Normative theorists like to divide normative theories into classes. One special point of focus has been to place utilitarianism into a larger class of theories which do not necessarily share its view about what is alone of impersonal intrinsic value, namely, individual human well-being, but do share another structural feature, roughly its demand that each person seek to maximize the realization of what is of impersonal intrinsic value. The larger class is distinguished from its complement in two apparently different ways. (...) Let us look briefly at these two ways. (shrink)

Previous edition, 1st, published in 1971.

The doctrine of the margin of appreciation that the European Court of Human Rights has developed in its case law has given rise to considerable criticism. In this article I draw a distinction between two different ways in which the Court has used the doctrine. The first one is in cases where the Court has to decide whether a particular interference with a Convention freedom is justified. In answering that question, the Court often uses the label ‘margin of appreciation’ without (...) drawing on a substantive theory of rights that can justify the conclusion reached. The second use appears in cases where the Court refrains explicitly from employing a substantive test of human rights review on the basis that there is no consensus among Contracting States on the legal issue before it. My aim is to highlight the principles that can be used to justify each use of the doctrine, by locating human rights within broader issues in moral and political philosophy. Particular emphasis is placed on the distinction between reason-blocking and interest-based theories of rights as well as on the nature of the duties of the European Court, as a matter of international human rights law. (shrink)

Should particularists about ethics claim that moral principles are never true? Or should they rather claim that any finite set of principles will not be sufficient to capture ethics? This paper explores and defends the possibility of embracing the second of these claims whilst rejecting the first, a position termed 'principled particularism'. The main argument that particularists present for their position-the argument that holds that any moral conclusion can be superseded by further considerations-is quite compatible with principled particularism; indeed, it (...) is compatible with the idea that every true moral conclusion can be shown to follow deductively from a finite set of premises. Whilst it is true that these premises must contain implicit ceteris paribus clauses, this does not render the arguments trivial. On the contrary, they can do important work in justifying moral conclusions. Finally the approach is briefly applied to the related field of jurisprudence. (shrink)