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Colb And Dorf On Abortion And Animal Rights, Mylan Engel Jr. 2017 Northern Illinois University

Colb And Dorf On Abortion And Animal Rights, Mylan Engel Jr.

Between the Species

In their recent book, Sherry Colb and Michael Dorf defend the following ethical theses: (1) sentience is sufficient for possessing the right not to be harmed and the right not to be killed; (2) killing sentient animals for food is almost always seriously wrong; (3) aborting pre-sentient fetuses raises no moral concerns at all; and (4) aborting sentient fetuses is wrong absent a reason weighty enough to justify killing the fetus. They also discuss strategies and tactics for activists: They oppose the use of graphic images by activists on tactical grounds, and they categorically oppose the use of violence by …


Why Liberal Tolerance, Rightly Understood, Is Coherent And Defensible, William A. Galston 2017 University of San Diego

Why Liberal Tolerance, Rightly Understood, Is Coherent And Defensible, William A. Galston

San Diego Law Review

One of the most familiar criticisms of liberal democracy is that it cannot defend itself against its enemies while remaining true to its principles. This criticism is odd as well as unjust because theorists regarded as arch-liberals offer compelling reasons to reject it. . .


An Unjust Dogma: Why A Special Right To Religion Wrongly Discriminates Against Non-Religious Worldviews, Kenneth Einar Himma 2017 University of San Diego

An Unjust Dogma: Why A Special Right To Religion Wrongly Discriminates Against Non-Religious Worldviews, Kenneth Einar Himma

San Diego Law Review

In this Article, I will argue that a special right to religious freedom is not morally warranted, and that hence such a right illicitly discriminates against non-religious worldviews. The principal argument here is that there is no adequate reason to think that religious worldviews implicate any interests distinct from those implicated by non-religious worldviews. While it is certainly true that religious worldviews warrant, as a matter of political morality, all the protections that non-religious worldviews receive, there is good reason to question what seems to have become a dogma among Western nations—namely, that religious worldviews deserve special protection....


Unparadoxical Liberalism, Andrew Koppelman 2017 University of San Diego

Unparadoxical Liberalism, Andrew Koppelman

San Diego Law Review

Larry Alexander argues that liberalism is internally incoherent because it contains a paradox: it is committed to toleration, but if it tolerates illiberal ideas and practices it betrays itself. The paradox does not exist. Liberalism aims to tolerate as much diversity as it can consistent with the preservation of the liberal project. It has distinctive reasons to tolerate illiberal ideas, since it aims to be adopted by the citizenry consciously and with a full understanding of the alternatives. How much diversity can, in practice, be tolerated is a contingent question dependent on the facts of any particular time and place. …


A Transcendental Argument For Liberalism, Samuel C. Rickless 2017 University of San Diego

A Transcendental Argument For Liberalism, Samuel C. Rickless

San Diego Law Review

Liberalism is the view that the state should not, except on mutually justifiable grounds, coerce a society’s citizens to adopt, support, or follow some particular comprehensive conception of the good. So understood, a liberal state, by definition, permits each citizen a zone of freedom delimited by her own understanding of the ingredients of a happy life. Liberalism, as a normative theory governing state–citizen (and, indirectly, citizen–citizen) relations, is opposed by various forms of totalitarianism, including theocracy and communism. A theocratic state is one that imposes a particular religious form of life on its citizens, and thereby restricts their freedom to …


Liberalism And Tolerance, William Voegeli 2017 University of San Diego

Liberalism And Tolerance, William Voegeli

San Diego Law Review

I began by raising the possibility that tolerance is minor issue, having no bearing on whether liberalism works out or makes sense. I conclude by noting that it is a central question, for liberalism and politics in general. Tolerance is important because intolerance is important. “Anything Goes” is one of Cole Porter’s best songs, but is unlikely to become any country’s national anthem. The questions of what doesn’t go, and why, and how to prevent it from going any further, explain a great deal about the political ideologies of our era, as well as the premises on which social orders …


The Machiavellian Case Against Legal Moralism, Luis Pereira Coutinho 2017 University of San Diego

The Machiavellian Case Against Legal Moralism, Luis Pereira Coutinho

San Diego Law Review

In this paper, “legal moralism” is to be understood in a wide sense as the promotion, outright coercive, or otherwise, of conceptions of the good by the state—assuming in a Kelsenian way that any state action means legal action. Under consideration is the possibility of excluding the good from the bounds of the law under a theory of political right of Machiavellian origin. Anticipating the conclusion, this paper will seek to verify whether the Machiavellian case is the only one excluding the good from the bounds of the law in a coherent manner, regardless of its merits and the inherent …


Alexander On Koppelman On Alexander, Larry Alexander 2017 University of San Diego

Alexander On Koppelman On Alexander, Larry Alexander

San Diego Law Review

In my book Is There a Right of Freedom of Expression?, I argued that liberalism, to the extent it is defined by a commitment to freedom of illiberal speech, illiberal religions, and illiberal associations, is at its core paradoxical. For, I argued, if liberalism is the correct political philosophy, it must regard illiberal thought and its manifestations in action and policy as fundamentally mistaken. And these mistaken illiberal views cannot be deemed by the liberal to have value as views, except perhaps for whatever instructive value they might have in getting people to see the truth of liberalism. When such …


Legal Moralism Revisited, Michael S. Moore 2017 University of San Diego

Legal Moralism Revisited, Michael S. Moore

San Diego Law Review

I shall use this occasion mostly to clarify what the legal moralist theory of criminal legislation proclaims to be the proper limits on the reach of criminalization of behavior. But preliminarily, here in this Introduction, I want to remind readers of how the principle is motivated. First, recall what a principle of criminal legislation is. It consists of two closely related items. First of all, it is a principle that sets forth the proper aims of a legislature when that legislature drafts the prohibitions and requirements that constitute the “special part” of the substantive criminal law. It is, second, a …


Dignity, Rights, And The Role Of Consent In German Criminal Law, Kapsaski Ifigeneia 2017 University of San Diego

Dignity, Rights, And The Role Of Consent In German Criminal Law, Kapsaski Ifigeneia

San Diego Law Review

This Article addresses the issue of protecting human dignity as a ground and a threshold for criminalization. Human dignity can be either a limit to the scope of criminal law or a reason that justifies criminalization. This inquiry will be conducted through the referral to two German cases regarding consensual conduct. The first concerns consensual maiming and killing of a person and the second concerns consensual incest between two adult siblings. This Article does not further examine questions on the ontology of consent; neither does it examine questions regarding validity of consent as rational and voluntary. The issue discussed here …


Revisiting The Hart-Devlin Debate: At The Periphery And By The Numbers, James Allan 2017 University of San Diego

Revisiting The Hart-Devlin Debate: At The Periphery And By The Numbers, James Allan

San Diego Law Review

We are not yet at the stage when trying to say something new about the well-known Hart-Devlin debate is like attempting to give a novel take on the Old Testament, or on William Shakespeare’s plays—or life for that matter—or even on the music of The Beatles. But then again those analogies are not wholly misplaced, at least not within legal philosophical circles in the common law world. So I was tempted to try my hand at some other topic falling under the aegis of “legal moralism” and leave Professor Hart and Lord Justice Devlin well enough alone. However, for good …


The Harm Principle, Legal Moralism, And The "Disintegration Thesis": On Lord Devlin Being Unable To Keep Playing The Smuggling Game, Miguel Nogueira de Brito 2017 University of San Diego

The Harm Principle, Legal Moralism, And The "Disintegration Thesis": On Lord Devlin Being Unable To Keep Playing The Smuggling Game, Miguel Nogueira De Brito

San Diego Law Review

The topic of the legal enforcement of morals, understood as the “question of the legitimacy of ‘vice crimes’ or ‘victimless crimes,’” is a special facet of the more general issue of the limits of the law. It is the subject of the long-standing debate as to whether law—all law—can be used as a support for moral conceptions as such, or, more generally, whether there are limits on the use of law to enforce morality, as when it is claimed that the law must remain neutral as between different views of the good, be they religious or otherwise. Whether understood in …


The Porn Myth: Exposing The Myth Behind The Fantasy Of Pornography By Matt Fradd, Donald L. Hilton Jr. 2017 University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio, USA

The Porn Myth: Exposing The Myth Behind The Fantasy Of Pornography By Matt Fradd, Donald L. Hilton Jr.

Dignity: A Journal of Analysis of Exploitation and Violence

No abstract provided.


Ethical Reform In Bangladesh’S Ready Made Garment Industry: Building On The Alliance And The Accord, Serena Newhall 2017 Kennesaw State University

Ethical Reform In Bangladesh’S Ready Made Garment Industry: Building On The Alliance And The Accord, Serena Newhall

Siegel Institute Ethics Research Scholars

The Bangladeshi garment production industry was examined in terms of current building structure and fire safety mechanisms in place, and the opportunity to build upon those standards in order to strategically address growing market demands for ethically produced garments within the ready-made garment (RMG) industry. In determining whether Bangladesh’s RMG industry could pay above the country’s low minimum wage, and still remain competitive, a linear regression model was used to better understand and quantify the price sensitivity of the country’s RMG export products.


Historical Analysis: Textile And Apparel Trade, Zachary Harris 2017 Kennesaw State University

Historical Analysis: Textile And Apparel Trade, Zachary Harris

Siegel Institute Ethics Research Scholars

This paper is an analysis of published articles that discuss the history of the Multi-Fiber Arrangement (MFA) to the Post-Agreement on Textile and Clothing (ATC) as well as evaluates the different dynamics and relationships formed by these agreements. The articles primarily focus on different aspects of the agreements and specific countries affected. Throughout all of the articles, industrialized countries and developed countries are interchangeable. A few articles, for example Growing Protectionism (1985), use the term Multi-Fibre Agreement (MFA), which ­­is the same as Multi-Fiber Arrangement. The term European Union (EU) and European Community (EC) are also interchangeable. This paper examines …


The Evil Of Banality: On The Life And Death Importance Of Thinking By Elizabeth Minnich, Kathleen Barry 2017 Professor Emerita, Pennsylvania State University

The Evil Of Banality: On The Life And Death Importance Of Thinking By Elizabeth Minnich, Kathleen Barry

Dignity: A Journal of Analysis of Exploitation and Violence

No abstract provided.


Thresholds Of Atrocity: Liberal Violence And The Politics Of Moral Vision, Kristofer J. Petersen-Overton 2017 CUNY Graduate Center

Thresholds Of Atrocity: Liberal Violence And The Politics Of Moral Vision, Kristofer J. Petersen-Overton

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

All political communities set normative limits to the acceptable use of force. A threshold of atrocity indicates the point at which acceptable violence meets the boundaries of the unacceptable. In liberal democratic states such norms are ostensibly set higher. Hence, there is a theoretical threshold to the modern state’s ability to act in ways that violate norms it claims to uphold. Paradoxically, thresholds of atrocity are almost never breached and unconscionable violence occurs regularly. This study seeks to explain the persistence of extreme violence by developing a theory of atrocity grounded in moral vision. Liberal democratic nation-states are able to …


Jobs For Justice(S): Corruption In The Supreme Court Of India, Madhav S. ANEY, Shubhankar DAM, Giovanni KO 2017 Singapore Management University

Jobs For Justice(S): Corruption In The Supreme Court Of India, Madhav S. Aney, Shubhankar Dam, Giovanni Ko

Research Collection School Of Economics

We investigate whether judicial decisions are affected by career concerns of judges byanalysing two questions: Do judges respond to pandering incentives by ruling in favourof the government in the hope of receiving jobs after retiring from the Court? Does thegovernment actually reward judges who ruled in its favour with prestigious jobs? To answerthese questions we construct a dataset of all Supreme Court of India cases involving thegovernment from 1999 till 2014, with an indicator for whether the decision was in its favouror not. We find that pandering incentives have a causal effect on judicial decision-making.The exposure of a judge to …


Decidedly Uncertain, Sophia I. Varosy 2017 CUNY Graduate Center

Decidedly Uncertain, Sophia I. Varosy

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

My capstone project is meant to reflect the ideas I’ve been exposed to and the ways in which they have, as a consequence, influenced my life; the ways, I suppose, I can apply them. Over the course, or courses (literally), of my time spent at The CUNY Graduate Center, I felt (mostly) enthusiastic about the ideas and philosophies I was growing to at-least-marginally understand. However, as time passed I became increasingly more unsettled about my position as an “academic.” In other words, I found that I was moved and motivated to increase my understanding of things, but never did I …


A Normative Account Of Political Representation, Kenneth R. Courtney 2017 CUNY Graduate Center

A Normative Account Of Political Representation, Kenneth R. Courtney

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The phrase “political obligation” has rarely suggested for theorists what it might for the person in the street, namely, the kinds and magnitudes of obligations held by our political representatives, as opposed to obligations held by citizens. In a related way, despite the existence of widespread expectations of political representatives, a theoretical account of these expectations and their normative import are subjects that have received surprisingly little attention. In what follows I develop an account of obligations and duties specifically belonging to political representatives. I argue that the relevant obligations derive in the first instance not from particular political or …


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