Arts and Humanities Commons^™

The Property Question.Pdf, William A. Edmundson

William A. Edmundson

The Property Question.Pdf, William A. Edmundson

William A. Edmundson

The Structural Injustice Of Forced Migration And The Failings Of Normative Theory, David Ingram

David Ingram

I propose to criticize two strands of argument - contractarian and utilitarian – that liberals have put forth in defense of economic coercion, based on the notion of justifiable paternalism. To illustrate my argument, I appeal to the example of forced labor migration, driven by the exigencies of market forces. In particular, I argue that the forced migration of a special subset of unemployed workers lacking other means of subsistence (economic refugees) cannot be redeemed paternalistically as freedom or welfare enhancing in the long run. I further argue that contractarian and utilitarian approaches are normatively incapable of appreciating this fact …

Of Sweatshops And Human Subsistence: Habermas On Human Rights, David Ingram

David Ingram

In this paper I argue that the discourse theoretic account of human rights defended by Jürgen Habermas contains a fruitful tension that is obscured by its dominant tendency to identify rights with legal claims. This weakness in Habermas’s account becomes manifest when we examine how sweatshops diminish the secure enjoyment of subsistence, which Habermas himself (in recognition of the UDHR) recognizes as a human right. Discourse theories of human rights are unique in tying the legitimacy of human rights to democratic deliberation and consensus. So construed, their specific meaning and force is the outcome of historical political struggle. However, unlike …

Poverty Knowledge, Coercion, And Social Rights: A Discourse Ethical Contribution To Social Epistemology, David Ingram

David Ingram

In today’s America the persistence of crushing poverty in the midst of staggering affluence no longer incites the righteous jeremiads it once did. Resigned acceptance of this paradox is fueled by a sense that poverty lies beyond the moral and technical scope of government remediation. The failure of experts to reach agreement on the causes of poverty merely exacerbates our despair. Are the causes internal to the poor – reflecting their more or less voluntary choices? Or do they emanate from structures beyond their control (but perhaps amenable to government remediation)? If both of these explanations are true (as I …

Webs Of Faith As A Source Of Reasonable Disagreement, Gregory Brazeal

Gregory Brazeal

Contemporary political theorists and philosophers of epistemology and religion have often drawn attention to the problem of reasonable disagreement. The idea that deliberators may reasonably persist in a disagreement even under ideal deliberative conditions and even over the long term poses a challenge to the common assumption that rationality should lead to consensus. This essay proposes a previously unrecognized source of reasonable disagreement, based on the notion that an individual's beliefs are rationally related to one another in a fabric of sentences or web of beliefs. The essay argues that an individual's beliefs may not form a single, seamless web, …

Review Of Kenneth Baynes, The Normative Grounds Of Social Criticism: Kant, Rawls, And Habermas (1992), Harry Van Der Linden

Harry van der Linden

Baynes's two main objectives are to show that Kant, Rawls, and Habermas share the view that "the idea of an agreement among free and equal persons [i. e., autonomous persons] ... constitutes the normative ground of social criticism" (p. 8), and that this "constructivist" view is more adequately developed and defended with each successive theorist. The study, however, goes beyond these aims and can often fruitfully be read as a comparative study of Rawls and Habermas.

Rawls Különbözeti Elve (Rawls’ Difference Principle), Attila Tanyi

Attila Tanyi

This paper deals with the third and most disputed principle of John Rawls’s theory of justice: the so-called difference principle. My reasoning has three parts. I first present and examine the principle. My investigation is driven by three questions: what considerations lead Rawls to the acceptance of the principle; what the principle’s relation to effectiveness is; and what and how much the principle demands. A proper understanding of the principle permits me to spend the second half of the paper with exploring the difficulties the principle encounters. I first discuss four well-known objections and argue that all of them, partly …

“La Teoría Post-Rawlsiana De La Desobediencia Civil” (Civil Disobedience After Rawls), Andrés Henao Castro

Andrés Fabián Henao-Castro

No abstract provided.

Decent Democratic Centralism, Stephen C. Angle

Stephen C. Angle

The Scope Of Tolerance And Its Moral Reasoning, Raphael Cohen-Almagor

raphael cohen-almagor

This essay aims to consider the scope of tolerance and its moral reasoning. I first discuss the reluctance of prominent philosophers to prescribe boundaries to liberty and tolerance. I then focus attention on Rawls’ discussion on tolerance, which I find quite disappointing, yet argue that his line of reasoning on the question of tolerating the intolerant contributed to the very fashionable consequentialist approach. After criticizing the consequentialist reasoning I introduce an alternative approach: the principled reasoning. I explain that much of the liberal reasoning is inspired by the fear of sliding down the slippery slope, and finally turn to discuss …

Immigration And Social Justice, David Ingram

David Ingram

Piac És Igazságosság? (Market And Justice?), Attila Tanyi

Attila Tanyi

The aim of the book is to uncover the relation between market and justice through the critical examination of the work of Friedrich Hayek. The book argues for the following thesis: the institution of free market is not the only candidate social system; substantial, not merely formal distributive justice must become the central virtue of our social institutions. Notwithstanding its achievements and virtues, the Hayekian theory makes a simple mistake by equivocating possible social systems, dividing them into two groups. One is the world of liberty and free market where people follow the general and abstract rules of conduct, accepting …

Relativism, Reflective Equilibrium, And Justice, Justin Schwartz

Justin Schwartz

THIS PAPER IS THE CO-WINNER OF THE FRED BERGER PRIZE IN PHILOSOPHY OF LAW FOR THE 1999 AMERICAN PHILOSOPHICAL ASSOCIATION FOR THE BEST PUBLISHED PAPER IN THE PREVIOUS TWO YEARS.

The conflict between liberal legal theory and critical legal studies (CLS) is often framed as a matter of whether there is a theory of justice that the law should embody which all rational people could or must accept. In a divided society, the CLS critique of this view is overwhelming: there is no such justice that can command universal assent. But the liberal critique of CLS, that it degenerates into …

The Empty Circles Of Liberal Justification, Pierre Schlag

Pierre Schlag

No abstract provided.