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)

I frame my argument by way of Hayek's tendency to treat Hume and Smith as central articulations of the rule of law. The rest of the paper explores their defense of clientelism. First, I introduce Hume’s ideas on the utility of patronage in his essay, “Of the Independency of Parliament.” I argue that in Hume clientelism just is a feature of parliamentary business. It seems ineliminable. I then contextualize Hume’s account by comparing it to Montesquieu’s account of this system of (...) patronage in Book XIX, chapter 27 of The Spirit of the Laws. Montesquieu primarily treats it as a species of bad corruption. However, he also sees some benefits to it. I then turn to Smith and I show that he echoes Hume’s analysis of corruption in an easily ignored passage in Wealth of Nations. I then show that for Smith one argument in favor of a kind of federal parliamentary union between Great Brittain and her American colonies lies in its ability to facilitate and make more efficient the system of patronage by the Crown. While Smith’s account of these matters is quite Humean, one can discern in Smith a distinct cost-benefit argument for the acceptance of the necessity of a system of patronage in the service of the peaceful expansion and entrenchment of the rule of law in his proposal for parliamentary union. (shrink)

According to Warriner (1969) a simple way of defining land reforms is to name it “the redistribution of property or rights in land for the benefit of the landless, tenants and farm labourers”. Land reforms are mainly characterised by the government’s change of laws, regulations or customs regarding land ownership. Land reforms deal with the government in power distributing property which is in most times agricultural land. In some instances it also involves the distribution of land from the more powerful (...) or wealthy group of people such as nobles and bourgeoisie and giving potions of the land to the less powerful in society especially during the start of the post-colonial error in most countries in Southern Africa. During the pre-colonial period, land or pieces of land belonged to different ethnic groups, clans and lineages but now in the post-colonial land reform programs were to introduce individual ownership of land. There are many reasons why the government (both colonial and post-colonial) embark on land reforms and some of the factors influencing them include political reasons such promoting communism or socialism, social reasons such as separating the blacks from the whites and creating social stratification and economic reasons such as facilitating private investments and raising the country’s economic growth of the agricultural sector just but to mention a few reasons. Though some of the government’s reasons to embark on land reforms appear to be noble, local communities refuse these land reforms since they create social stratifications, at times increase poverty, destroy the matrilineal societies and are more political in nature rather than a means to better the people’s lives especially during the colonial error. The essay below will vividly portray why the government embarks on land reform programs and why local people resist these reforms using examples from both colonial and post-colonial Southern African countries. (shrink)

In this work, touched on some social issues whatever the result, and a raising awareness was aimed by some new technological upgrades for the vital infrastructures of states, social order and economic plans. The main aim is one world order which has no king and accepts nations as local governance as a requirement of hierarchical order. It is completely based on economic benefits of all nations as there is no alternative to establish a healthy economic order as economic management is (...) directly related with laws. As the important is a law exists or not, or is just or not for justice, also it encourages to develop organic laws in state institutions as it recognizes any state institution as autonomous. No state has this constitution. This work is only an offer. (shrink)

There has been a persistent misunderstanding of the nature of cosmopolitanism in Immanuel Kant’s 1795 essay “Perpetual Peace,” viewing it as a qualitative break from the bellicose natural law tradition preceding it. This misunderstanding is in part due to Kant’s explicitly critical comments about colonialism as well as his attempt to rhetorically distance his cosmopolitanism from traditional natural law theory. In this paper, I argue that the necessary foundation for Kant’s cosmopolitan subjectivity and right was forged in the experience of (...) European colonialism and the (pre-Kantian) theory it engendered. It is in this context that we witness the universalization of subjectivity and the subjectivization of right, emerging from the justificatory needs of extra-national jurisdiction and resource appropriation. This form of cosmopolitanism, whose emergence necessarily tracks the rise of global capitalism, continues to exert great and often uncritical influence on theories and practices of peace today. (shrink)

Global law settings are characterized by a structural pre-eminence of connectivity norms, a type of norm which differs from coherency or possibility norms. The centrality of connectivity norms emerges from the function of global law, which is to increase the probability of transfers of condensed social components, such as economic capital and products, religious doctrines, and scientific knowledge, from one legally structured context to another within world society. This was the case from colonialism and colonial law to contemporary global (...) supply chains and human rights. Both colonial law and human rights can be understood as serving a constitutionalizing function aimed at stabiliz- ing and facilitating connectivity. This allows for an understanding of colonialism and contemporary global governance as functional, but not as normative, equivalents. (shrink)

In this article, I engage with Derrida’s deconstructive reading of theories of performativity in order to analyse Max Weber’s sovereignty–legitimacy paradigm. First, I highlight an essential articulation between legitimacy and sovereign ipseity (understood, beyond the sole example of State sovereignty, as the autopositioned power-to-be-oneself). Second, I identify a more originary force of legitimation, which remains foreign to the order of performative ipseity because it is the condition for both its position and its deconstruction. This suggests an essential fallibility of the (...) performative, which implies a ‘mystical’ legitimacy and a paradoxical, divisible and self-differential representation of sovereignty. The structural differentiality of legitimacy and sovereignty signifies an irreducible coloniality of law and language, but also suggests the possibility of an unconditional resistance located in the radical interpretability of the law, beyond determined representations of powers, dominations, sovereignties or resistances. This reflection is triggered by a reading of Cynthia Weber’s theory of ‘performative states’, describing sovereignty under the form of an impossible ontology, which leads me to elaborate the notion of legitimation-to-come as a non-ontological ‘concept’: this notion of unconditional legitimacy, beyond sovereignty, binds beliefs and phantasms to the unpresentable force of the event. Pursuing the efforts of scholars such as Rob Walker and Cynthia Weber, I sketch the implications of this archi-performative legitimacy regarding the methodological protocols of International Relations and sociology, in view of elucidating the persistent ontological presuppositions of these disciplines. (shrink)

African jurisprudence, like African philosophy, continues to be hotly debated. This article contends that the debate straddles the uniqueness claim which either emphasises the existence or possibility of a peculiar legal framework on the continent, and a historical co-extensional position reiterating that African jurisprudence is a continuum of other legal traditions. The article argues that there is no uniquely African jurisprudence, and that what obtains within the structures of jurisprudence on the continent also exists within various legal traditions elsewhere, and (...) as such can at best be described as ‘jurisprudence in Africa’ rather than ‘African jurisprudence’. It defends this thesis through analytic and comparative explications of the content of natural law theory and legal positivism as experienced on the continent. It concedes that relics of the colonial legal experience create contestations that inform scholars’ calls for a return to traditional legal systems. It concludes that a reconstructive jurisprudence in Africa must take cognisance of the continent’s historical and evolutionary legal experiences, but that a unified or monolithic theory may not be sufficient to address the choice of functional jurisprudence. Keywords African jurisprudence, jurisprudence in Africa, African legal evolution, diffused legal theories. (shrink)

Alison L. LaCroix is Assistant Professor of Law at the University of Chicago Law School, where she specializes in legal history, federalism, constitutional law and questions of jurisdiction. She has written a fine, scholarly volume on the intellectual origins of American federalism. LaCroix holds the JD degree (Yale, 1999) and a Ph.D. in history (Harvard, 2007). According to the author, to fully understand the origins of American federalism, we must look beyond the Constitutional Convention of 1787 and range over the (...) colonial, revolutionary, and founding periods including developments in the early republic. LaCroix questions both the idea that American federalism originated, all at once, at the Constitutional Convention of 1787 and the idea that republican ideology (with its strong emphasis on legislative power) was the single dominant framework of eighteenth-century American political thought. Versions and elements of federalist or con-federative ideas were also long present and in a process of development. (shrink)

This article goes behind stereotypes of Muslim veiling to ask after the representational structure underlying these images. I examine the public debate leading to the 2004 French law banning conspicuous religious signs in schools and French colonial attitudes to veiling in Algeria, in conjunction with discourses on the veil that have arisen in other western contexts. My argument is that western perceptions and representations of veiled Muslim women are not simply about Muslim women themselves. Rather than representing Muslim women, (...) these images fulfill a different function: they provide the negative mirror in which western constructions of identity and gender can be positively reflected. It is by means of the projection of gender oppression onto Islam, and its naturalization to the bodies of veiled women, that such mirroring takes place. This constitutes, I argue, a form of racialization. Drawing on the work of Fanon, Merleau-Ponty and Alcoff, I offer a phenomenological analysis of this racializing vision. What is at stake is a form of cultural racism that functions in the guise of anti-sexist and feminist liberatory discourse, at once posing a dilemma to feminists and concealing its racializing logic. (shrink)

The paper aims at finding a way out of deadlocks in Malthus scholarship concerning his relationship to utilitarianism. The main claim is that Malthus viewed his own population theory and political economy as Hifsdisziplinen to moral and political philosophy, that is, empirical enquiries required in order to be able to pronounce justified value judgments on such matters as the Poor Laws. On the other hand, Malthus’s population theory and political economy were no value-free science and his policy advice – far (...) from being “utilitarian” – resulted from his overall system of ideas and was explicitly based on a set of traditional moral assumptions. These in turn were justified by a peculiar meta-ethical theory, which has been named in a somewhat improper way “theological utilitarianism” and which I propose to name instead “consequentialist voluntarism”. The issue of poverty and its remedies is the one where Malthus’s peculiar approach, once applied to a real-world issue, displays it potentialities, yielding a kind of policy-advice that is softer and more flexible than the one that may be drawn from Benthamite utilitarianism. The reconstruction shows how, through subsequent approximations and under pressure of critics, Malthus yields finally a kind of Institutional approach to policies concerning poverty, making room for generalized basic education, free markets for labour and for corn, colonies, and private beneficence. Such a mix of policies should bring about for the lower classes of society “the means of being respectable, virtuous and happy”. -/- . (shrink)

This essay explores the intersection of racism, racial embodiment theory and the recent hostility aimed at immigrants and foreigners in the United States, especially the targeting of people of Latin American descent and Latino/as. Anti-immigrant and anti-foreigner sentiment is racist. It is the embodiment of racial privilege for those who wield it and the materiality of racial difference for those it is used against. This manifestation of racial privilege and difference rests upon a redrawing of the color line that is (...) meant towards preserving exclusive categories of political membership. The charge of racism, however, is elided by the fact that this hostility takes the form of a specious embracement of law and lawfulness. “Illegal” in this sense not only captures the actions of those who enter the United States through clandestine or informal means, but, in light of the history of immigration and citizen- ship law, the term operates as a racial trope that designates non-white status, thus marginalizing and alienating certain immigrants from ongoing nation-formation processes. I explain the source for anti-immigrant hostility in the United States, which I take to be connected to the longevity of white normativity as the basis for American identity. I then critically assess how the idea of national belonging is crucial to the perpetuation of white-ways-of-being, especially when citizenship has historically been a venue for the embodiment of racial and even colonial privilege. I conclude by posing several questions about the nature of racial identities and racism that suggest new avenues for further research on racial embodiment in a “postracial” era. pp. 65–90. (shrink)

Why Are Some Countries Rich While Others Remain Poor? -/- The economic disparity between rich and poor countries has been a persistent issue throughout history. While some nations have achieved immense wealth and prosperity, others continue to struggle with poverty. Understanding the reasons behind this divide requires an examination of historical, geographical, economic, political, and social factors. This essay explores the key reasons why many countries are rich while a few remain poor. -/- 1. Historical Factors -/- History plays a (...) crucial role in shaping a nation’s economic status. Many poor countries today were former colonies that suffered from resource exploitation and underdevelopment. European colonial powers extracted wealth from Africa, Asia, and Latin America, leaving many of these nations with weak institutions and economies upon gaining independence. In contrast, countries that industrialized early, such as the United Kingdom, Germany, and the United States, established strong economies that continue to thrive today. -/- The Industrial Revolution provided a major economic advantage to early adopters, enabling them to develop infrastructure, create jobs, and expand global trade. Meanwhile, countries that missed out on early industrialization, such as many in sub-Saharan Africa, were left behind. -/- 2. Geographical Factors -/- Geography also significantly influences a country’s wealth. Nations with abundant natural resources, such as oil (e.g., Saudi Arabia, Norway) or minerals (e.g., Australia, Canada), have the potential to generate immense wealth. However, having natural resources alone does not guarantee prosperity. For example, countries like the Democratic Republic of Congo have rich mineral deposits but remain poor due to corruption and conflict. -/- Climate and agriculture also play a role. Many rich countries have temperate climates that support large-scale farming, while tropical nations struggle with unpredictable weather, soil depletion, and diseases such as malaria. Countries with difficult terrain, such as landlocked nations or those with deserts, often face challenges in trade and infrastructure development. -/- 3. Economic Systems and Policies -/- The economic policies adopted by a country can determine its success or failure. Market economies that promote free trade, entrepreneurship, and investment tend to prosper. Countries with strong property rights and competitive markets attract both domestic and foreign investments, leading to innovation and growth. Examples include the United States, Japan, and South Korea. -/- On the other hand, nations with excessive government control over the economy, high taxes, and restrictions on trade often struggle. Command economies, such as North Korea, have failed to generate sustainable growth due to rigid economic structures and limited incentives for businesses. Additionally, some poor countries rely too much on a single industry or export, making them vulnerable to economic downturns. -/- 4. Political and Institutional Factors -/- Political stability and strong institutions are critical for economic success. Countries with effective governments, the rule of law, and low corruption create an environment where businesses can thrive. Switzerland and Singapore, for instance, have strong governance systems that encourage investment and innovation. -/- In contrast, many poor nations suffer from political instability, corruption, and weak institutions. Governments in countries like Venezuela and Sudan mismanage resources, leading to economic collapse. War and conflict also hinder development by destroying infrastructure and discouraging investment. -/- 5. Education and Human Capital -/- A well-educated population is essential for economic growth. Rich countries invest heavily in education, ensuring that their citizens acquire the skills needed for high-paying jobs and technological advancements. Nations like Finland and South Korea have strong education systems that contribute to their economic success. -/- Conversely, many poor countries struggle with low literacy rates, limited access to education, and brain drain—where skilled workers migrate to wealthier nations in search of better opportunities. Without a skilled workforce, economic progress becomes difficult. -/- 6. Trade and Globalization -/- Access to international markets is another key factor in determining a country’s wealth. Wealthy nations benefit from global trade, exporting high-value products and services. Countries like Germany and China have built strong economies through manufacturing and exports. -/- On the other hand, some poor countries face trade restrictions, tariffs, and economic dependency on a single export, making them vulnerable to price fluctuations. Additionally, reliance on foreign aid can sometimes create a cycle of dependency rather than fostering self-sufficiency. -/- 7. Demographics and Population Growth -/- Population growth can be both a blessing and a challenge. Rich countries tend to have balanced population growth, allowing for sustainable economic expansion. Countries like Canada and Sweden manage their populations well through immigration and social policies. -/- However, many poor nations experience rapid population growth without corresponding economic development. Overpopulation strains resources, leads to high unemployment, and makes it difficult for governments to provide education, healthcare, and infrastructure. Countries like Nigeria and Bangladesh struggle with these challenges. -/- 8. Cultural and Social Factors -/- Cultural attitudes toward work, productivity, and governance also shape a nation’s economic success. Societies that value innovation, discipline, and economic planning tend to prosper. Countries like Japan and Germany emphasize efficiency and technological progress, contributing to their wealth. -/- Additionally, gender equality and economic inclusion play a role in national prosperity. Countries that empower women and minorities to participate in the workforce experience higher economic growth. In contrast, societies with restrictive social norms often limit their economic potential. -/- Conclusion -/- The wealth disparity between nations is not due to a single factor but a combination of historical, geographical, economic, political, and social influences. While rich countries benefit from strong institutions, innovation, and stable governance, poor nations often struggle with corruption, weak infrastructure, and rapid population growth. However, with the right policies—such as investing in education, strengthening institutions, and promoting economic diversification—poorer countries can improve their economic standing. By understanding these factors, nations can work toward closing the gap and ensuring a more balanced global economy. -/- . (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)

Nigeria is constitutionally a secular state but underneath, religion plays a fundamental role in the socio-political governance of the people. The integration of religion and politics in Nigerian political history by her founding fathers is believed to be one major problem behind the current religious violence and political instability bedevilling the country today. The aim of this paper is to understand why the political history of Nigeria is shrouded in religious bigotry by providing the historical overview of the background that (...) has influenced the socio-religious and political activism in Nigeria. The paper also examined the passivism or activism of the two major religions: Christianity and Islam in seeking socio-political justice and control in the political activities of Nigeria and the aftermath of this power play in the affairs of governance. Lastly, the paper critiqued the effect of religious involvement in either promoting or reducing socio-religious and political crisis in contemporary Nigerian society. The paper adopted the historical and descriptive research methods and argues that the present religious violence and political instability, is predicated by the “divide and rule” and the pretentious “amalgamation” policy of the Colonial Administrators that favoured the North against the South. The seed planted by the Colonial Administrators before Independence is what has gradually grown into a monster that is threatening the peaceful co-existence of the Nigerian State. The paper concludes that to restore peaceful co-existence in a heterogeneous State like Nigeria, there is need for a realistic constitutional amendment that will truly reflect the heterogeneous secular nature of Nigeria and consider the wishes of the Federating units and by addressing the political, religious and other social-economic issues that are threatening the peaceful co-existence of Nigeria society and guarantee every religious group equality before the law. (shrink)

RÉSUMÉ: Cet article étudie deux contextes français dans lesquels les voiles musulmans sont devenus hypervisibles: le débat public qui a mené à la loi française de 2004 interdisant les signes religieux ostensibles dans les écoles publiques, et le projet colonial français de dévoiler les femmes algériennes. Je montre comment le concept de « l’oppression de genre » s’est naturalisé au voile musulman d’une telle manière qu’il justifie les normes de féminités occidentales et cache le mécanisme par lequel les femmes (...) musulmanes sont racialisées. C’est ainsi que le voile devient le point de mire d’un racisme culturel qui se présente comme libérant les femmes musulmanes, un racisme qui semble poser un dilemme au féminisme. -/- // ABSTRACT: This paper examines two French contexts in which Muslim veils have become hypervisible as centres of contention: the public debate that led to the recent French law banning conspicuous religious signs in public schools and the French colonial project to unveil Algerian women. I ask how the concept of gender oppression comes to be naturalized to the Muslim veil in such a way as to simultaneously justify Western norms of femininity and hide the process by which Muslim women are racialized. It is in this way, I argue, that the “veil” becomes the focal point for a form of cultural racism that presents itself as saving Muslim women, and that it can be construed to pose a dilemma to feminism. (shrink)

In the world of Avatar: The Last Airbender (ATLA) and The Legend of Korra (LOK) —let’s call it the Bending World—some people (“benders”) are endowed with telekinetic superpowers to maneuver surrounding objects without physical interaction, by mentally steering (“bending”) one of the four classical “elements of nature” composing the objects: air, fire, water, and earth. Perhaps, in a world where the fundamental laws of nature are radically different from those of our world, the fundamental conditions and manifestations of politics should (...) be radically different too. That, of course, is not to deny that political bodies familiar to us are depicted in ATLA and LOK: tribes, monarchies, autonomous townships, city-states, loose federations, colonial empires, and democracies. Despite those familiar depictions, however, it’s worth contemplating how the existence of supernatural power might fundamentally alter the norms and rationales of politics—and how it might in turn help us better understand our own political reality. (shrink)

In Gandhi's Printing Press, Isabel Hofmeyr introduces readers to the nuances of the newspaper in a far-flung colony in the age when mail and news traveled by ship and when readers were encouraged by Gandhi to read slowly and deeply. This article explores the ways in which Thoreau's concept of slow reading influenced Gandhi and Hofmeyr herself. She discusses the community that surrounded Gandhi and the role it played in supporting the newspaper. Yet, I argue, the role of women of (...) all races as well as Coloured and black South African men in leading, modeling, and shaping the movement of resistance to pass laws and other racist legislation might have been integrated more into the main narrative. Gandhi's newspaper, Indian Opinion, reported on the pass law protests of the African women of Bloemfontein, and Abdurahman's APO newspaper (popular in the Coloured community) reported on Gandhi's protests. Indian Opinion included speeches given by John Dube, and it often praised Dube and the work at Ohlange and reprinted stories from the black press. I offer these remarks to supplement Hofmeyr's fascinating account by providing additional information in portraying the newspaper in its historical and social context. (shrink)

Three decades after Chalmers named it, the ‘hard problem’ remains. I suggest a parsimonious solution. Biological dynamic systems interact according to simple rules (while the environment provides simple constraints) and thus self-organize to become a new, more complex dynamic system at the next level. This spiral repeats several times generating a hierarchy of levels. A leap to the next level is frequently creative and surprising. From ants, themselves self-organized according to physical/chemical laws, may emerge an ant colony self-organized according to (...) eusocial laws. A dynamic system need not be material. A living language (immaterial) is a complex adaptive system. Body/brain are material but the next level of complexity, a psychological dynamic system, a thought, feeling, image or ideal, is less material. From several psychological dynamic systems emerges the next level, narrative (immaterial), and from multiple narratives emerges personality. Concrete evidence explains how an early narrative emerges from body-and-brain. Evidence also shows that personality emerges from narrative. Even an objective narrative captures subjectivity since the teller’s choice of content is subjective. I argue that the ‘stream-of-consciousness’ story (movie) you are currently telling yourself (watching) is your conscious experience, ‘what it is like’ for you to be conscious. Adriana Cavarero’s arguments support this. Each level of a hierarchy of dynamic systems must necessarily be homeostatic, at that level. McDowell et al. (2023: submitted, in revision) reported evidence that a dream (a narrative) supports personality homeostatically. Perhaps the evolutionary advantage of conscious experience, also a narrative, has always been that it too supports personality homeostatically. Personality and body/brain, a chimera of symbiotic life-forms, constitute interactionist duality. (shrink)

Human rights are grand political philosophy of the modern times, thus no wonder as a language of progressive politics which once was discourse of social emancipation (Boaventura Santos, 2002), has transcended national boundaries to become aspiration of humankind (Samul Moyn (2010), and is a commonly shared bulwark against evil (Lynn Hunt, 2007). Centred upon moral belief propelled on metaphysical moral assumption with its origin in Christianity pity and Enlightment discourse, however, human rights have become a sort of moral imperialism of (...) our time which exclude and include humanity on the basis of coloniality of power (Anibal Quijano, 2007). Although human rights are site of contentious discourse (Issa Shivji, n.d.) however, rights did not disappear in action and thought, but discussion shifted within national frameworks, in fact, “human rights when belief in them have become more widespread (Lynn Hunt, p.134, 2007)”. The combination of emotional/moral appeal and lack of conceptual clarity makes human rights immensely effective as a rhetorical tool and serve as a moral apparatus for humanitarian intervention into the third world countries. Both, the just war tradition and those who theorize the ethics of the law of armed conflict have taken moral and political reality of human rights seriously. Taking anti-foundational approach by challenging its main elements such as ‘universality’ and ‘morality’ this paper would argue that moral premises of human rights is flawed. (shrink)

Que les récits utopiques et contre-utopiques sont-ils censés nous apprendre que nous ne sachions déjà – que l'état du monde pourrait être meilleur, ou pire, qu'il n'est ? Qu'ont-ils à nous dire de la sanction pénale, comme concept et comme pratique, et que celle-ci nous apprend-elle en retour des limites de l'utopie comme récit et comme discours ? En mettant l'accent sur les références explicites, dans 1984, à la suppression systématique de tout ce qui pourrait ressembler à une règle, et (...) en resituant le roman dans le contexte social et colonial de l'expérience orwellienne de l'injustice pénale, cet article montre que les lectures d'Orwell inspirées de Rorty, Foucault et Deleuze, et centrées sur les notions de pouvoir, de discipline et de contrôle, manquent en partie leur objet. Ni simple « satire », ni « prophétie », ni « expérience de pensée », 1984 exprime la grammaire profonde de notre conception libérale du droit pénal, comme le dirait Wittgenstein. S'il n'est jamais question pour Orwell de dénoncer l'utopie comme intrinsèquement dangereuse, 1984 révèle toutefois qu'il est impossible d'en saisir l'élément de perfection par le droit. En ce sens, la « dernière utopie » des droits humains (S. Moyn) n'en est pas une. --- What are we supposed to learn from utopian/dystopian fiction – beyond the obvious fact that the state of the world could be better, or worse ? What can these fables tell us about criminal penalty as a concept and as practice ? Conversely, what can punishment tell us of the limits of utopia as a tale and as discourse ? By stressing 1984's explicit references to the meticulous elimination of anything vaguely resembling a rule, while putting the novel in the perspective of Orwell's social and colonial experience of penal injustice, this paper shows that interpretations of Orwell inspired by the likes of Rorty, Foucault or Deleuze, which are grounded on power, discipline or control, somehow miss their target. No mere “satire” nor “prophecy”, nor even “thought experiment”, 1984 expresses the deep-seated grammar of our liberal conception of penal law, as Wittgenstein would put it. While Orwell aims in no way to dismiss utopia as intrinsically dangerous, 1984 however shows that the element of perfection it contains cannot be grasped by law. In this respect, the “Last Utopia” of human rights (S. Moyn) is certainly not one. (shrink)

The article talks about the emergence of the theory of imperialism and neocolonialism, the reasons that gave rise to it, and its effects on the development of humanity in the current period. Imperialism is a multifaceted, multidimensional problem. It is a political issue, it has philosophical, scientific and technological foundations, it has economic, sociological, geographical, ethnic, religious and educational dimensions. But the fact that it is primarily a human problem makes it a multifaceted problem. Surely we can increase these reasons. (...) But no matter how much we multiply, colonization of one society by another society, confiscation of its wealth, enslavement and cultural separation is the most visible form of this. But this experience is not unprecedented in human history. Because human history has been a kind of exploitation, enslavement and attempts to create superiority. As Camus said, "Man emerges as the most dangerous being for his species". Attitudes to imperialism may vary between tribal and celestial cultures. After all, the culture of heaven is a culture cultivated by divine teaching. Exploitation and slavery are the dominant attitudes of tribal cultures. In these cultures, the relationship between man and man is based on power, wealth and nobility. In celestial cultures, the relationship between man and man was determined by nomos, divine laws. Heavenly culture is the product of a will that emerges for "good will" to prevail. It should be known that colonialism is a tribal behavior wherever and whenever it occurs. Because they do not see other societies as equal to themselves, it is a desire to dominate, exploit and enslave those who are not like themselves. From this perspective, colonialism can be seen as one of the oldest forms of behavior in history. This situation appears as the victory of the strong over the weak. Since transcendental attachment does not occur, they are in a position to absolutize their self. As a result, they see themselves as masters to be served, they see in themselves the right to such an inclination. It can be misleading to associate the colonial movement with human nature. It is more about the degradation and degeneration of human nature, it is about self-cultivation. It is a matter of outlook. The heavenly cultures, where the powerless were protected and spared, showed themselves not in a colonial style, but in a protective and compassionate way. We can see this patronizing relationship in the states established within the celestial cultures. (shrink)

In this short and highly readable monograph, the author aims to answer the age-old question of why humans construct moral orders grounded upon natural orders, deriving normative authority from divine or otherwise nonanthropomorphic sources in nature. Why, for instance, did the drafters of the U.S. Declaration of Independence invoke natural laws rather than simply relying on human reason and argument to ground their objections to British colonial rule? Answering this and related questions about the relationship between moral and natural (...) orders demands a precise method. Daston describes hers as philosophical (not cultural) anthropology, probing the motivations behind the intellectual leap—often described as ‘the naturalistic fallacy’—from the natural to the normative (3). In that vein, her inquiry begins with a remark from Immanuel Kant’s underappreciated work Anthropology from a Pragmatic Point of View. (shrink)

In this article, I present and critically analyze the main ideas of the Nigerian thinker, Ifeanyi A. Menkiti, on the future of the multi-ethnic state in Africa. Menkiti appears to consider that the basic condition for the successful coexistence of the various groups occupying the states of Africa is for relations between them to rest on just principles. Justice should involve the fair and equitable division amongst peoples of the burdens and benefits of living in a common state. To realize (...) this ideal, he proposes the creation in Africa of morally neutral, managerial states. He bases his plan in part on the ideas of John Rawls. Close analysis of Menkiti’s views shows that his vision of the minimalist state is only a temporary solution, which is to lead to the peaceful dismemberment of the current post-colonial model of multi-ethnic states functioning within the old colonial borders. The basic value of Menkiti’s thought rests in his reversal of the usual perspective on African states, as he considers that maintaining territorial integrity or achieving unity should no longer be considered a paramount necessity. Published in "Hemispheres", 2010, No. 25. (shrink)

This essay strikes new paths for investigating the politics of translation and the (non-) universality of the concept of “human rights” by engaging them in a critical dialogue. Part I of my essay argues that a truly universal concept would have available linguistic equivalents in all languages. On this basis, I develop translation into a tool for disproving the claim that the concept human rights is universal. An inaccurate claim to universality could be made to look valid, however, if one (...) culture dominates over others, and manages to impose its own concepts and exclude competitors. Part II explores how human rights, initially a modern Western concept, became more and more universalized as a result of the global reach of Western political and economic power. I attempt to shed new light on the subject by investigating the role of translation in bringing about the global hegemony of Western legal and political languages and concepts. Since translation always involves a choice of foregrounding one of the two languages and cultures involved, the translator is a power broker who can promote one voice at the expense of the other. My examples for conducting this investigation are the key contributions made by China and the West to the drafting of the UDHR: with ren and rights representing respectively the West and China’s proposed solutions to crimes against humanity in the immediate aftermath of World War II. While the concept rights became increasingly assimilated into the Chinese language along with her repeated defeats by colonial powers (and was already firmly established in the Chinese vocabulary by the time of the drafting of the UDHR), ren by contrast has never been included by any Western language and culture. (shrink)

There is an old and powerful argument for the claim that divine foreknowledge is incompatible with the freedom to do otherwise. A recent response to this argument, sometimes called the “dependence response,” centers around the claim that God’s relevant past beliefs depend on the relevant agent’s current or future behavior in a certain way. This paper offers a new argument for the dependence response, one that revolves around different cases of time travel. Somewhat serendipitously, the argument also paves the way (...) for a new reply to a compelling objection to the dependence response, the challenge from prepunishment. But perhaps not so serendipitously, the argument also renders the dependence response incompatible with certain views of providence. (shrink)

The dependence solution claims that God’s foreknowledge is no threat to our freedom because God’s foreknowledge depends (in a relevant sense) on our actions. The assumption here is that those parts of the world which depend on our actions are no threat to the freedom of those actions. Recently, Taylor Cyr has presented a case which challenges this assumption. Moreover, since the case is analogous to the case of God’s foreknowledge, it would seem to establish that, even if God’s foreknowledge (...) somehow depends on our actions, our freedom is still threatened. This paper defends the dependence solution, first, by offering an error theory for the intuitions that drive Cyr’s case and, second, by pointing out some arguably mysterious implications of accepting those intuitions. These points taken in conjunction show that Cyr’s case, although quite fascinating, is not as challenging as it might at first seem. (shrink)

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)

Suppose Molinism is true and God placed Adam in the garden because God knew Adam would freely eat of the fruit. Suppose further that, had it not been true that Adam would freely eat of the fruit, were he placed in the garden, God would have placed someone else there instead. When Adam freely eats of the fruit, is he free to do otherwise? This paper argues that there is a strong case for both a positive and a negative answer. (...) Assuming such cases are possible under Molinism, we are left with a puzzling question: if Molinism is true, what can you do? (shrink)

Let (leeway) incompatibilism be the thesis that causal determinism is incompatible with the freedom to do otherwise. Several prominent authors have claimed that incompatibilism alone can capture, or at least best captures, the intuitive appeal behind Jorge Luis Borges's famous “Garden of Forking Paths” metaphor. The thought, briefly, is this: the “single path” leading up to one's present decision represents the past; the forking paths that one must decide between represent those possible futures consistent with the past and the laws (...) of nature. But if determinism is true, there is only one possible future consistent with the past and the laws and, hence, only one path to choose from. That is, if determinism is true, then we are not free to do otherwise. In this paper, I argue that this understanding of the Garden of Forking Paths faces a number of problems and ought to be rejected even by incompatibilists. I then present an alternative understanding that not only avoids these problems but still supports incompatibilism. Finally, I consider how various versions of (leeway) compatibilism fit with the Garden of Forking Paths as well as the broader question of whether metaphors, however intuitive, have any dialectical force in the debates over freedom. (shrink)

In Mengzi 6A4, Gaozi states that “yì 義 (propriety, rightness) is external, not internal.” In 6A5, Meng Jizi says of yì that “...it is on the external, not from the internal.” Their defenses are met with Mengzi’s resistance. What does he perceive and resist in these statements? Focusing on several key passages, I compare six promising interpretations. 6A4 and a relevant part of 2A2 can be rendered comparably sensible under each of the six. However, what Gaozi says in 6A1 clearly (...) is evidence to Mengzi that, of the six views, Gaozi holds three although he does not convey them in his statement. As for Meng Jiz’s defense of his statement, Meng Jizi cites a special occasion where one is required to act one way even though one would feel a different way. Mengzi’s response has been traditionally interpreted as boiling down to a dissenting opinion about empirical psychology, that the agent on that special occasion would in fact feel the same way as they ought to act. But on a more charitable reading, the point Mengzi makes is conceptual: Though the satisfaction of yì may not require that the feeling and the act align perfectly in this case, cases where the alignment obtains are conceptually prior. This not only refutes Meng Jizi’s statement but also enables a more elegant explanation of why the Mengzi rightly has no record of Mengzi affirming that yì is internal. I conclude that 6A5 itself uniquely favors one interpretation, as far as Meng Jizi’s position is concerned: How one feels is irrelevant to whether one satisfies yì. (shrink)

Libertarian views of freedom claim that, although determinism would rule out our freedom, we are nevertheless free on some occasions. An odd implication of such views (to put it mildly) seems to be that indeterminism somehow enhances or contributes to our agency. But how could that be? What does indeterminism have to offer agency? This paper develops a novel answer, one that is centred around the notion of explanation. In short, it is argued that, if indeterminism holds in the right (...) places, then the best explanation of the history of the world necessarily cites facts about our agency. Along the way, alternative proposals regarding the significance of indeterminism are considered and, ultimately, rejected in favour of the one developed in this paper. (shrink)

Recently, several authors have utilized the notion of dependence to respond to the traditional argument for the incompatibility of freedom and divine foreknowledge. However, proponents of this response have not always been so clear in specifying where the incompatibility argument goes wrong, which has led to some unfounded objections to the response. We remedy this dialectical confusion by clarifying both the dependence response itself and its interaction with the standard incompatibility argument. Once these clarifications are made, it becomes clear both (...) (1.) that the dependence response does not beg the question against the proponent of the incompatibility argument and (2.) that the dependence response advances the dialectic whether it is developed as a version of Ockhamism or as a version of multiple-pasts compatibilism. (shrink)

This paper hopes to contribute to the contemporary East-West and Buddhist-Christian dialogues through a comparative examination of how ethics is founded upon the notion of emptiness and its analogues in the thought of two Japanese thinkers, Nishitani Keiji (1900-1990) of the Kyoto School of Philosophy, Watsuji Tetsuro (1889-1960), and the Russian Christian existentialist Ni-kolai Berdyaev (1874-1948). By comparing and contrasting Nishitani's notion of double-negation (from the standpoint of being to the standpoint of nihility and to the standpoint of emptiness) and (...) how it forms a basis for an ethics of circuminsessional interpenetration, with Watsuji's notion of the double-negation of the individual and society in ethics, and with Berdyaev's double-negation in his three forms of ethics (ethics of law, ethics of redemption, ethics of creativeness) we shall examine the structural similarities and points of non-exclusion of "Eastern" Buddhist philosophy and "Western" Christian philosophy. (shrink)

Review of Causation and Free Will by Carolina Sartorio, Oxford University Press, 2016. viii + 188 pp. £35.00.

In the TACITUS project for using commonsense knowledge in the understanding of texts about mechanical devices and their failures, we have been developing various commonsense theories that are needed to mediate between the way we talk about the behavior of such devices and causal models of their operation. Of central importance in this effort is the axiomatization of what might be called commonsense metaphysics. This includes a number of areas that figure in virtually every domain of discourse, such as granularity, (...) scales, time, space, material, physical objects, shape, causality, functionality, and force. Our effort has been to construct core theories of each of these areas, and then to define, or at least characterize, a large number of lexical items in terms provided by the core theories. In this paper we discuss our methodological principles and describe the key ideas in the various domains we are investigating. (shrink)

The paper has two complementary objectives. First, it sustains an analysis of the concept of ‘coloniality’ that accounts for the epistemic imbalance in the modern world, demonstrating precisely how Africa is adversely affected, having been caught up in the throes of coloniality and its epistemic implications. Second – and complementarily – the paper attempts to bring this very concept of ‘coloniality’ into the discourse on Africa’s emigration crisis, arguing that Africa’s emigration crisis is traceable, inter alia, to the epistemic imbalance (...) in the very structure of modernity. This imbalance results from the stifling of Africa’s epistemic resources under Western epistemic hegemony. Epistemic coloniality, of course interacting with some material factors, creates a sufficient condition for emigration. It is further theorized that the apparent lack of epistemic will on the part of Africans to mobilize some surviving epistemic resources to address some problems on their own is also a function of coloniality. (shrink)

There is lively debate on the question if states have legitimate authority to enforce the exclusion of (would-be) immigrants. Against common belief, I argue that even non- cosmopolitan liberals have strong reason to be sceptical of much contemporary border authority. To do so, I first establish that for liberals, broadly defined, a state can only hold legitimate authority over persons whose moral equality it is not engaged in undermining. I then reconstruct empirical cases from the sphere of international relations in (...) which what I call ‘colonial norms’ continue to play significant structuring roles. I argue that it is sometimes only by unveiling these colonial norms and the roles they play that we can understand how some states today culpably contribute to undermining the moral equality of persons over whom they will come to claim immigration-related authority. I thus contend that paying attention to colonial norms distinctly enables us to reveal a set of instances in which all liberals should agree that states forfeit legitimate authority over would-be immigrants. (shrink)

Since 2023, the UK government's response to the “migrant crisis” has revolved around two controversial flagship policies: the deportation of asylum seekers to Rwanda, and the detention of migrants aboard a giant barge. In this short article, I examine the colonial and gendered dimensions of the two policies, finding them to be examples of the coloniality of gender. What this indicates, I suggest, is that the purpose of these policies is not merely to deter potential migrants—particularly LGBTQIA+ migrants—but also (...) to create a political narrative that allows the Conservative Party to garner right-wing votes by participating in high-profile culture wars; namely, the debate over transgender rights and the debate over how the UK should reckon with its imperial past. (shrink)

Hegel's lord-bondsman dialectic has been of especially great interest to progressive and radical Hegelians—broadly speaking, politically left-leaning interpreters of Hegel who object to certain social hierarchies and demand their abolition. They read Hegel as giving an account of how ‘lordship’ over others is an inherently unstable and unsatisfying social formation, even for its supposed beneficiaries. Marxists, feminists and post-colonial theorists have all found inspiration in Hegel's analysis of the lord and bondsman by applying it to concrete relations of oppression, (...) such as capitalism, patriarchy, or racism. In contrast, recent scholarship on Hegel's views on race and colonialism has cast doubt on whether his systematic political philosophy and philosophy of history can be of similar use to progressives. Hegel was undeniably a Eurocentric thinker, but philosophers like Robert Bernasconi and Alison Stone have convincingly shown that he was also a racist and a defender of colonialism. Crucially, however, few of the scholars who write on Hegel's pro-colonialism have analysed this feature of Hegel's thought in connection with the lord-bondsman dialectic. In this article, I argue for two connected theses. First, I argue that contrary to the hopes of some progressive defenders of Hegel, we cannot easily separate the lord-bondsman dialectic from Hegel's pro-colonialism. This is because Hegel himself appealed to the lord-bondsman dialectic to argue that colonial slavery educated its victims, and could therefore be temporarily justified. Second, I argue that this pro-colonial reading of the dialectic, though largely ignored by contemporary interpreters, was in fact recognized and embraced by a group of Hegelians in North America known as the St Louis Hegelians. They used the lord-bondsman dialectic as a basis for a qualified defence of pre-Civil War American slavery. (shrink)

Recent attempts to resolve the Paradox of the Gatecrasher rest on a now familiar distinction between individual and bare statistical evidence. This paper investigates two such approaches, the causal approach to individual evidence and a recently influential (and award-winning) modal account that explicates individual evidence in terms of Nozick's notion of sensitivity. This paper offers counterexamples to both approaches, explicates a problem concerning necessary truths for the sensitivity account, and argues that either view is implausibly committed to the impossibility of (...) no-fault wrongful convictions. The paper finally concludes that the distinction between individual and bare statistical evidence cannot be maintained in terms of causation or sensitivity. We have to look elsewhere for a solution of the Paradox of the Gatecrasher. (shrink)

I will argue here that Einaudi's thought reveals an awareness that the question of freedom has to do with two inter-related problems: the relation of individuals or communities with their respective limits and the question of going beyond these limits. Limits are to be understood here in the meaning of the foundation or conditions of possibility both of institutions (economic, political and juridical) and of thought and human action.

The appearance of consciousness in the universe remains one of the major mysteries unsolved by science or philosophy. Absent an agreed-upon definition of consciousness or even a convenient system to test theories of consciousness, a confusing heterogeneity of theories proliferate. In pursuit of clarifying this complicated discourse, we here interpret various frameworks for the scientific and philosophical study of consciousness through the lens of social insect evolutionary biology. To do so, we first discuss the notion of a forward test versus (...) a reverse test, analogous to the normal and revolutionary phases of the scientific process. Contemporary theories of consciousness are forward tests for consciousness, in that they strive to become a means to classify the level of consciousness of arbitrary states and systems. Yet no such theory of consciousness has earned sufficient confidence such that it might be actually used as a forward test in ambiguous settings. What is needed now is thus a legitimate reverse test for theories of consciousness, to provide internal and external calibration of different frameworks. A reverse test for consciousness would ideally look like a method for referencing theories of consciousness to a tractable model system. We introduce the Ant Colony Test as a rigorous reverse test for consciousness. We show that social insect colonies, though disaggregated collectives, fulfill many of the prerequisites for conscious awareness met by humans and honey bee workers. A long lineage of philosophically-neutral neurobehavioral, evolutionary, and ecological studies on social insect colonies can thus be redeployed for the study of consciousness in general. We suggest that the ACT can provide insight into the nature of consciousness, and highlight the ant colony as a model system for ethically performing clarifying experiments about consciousness. (shrink)

Discovering laws of nature was a way to worship a law-giving God, during the Scientific Revolution. So why should we consider it worthwhile now, in our own more secularized science? For historical perspective, I examine two competing early modern theological traditions that related laws of nature to different divine attributes, and their secular legacy in views ranging from Kant and Nietzsche to Humean and ‘governing’ accounts in recent analytic metaphysics. Tracing these branching offshoots of ethically charged God-concepts sheds light on (...) how our ethical ideals and ideas of natural order can still be valuably integrated. Early modern intellectualists valued the law-governed order of nature as a sign of divine Reason. In turn, Reason traditionally ascribed to God has now been partly reclaimed for humans, reframing the value of natural order anthropocentrically, in terms of the value of our own intelligence. Alternatively, Reason may be reclaimed for nature itself, as in an ‘objective’ idealism or metaphysical rationalism. However, beyond divine Reason, an influential voluntarist tradition in theology stressed a connection between laws of nature and God’s Power or free Will. Tracking how divine Power has been reinvested in human beings provides a broader context for instrumentalism and related lineages of empiricism. But secularization can also transfer Power from God to the impersonal natural world. In this light, current scientific interest in lawlike order may also reflect the inherent value of brute necessity or inhuman causal power in nature: this is a deeper way to reject anthropocentrism and to show our respect for the environment. (shrink)