This article considers whether the international legal human rights system founded on liberal individualism, as endorsed by liberal theorists, can function as a fair universal legal regime. This question is examined in relation to the collective right to self-determination demanded by indigenous peoples, who are paradigmatic decent nonliberal peoples. Indigenous peoples’ collective right to self-determination has been internationally recognized in the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, which was adopted (...) by the United Nations in 2007. This historic event may seem to exemplify the international legal human rights system’s ability to function as a truly global legal regime applicable cross-culturally to all well-ordered societies, whether liberal or nonliberal. The article argues, however, that the collective right to self-determination advocated by indigenous peoples for the sake of cultural integrity is inconsistent with the international legal human rights system founded on liberal individualism. By showing the plausibility of indigenous peoples’ defense of their cultural integrity, this article suggests that the international legal human rights system ought to be reconceptualized to reflect a genuine international consensus on human rights among all well-ordered societies if it is to function as a just mechanism for global governance. (shrink)

Kant’s non-voluntarist conception of political obligation has led some philosophers to argue that he would reject self-government rights for indigenous peoples. Some recent scholarship suggests, however, that Kant’s critique of colonialism provides an argument in favor of granting self-government rights. Here I argue for a stronger conclusion: Kantian political theory not only can but must include sovereignty for indigenous peoples. Normally these rights are considered redress for historic injustice. On a Kantian view, however, (...) I argue that they are not remedial. Sovereignty rights are a necessary part of establishing perpetual peace. By failing to acknowledge the sovereignty of native groups, states once guilty of imperialism leave open the in principle possibility for future violence, even though no current conflict exists. Only in recognizing self-government rights can states truly commit to the cosmopolitan ideal. (shrink)

Kant limits cosmopolitan right to a universal right of hospitality, condemning European imperial practices towards indigenous peoples, while allowing a right to visit foreign countries for the purpose of offering to engage in commerce. I argue that attempts by contemporary theorists such as Jeremy Waldron to expand and update Kant’s juridical category of cosmopolitan right would blunt or erase Kant’s own anti-colonial doctrine. Waldron’s use of Kant’s category of cosmopolitan right to criticize contemporary identity politics relies on premises (...) that upset Kant’s balanced right to hospitality. An over-extensive right to visit can invoke “Kantian” principles that Kant himself could not have consistently held, without weakening his condemnation of European settlement. I construct an alternative spirit of cosmopolitan right more favorable to the contemporary claims of indigenous peoples. Kant’s analysis suggests there are circumstances when indigenous peoples may choose whether to engage in extensive cultural interaction, and reasonably refuse the risks of subjecting their claims to debate in democratic politics in a unitary public. Cosmopolitan right accorded respect to peoples; any “domestic” adaptation of cosmopolitan right should respect indigenous peoples as peoples, absent a serious public explanation by a democratic state for why it has now become appropriate to treat indigenous peoples merely as individual citizens. (shrink)

In what follows we present group rights as portrayed in contemporary theoretical debates; compare this portrayal with some of the claims actually advanced by various indigenous groups throughout the world; and give reasons for preferring the practical to the theoretical treatments. Our findings suggest that liberal-individualist and corporatist accounts of group rights actually agree on the kind of importance that group interests have for persons and on what it is that groups who claim rights are concerned (...) about. Both liberal-individualists and corporatists locate the importance of group interests in the personal psychology of individual group members. As a result, both treat group interests (such as cultural integrity) as not only different in kind from individualized interests such as freedom of expression but as potentially in competition with them. In contrast, the real-world demands of indigenous groups place emphasis on concrete ways in which the preserving of communal life can be important to individuals’ well-being, in addition to the various spiritual and symbolic resources which such life may provide. These practical aspects of communal life make individuals’ group interests a lot like their individualized ones, and so suggest that group rights do not introduce new or distinctive theoretical questions. Instead, group rights are raise familiar questions about how individuals’ interests ought to be balanced against one another when they are in competition; what counts as an adequate institutional structure for the instantiation of a right; and who ought to be recognized as an authoritative judge of whether a right has been respected. (shrink)

Over the past few decades, Indigenous communities have successfully campaigned for greater inclusion in decision-making processes that directly affect their lands and livelihoods. As a result, two important participatory rights for Indigenous peoples have now been widely recognized: the right to consultation and the right to free, prior and informed consent (FPIC). Although these participatory rights are meant to empower the speech of these communities—to give them a proper say in the decisions that most affect (...) them—we argue that the way these rights have been implemented and interpreted sometimes has the opposite effect, of denying them a say or ‘silencing’ them. In support of this conclusion we draw on feminist speech act theory to identify practices of locutionary, illocutionary, and perlocutionary group silencing that arise in the context of consultation with Indigenous communities. (shrink)

This article contends that the environmental release of genetically engineered (GE) animals with heritable traits that are patented will present a challenge to the efforts of nations and indigenous peoples to engage in self‐determination. The environmental release of such animals has been proposed on the grounds that they could function as public health tools or as solutions to the problem of agricultural insect pests. This article brings into focus two political‐economic‐legal problems that would arise with the environmental release (...) of such organisms. To address those challenges, it is proposed that nations considering the environmental release of GE animals must take into account the underlying circumstances and policy failures that motivate arguments for the use of the modified animals. Moreover, countries must recognize that the UN International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the UN International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights place on them an obligation to ensure that GE animals with patented heritable traits are not released without the substantive consent of the nations or indigenous peoples that could be affected. (shrink)

In India, Dalits faced a centuries-old caste-based discrimination and nowadays indigenous people too are getting a threat from so called developed society. We can define these crimes with the term ‘atrocity’ means an extremely wicked or cruel act, typically one involving physical violence or injury. Caste-related violence has occurred and occurs in India in various forms. Though the Constitution of India has laid down certain safeguards to ensure welfare, protection and development, there is gross violation of their rights (...) such as killing, murder, torture, burning, abduction, rape and molestation. According to a report by Human Rights Watch, “Dalits and indigenous peoples (known as Scheduled Tribes or adivasis) continue to face discrimination, exclusion, and acts of communal violence. Laws and policies adopted by the Indian government provide a strong basis for protection, but are not being faithfully implemented by local authorities.” Human rights issues are very often understood and analyzed from socio-political and cultural perspectives. Apart from such perspectives, the issue of human rights also can be analyzed from a strictly philosophical perspective, which implies that the idea of human rights is centered on the inspiration of human dignity. Several studies on the situation of human rights of Dalits in several parts of India show more reports on violation of human rights than on protection of them. Dalits are discriminated against, denied access to land, forced to work in degrading condition, and routinely abused at the hands of the police and higher-caste groups that enjoy state protection. For example, Dalit women are regularly subjected to sexual violence as a result of their lower caste status-often in response to their demands of basic rights. Hate crimes towards indigenous peoples is a daily reality in many countries across the globe. The challenge is to change such a dehumanized situation. The challenge is to each one of us that whether engaged in governance of the civil society or voluntarily engaged in social and economic development of society, one thing to remember is that leaving behind the vulnerable units of our society – Dalits and indigenous peoples – will not take us to a prosperous society. This paper is an attempt to study the situation of human rights of two most neglected segments of society namely, Dalits and STs as a serious international human rights issue. (shrink)

Thanks to mounting discussion about projected technologies’ possibly altering the species mentally and physically, philosophical investigation of what human beings are proceeds robustly. Many thinkers contend that whatever we are has little to do with how we should behave. Yet, tampering with what the human being is may tread upon human rights to be whatever one is. Rights given in widely recognized documents such as the U.N. Declaration of the Rights of Indigenous Peoples assume (...) what humans are and need depends upon ontological assumptions about human existence. Godman turns to human ontology—just what kind of beings humans are (from an angle distinct from the other two books) and how these play into rights. She is concerned with how well the social sciences accord with what we are. Gunkel homes in on a more specific moral topic than Godman's general concern with identity’s role in rights: automata moral status and rights. He enjoins us to inquire into what human rights are before we take on the new technologies’ challenge to it. Schneider’s Artificial You, while not explicitly about rights, poses a rights quandary. Certain individuals with reputable resources and practical backing explicitly seek to evolve the species as they see fit. The urgency among these works concerns how we need a sharper idea of what we are, how we should act and be treated, and how our rights fare among potential human improvements. (shrink)

Development economist Hernando de Soto Polar has effectively advocated for property rights in the Third World, as his ideas have influenced the policies of the World Bank, International Monetary Fund and United Nations Development Programme. He envisions land titling as a means of lifting the poor out of poverty. I argue that his classical liberal interpretations of property and the good life are dangerously naive. One can see the dangers of de Soto’s imperialist and one-dimensional vision after considering the (...) cultural destruction that results from his brand of development in pastoral Kenya. Also, this article demands a reframing of standardized development approaches. It argues that the conventional view is prone to creating unstable, culturally hegemonic relationships between the government and entrepreneurs, and the people of the land. Asymmetrical lawfare is another nondemocratic feature of de Soto’s development. This article emphasizes that Kenyan pastoralists are not inherently vulnerable people but that they have been rendered vulnerable by society. Lastly, the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP) is the basis for an alternative to de Soto’s development design. UNDRIP was a hard-fought legal protection for the world’s indigenous peoples that makes human dignity central to development. The Global North and Global South produce differing visions of development. This article points to Kenya as an example of how the Global North’s vision has fundamentally failed because it disenfranchises pastoralists—the very people policymakers and policy supporters claim it is intended to benefit. (shrink)

En 2007, la Declaración sobre los Derechos de los Pueblos Indígenas fue adoptada por la Asamblea General con la mayoría de los estados miembros de las Naciones Unidas. La declaración tiene relevancia para cualquiera que esté al mando o en contacto con los pueblos indígenas. Un efecto central de la dominancia de la cultura globalizada sobre culturas indígenas es la asimetría de la percepción e influencia mutua. Debido a los efectos de la presión social externa de la globalización los pueblos (...) indígenas tienen poca libertad de elección. Ejercer su derecho a una autonomía cultural en educación y estilo de vida es muy difícil para los indígenas. Por parte de gobiernos, problemas con los derechos sobre la tierra son un obstáculo para reconocer la autonomía de los pueblos indígenas. Algunos artículos de la declaración de derechos indígenas son presentados que tienen relevancia para personas externas, como investigadores o turistas, en contacto con personas indígenas. -/- The Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous peoples is an instrument to combat inequalities on an international level. However, the implementation is still a matter of disregard and conflict, as states are reluctant to give up their privileges. Yet, with the Declaration, a foundation has been laid to claim acceptance and respect of indigenous lifestyles, the use of their territories by themselves, the passing-on of culturally specific knowledge to the next generations, and other aspects. The new situation of International Law also brought along consequences for any external person contacting an indigenous culture, be it scientists, tourists or others. (shrink)

Imagine that you are a farmer living in Kenya. Though you work hard to sell your produce to foreign markets you find yourself unable to do so because affluent countries subsidize their own farmers and erect barriers to trade, like tariffs, thereby undercutting you in the marketplace. As a consequence of their actions you languish in poverty despite your very best efforts. Or, imagine that you are a peasant whose livelihood depends on working in the fields in Indonesia and you (...) are forcibly displaced from your land by a biofuels company because corrupt government officials have stolen the land and sold it to the company. Or, suppose that you work on the coast of Bangladesh but find that increasingly you are unable to cope with salination resulting from sealevel rise – a product of anthropogenic climate change. These, I believe, are cases of global injustice. My question is: What are those who bear the brunt of global injustice entitled to do to secure their, and other people’s, entitlements? Often people focus on the duties of the affluent to respect and uphold the rights of the disadvantaged. This is understandable. But there is a striking omission. Rarely do people analyze, or even mention, what those who lack their entitlements are entitled to do to secure their own rights. This is my focus in this paper. More specifically, I examine what agents are entitled to do to change the underlying social, economic and political practices and structures in a more just direction. (shrink)

Since antiquity, Confucians have sought to work with the state in order to implement their philosophy through state sponsorship. And yet, whenever Confucians have sought state sponsorship, naturally the government has adopted Confucian philosophy selectively to serve its own purposes and thus compromised the integrity of Confucianism. Throughout Chinese history, countless Confucian officials attempted to help rulers to do the right thing. They often failed when their advice went against the fundamental interest of rulers. On reflection, this outcome should not (...) be unexpected. The primary goal of rulers is to solidify power; the primary concern of Confucianism is the wellbeing of the people. When the two conflict, it is highly unlikely for a government to prioritize Confucian ideals. In a democratic era, Confucianism can influence society without joining the state apparatus. It can and must promote its social ideals through grassroots democratic participation rather than leave itself to the mercy of state sponsorship. (shrink)

The "second-generation indigenization" hypothesis of Huntington's phenomenological observations on totalitarianism in Cold War regime collapse subtly portrayed the realpolitik interest groups' political influences with autocracy disbandment processes. The research puts democratization as the premise and globalization as purpose for the analysis, with the cultural anthropological psychopathology & criminological elements of genocide and crime against humanity explained, underlying some of the Communist Party of China (CPC)’s organizational behaviors. With the regionalism purposes & approaches to multilateralism by People's Republic of China (PRC), (...) the end of democratization is leveraged against the procedural means with power politics of declared “decmocracy”. Between quantitative autocratic controls and realpolitik local-regional interest groups, the connotation of democratization in liberal international globalization has either been used for militant purposes or pushed the landscape of regime collapse into realpolitik local groups and autocratic controls in the process of globalization, with a case study on a local branch of Argricultural Bank of China on supply-side hijacking by the State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission of the State Council (SASAC). With the industrial interests omposed on realpolitik local groups, autocratic regionalism becomes of the "best interest scenario" for the realpolitik local groups with psychopathological spread of the criminological behaviors, by the cyber organizational criminal operations correlated with PRC’s approaches to international relations and multilateralism through bilateral trade & finance in monetary and currency domains, developed into the digitization of economies with criminological schemes in telecommunication, information, and informatics systems. However, the diminishing autonomy & freedom of the territorial population in turn derogated the real economy that wielded the prisoners' dilemma between autocracy and totalitarianism in a negative sum game deterioration cycle, with the censorship practices by the illicit regimes for propaganda controls sustaining "ideology security". In the democratization process of the dictatorial regime, "second-generation indigenization" is thus mapped to the sectarian interests respondent to dictatorial propaganda generation, other than a natural phenomenon out of autonomy and freedom premises in decision theory. The article recaps the coup d'état between Xi Jinping and Bo Xilai before Xi took the autocratic power, and analyzes the human rights situation in the obstacle of democratization and by the coercion mechanism imposed on the mainland China civil society for the militant purposes, with its behaviral spread of censorship to the “internet platforms” in liberal democratic countries by financial interest incentives and avoidance from war threats, whereby military backends in the cyber systems already indicate otherwise. (shrink)

Wuwei (nonaction) is one of the core concepts of Daoist ethics. Edward Slingerland pointed out that wuwei involves a paradox, and Arthur C. Danto questioned whether wuwei could support a genuine moral theory and the idea of right action. To defend Daoist ethics and its concept of right action, it is necessary to envisage Danto’s criticism and the problems raised by Slingerland. According to Ivanhoe, Wuwei is not a paradox, but a riddle or mystery about self-cultivation. He thinks that if (...) people could find the trick to the riddle, they can realize Wuwei. Ivanhoe’s analysis failed. Nickolas Knightly argues that we must acknowledge the paradox of Wuwei squarely. Based on criticizing Ivanhoe’s and Knightly’s schemes, this paper further analyzes the strategies to deal with the paradox of Wuwei. Wuwei should be placed in a specific situation and context. Wuwei requires the agents to have the corresponding psychological motivation, which will not continuously interfere with the purpose of action. Wuwei, as the behavior evaluation word of Daoist ethics, corresponds to moral anti-realism and nonassertive moral abolitionism. (shrink)

It is generally assumed that emotion concepts are purely descriptive. However, recent investigations suggest that the concept of happiness includes information about the morality of the agent's life. In this study, we argue that normative influences on emotion concepts are not restricted to happiness and are not about moral norms. In a series of studies, we show that emotion attribution is influenced by whether the agent's psychological and bodily states fit the situation in which they are experienced. People consider that (...) emotions are not just about feeling in certain ways, but also about feeling the right way. (shrink)

Despite the United Nations Declaration of the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, assimilationist policies continue, whether official or effective. Such policies affect more than the right to group choice. The concern is whether indeed genocide or “only” ethnocide (or culturecide)—the elimination of a traditional culture—is at work. Discussions of the distinction between the two terms have been inconsistent enough that at least one commentator has declared that they cannot be used in analytical contexts. While these terms, I (...) contend, have distinct senses, yet in cases of governmental and other institutional assimilationist policy for indigenous peoples, such ethnocide effectively entails genocide. Insofar as any people’s cultural practices and beliefs are essential for life and health, individuals in groups value, if tacitly, their culture as highly as their language or any artifact: Thus, attempts to eradicate a culture through assimilation in fact eradicate individuals’ lives and health and so are effectively murderous. Acknowledgement by worldwide organizations that assimilationist ethnocide is effectively genocide should affect policy concerning indigenous peoples and thus has significance for international law. (shrink)

The Convention of the Rights of the Person in Outer Space, more informally known as the Space Rights Convention, is a human rights and animal rights document that outlines basic principles, rights and freedoms bestowed to different categories of species in outer space which including on extraterrestrial bodies (both planetary and sub-planetary), synthetic bodies (e.g. space stations), as well as on spacecraft (both commissioned and uncommissioned) travelling through space itself (which is often referred to in (...) the Convention as the interspace (i.e. the space between terrestrial bodies). The Convention mirrors much of the rights outlined in the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights but its purpose is to tailor those fundamental human rights to the context of spacefaring activity and to civilisations beyond planet Earth's atmosphere. The Convention was composed by Cometan and is published by the Astronist Institution alone on 23rd May 2022 and is scheduled to be republished as one of the preppendices of the Astrodoxy as its final major draft, after which only amendments may be made to its contents. (shrink)

The United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD) is being used to argue for wider recognition of the legal capacity of people with mental disabilities. This raises a question about the implications of the Convention for attributions of criminal responsibility. The present paper works towards an answer by analysing the relationship between legal capacity in relation to personal decisions and criminal acts. Its central argument is that because moral and political considerations play an essential role (...) in setting the relevant standards, legal capacity in the context of personal decisions and criminal acts should not be thought of as two sides of the same coin. The implications of particular moral or political norms are likely to be different in these two legal contexts, and this may justify asymmetries in the relevant standards for legal capacity. However, the analysis highlights a fundamental question about how much weight moral or political considerations should be given in setting these standards, and this is used to frame a challenge to those calling for significantly wider recognition of the legal capacity of people with mental disabilities on the basis of the Convention. (shrink)

The new frontiers in the philosophy of intellectual property lie squarely in territories belonging to moral and political philosophy, as well as legal philosophy and philosophy of economics – or so this collection suggests. Those who wish to understand the nature and justification of intellectual property may now find themselves immersed in philosophical debates on the structure and relative merits of consequentialist and deontological moral theories, or disputes about the nature and value of privacy, or the relationship between national and (...) global justice. Conversely, the theoretical and practical problems posed by intellectual property are increasingly relevant to bioethics and philosophy and public policy, as well as to more established areas of moral and political philosophy. Perhaps this is just to say that the philosophy of intellectual property is coming into its own as a distinct field of intellectual endeavour, providing a place where legal theorists and philosophers can have the sorts of discussions - neither reducible to questions about what the law is, nor wholly divorced from contemporary legal problems - which typify debates about freedom of expression, discrimination and human rights. These are all areas in which legal and philosophical ideas influence each other at the level of method as well as of substance. My hope is that this collection of essays will appeal to those who, whatever their professional specialty or training, share an interest in the philosophy of intellectual property, and that it will build upon and advance existing interdisciplinary dialogue and research in this complex, fascinating, and important area. Authors include John Christman, Stephen Munzer, Alex Rosenberg, Geert Demunijck, Laura Biron, James Wilson . (shrink)

I develop a contractualist theory of just intelligence collection based on the collective moral responsibility to deliver security to a community and use the theory to justify certain kinds of signals interception. I also consider the rights of various intelligence targets like intelligence officers, service personnel, government employees, militants, and family members of all of these groups in order to consider how targets' waivers or forfeitures might create the moral space for just surveillance. Even people who are not doing (...) anything prejudicial to other states' security can be modeled as ceding rights against diagnostic collection--light touch collection limited to ascertaining if someone is likely an intelligence threat--as part of their duty to support just foreign institutions. Foreign intelligence officers could not perform the same job potential targets can reasonably demand their intelligence agencies perform on their behalf without this ceding of rights. More invasive forms of collection can only be justified if officers can reasonably model their citizens consenting to being the target of the same sort of collection by adversary states. (shrink)

This paper addresses five questions: First, what is trajectory of Western liberal ethics and politics in defining life, rights and citizenship? Second, how will neuro-remediation and other technologies change the definition of death for the brain injured and the cryonically suspended? Third, will people always have to be dead to be cryonically suspended? Fourth, how will changing technologies and definitions of identity affect the status of people revived from brain injury and cryonic suspension? I propose that Western liberal thought (...) is working towards a natural end, a “telos.” In response to a variety of biotechnologies, law and public opinion in liberal democracies will be forced to make explicit that the rights of a living thing are determined by its level of consciousness. I discuss the way that technology will force three clarifications about the value of consciousness, at the beginning, the end and boundaries of human life. Sentience and personhood will become the basis of moral concern, regardless of its media. Just as human rights have become independent of race, gender and property, rights will become independent of being a breathing human being. But even as we make this transition, the cryonically preserved are still likely to be considered dead for pragmatic reasons, albeit with gradually increasing rights as technology makes their reanimation increasingly probable. I suggest that it could be acceptable to cryonicists that the frozen continue to be defined as dead if assisted suicide can be legalized. Under a liberal assisted suicide policy cryonicists might be allowed to carry out suspension before a declaration of death, preserving the maximum amount of neural information. The gradual redefinition of life and personal identity in terms of psychological continuity will also have consequences for the legal status of the reanimated. If, due to information loss, the reanimated do not meet a threshold of psychological continuity, they may be considered new persons. Cryonicists may therefore wish to specify ahead of time whether they are still interested in being reanimated if pre-animation assessment suggests that the result will not meet the necessary threshold of continuity. Finally, I touch on the way that neural technology will fundamentally problematize the separate, autonomous self on which liberal democratic values are based, leading to a legal and political Singularity. It is this looming neural Singularity that makes the proposed liberal democratic telos a final stage in humanistic thought, before it is superceded by something radically different. (shrink)

A central question in contemporary ethics and political philosophy concerns which entities have moral status. In this article, I provide a detailed analysis of the view that moral status comes in degrees. I argue that degrees of moral status can be specified along two dimensions: (i) the weight of the reason to protect an entity’s morally significant rights and interests; and/or (ii) the rights and interests that are considered morally significant. And I explore some of the complexities that (...) arise when we link degrees of moral status to the weight of reasons to protect bundles and/or the content and size of these bundles, in particular regarding the attribution of moral status to nonparadigmatic entities (e.g. people with severe cognitive disabilities, children, embryos and foetuses, robots, non-human animals, ecosystems, and rivers). (shrink)

Mirvac chief executive Susan Lloyd-Hurwitz, not one usually associated with sympathy for tenants on the rental market, said earlier this year that ‘renting in Australia is generally a very miserable customer experience…the whole industry is set up to serve the owner not the tenant’ Her observation is basically correct and the solution she offers is to change the current situation where small investors, supported by generous government tax concessions, provide effectively all of the country’s private rental housing. Lloyd-Hurwitz wants Mirvac, (...) a property group currently managing over $15 billion of assets, to become an apartment landlord that would own not one or several properties like small investors currently do but rather thousands of properties to rent out. The proposal is for Mirvac to build apartment blocks and then, instead of selling individual apartments, rent them out on long-term or indefinite leases. This build-to-rent housing scheme would of course make the real estate–investment company a great deal of money. At the same time it would do very little to alleviate the current housing crisis. Such schemes are a nonstarter for people who want the security, stability and independence of home ownership, which is a very Australian aspiration that is increasingly becoming unobtainable not only for those experiencing homelessness, but also for the poor and middle-class. Those of us who care about finding a real solution to the housing crisis would do well to consider how we got into this situation in the first place, and then consider how this might inform what we do next. The following then, traces some of the historical and philosophical roots of our understanding of property and their institutionalisation via various levels of government, especially in the Australian context. (shrink)

Normal interpersonal treatment is often based on the existence of the rational nature of both the agent and the target of the treatment, and their relationship is reciprocal and mutual. However, when the rational person confronts the irrational person, such as the mentally retarded or vegetative person, the reciprocal relationship cannot be maintained because the targeted person loses his or her rational capacity. But this inequality does not deprive the object of action of the right to be treated rationally, because (...) people treat the irrationally disabled not according to the principle of reason but according to the principle of emotion - specifically, the principle of love. The principle of love often disregards the specific conditions of the object of treatment and still treats them reasonably. Thus, the emotional principle has a broader application in interpersonal treatment. (shrink)

The law confers rights on non-human entities, namely nature, machines (AI), and animals. While doing so, the law is either viewed as progressive or sometimes as abstract and ambiguous. Despite the critique, it is undeniable that many of the rights of non-humans have come to solidify in statutory and constitutional rules of different systems. In the context of these developments, the article sheds light on the core justifications for advancing the rights of non-human entities. In addition, it (...) discusses the conditions for the emergence of these rights and the non-binding normative statements adopted by different stakeholders for advocacy. These include the Charter on the Law of the Living (2021), the Toulon Declaration (2019), and the Vienna Manifesto on Digital Humanism (2019), etc. The paper also discusses the relevant theoretical frames, namely post-humanism, digital humanism, and multi-species justice, followed by selective critical views on the subject. (shrink)

The study aims to investigate indigenous communities’ socio-economic impacts as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic and to explore coping strategies to aid in the socio-economic recovery of indigenous communities. -/- The COVID-19 pandemic has had a negative impact on indigenous people's livelihoods, including employment and income, education, the migration of people, health, and natural resources. As a result of COVID-19, the indigenous people have lost their employment and income. The price of fish has decreased, which (...) has lowered their ability to make money from selling fish. Migrant workers returned home because they were concerned about their health security and many lost their jobs. Schools were closed because of COVID-19 and this increased education inequality. Health was impacted because it was difficult to access health services due to restrictions on travel. Returning migrants have pressured forest and fishery resources through increases in the number of fishers, which include the migrants who have returned to their own village. -/- The RGC, rural communities and indigenous communities have taken a number of measures to cope with the issues stemming from COVID-19. Migrant workers tried to look for local employment, used fishing to supplement household consumption and income needs, and often borrowed money from neighbors. Students attempted to use e-learning that was facilitated by the government; teachers visited some students’ homes, and older students supported younger students in their school lessons. In terms of health, home visits were facilitated for pregnant women, and people sought permission to travel to health centers. After giving birth, families were visited and offered a small amount of money to support their basic needs. To deal with natural resources, some coping strategies included smaller groups of patrolling teams, support grants from CSOs for forest and fishery resource patrolling, drone delivery to community fishery committees, and requesting community members to report illegal fishing or logging. And to minimize the spread of COVID-19, a mandatory 14-day quarantine at home was imposed on all people returning to the village. (shrink)

This book manuscript, entitled United Nations Human Rights Ethics: For The Greatest Success of the Greatest Number, critically examines most all major normative ethical theories since Socrates and finds Roman Stoic ethics to be the least deficient. It divides ethical theories into popular ones with little academic support, other popular ones that have had such support, and Kantian ethics standing alone as a philosopher's academic ethical philosophy with limited popular support. It criticizes the appropriation of human rights by (...) the international law profession to the exclusion of moral philosophy, despite the origin of "human rights" in the moral philosopher Rousseau. It blames the inability of moral philosophers to reach a professional consensus on the elements of normative ethics, not the legal profession. It laments both the failure of human rights education to human beings everywhere as requested by the Universal Declaration and the decline in popular support for human rights in favor of nationalism in current history since 2015. It advocates a way of redirecting human right education to people on the ground rather than mainly to law students. Such education has been overtaken by the Rule of Law movement fighting high crimes crimes against humanity unanticipated by the Universal Declaration. It argues for a way for ethicists to get on the same page in teaching elements in ethics and argues forcefully for a positive method for popular human rights education as well as for human rights-based elementary ethical theory. (shrink)

It is crucial for indigenous people living in the Arctic to harvest animals by hunting in a traditional manner, as is the case with such peoples in other parts of the world. Given the nutritional, economic, and cultural importance of hunting for aboriginal people, it seems reasonable to say that they have the moral right to hunt animals. On the other hand, non-aboriginal people are occasionally prohibited from hunting a particular species of animal in many societies. The question (...) then arises: why can aboriginal people, unlike other citizens, have special hunting rights? If indigenous people are to have the right to hunt a particular species that other citizens are denied, then it presents a significant challenge to philosophers to explore the moral grounds that justify such a special right. This exploration is the subject of the current paper. (shrink)

Historically, culture has been treated as an object in international documents. One consequence of this is that cultural rights in international law have been understood as rights of access and consumption. Recently, an alternative conception of culture, and of what cultural rights protect, has emerged from international documents treating indigenous peoples. Within these documents culture is treated as an activity rather than a good. This activity is ascribed to peoples as well as persons, and (...) protecting the capacity of both peoples and persons to engage in culture is taken to be as basic a component of human dignity as are freedom of movement, freedom of speech, and freedom from torture. It is not an accident that this treatment of culture has emerged from international documents treating indigenous peoples. However, the value of this treatment of culture extends beyond the human rights of indigenous peoples. Treating culture as an activity establishes an understanding of what cultural rights protect that clarifies the relationship between cultural rights and other mechanisms for protecting minorities and frames the role of cultural communities in the realization of human dignity as an important physical and political issue, not just a psychological one. For these reasons, the norms regarding cultural rights that are emerging from international documents treating indigenous peoples are a much-needed step forward for peoples' rights more generally. (shrink)

It is often argued that if one holds a liberal political philosophy about individual rights against the state and the community, then one cannot consistently say that a state that violates those principles is owed the right of noninterference. How could the rights of the collective trump the rights of individuals in a liberal view? I believe that this debate calls for more reflection, on the relation between liberalism and individualism. I will sketch a conception of liberalism (...) in which there is nothing awkward about saying that associations, as such, have some moral rights to noninterference. If liberal associationism is compelling in general terms then, if states can be shown to be associations in the relevant respects, then liberalism itself will supply the moral basis for a right of that kind, held by a state or people as such, to nonintervention. (shrink)

ABSTRACT This essay focuses on two underlying presumptions that impinge on the effort of UNESCO to engender universal agreement on a set of bioethical norms: the conception of universality that pervades much of the document, and its disregard of structural inequalities that significantly impact health. Drawing on other UN system documents and recent feminist bioethics scholarship, we argue that the formulation of universal principles should not rely solely on shared ethical values, as the draft document affirms, but also on differences (...) in ethical values that obtain across cultures. UNESCO's earlier work on gender mainstreaming illustrates the necessity of thinking from multiple perspectives in generating universal norms. The declaration asserts the ‘fundamental equality of all human beings in dignity and rights’1 and insists that ‘the highest attainable standard of health is one of the fundamental rights of every human being without distinction of race, religion, political belief, economic or social condition’2 yet it does not explicitly recognize disparities of power and wealth that deny equal dignity and rights to many. Without attention to structural (as opposed to merely accidental) inequities, UNESCO's invocation of rights is so abstract as to be incompatible with its avowed intention. (shrink)

The article is devoted to the issue of history comprehension of the ancient societies in the context of their religious identity. Religion is one of the fundamental elements of civilization idea (“ontological project”); it constructs “universe” that is distinguished by the “laws of nature”, specific only for it. To make “communication” with ancient people maximally authentic, the researcher should not only recognize their right to look at the “world” in its own way, but also accept its “laws”, that means – (...) religion as well. Since the latter is almost impossible, the scientist is deprived of the possibility to comprehend another cultural and historical reality as vivid establishment of human spirit; he/she will see only scheme or fable in it. The proposed in this paper method of “epistemological polytheism”, based on thought experiment, gives the possibility to bypass difficulties of perception and to approximate the understanding of meanings that define the ancient people worldview. (shrink)

I argue that Schopenhauer’s ascription of (moral) rights to animals flows naturally from his distinctive analysis of the concept of a right. In contrast to those who regard rights as fundamental and then cast wrongdoing as a matter of violating rights, he takes wrong (Unrecht) to be the more fundamental notion and defines the concept of a right (Recht) in its terms. He then offers an account of wrongdoing which makes it plausible to suppose that at least (...) many animals can be wronged and thus, by extension, have rights. The result, I argue, is a perspective on the nature of moral rights in general, and the idea of animal rights in particular, that constitutes an important and plausible alternative to the more familiar views advanced by philosophers in recent decades. (shrink)

The Bugis-Makassar indigenous people who live around Mount Bawakaraeng perform a ritual pilgrimage (hajj) to the top of Mount Bawakaraeng (as a sacred space). This ritual is often considered heretical and deviant. These negative assumptions are the result of the monopoly definition of “sacred place” by the world religion paradigm which is only limited to the doctrine of the holy book and is hierarchical-exclusive. Meanwhile, in the indigenous religion paradigm, “sacred place” is closely related tothe surrounding environment (nature) (...) which also gives life to indigenous peoples. The Bugis-Makassar indigenous people who live around Mount Bawakaraeng construct the sacredness of the mountain, not only as a place for religious rituals but also as a guarantor of their life. There were lacking previous researches discussing “sacred place” through the indigenous religion paradigm approach. This research contributes to that lack. This study examines how the indigenous religion paradigm interprets “sacred place”. The research method used in this research is qualitative. This study argues that there is no better way to understand why indigenous people perform rituals on Mount Bawakaraeng than using the indigenous religion paradigm. This study also shows that the “sacred place” associated with Mount Bawakaraeng is a way for the indigenous people who live around the mountain to preserve the nature around them which has enabled them to live and make a living such as accessing water, gathering medicines from nature, and so on. Eventually, with research that provides a better explanation of what a “sacred place” is in the indigenous religion paradigm, negative assumptions about indigenous people who regard a mountain as sacredplace can be better understood. (shrink)

Ideology is always an issue that plays an important role in the life of a society, and that ideology also greatly influences the process of ruling the country of dynasties in the history. Unlike previous dynasties, which lasted only a few decades, the Ly dynasty represents a flourishing period of feudalism lasting more than 200 years. A major event was that King Ly Thanh Tong changed the country name from Dai Co Viet to Dai Viet in 1054, ushering in a (...) brilliant era in Vietnamese history. The ideology of “taking people as the root” of Vietnamese feudal dynasties highlights the unyielding and indomitable fighting spirit for the right to enjoy independence and freedom in the old land of Giao Chi and Cuu Chan, which later was Dai Viet and is now Vietnam. It also reflects the desire for people to live in peace and harmony. This articles focuses on studying the ideology of “taking people as the root” through the reign of kings of the Ly dynasty in Vietnam. From there, the article points out the achievements and limitations in the process of taking care of people, as well as historical lessons for the development of the country today. (shrink)

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

The moral debates continued to see good as merely that which gives happiness or pleasure. \"…it was assumed that what we ought to do is always a function of what it would be good to bring about: action can only be right because it produces good (J.B. Schneewind 'Modern Moral Philosophy'). It was the breaking away from this idea that was perhaps the most important aspect of the works of both Immanuel Kant (1724-1804) and David Hume (1711-1776). Hume's moral theory (...) arose out of his belief that reason alone can never cause action. Desire or feelings cause action. Because reason alone can never cause action, morality is rooted in our feelings. Virtue arises from acting on a desire to help others. Hume's moral theory is therefore a virtue-centered morality rather than the natural-law morality, which saw morality as coming from God. Kant's notion of morality arose from his notion of a moral law; a law applicable to all people at all times, that imposes absolute duties on us. According to Kant, you \"ought to act according to the maxim that is qualified for universal law giving; that is, you ought to act so that the maxim of your action may become a universal law\" (Immanuel Kant 'Lectures of Mr. Kant on the Metaphysics of Morals'). Kant, unlike Hume, saw it as possible to act on reason alone, and whether or not a person acted morally depended on whether he/she had acted on reason alone. The essential difference between Kant and Hume that affected their whole thinking on the matter of morality was each one's belief about the autonomy of the will. Kant saw the will as fully autonomous and therefore needing no external sources for motivation, thus making it possible to act out of reason alone. (shrink)

This paper presents a critique of David Benatar’s arguments on the badness of all human lives. I argue that even if Benatar is right that there is an asymmetry between the good and the bad in life so that each “unit” of bad is indeed more effective than each “unit” of good, lives in which there is a lot of good and only little bad are still overall good. Even if there are more unfulfilled than fulfilled desires in life, a (...) distinction should be drawn between desires to fulfill important goals and desires to fulfill trivial ones, and Benatar’s claim is untrue of the former. Benatar’s claim that we cannot really know that the quality of our own lives is good is problematic, but even if it were true, it would not show that we cannot estimate correctly the quality of other people’s lives, which is the point at issue. (shrink)

In this paper I examine some of the positive epistemic and moral dimensions of anger in Plato’s dialogues. My aim is to show that while Plato is clearly aware that retaliatory anger has negative effects on people’s behavior, the strategy we find in his dialogues is not to eliminate anger altogether; instead, Plato aims to transform or rechannel destructive retaliatory anger into a different, more productive, reformative anger. I argue that this new form of anger plays a crucial positive role (...) in our intellectual and moral development. In relation to our intellectual development, anger is often part of people’s reactions to the Socratic interrogations and it often helps or hinders attempts to acknowledge one’s ignorance and become motivated to learn. For anger to play a positive role in the context of philosophical conversations, Plato suggests its transformation from being an outward-looking and reactive emotion oriented towards retaliation (refutation), into a mostly inward-looking emotion aimed at ones’ own moral and intellectual reform or self-betterment. In relation to our moral progress, anger is strategically linked both to the control of our appetites and to the virtue of courage, so anger is crucial to the psychology of the good citizen. Concretely, anger is needed both for the development of the right opposition to injustice and greed, and for the formation of an adequate sensitivity to justice. (shrink)

Anscombe is usually seen as a critic of “Modern Moral Philosophy.” I attempt a systematic reconstruction and a defense of Anscombe’s positive theory. Anscombe’s metaethics is a hybrid of social constructivism and Aristotelian naturalism. Her three main claims are the following: (1) We cannot trace all duties back to one moral principle; there is more than one source of normativity. (2) Whether I have a certain duty will often be determined by the social practices of my community. For instance, duties (...) imposed by other people’s rights are socially constructed. (3) Whether something constitutes a good, however, will often be determined by human nature—which is not socially constructed. (shrink)

Some bioethicists and political philosophers argue that rich states should restrict the immigration of health workers from poor countries in order to prevent harm to people in these countries. In this essay, I argue that restrictions on the immigration of health workers are unjust, even if this immigration results in bad health outcomes for people in poor countries. I contend that negative duties to refrain from interfering with the occupational liberties of health workers outweighs rich states' positive duties to prevent (...) harm to people in sending countries. Furthermore, I defend this claim against the objection that health workers in poor countries acquire special duties to their compatriots that render them liable to coercive interference. (shrink)

Recent decades of women's rights advocacy have produced numerous regional and international agreements for protecting women's security, including a UN convention that affirms the state's responsibility to protect key gender-specific rights, with no exceptions on the basis of culture or religion. At the same time, however, the focus on universal women's rights has enabled influential feminists in the United States to view women's rights in opposition to culture, and most often in opposition to other people's cultures. (...) Not surprisingly, then, feminists across the global South have criticized the universal-women's-rights agenda. This article reviews representative critical responses to universal-women's-rights advocacy. The author argues that, taken collectively, these critical responses do not reject the possibility of cross-cultural feminist advocacy but they do suggest the need for feminists in the United States and Europe to focus less on transferring rights across the obstacles of culture and more on how they can revise and expand their own understanding of women's rights in response to the struggles of other women, many of whom view women's rights as organic to their own cultures and as connected to broader social struggles. (shrink)

The population ageing of Chinese society is deepening. The elderly care policy is a policy standard formulated by the government to protect the rights and interests of older people in the process of actively coping with the population ageing. It has crucial guiding significance for improving the elderly care services and carrying out pension practice. Since the reform and opening-up, China’s elderly care policy system has gone through three stages of initial construction, development, and transformation, showing a development direction (...) from aid to service, from one to multiple, from unique to general. In general, China has primarily formed a complete framework of the elderly care policy system, the rights, and interests of older people have been strongly guaranteed, the elderly care service industry has developed rapidly, and the quality of elderly care service has been effectively improved. However, in the process of policy development, there are still problems such as difficulty in implementing policies, low effectiveness, vague content, and fragmentation of policies. In the future, it is urgent to establish a complete, scientific, reasonable, and effective elderly care policy system. It should further expand the scope of benefits of old-age care policies, promote the coordinated development of the elderly care policies between urban and rural areas and among regions, strengthen the guiding and leading role of the government, and refine policies on personnel training, so as to form a powerful driving force for old-age care. (shrink)

© The Author 2017. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of The Analysis Trust. All rights reserved. For Permissions, please email: [email protected] Boonin’s The Non-Identity Problem and the Ethics of Future People and Rivka Weinberg’s The Risk of a Lifetime: How, When and Why Procreation May Be Permissible are both important books for those interested in procreative ethics. Each argues for surprising and controversial conclusions: Boonin argues that we should solve the non-identity problem by accepting its apparently unacceptable (...) conclusion that actions cannot be wrong due to their effects on future people whose lives are worth living and who would not exist were the actions not performed; Weinberg argues that there is no non-identity problem, that future children have no interest in existing, but significant interest in avoiding harm and that procreation is, therefore, a much more morally risky business than we tend to think. Even if... (shrink)

In this paper, I explore how theorists might navigate a course between the twin dangers of piety and excess cynicism when thinking critically about state apologies, by focusing on two government apologies to indigenous peoples: namely, those made by the Australian and Canadian Prime Ministers in 2008. Both apologies are notable for several reasons: they were both issued by heads of government, and spoken on record within the space of government: the national parliaments of both countries. Furthermore, in (...) each case, the object of the apology – that which was apologized for – comes closer to disrupting the idea both countries have of themselves, and their image in the global political community, than any previous apologies made by either government. Perhaps as a result, both apologies were surrounded by celebration and controversy alike, and tracing their consequences – even in the short term – is a difficult business. We avoid excessive piety or cynicism, I argue, when we take several things into account. First, apologies have multiple functions: they narrate particular histories of wrongdoing, they express disavowal of that wrongdoing, and they commit to appropriate forms of repair or renewal. Second, the significance and the success of each function must be assessed contextually. Third, when turning to official political apologies, in particular, appropriate assessment of their capacity to disavow or to commit requires that consider apologies both as performance and as political action. While there remain significant questions regarding the practice of political apology – in particular, its relationship to practices of reparation, forgiveness and reconciliation – this approach can provide a framework with which to best consider them. (shrink)

While those who take a "structuralist" approach to racial justice issues are right to call attention to the importance of social practices, laws, etc., they sometimes go too far by suggesting that antiracist efforts ought to focus on changing unjust social systems rather than changing individuals’ minds. We argue that while the “either/or” thinking implied by this framing is intuitive and pervasive, it is misleading and self-undermining. We instead advocate for a “both/and” approach to antiracist moral education that explicitly teaches (...) how social structures influence ideas about race and how ideas about race shape, sustain, and transform social structures. Ideally, antiracist moral education will help people see how social change and moral progress depend on the symbiotic relations between individuals and structures. We articulate a conception of “structure-facing virtue” that exemplifies this hybrid approach to illuminate the pivotal role moral education plays in the fight for racial justice. (shrink)

The original – and often continuing – sin of countries with a settler colonial past is their brutal treatment of indigenous peoples. This challenging legacy continues to confront modern liberal democracies ranging from the USA and Canada to Australia, New Zealand and beyond. Duncan Ivison’s book considers how these states can justly accommodate indigenous populations today. He shows how indigenous movements have gained prominence in the past decade, driving both domestic and international campaigns for change. He (...) examines how the claims made by these movements challenge liberal conceptions of the state, rights, political community, identity and legitimacy. Interweaving a lucid introduction to the debates with his own original argument, he contends that we need to move beyond complaints about the ‘politics of identity’ and towards a more historically and theoretically nuanced liberalism better suited to our times. This book will be a key resource for students and scholars interested in political theory, historic injustice, Indigenous studies and the history of political thought. (shrink)

Temporary workers stand to gain from temporary migration programs, which can also benefit sender and recipient states. Some critics of temporary migration programs, however, argue that failing to extend citizenship rights or a secure pathway to permanent residency to such migrants places them in an unacceptable position of domination with respect to other members of society. We shall argue that access to permanent residency and citizenship rights should not be regarded as a condition for the moral permissibility of (...) such programs. Instead we will focus on the essential protections that must be extended to all migrant workers, irrespective of the length of their migration project. (shrink)

This paper is concerned with the issue of authenticity in Wittgenstein’s philosophy of psychology. In the manuscripts published as Letzte Schriften über die Philosophie der Psychologie – Das Innere und das Äußere, the German term Echtheit is mostly translated as ‘genuineness’. In these manuscripts, Wittgenstein frequently uses the term as referring to a feature of the expression of feeling and emotion: -/- […] I want to say that there is an original genuine expression of pain; that the expression of pain (...) therefore is not equally connected to the pain and to the pretence. (LW II, p. 55) -/- “This weeping gives the impression of being genuine” – so there is such a thing as genuine weeping. […]. (LW II, p. 87) -/- […] Genuineness and falseness are not the only essential characteristics of an expression of feeling. […]. (LW II, p. 90) -/- Wittgenstein contrasts the genuineness of the expressions with the possibility that the expressions are feigned. It seems to me that Wittgenstein is trying to discredit a specific version of the sceptical claim that we do not know other minds. I will refer to it as the sceptical innuendo. The sceptical innuendo says that every expression of feeling and emotion may be pretended. Wittgenstein’s approach to the issue reflects his later interest in the philosophy of psychology and, in particular, the problem of the ascription of psychological states (P-ascriptions) on the basis of someone else’s expression of feeling or emotion. Thus, the attempt to reject the sceptical innuendo is done mainly by means of conceptual and psychological arguments. Let’s look at this short dialogue between the sceptic and Wittgenstein. The former asks „How do you know that someone else is in a certain psychological state?“ Wittgenstein’s first reply is „I know that he is glad because I see him“. But the sceptic cannot be very happy with this reply. The sceptic’s next question is: „How do you know that he is really glad and he is not pretending?“ Wittgenstein’s response is not a direct refutation but is composed of a number of related reasons. These may be summed up in three arguments: -/- (i) A psychological argument from the very nature of the expressions. The expressions are meant to be natural symptoms of someone else’s psychological state (P-state). -/- (ii) A conceptual argument about the nature of pretence. It claims that pretence is a psychological property which is rightly ascribed when an observer has evidence for it. -/- (iii) A psychological argument from genuineness. It claims that we are committed to accept people’s expressions of feeling and emotion as genuine. (shrink)

The case for reparations for grievous acts of historical injustice has been getting a lot of attention lately. But I aim to broaden the discussion in two ways. First, I am not only going to talk about reparations as a means of rectifying the injuries inflicted by slavery and the genocide of indigenous peoples, the theft of their land, and the ongoing ripple effects of these historic wrongs. I am also going to talk about reparations for a wider (...) variety of historical injustices, including, most importantly, the long-term economic oppression of women, and the historical exploitation of labor. Second, I am not going to base my argument on the principle of equality, as most people currently do, but on the principle of liberty, as it is understood by libertarians on both the right and the left, at least as long as they believe what they say they believe. Not because I think that egalitarian demands for reparations are wrong. Rather, my point is that the principle of liberty, which is often raised as a defense to claims based on the principle of equality, actually leads to exactly the same place. Finally, I will discuss one possible form of reparations that has largely been ignored, but which has a special connection to libertarian principles, and I will show how it can provide some real relief without provoking the opposition that society-wide redistributive remedies usually face. (shrink)