Is the virtue of the good citizen the same as the virtue of the good man? Aristotle addresses this in Politics 3.4. His answer is twofold. On the one hand, (the account for Difference) they are not the same both because what the citizen’s virtue is depends on the constitution, on what preserves it, and on the role the citizen plays in it, and because the good citizens in the best constitution cannot all be good men, whereas the good man’s (...) virtue is uniform. On the other hand, (the account for Identity) the two virtues are identical in the good men in the best constitution, in which all are good citizens, each possessing the ability for ruling and for being ruled. This nuanced answer can be seen as Aristotle’s synthesis of a Periclean view (contribution to state blots out personal wrongs) and a Socratic view (no good citizen is without justice). Its nuances reflect the extent to which Aristotle’s conceptions of good citizenship and the best constitution accommodate deviations of what is probable from the human ideal set out in his ethical writings. In the present chapter, I will first address three puzzles regarding the nuances of Aristotle’s answer. Second, I will consider one question about its implication: Does Aristotle’s account for Difference turn out to entail something ultra-Periclean: that no one can simultaneously be a good man and a good citizen in any constitution other than the best? I shall argue the negative. (shrink)

Belief-state ascription — determining what someone “knew,” “believed,” was “aware of,” etc. — is central to many areas of law. In criminal law, the distinction between knowledge and recklessness, and the use of broad jury instructions concerning other belief states, presupposes a common and stable understanding of what those belief-state terms mean. But a wealth of empirical work at the intersection of philosophy and psychology — falling under the banner of “Experimental Epistemology” — reveals how laypeople’s understandings of (...) mens rea concepts differ systematically from what scholars, courts, and perhaps legislators, have assumed. -/- As implemented, mens rea concepts are much more context-dependent and normatively evaluative than the conventional wisdom suggests, even assuming that jurors are following jury instructions to the letter. As a result, there is less difference between knowledge and recklessness than is typically assumed; jurors consistently “over”-ascribe knowledge to criminal defendants; and concepts like “belief,” “awareness,” and “conscious disregard” mean different things in different contexts, resulting in mens rea findings systematically responsive to aspects of the case traditionally considered irrelevant to the meaning of those terms. -/- This Article provides the first systematic account of the factors driving jurors’ ascriptions of the specific belief states criminal law invokes. After surveying mens rea jury instructions, introducing the Experimental Epistemology literature to the legal literature on mens rea, and examining the implications of that literature for criminal law, this Article considers ways to begin bridging the surprisingly large gap between mens rea theory and practice. (shrink)

The prosecution of international crimes is a challenge both under international and domestic law. Taking the example of international criminal law (ICL) , the fullest realization of its objectives is influenced by many factors including; (a) the adoption of appropriate laws by states, (b) the adequacy of the ICL framework on definitions of crimes and principles of criminal responsibility, (c) the level of political control and involvement in decision making related to investigation, prosecution or extradition, (d) Problems with exclusion including (...) restrictions on the rights of victims with regard to the proceedings and to reparation, and (e) The application of provisions for amnesties and similar measures of impunity. -/- Over the years, the mandate of States under ICL has expanded. Key reforms under ICL and domestic laws have been led by the above mentioned concerns. The scope of state obligations, in particular, has been shaped by the standards adopted under the ICL framework including the "duty to prosecute" international crimes. The article discusses the normative significance of the "duty to prosecute". (shrink)

The theoretical underpinnings of public international law have taken the sovereign status of the nation-state for granted since the beginning of the modern era. After centuries of evolution in legal and political thought, the state's definition as a bounded territorial unit has been strictly codified. The legal development of the nation-state was an ideological project informed by extra-legal considerations. Additionally, the ever-narrowing scope of the juridical idea of sovereignty functioned as a boundary mechanism instrumental in colonising Africa (...) and other regions. While international law claims universal liberalism today, the current system based on sovereign nation-states represents not social inclusion but fierce and dangerous exclusion. -/- The central thesis of this book is that the development of legal sovereignty was, rather than part of the modernist progress narrative, a historically contingent evolutionary regression. While other social systems such as economics and science became globalised, politics and law counterintuitively became more territorialised. It is argued that the nation-state today is not only anachronistic but is dangerously ill-equipped for facing international problems such as the climate crisis or global pandemics. Finally, it also leaves African states and many other formerly-colonised territories at a particular disadvantage by regulating their political practices into a predefined mould. (shrink)

Abstract: The article aims to sharpen the neo-republican contribution to international political thought by challenging Pettit’s view that only representative states may raise a valid claim to non-domination in their external relations. The argument proceeds in two steps: First I show that, conceptually speaking, the domination of states, whether representative or not, implies dominating the collective people at least in its fundamental, constitutive power. Secondly, the domination of states – and thus of their peoples – cannot be justified normatively in (...) the name of promoting individual non-domination because such a compensatory rationale misconceives the notion of domination in terms of a discrete exercise of power instead of as an ongoing power relation. This speaks in favour of a more inclusive law of peoples than Pettit (just as his liberal counterpart Rawls) envisages: In order to accommodate the claim of collective peoples to non-domination it has to recognize every state as a member of the international order. (shrink)

Current challenges in medical practice, research, and administration demand physicians who are familiar with bioethics, health law, and health economics. Curriculum directors at American Association of Medical Colleges-affiliated medical schools were sent confidential surveys requesting the number of required hours of the above subjects and the years in which they were taught, as well as instructor names. The number of relevant publications since 1990 for each named instructor was assessed by a PubMed search.In sum, teaching in all three subjects combined (...) comprises less than two percent of the total hours in the American medical curriculum, and most instructors have not recently published articles in the fields they teach. This suggests that medical schools should reevaluate their curricula and instructors in bioethics, health law, and health economics. (shrink)

I argue that Galileo regarded unaccelerated motion as requiring cause to sustain in. In an inclined plane experiment, the cause ceases when the incline ceases. When the incline ceases, what ceases is acceleration, not motion. Hence, unaccelerated motion requires no cause to sustain it.

Citizenship is the right to be a citizen of a social, political, or national community. Aristotle was the philosopher who has been talking about citizenship since ancient times. His thoughts are still historical lessons for the operation of states today. In this article, the author focuses on analyzing basic thoughts on Aristotle's citizenship; which are shown in essential points such as (i) Citizenship is clearly shown in the role of the State, (ii) Right to education, (iii) The right to (...) participate in political affairs, (iv) Citizenship is associated with civic obligations. Thereby, the article draws its historical lesson for the current building of law-governed State in Vietnam in the following aspects: (i) Building a solid-state apparatus with a coherent and unified legal system; (ii) All the State's policies must originate from the Vietnamese practice, ensure the people's mastery and protect the people's legitimate interests; (iii) Consolidating and strengthening the relationship between the State and the people. (shrink)

What is the American rule of law? Is it a paradigm case of the strong constitutionalism concept of the rule of law or has it fallen short of its rule of law ambitions? -/- This open access book traces the promise and paradox of the American rule of law in three interwoven ways. -/- It focuses on explicating the ideals of the American rule of law by asking: how do we interpret its history and the goals of its constitutional framers (...) to see the rule of law ambitions its foundational institutions express? -/- It considers those constitutional institutions as inextricable from the problem of race in the United States and the tensions between the rule of law as a protector of property rights and the rule of law as a restrictor on arbitrary power and a guarantor of legal equality. In that context, it explores the distinctive role of Black liberation movements in developing the American rule of law. -/- Finally, it considers the extent to which the American rule of law is compromised at its frontiers, and the extent that those compromises undermine legal protections Americans enjoy in the interior. It asks how America reflects the legal contradictions of capitalism and empire outside its borders, and the impact of those contradictions on its external goals. (shrink)

Abstract: Efficient law enforcement depends on the quality and outlook of the institutions and personnel saddled with this responsibility. There are several agencies in Nigeria created for the purpose of law enforcement. Despite the multiplicity of these agencies, however, the country is still far from being a reflection of a society where security and orderliness are being maintained. The essence of this paper is to explore the law-enforcement terrain of the country with a view to ascertaining the state of (...) affairs vis-a-vis the existing law enforcement agencies, their functional relevance, and general impact on the society in terms of maintenance of law and order. Findings reveal that the state of security and maintenance of law and order is still abysmally low in spite of the fact that there exist several law enforcement agencies within the country. The main recommendation is that instead of placing emphasis on creating more and more law enforcement agencies, which sometimes amount to duplication of functions, efforts should be made to reorganize, streamline and strengthen the existing institutions. (shrink)

I propose that Leibniz did not state Leibniz’s Law, the logically and metaphysically robust principle that is typically understood as the following biconditional: ∀x ∀y [(x = y) ↔ ∀P (Px ↔ Py)]. To arrive at this conclusion, I examine the three principles that have become associated with Leibniz’s Law: the Substitutivity Principle (salva veritate), the Indiscernibility of Identicals, and the Identity of Indiscernibles. I show that Leibniz intended salva veritate as a semantic principle, never explicitly stated the Indiscernibility (...) of Identicals, and understood the Identity of Indiscernibles as a metaphysical principle. In the debate about Leibniz’s Law, I focus on four commentators: (1) W. V. O. Quine’s construal of salva veritate as the Indiscernibility of Identicals, (2) Nicholas Rescher’s contention that both the Identity of Indiscernibles and salva veritate may be construed as Leibniz’s Law, (3) Fred Feldman’s argument that Leibniz did not state a law or definition of identity, but only a criterion of identity for concepts, and (4) Edwin Curley’s response to Feldman, that Feldman’s assumptions, along with passages in Leibniz, show Leibniz did state Leibniz’s Law. I argue that Feldman’s position is not completely correct but can be amended with insights from Quine, Rescher, and Curley and by reference to Leibniz’s Complete Concept Theory. (shrink)

Since the 1990s the effects of globalization on law and legal developments has been a central topic of scholarly debate. To date, the debate is however marked by three substantial deficiencies which this chapter seeks to remedy through a reconceptualization of global law as a law of inter-contextuality expressed through inter-legality and materialized through a particular body of legal norms which can be characterized as connectivity norms. The first deficiency is a historical and empirical one. Both critics as well as (...) advocates of ‘non-state law’ share the assumption that ‘law beyond the state’ and related legal norms have gained in centrality when compared with previous historical times. While global law, including both public and private global governance law as well as regional occurrences such as EU law, has undergone profound transformations since the structural transformations which followed the de-colonialization processes of the mid-twentieth century, we do not have more global law relatively to other types of law today than in previous historical times. The second deficiency is a methodological one. The vast majority of scholarship on global law is either of an analytical nature, drawing on insights from philosophy, or empirically observing the existence of global law and the degree of compliance with global legal norms at a given moment in time. While both approaches bring something to the table they remain static approaches incapable of explaining and evaluating the transformation of global law over time. The third deficiency is a conceptual-theoretical one. In most instances, global law is understood as a unitary law producing singular legal norms with a planetary reach, or, alternatively, a radical pluralist perspective is adopted dismissing the existence of singular global norms. Both of these approaches however misapprehend the structural characteristics, function and societal effects of global law. Instead a third positon between unitary and radical pluralist perspectives can be adopted through an understanding of global law and its related legal norms as a de-centred kind of inter-contextual law characterised by inter-legality. (shrink)

One of the challenges in secondary schools today is infringements on students’ rights, in a tortious way that may also constitute breach of the Child’s Right Act of 2003 in Nigeria. These breach on rights usually come through the administration of corporal punishments on students, and mainly because the school heads see themselves as loco parentis of the students who can, therefore, enforce any form of punishment on them in the school. This study investigated knowledge, attitude, and infringement of tort (...) law among public secondary school heads on students in Osun State. All the students in Osun State public secondary schools and 723 heads constituted the population. A sample of 54 school heads and 180 students were selected using multi-stage sampling procedure. Two instruments were designed to elicit responses from the respondents. Descriptive and inferential statistics were used to answer the research questions raised for the study. The results showed that school heads do not have adequate knowledge of tort law and that both the school heads and students have poor attitude toward it tort law. The study recommends that short term training on student’s right, how they can be legally protected and tort law be organised for school heads. (shrink)

A central question that arises when interpreting the U.S. Constitution is which theory of interpretation is the best? In his recent book, “How to Interpret the Constitution,” Cass Sunstein reviews various theories of constitutional interpretation currently in vogue and then offers what he believes would be the best approach going forward. In this Article, I want to take up a more basic question presupposed by the very idea of a theory of interpretation. That is, whether it is even possible to (...) arrive at more than a provisional understanding of what would be the best interpretation in any given area of study, including constitutional law. That said, I do believe some of the interpretations suggested by Cass Sunstein and elsewhere by myself and others to be more persuasive than most others, even if only partially so. For, as Sunstein himself points out, no theory seems perfect to figure out the Constitution’s meaning in every possible world in which we could imagine it to exist. So, we best just focus on our own world or what we take to matter in our world. In keeping with this idea, I plan to begin by looking first at how we might interpret the world around us based on our past experiences by considering a somewhat imaginative recent experience of my own. Next, I consider some recent studies in the neurosciences and a previous but highly influential article by the philosopher Donald Davidson concerning conceptual schemes and whether we could ever hope to make any sense of a scheme radically different from our own. Here it should be pointed out that I will use the word “scheme” when referring to a very broad system of thought for which there may not be much outside, versus when I use the word “framework,” as referencing something far narrower than a whole system of thought, even if what is referenced might purport to be a significant part of a still larger system. My goal is to eventually adopt John Rawls’ public reason method to separate out non-workable systems of thought as might be part of a particular religious or philosophical tradition that cannot be easily tied to any other system of thought easily imagined within a pluralistic society. I plan to do this by relating how Rawls’ public reason might allow for the creation of a moral interpretation of the Constitution adopting the moral theory of Alan Gewirth. The latter I adopt because its grounding does not presuppose any prior moral or religious framework. I then apply that interpretative method to five cases Sunstein believes are fixed points in our current constitutional understanding. In short, I plan to isolate out an area of human rights where even very different understandings of the world might be able to meet, while acknowledging that there will still be other areas that simply evade any common connection. I hope what I offer here to be of help for a theory of constitutional interpretation that focuses on morality, without having to compete with various religious frameworks going forward. (shrink)

The willful ignorance doctrine says defendants should sometimes be treated as if they know what they don't. This book provides a careful defense of this method of imputing mental states. Though the doctrine is only partly justified and requires reform, it also demonstrates that the criminal law needs more legal fictions of this kind. The resulting theory of when and why the criminal law can pretend we know what we don't has far-reaching implications for legal practice and reveals a pressing (...) need for change. (shrink)

One of the most intuitive views about the metaphysics of laws of nature is Tim Maudlin's idea of a Fundamental Law of Temporal Evolution. So-called FLOTEs are primitive elements of the universe that produce later states from earlier states. While FLOTEs are at home in traditional Newtonian and non-relativistic quantum mechanical theories (not to mention our pre-theoretic conception of the world), I consider here whether they can be made to work with relativity. In particular, shifting to relativistic spacetimes poses two (...) threats to FLOTEs. First, the lack of a privileged spacelike hypersurface in relativistic spacetime makes it unclear how to understand what produces what. A survey of several conceptions of the nomic production relation compatible with relativity reveals all of them to be lacking. Second, relativity motivates a four-dimensional block universe conception of time, according to which all events that will ever occur already exist. On such a view, it's unclear what work there is to be done by FLOTEs. I consider how a proponent of FLOTEs might respond, but conclude that these combined threats seriously undermine the prospects of a productive conception of laws. In short, if spacetime is relativistic, laws are not productive. (shrink)

Multiple states are at risk of becoming uninhabitable due to climate change, forcing their populations to flee. While the 1951 Refugee Convention provides the gold standard of international protection, it is only applied to a limited subset of people fleeing their countries, those who suffer persecution, which most people fleeing climate change cannot establish. While many journalists and non-lawyers freely use the term “climate refugees,” governments, and courts, as well as UNHCR and many refugee experts, have excluded most climate refugees (...) from the Convention as a matter of legal interpretation. In our 2015 paper, “Unable to Return in the 1951 Refugee Convention: Stateless Refugees and Climate Change”, we sought to reopen the debate on “climate refugees” by arguing that some climate refugees qualify under the 1951 Convention as it is currently written (even if they are not persecuted): those who are stateless and are unable to return to their country of origin because climate change has rendered it uninhabitable. Our interpretation, however, has been rejected by Goodwin-Gill and McAdam (2021) and by Foster and Lambert (2019), which explicitly responds to our paper. Here, we address and respond to their arguments, and develop a new supplementary one, drawing on the principle of systemic integration, as enshrined in Article 31(3)(c) of the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties. (shrink)

Some contemporary states are morally culpable for historically distant wrongs. But which states for which wrongs? The answer is not obvious, due to secessions, unions, and the formation of new states in the time since the wrongs occurred. This paper develops a framework for answering the question. The argument begins by outlining a picture of states’ agency on which states’ culpability is distinct from the culpability of states’ members. It then outlines, and rejects, a plausible-seeming answer to our question: that (...) culpability transmits from a past state’s action to a present state just if the two states share a numerical identity, for example as determined by international law. I advocate a different answer: culpability transmits from a past action to a present state to the extent that the present state ‘descends from’ the aspects of the past state that underpinned the past action. One potential upshot is that some present-day settler-colonies (such as Australia) are culpable for the centuries-ago invasion of their lands by European powers—even though these states did not perform these invasions and indeed did not exist at the time. (shrink)

The paper presents a novel take on the character of South Africa’s governance structure. It argues that, insofar as it constitutionally recognises traditional authorities, figures who rule in accordance with idiosyncratic and localised customary laws, as well as instigate a cheek-by-jowl existence of an asymmetrical property law (where in the urban setting land is nominally bought or transferred for sale, but in traditional rural areas granted by the chief), manifest in the differentiated land laws brought about by the Communal Land (...) Rights Act of 2003, is more akin to, and necessitates a definitional alignment with, the federal system of government than a unitary one – or at least a weak “federalism with South African characteristics.”. (shrink)

This paper discusses the thesis defended by Edith Stein that certain acts can be attributed to the State. According to Stein, the State is a social structure characterized by sovereignty. As such, it is responsible for the production, interpretation, and application of law. These tasks require the performance of acts, most of which are what Stein calls “social acts” like enactments and orders. For Stein, the acts in question are made by the organs of the State, but (...) in the name of the State, and are thus attributed to the State via a relation of representation. In the first section, the paper presents Stein’s thesis that the sovereignty of the State entails a series of legal prerogatives, which in turn result in various social acts being ascribed to the State through its representatives. In the second section, the paper critically discusses Stein’s views, notably her theory of representation, and her account of the nature of the State, while emphasizing its most interesting aspects, namely, its fine-grained analyses of the various acts that are attributed to the State. (shrink)

The paper considers the nature of the state understood as the political unity articulated on the basis of a collective identity which provides the state with its capacity to make decisions. The foremost decision of the state to protect and defend this identity is the source of its authority to enforce laws. Collective identity thus represents an object of special interest, unlike both “political” interests (Millian other-regarding acts) and private interests (Millian self-regarding acts). The validation of laws (...) through this special interest is a necessary condition for both of these latter kinds of interests to materialize. Hence, unlike the Millian thesis of two different kinds of interests (self- and other-regarding), here we take that there are three types or spheres of interests. Any conception of rights, then, will cover a subset of interests found in the domains of all of those three types of interests: in the domain of political interest the issue concerns selection among competing sets of legitimate interests, within the domain of private interests the point is to discern those that will be protected by law, while the third type of interests, the object of which is a unique collective identity and its defining specificity, represents an overarching interest that is embedded in any legitimate collective concern. In this scheme, well-suited for democratic theory, the majority/minority discourse is a matter of distinguishing which particular set of legitimate interests is chosen to be dominant (e.g., which political party is in power) and which ones are waiting for the opportunity to achieve their transformation from minority (opposition) to majority (i. e. government). If, however, there is no well-defined collective identity, minorities acquire a new meaning. Rather than being possible future majorities, they form a nucleus of competing collective identities with, sometimes hopeless but still alive, aspirations to sovereignty. Thus they become sources of likely conflicts that may go well beyond political controversies. (shrink)

This paper examines the role of the consensual model in law and argues that if substantive justice is to be the goal of law, the use of individual choice as a legal criterion for distributive and retributive purposes must be curtailed and made subject to substantive considerations. Substantive justice arguably requires that human rights to life, well-being, and the commodities essential to life and well-being, be given priority whenever a societal decision is made. If substantive justice is a collective societal (...) responsibility, the individual cannot be justly rewarded or punished for his or her choices with respect to life, well-being and essential commodities insofar as these choices are justified or excused by standards of substantive justice. Societal conditions and institutional arrangements should be recognized as grounds for justification and excuse because they may impose limits and constraints on the choices available to an individual that are as unavoidable and compelling as those imposed by chance or by another human being. (shrink)

A rapidly growing body of scholarship embraces virtue jurisprudence, a series of (often ad hoc) attempts to incorporate the philosophical tradition of virtue ethics into legal theory. Broadly understood, virtue ethics describes an approach to moral questions that emphasizes the importance of developing and embodying various virtues, often as manifestations of human flourishing. Scholars typically contrast virtue ethics with deontological and consequentialist moral theories, tracing virtue-centered analysis to ancient Greek philosophers, and in particular to Aristotle. Virtue ethics has experienced a (...) revival over the past 65 years; but, long before that, it proved especially influential in Catholic moral thought, particularly through the work of Aquinas. Perhaps relatedly, scholars have seized on virtue jurisprudence to defend a range of politically conservative positions, such as originalist constitutional interpretation and the propriety of utilizing the law to regulate ostensibly “private” immoralities. This Article reveals the radically underappreciated progressive promise of virtue jurisprudence. Virtue jurisprudence requires no religious commitments whatsoever, but a strong version entails acceptance of the moral significance of developing one’s character—both within and without the law. On a compelling understanding of the virtues, rejecting a state of perpetual disadvantage under the law is a meaningful marker of the virtue of self-respect, and a repudiation of the vice of servility that would otherwise be imposed by the legal system itself. Thus, contrary to the predominant tenor of research on the subject, virtue jurisprudence can ground significant resistance to—and even defiance of—the law. In making this argument, the Article also draws novel connections between virtue jurisprudence and literature on (inter alia) race, feminism, and sexual orientation to reveal the unnoticed potential of virtue jurisprudence to push forward work in those and related areas. At a time when massive and widespread protests across the United States reflect a groundswell of support for overturning certain long-standing, legally-ingrained, systemic disadvantages of people of color, many might be surprised to learn that virtue jurisprudence can serve as a potent theoretical ally. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to explore the connection between stateness (and its constituent attributes) and democracy by conceiving the effective state as an independent variable and a prerequisite for the success of a well-functioning democracy. Such a conditioning relationship between the state and the regime has often been subject to being neglected among many scholars of democratization, who have not considered the state as an important explanatory or at least obstructive variable for the success of (...) democratization. This paper argues that the existence of an effective and legitimate state is essential to build a well-functioning democracy. Herein, the variable of stateness is analysed in terms of four attributes: that of monopoly on the legitimate use of force; citizenship agreement; infrastructure capacity of the state; and law enforcement capacity. (shrink)

Neurological syndromes in which consciousness seems to malfunction, such as temporal lobe epilepsy, visual scotomas, Charles Bonnet syndrome, and synesthesia offer valuable clues about the normal functions of consciousness and ‘qualia’. An investigation into these syndromes reveals, we argue, that qualia are different from other brain states in that they possess three functional characteristics, which we state in the form of ‘three laws of qualia’. First, they are irrevocable: I cannot simply decide to start seeing the sunset as green, (...) or feel pain as if it were an itch; second, qualia do not always produce the same behaviour: given a set of qualia, we can choose from a potentially infinite set of possible behaviours to execute; and third, qualia endure in short-term memory, as opposed to non-conscious brain states involved in the on-line guidance of behaviour in real time. We suggest that qualia have evolved these and other attributes because of their role in facilitating non-automatic, decision-based action. We also suggest that the apparent epistemic barrier to knowing what qualia another person is experiencing can be overcome by using a ‘bridge’ of neurons; and we offer a hypothesis about the relation between qualia and one's sense of self. (shrink)

The chapter gives an overview of the binding and non-binding international norms which govern and regulate the activities of states and other actors in outer space. It covers the key agendas and challenges being addressed within international space law in the wake of advancements in technology and greater access to outer space by multiple actors. For a comprehensive view of the subject, the chapter gives an overview of the nature of space laws within national systems, and the interface of space (...) law with other fields of law namely environmental law, human rights law, and intellectual property law. (shrink)

Non-state peoples cannot be subjects of Kant’s international law, which accordingly affords them no protection against external interference. They might also lack the dynamic of private law at the basis of the duty of state entrance. Prima facie, this compels Kant to allow that their lands be appropriated and that they be forced out of the state of nature. But this conclusion is at odds with his cosmopolitanism, particularly its anti-imperialistic commitments: non-state peoples are protected against (...) annexation, under Kant’s cosmopolitan law. The paper makes three contributions to the debate on this tension. Firstly, it disambiguates scope, ground, and relata of the duty to exit the state of nature. Secondly, it argues that non-state peoples have an inter-group duty to exit the state of nature; and that this holds for a non-state people regardless of whether it also has an intra-group duty of state entrance, which remains unenforceable by outside parties. Finally, it offers a construal of the former duty as a cosmopolitan duty to interact peacefully even in the absence of a shared culture. (shrink)

This paper sketches a framework for the separation of church and state and, with the framework in view, indicates why a government’s maintaining such separation poses challenges for balancing two major democratic ideals: preserving equality before the law and protecting liberty, including religious liberty. The challenge is particularly complex where healthcare is either provided or regulated by government. The contemporary problem in question here is the contraception coverage requirement in the Obama Administration’s healthcare mandate. Many institutions have mounted legal (...) challenges to the mandate on grounds of religious freedom. The paper proposes a number of interconnected principles toward a resolution of the problem: for the institutional realm, specific principles for church-state separation and a principle concerning the protection of citizens’sense of identity; and for the ethics of citizenship in the conduct individuals, principles that provide an adequate place for natural (thus secular) reason in lawmaking and political decisions. (shrink)

Certain results, most famously in classical statistical mechanics and complex systems, but also in quantum mechanics and high-energy physics, yield a coarse-grained stable statistical pattern in the long run. The explanation of these results shares a common structure: the results hold for a ‘typical’ dynamics, that is, for most of the underlying dynamics. In this paper I argue that the structure of the explanation of these results might shed some light—a different light—on philosophical debates on the laws of nature. In (...) the explanation of such patterns, the specific form of the underlying dynamics is almost irrelevant. The constraints required, given a free state-space evolution, suffice to account for the coarse-grained lawful behaviour. An analysis of such constraints might thus provide a different account of how regular behaviour can occur. This paper focuses on drawing attention to this type of explanation, outlining it in the diverse areas of physics in which it appears, and discussing its limitations and significance in the tractable setting of classical statistical mechanics. (shrink)

The call by Chinese environmentalists for an ecological civilization to supersede industrial civilization, subsequently embraced by the Chinese government and now being promoted throughout the world, makes new demands on legal systems, national and international. If governments are going to prevent ecological destruction then law will be essential to this. The Chinese themselves have recognized grave deficiencies in their legal institutions. They are reassessing these and looking to Western traditions for guidance. Yet law as it has developed in the West, (...) particularly in Anglophone countries, which has crystallized as the tradition of ‘liberal legalism’, is in a state of crisis. Rather than being taken as a cause for despair at the legal traditions of East and West, this challenge could be taken as an opportunity to fundamentally rethink the basis of the law and its role in society and civilization. To overcome the deficiencies in the theory and practice of law in so-called ‘liberal democracies’ I will argue here that it will be necessary to revive and develop the philosophies of law associated with the ‘Radical Enlightenment’. (shrink)

It is widely agreed that Aristotle holds that the best moral education involves habituation in the proper pleasures of virtuous action. But it is rarely acknowledged that Aristotle repeatedly emphasizes the social and political sources of good habits, and strongly suggests that the correct law‐ordained education in proper pleasures is very rare or non‐existent. A careful look at the Nicomachean Ethics along with parallel discussions in the Eudemian Ethics and Politics suggests that Aristotle divided public moral education or law‐ordained habituation (...) into two types. One type is a defective form practiced by the Spartans, producing civic courage and similar defective virtue‐ like states motivated by external incentives. By contrast Aristotle endorses the law‐ordained musical education described in Politics 8. The chapter argues that Aristotle considers the well‐habituated state of proper pleasures in virtue to be best cultivated by this kind of musical education; and that this explains both his emphasis on good laws and on their scarcity. (shrink)

The legal progression in China is portrayed negatively by western scholars who often argue that the state institutions in China are subordinate to the control of Chinese Communist Party’s leadership which makes these institutions politically insignificant. We consider that the legal progression in China has an instrumental role in achieving “Harmonious Socialist Society.” The purpose of this thesis is to provide an analytical literature review of scholastic work to explain the legality of rule of law in China and to (...) elaborate the outcomes of China’s recent legal developments. This paper has two main subjects. First, it examines the nature of law and rule of law in China through the prism of different legal theories. Secondly, by arguing from different political theories, it explains the necessity of customized legal system in China for establishing a Harmonious Socialist Society. By giving different examples from contemporary China, this thesis argues that the legality of the rule of law in China ought to be understood in the context of China’s economic and social progression rather than the western legal scholarship. China’s economic progress demands a customized legal system. In our thesis, we claim that the regular upgradation of laws and introduction of constitutional amendments in China, should be recognized as important achievement which is required for the institutional innovation. Legal progression in China during last decade perfectly fit into the framework of “Socialism with Chinese Characteristics” and is very crucial for building a harmonious socialist society. It is vivid from China’s economic growth and developed international relations. Finally, this paper suggests that the Chinese legal progression can be taken as successful example of legal experimentalism. (shrink)

According to the laws of physics, the state of a physical system can only be measured by another system (usually a particular measuring device) via a physical interaction. However, when our brain is in a conscious mental state, it can in principle output the information about its physical state based on the psycho-physical correspondance between the mental state and the physical state. It is argued that this suggests that the conscious mind violates physical laws and (...) it is not physical as physicalism claims. (shrink)

Law and technology , though not equivalent, are intertwined at every phase of a technology's "career." Any technology is directly or indirectly social, and as such becomes a target of regulation intrinsically or in relation to other technologies which it supports or opposes. Competing interests influence major decisions as to which technologies are encouraged or discouraged, heavily regulated or not, banned or not. Examples considered range from bounties to fuel, communication, and transportation preferences.

The separation of church and state isn’t the same as separating religion from politics. Countries that have enshrined secularism have found themselves discussing religious architecture, law and clothing.

So-called “ugly laws” were mostly municipal statutes in the United States that outlawed the appearance in public of people who were, in the words of one of these laws, “diseased, maimed, mutilated, or in any way deformed, so as to be an unsightly or disgusting object” (Chicago City Code 1881). Although the moniker “ugly laws” was coined to refer collectively to such ordinances only in 1975 (Burgdorf and Burgdorf 1975), it has become the primary way to refer to such laws, (...) which targeted the overlapping categories of the poor, the homeless, vagrants, and those with visible disabilities. Enacted and actively enforced between the American Civil War (1867) and World War I (1918), such laws and their enforcement can tell us much about the very sorts of people who were also, a generation later, subject to explicitly eugenic laws, such as sterilization legislation. And like eugenic laws and policies, such laws continue to affect the lives of people with disabilities to this day (Schweik 2011). (shrink)

The Great Divide in metaphysical debates about laws of nature is between Humeans, who think that laws merely describe the distribution of matter, and non-Humeans, who think that laws govern it. The metaphysics can place demands on the proper formulations of physical theories. It is sometimes assumed that the governing view requires a fundamental / intrinsic direction of time: to govern, laws must be dynamical, producing later states of the world from earlier ones, in accord with the fundamental direction of (...) time in the universe. In this paper, we propose a minimal primitivism about laws of nature (MinP) according to which there is no such requirement. On our view, laws govern by constraining the physical possibilities. Our view captures the essence of the governing view without taking on extraneous commitments about the direction of time or dynamic production. Moreover, as a version of primitivism, our view requires no reduction / analysis of laws in terms of universals, powers, or dispositions. Our view accommodates several potential candidates for fundamental laws, including the principle of least action, the Past Hypothesis, the Einstein equation of general relativity, and even controversial examples found in the Wheeler-Feynman theory of electrodynamics and retrocausal theories of quantum mechanics. By understanding governing as constraining, non-Humeans who accept MinP have the same freedom to contemplate a wide variety of candidate fundamental laws as Humeans do. (shrink)

What makes #BlackLivesMatter unique is the implication that it isn’t only some black lives that matter, that is, not only the most commonly referenced male lives. Rather, the hashtag suggests that all black lives matter, including queer, trans, disabled, and female. This movement includes all those black lives who have been marginalized within the black liberation tradition, as well as in greater society. The movement highlights the ways in which black people have been traditionally deprived of dignity and human rights. (...) State racism and state violence are sustained together. The law creates a “subrace” out of those whom white society fears and holds in contempt. This leaves not only black Americans but all citizens vulnerable. A way to fight this form of racism is not only to create a solidarity among the oppressed members of the subrace but to create a solidarity with all members, in “vulnerable solidarity.”. (shrink)

This article presents a critical reevaluation of the thesis—closely associated with H. L. A. Hart, and central to the views of most recent legal philosophers—that the idea of state coercion is not logically essential to the definition of law. The author argues that even laws governing contracts must ultimately be understood as “commands of the sovereign, backed by force.” This follows in part from recognition that the “sovereign,” defined rigorously, at the highest level of abstraction, is that person or (...) entity identified by reference to game theory and the philosophical idea of “convention” as the source of signals with which the subject population has become effectively locked, as a group, into conformity. (shrink)

The paper discusses the structure, applications, and plausibility of the much-used parallel-case argument for workplace democracy. The argument rests on an analogy between firms and states according to which the justification of democracy in the state implies its justification in the workplace. The contribution of the paper is threefold. First, the argument is illustrated by applying it to two usual objections to workplace democracy, namely, that employees lack the expertise required to run a firm and that only capital suppliers (...) should have a say over the governance of the firm. Second, the structure of the argument is unfolded. Third, two salient similarities between firms and states regarding their internal and external effects and the standing of their members are addressed in order to asses the potential and limits of the argument, as well as three relevant differences regarding the voluntariness of their membership, the narrowness of their goals, and the stiffness of the competition they face. After considering these similarities and differences, the paper contends that the the parallel-case argument provides a sound reason in favor of democracy in the workplace—a reason, however, that needs to be importantly qualified and that is only pro tanto. (shrink)

In his 2009 encyclical letter Caritas in Veritate, Pope Benedict XVI calls for a deeper, theological and metaphysical evaluation of the category of “relation” to achieve a proper understanding of the human being’s “transcendent dignity.” For some contemporary thinkers, this position might seem to be hopelessly paradoxical or even incoherent. After all, many contemporary thinkers are apt to believe that the human creature can have “transcendent dignity” only if the being and goodness of the human creature is not conditioned by (...) or dependent upon any relation or relatedness to anything else, including the natural environment. This chapter seeks to show that apparent paradoxes in Benedict XVI’s statement will begin to disappear if one resists the rather understandable temptation to interpret his thought by relying on presuppositions borrowed from contemporary ethical theories. More specifically, this chapter aims to show that Benedict XVI’s teachings— embedded as they are within a rich tradition of Catholic “natural law” thinking—are importantly distinguishable from contemporary utilitarian and deontological views. Furthermore, this chapter seeks to demonstrate that Benedict XVI’s “natural law” account offers an intellectually defensible alternative to contemporary modes of environmental thinking. (shrink)

Under a policy first enacted in 1988 and expanded in 1996, federally funded public housing authorities (“PHAs”) and private landlords renting their properties to tenants receiving federal housing assistance have been required to include a provision in all leases under which drug-related criminal activity as well as criminal activity that in any way poses a threat to other tenants or nearby residents constitutes ground for initiating eviction proceedings. This strict liability eviction policy, which has become known as the “One-Strike Rule,” (...) was part of a broader congressional effort to combat the “reign of terror” that Congress believed drug dealers were imposing on public housing and assisted housing tenants. Like many of the crime-related policies enacted in the 1980s and 1990s, the One-Strike Rule has done little to reduce crime rates, but has been wildly successful in ensuring that the situation of poor households receiving federal assistance remains highly precarious. Calls for reform of the One-Strike Rule are almost as old as the policy itself, but given the political outlook of the current administration, the prospects for reform at the federal level are dim. While federal law and a combination of gridlock and unwillingness in the congressional and executive branches foreclose a range of possible strategies for reform, there is nonetheless room to mitigate the socially corrosive effects of the One-Strike Rule through legislative efforts at the state and local level. Courts in various jurisdictions have upheld state laws that protect vulnerable tenants despite the federal strict liability policy, and these holdings help to provide a framework for how state and local governments seeking to protect tenants can do so without their efforts necessarily falling prey to the Supremacy Clause. This article describes that framework and proposes three concrete measures that fit it. The article is structured as follows: after explaining the One-Strike Rule and the threat it poses to vulnerable tenants (Section II), the article discusses the burden the Rule imposes on tenants and the benefits it is supposed to bring to other parties, and argues that the resulting distribution of burdens and benefits is unjust (Section III). The article then lays out three concrete measures that state and local governments can enact to protect tenants who face eviction for criminal activity under the Rule without falling prey to a federal preemption challenge: requiring “good cause” for eviction, giving tenants the right to cure a breach of their lease, and providing tenants with free counsel in landlord-tenant court (Section IV). (shrink)

Much scholarly attention has recently been devoted to ways in which artificial intelligence (AI) might weaken formal political democracy, but little attention has been devoted to the effect of AI on “cultural democracy”—that is, democratic control over the forms of life, aesthetic values, and conceptions of the good that circulate in a society. This work is the first to consider in detail the dangers that AI-driven cultural recommendations pose to cultural democracy. This Article argues that AI threatens to weaken cultural (...) democracy by undermining individuals’ direct and spontaneous engagement with a diverse range of cultural materials. It further contends that United States law, in its present form, is ill equipped to address these challenges, and suggests several strategies for better regulating culture-mediating AI. Finally, it argues that while such regulations might run afoul of contemporary First Amendment doctrine, the most normatively attractive interpretation of the First Amendment not only allows but encourages such interventions. (shrink)

This paper describes and defends a novel and distinctively egalitarian conception of the rule of law. Official behavior is to be governed by preexisting, public rules that do not draw irrelevant distinctions between the subjects of law. If these demands are satisfied, a state achieves vertical equality between officials and ordinary people and horizontal legal equality among ordinary people.

If the laws of nature are as the Humean believes, it is an unexplained cosmic coincidence that the actual Humean mosaic is as extremely regular as it is. This is a strong and well-known objection to the Humean account of laws. Yet, as reasonable as this objection may seem, it is nowadays sometimes dismissed. The reason: its unjustified implicit assignment of equiprobability to each possible Humean mosaic; that is, its assumption of the principle of indifference, which has been attacked on (...) many grounds ever since it was first proposed. In place of equiprobability, recent formal models represent the doxastic state of total ignorance as suspension of judgment. In this paper I revisit the cosmic coincidence objection to Humean laws by assessing which doxastic state we should endorse. By focusing on specific features of our scenario I conclude that suspending judgment results in an unnecessarily weak doxastic state. First, I point out that recent literature in epistemology has provided independent justifications of the principle of indifference. Second, given that the argument is framed within a Humean metaphysics, it turns out that we are warranted to appeal to these justifications and assign a uniform and additive credence distribution among Humean mosaics. This leads us to conclude that, contrary to widespread opinion, we should not dismiss the cosmic coincidence objection to the Humean account of laws. (shrink)

In this paper I outline a theory of legitimacy that grounds the state’s right to rule on a natural duty not to harm others. I argue that by refusing to enter the state, anarchists expose those living next to them to the dangers of the state of nature, thereby posing an unjust threat. Since we have a duty not to pose unjust threats to others, anarchists have a duty to leave the state of nature and enter (...) the state. This duty correlates to a claim-right possessed by those living next to them, who also have a right to act in self-defence to enforce this obligation. This argument, if successful, would be particularly attractive, as it provides an account of state legitimacy without importing any normative premises that libertarians would reject. (shrink)

The conception of a ‘law of nature’ is a human product. It was created to play a role in natural philosophy, in the Cartesian tradition. In light of this, philosophers and scientists must sort out what they mean by a law of nature before evaluating rival theories and approaches. If one’s conception of the laws of nature is yoked to metaphysical notions of truth and explanation, that connection must be made explicit and defended. If, on the other hand, one’s aim (...) is to disentangle laws from truth or from explanation, that must be stated and defended as well. If philosophers do not make such assumptions, intuitions, and methodological commitments clear, then it will be impossible to identify the source of disagreement in debates about the laws of nature. Are the conflicts rooted in disagreement about the conclusions reached, or do the background commitments of the combatants block any resolution to the dispute in principle or in practice? (shrink)

Faced with political opponents, proponents of climate justice should consider how politically feasible different principles of climate justice are. I focus in this chapter on the political feasibility of an “ability to pay principle” as a proposal for dividing the burdens of past emissions and emissions from the global poor. I argue that a formulation of an ability to pay principle with a voluntarist scope, restricted only to agreed upon collective goals, is significantly more politically feasible than one with a (...) preventative scope, which focuses on preventing a very bad outcome. A voluntarist ability to pay principle can much more clearly be justified to both constrained policy makers and reactionary citizens as a solution to a collective action problem among states that have already bound themselves to collectively solving the problem. A voluntarist principle also has a stronger precedent as a principle of international law. Thus, those philosophers concerned with the political feasibility of an ability-to-pay principle should carefully consider using a voluntarist rather than a preventative formulation. The chapter proceeds as follows. First, I outline what I mean by “political feasibility” and distinguish it from other conceptions of feasibility. Second, I explore the different rationales for a preventative ability to pay principle. Third, I introduce my voluntarist formulation of the ability to pay principle. I then reply to objections to that formulation, arguing that the drawbacks of a voluntarist formulation are not as dire as they might appear. (shrink)