal ideal which remains unfulfilled in practice. I then address two objections that may be raised against resurrecting the idea of a right of necessity and identifying it in certain instances with noncivil disobedience. I conclude by suggesting that, at the point of convergence between the two, a basic right like the right of necessity recovers its value as an active, (rather than passive) entitlement of its holders, while the use of force enters the picture as a legitimate means that – at least under certain circumstances – may be resorted to within the limits of civil society. (shrink)

The ultimate aim of this dissertation is to determine whether libertarian theories of property can be adequately grounded in Locke's theory of natural rights. I defend the thesis that Locke's theory has no room for a fundamental commitment to natural rights, including property rights. ;In the first three chapters, I challenge each component of the dominant interpretation of Locke's theory of property in this century, viz., that of C. B. Macpherson. In Chapter One, I criticize Macpherson's claim (...) that Locke's view allows unlimited appropriation. In Chapter Two, I agree with Macpherson that Locke defended a state in which the franchise was restricted to those who held significant property, viz., land. However, this can be reconciled with an initial contract into civil society that meets certain standards of rationality and fairness. Thus, while political power is not equally distributed in the state Locke describes, that is not necessarily inconsistent with a rational, free, and voluntary social contract. This shows that we need not see Locke as committed to the interests of the wealthiest members of society. In Chapter Three, I agree with Macpherson that Locke's view is that the purpose of contracting out of the state of nature is the protection of one's property. But I briefly argue that Macpherson does not take seriously Locke's concept of property right and the wide range of objects that count as property. If we pay careful attention to Locke's terminology, we can see that although the purpose of the state is the protection of property, that does not guarantee greater protection for the wealthy than it ensures the poor. ;In Chapter Four, I challenge a quite different thesis. James Tully has argued that Locke did not defend private property at all, but attacked it. I criticize this interpretation on the grounds that Locke explicitly allows certain practices that Tully takes to be violations of the law of nature as Locke construes it. I also criticize the claim that certain developments in a commercial economy, such as the consumption of valuable land, necessarily violate the law of nature. In addition, I argue that the idea of conventionally established property rights is inconsistent with Locke's account of how and why government comes to be established. ;In Chapter Five, I provide an account of the principles underlying Locke's account of rights, both within and without civil society. I argue that Locke's view is improperly construed as a view which gives pride of place to rights. Rather, rights are almost always derivative from duties, and in those cases where they are not derivative, they are subordinate to certain primary duties that oblige us in virtue of our status as God's creations. (shrink)

In Civil Rights and the Paradox of Liberal Democracy, Bradley Watson demonstrates the paradox of liberal democracy: that its cornerstone principles of equality and freedom are principles inherently directed toward undermining it. Modernity, beyond bringing definition to political equality, unleashed a whirlwind of individualism, which feeds the soul's basic impulse to rule without limitationincluding the limitation of consent. Here Watson begins his analysis of the foundations of liberalism, looking carefully and critically at the moral and political philosophies that (...) justify modern civil rights litigation. He goes on to examine the judicial manifestations of the paradox of liberal democracy, seeking to bring a broad philosophical coherence to legal decision making in the United States and Canada. Finally, Watson illuminates the extent to which this decision making is in tension with liberal democracy, and outlines proposals for reform. (shrink)

How can respect for cultural and religious differences be reconciled with the conviction that everyone has basic human rights that must be secured? Should liberal states require that non-liberal states secure human rights, and can they do so without being intolerant and oppressive? Is there a human right to democracy, and should a liberal hold that all states must become modern liberal democracies and may be pressured to reform their traditional practices and institutions? Do human rights include (...) only the classical liberal civil and political rights, and no economic rights? ;In this dissertation I defend a conception of human rights derived from John Rawls's Political Liberalism, which comprises both Justice as Fairness, the view he presented in A Theory of Justice , and the Law of Peoples, the view he presented in The Law of Peoples . According to this conception, human rights are binding on all societies, and cannot be rejected as peculiarly liberal or politically parochial. Outlaw states that violate them are to be condemned and may in grave cases be subjected to sanctions or intervention. Moreover, human rights include not only basic civil and political rights but also basic economic rights. However, while there may be a human right to live under a procedurally democratic government, it would not be a basic right but a derivative one. ;The conception of human rights that I here defend is a rational reconstruction of Rawls's view. In Chapters 1--3 I argue against the most natural interpretation of The Law of Peoples, defend a different interpretation, and expose and bridge a logical gap in that text. I then develop new responses to objections by Charles Beitz and Thomas Pogge, who hold that liberals who endorse Justice as Fairness must reject the Law of Peoples as insufficiently egalitarian. I also respond to the additional objection that the set of human rights cannot include economic rights. As I show, endorsing Justice as Fairness requires endorsing the Law of Peoples, and public reason can reconcile respect for cultural and religious differences with the conviction that everyone has basic human rights that must be secured. (shrink)

The renowned philosopher John Searle reveals the fundamental nature of social reality. What kinds of things are money, property, governments, nations, marriages, cocktail parties, and football games? Searle explains the key role played by language in the creation, constitution, and maintenance of social reality. We make statements about social facts that are completely objective, for example: Barack Obama is President of the United States, the piece of paper in my hand is a twenty-dollar bill, I got married in London, etc. (...) And yet these facts only exist because we think they exist. How is it possible that we can have factual objective knowledge of a reality that is created by subjective opinions? This is part of a much larger question: How can we give an account of ourselves, with our peculiar human traits DS mind, reason, freedom, society - in a world that we know independently consists of mindless, meaningless particles? How can we account for our social and mental existence in a realm of brute physical facts? In answering this question, Searle avoids postulating different realms of being, a mental and a physical, or worse yet, a mental, a physical, and a social. There is just one reality: Searle shows how the human reality fits into that one reality. Mind, language, and civilization are natural products of the basic facts of the physical world described by physics, chemistry and biology. Searle explains how language creates and maintains the elaborate structures of human social institutions. These institutions serve to create and distribute power relations that are pervasive and often invisible. These power relations motivate human actions in a way that provides the glue that holds human civilization together. Searle shows how this account illuminates human rationality, free will, political power, and human rights. Our social world is a world created and maintained by language. (shrink)

In this article, the author discusses two aspects of the representation of “Europe” as a historical subject that are bound to prove controversial: its relationship to universality, and the conditions of its becoming democratic as a polity. The paradox of “European identity” is that it conceived of itself as the particular site of the invention of the universal and its revelation to the world. A dialectics of recognition through the confrontation with the Other was always involved (above all in the (...) colonial form), but it must pass now from projection to exposure to alterity. In that way a planetary construction of the universal can include a decisive contribution from Europe as one of its “provinces.” Democratizing democracy itself via the invention of a trans-national “co-citizenship” would be an element of this contribution. This is the object of a “material constitution” of Europe already on its way, but still lacking a clear representation of its “constituent power.” Debates on the absence of a European demos and the positive conditions for a federal government have shown that it will require a deconstruction of the notion of “sovereignty of the people,” separating its insurgent dimension from its function as a legitimation of the monopoly of violence, which was closely associated in nation-states with the legal guarantee of individual subjective rights. (shrink)

SummaryMarc'antonio de Dominis is well known to historians as a figure in the political and religious culture of early modern Britain and Europe. This article contends that he was also a major theorist of civil power: his critique of Catholic scholastic political thought is compelling and his account of divine right kingship sheds light on conceptual problems that troubled a range of early modern thinkers. De Dominis dismantled the scholastic theory of political power on its own terms, insisting that (...) Almain, Bellarmine, Suárez and others could not distinguish, as they sought to, between the potestas politica in general and the rule of particular princes. By this insight de Dominis could vindicate royal authority against the deposing pretensions of the Pope, the main objective of James I's supporters during the Allegiance Controversy, but his own positive account of how to think about power ran into theoretical trouble which he evidently perceived himself. If the potestas politica cannot be abstracted from a specific regime, and if the prince's absolute sovereignty depends on this fact, can politics be understood only at the level of the particular and contingent? The article closes by setting Thomas Hobbes—well versed in Jacobean polemic—in the context of this question. (shrink)

The traditional conception of knowledge is justified, true belief. If one looks at a modern textbook on epistemology, the great bulk of questions with which it deals are to do with personal knowledge, as embodied in beliefs and the proper experiences that someone ought to have had in order to have the right (or justification) to know. I intend to argue that due to the explosive growth of knowledge whose domain is “outside the head”, this conception has outlived its relevance. (...) -/- On the other hand, Karl Popper’s (1934) Falsificationism, with its emphasis on the objective character of knowledge, is not only a sounder, but also a more appropriate theory of knowledge for understanding the nature and growth of civilization. Later, Popper (1945) generalized this approach to obtain critical rationalism, in which all claims to knowledge, whether scientific or otherwise, are understood as objective solutions to objective problems and can be evaluated by other non-observational - types of criticism. I will first argue that Popper’s methodology is quite suited to the view that knowledge is an objective autonomous product and then adduce his theory of world 3, an ontology that neatly wraps up various considerations. World 3 is the domain of abstract products of the human mind that now have a life of their own, outside of human heads: theories, arguments, problems, plans, etc. I then adduce some other arguments for the autonomous quality of knowledge. (shrink)

Remarkably, there have been three decisions by the Court of Appeal and one decision by the Supreme Court (including notably R(G) v Governors of X School) in the space of three years on the same question as to whether the procedural guarantees of Article 6 European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) can apply to disciplinary proceedings in the workplace. The earlier recent domestic decisions held that Article 6(1) could apply or did apply to workplace disciplinary procedures and could imply (...) or did imply a right to legal representation. More recently, employees have used Article 6 to argue for a right to independent disciplinary panels. In comparison, the more recent domestic decisions have held that Article 6(1) did not apply to workplace disciplinary procedures. This article explores the scope for Article 6(1) to apply to workplace disciplinary procedures by looking at the Strasbourg case law and explores the additional possibility that Article 6 could be engaged in workplace disciplinary procedures based on the alternative civil rights not to be wrongfully dismissed or unfairly dismissed. The benefit of these alternative civil rights would be that they would open up the protection of Article 6 to more employees than just professionals. This article also discusses the apparent conflict between the aims of employees in the cases on Article 6 ECHR and recent broader policy developments in favour of early and informal resolution of employment disputes. It is concluded that these cases reinforce objections to the Coalition Government’s broader ‘rebalancing’ agenda, as dismissal laws require strengthening and not further weakening. (shrink)

_Philosophy of Right_ remains among the most influential works in Western political theory. It introduces a notion of civil society that has proven of inestimable importance to diverse philosophical and social agendas. In this transcription of the lectures that formed the initial version of Hegel's text, the philosopher presents his thought with a clarity and directness seldom matched in his later writings. Nowhere does Hegel make clearer the difference between his concept of objective spirit and traditional concepts of natural (...) law. Nowhere does he offer a more prominent treatment of the key notion of recognition. The long-awaited appearance of this first English-language translation of these lectures is a major event for Hegel scholars, philosophers, and political theorists. (shrink)

These lectures constitute the earliest version of Hegel's Philosophy of Right, one of the most influential works in Western political theory. They introduce a notion of civil society that has proven of inestimable importance to diverse philosophical and social agendas. This transcription of the lectures, which remained in obscurity until 1982, presents the philosopher's social thought with clarity and boldness. It differs in some significant respects from Hegel's own published version of 1821. Nowhere does Hegel make plainer the difference (...) between his concept of objective spirit and traditional concepts of natural law or offer a more prominent treatment of the key notion of recognition. His description of poverty is more forceful and his critique of existing social conditions more thorough than in the published edition, which had to satisfy the Prussian censor. The strictly limited powers of the monarch are more clearly delineated in the Heidelberg lectures, and the arguments for a bicameral legislature are more explicit. Hegel formulates in a more dynamic way his understanding of the relationship between rationality and actuality--the rational is not what exists but what is coming into being--and sets forth more simply and clearly the central themes of his political philosophy--freedom, justice, and community. The Heidelberg lectures are an indispensable resource for understanding the edition of 1821 and an invaluable supplement to one of the great classics of political philosophy. (shrink)

The paper is devoted to the issue of surveillance in capitalism (surveillance capitalism), a phenomenon which has spread in that socio-economic system since the beginning of the 21st century. We attempt to point out the harmfulness of information technologies developing in the wrong direction, carrying the ideas of dataism and post-truth, which increasingly colonize human living space. It turns out that the information (traces) that people leave while operating on the Internet is a source of predicting human behavior in the (...) future (behavioral futures markets). Thus, for the most developed Internet enterprises in the world, they become a motive for violating what seem to be basic political rights, mainly freedom, property and security. As a result, under the influence of the disinformation often present on the Internet, people’s behavior may take the most socially undesirable forms, but desirable in the virtual world. The considerations in the paper are primarily theoretical. The descriptive method was used with elements of the conceptual analysis of surveillance capitalism in the context of dataism and post-truth. (shrink)

These lectures constitute the earliest version of Hegel's Philosophy of Right, one of the most influential works in Western political theory. They introduce a notion of civil society that has proven of inestimable importance to diverse philosophical and social agendas. This transcription of the lectures, which remained in obscurity until 1982, presents the philosopher's social thought with clarity and boldness. It differs in some significant respects from Hegel's own published version of 1821. Nowhere does Hegel make plainer the difference (...) between his concept of objective spirit and traditional concepts of natural law or offer a more prominent treatment of the key notion of recognition. His description of poverty is more forceful and his critique of existing social conditions more thorough than in the published edition, which had to satisfy the Prussian censor. The strictly limited powers of the monarch are more clearly delineated in the Heidelberg lectures, and the arguments for a bicameral legislature are more explicit. Hegel formulates in a more dynamic way his understanding of the relationship between rationality and actuality--the rational is not what exists but what is coming into being--and sets forth more simply and clearly the central themes of his political philosophy--freedom, justice, and community. The Heidelberg lectures are an indispensable resource for understanding the edition of 1821 and an invaluable supplement to one of the great classics of political philosophy. (shrink)

_Philosophy of Right_ remains among the most influential works in Western political theory. It introduces a notion of civil society that has proven of inestimable importance to diverse philosophical and social agendas. In this transcription of the lectures that formed the initial version of Hegel's text, the philosopher presents his thought with a clarity and directness seldom matched in his later writings. Nowhere does Hegel make clearer the difference between his concept of objective spirit and traditional concepts of natural (...) law. Nowhere does he offer a more prominent treatment of the key notion of recognition. The long-awaited appearance of this first English-language translation of these lectures is a major event for Hegel scholars, philosophers, and political theorists. (shrink)

In 1967, the superior general of the Society of Jesus, Pedro Arrupe, sent a memorandum on the American “racial crisis” to the Jesuit priests, brothers, and social institutions of the United States. Through appeals to the American legal and Catholic moral traditions, On the Interracial Apostolate articulated why Jesuits should strive to achieve racial equality, initiating a historic period of expansion in Jesuit civil rights programs. Given scholars’ limited engagement with On the Interracial Apostolate’s distinctive rhetorical features, this (...) article explains why the document was framed within the discursive framework of prophetic indictment by uncovering the influence of William J. Kenealy, a Jesuit legal scholar, on the document’s drafting. In light of this drafting history, this article concludes by suggesting that the emergence of twentieth-century “Jesuit anti-racism” can, in part, be explained by how questions about racial equality came to be understood as discrete expressions of broader debates about the American legal tradition’s moral foundations. (shrink)

Drawing on the core values of western civilization, the author refines the counterparts in Chinese civilization, summarized as four core principles: duty before freedom, obedience before rights, community before individual, and harmony before conflict. Focusing on guoxue or Sinology as the basis of his approach, the author provides detailed explanations of traditional Chinese values. Recent scholars have addressed the concept of guoxue since the modern age, sorting through it and piecing it together, which has produced an extremely abundant range (...) of information. However, given that the concepts and theories involved have been left largely unanalyzed, this book develops a theoretical treatment of them in several important respects. First, it analyzes the mindset of guoxue, examining the dominant ideas and values of the era from which the term "guoxue" arose, focusing on its connection to early changes and trends in society and culture, and distinguishing three key phases of development. Past scholars mainly had in mind the range of objects studied in guoxue when defining it, and what this book underscores is the meaning of guoxue as a modern body of research. Secondly, it assesses several phases in the modern evolution of the body of guoxue research from the beginning to the end of the 20th century, id est, ending with the later phase of the National Heritage movement. Third and lastly, the book explores the various main modes of modern guoxue, which correspond step by step with the evolutionary phases of guoxue research. (shrink)

In analyzing the development of the concept of civil rights since the adoption of the Fourteenth Amendment, two historical accounts seem available. According to the first account, the concept initially encompassed a relatively limited set of rights, associated with the ability of all citizens to engage in the productive activities of the economy and avail themselves of the protection of the legal system. Then the concept gradually expanded to include what had initially been thought of as political (...) rights, such as the right to vote, and then to identify the entire set of rights to equal treatment in all domains of life outside a relatively narrowly-defined private sphere. According to the second account, the concept of civil rights was fuzzy from the outset; although political actors spoke as if they had a clear understanding of distinctions among civil, political, and social rights, close examination of their language shows that the distinctions tended to collapse under slight pressure. (shrink)

In a legal sense, a proprietary complex is comprehended as a totality of the objects of civil rights having common purpose which is referred to as a self-sufficient object having separate monetary value. In contemporary doctrine of private law, wherein the pluralistic theory of civil relationship is prevalent, the object of the civil relationship as well as the object of civil rights is considered the values regarding which of the civil (...) relationship emerged. Proprietary complexes as the multipartite objects of civil rights are comprised of various units of asset. In a legal sense, assets are considered as the objects of civil rights having economic value and capacity to participate in civil turnover, i.e. the owner is able to transfer such object to another person. While forming proprietary complexes, different units of assets (tangible and intangible) are united into a totality which is considered as one object of civil rights. So, if the positive law constitutes a possibility to form proprietary complexes and to participate in civil turnover, it becomes possible to capitalize assets, whereas proprietary complexes are formed in order to gain additional monetary value. Therefore, the purpose of this research is to analyse the formation of proprietary complexes, the genesis and theoretical grounding of proprietary complexes and different kinds of proprietary complexes. The subject matter of the research is the analysis of the concept of proprietary complex, the identification of the features of proprietary complexes and the analysis of particular proprietary complexes. The main methods used in this research are document (content of source), linguistic, systematic and critical analyses as well as historical, comparative and teleological analyses. (shrink)

American liberals believe that both civil liberties and civil rights are harmonious aspects of a basic commitment to human rights. But recently these two clusters of values have seemed increasingly to conflict – as, for example, with the feminist claim that the legal toleration of pornography, long a goal sought by civil libertarians, actually violates civil rights as a form of sex discrimination.Here I propose an interpretation of the conflict of civil (...) class='Hi'>rights and civil liberties in its latest manifestation: the controversy over how to treat discriminatory verbal harassment on American campuses. I was involved with the controversy in a practical way at Stanford, where I helped draft a harassment regulation that was recently adopted by the university.Like the pornography issue, the harassment problem illustrates the element of paradox in the conflict of civil-liberties and civil-rights perspectives or mentalities. This problem does not simply trigger familiar disagreements between liberals of a classical or libertarian orientation as against those of a welfare state or social democratic one – though it does sometimes do that. In my experience, the issue also has the power to appear to a single person in different shapes and suggest different solutions as it oscillates between being framed in civil-liberties and in civil-rights terms. At the same time, however, it remains recognizably the same problem. It is thus a very practical and political example of the kind of tension noted by Wittgenstein in the aphorism that heads this essay – a puzzle of interpretive framing, of “seeing-as.”. (shrink)

The paper examines the connection between online security and the protection of civil rights from a legal viewpoint, that is, considering the different types of rights and interests that are at stake in national and international law and whether, and to what extent, they concern matters of balancing. Over the past years, the purpose of several laws, and legislative drafts such as ACTA, has been to impose “zero-sum games”. In light of current statutes, such as HADOPI in (...) France, or Digital Economy Act in UK, the paper intends to illustrate how more satisfactory solutions are feasible in the field of online security, such as the new “Police and Criminal Justice Data Protection Directive” that the European Commission presented in January 2012. At least in Western legal systems, it should be clear that either civil rights prevail over security (no balancing), or such balance has to satisfactorily protect individual rights (proportionality). (shrink)

One fundamental barrier to eliminating health disparities, particularly with regard to the determinants of health, is the persistence of discrimination. Civil rights law is the primary legal mechanism used to address discrimination. Federal civil rights laws have been the subject of wider analyses as a determinant of health as well as a tool to address health disparities. The research on state civil rights laws, while more limited, is growing. This article will highlight a few (...) examples of how some states are using civil rights laws to combat discrimination, particularly in more expansive ways and in the interest of new populations, presenting tools that can target determinants and address the goal of reducing health disparities. (shrink)