This speech analyzes the constitutive relationship between liberty and domination. In it freedom is intended as opposition to power through the concept of liberation. But many forms of power, in spite of fighting liberty, try to present themselves as liberators or as a guarantor of liberty itself. In this way the concept of freedom becomes first with Christianity and then with modernity an instrument for a sophisticated technology of power that has the opposite function. This individualistic notion (...) of liberty is criticized also from an epistemological point of view (complexity theory, chaos theory), and from a multicultural point of view by a brief comparison with holistic Sino-Japanese concept of spontaneity. Complexity theory shows that the subject is always connected to a system in his decision making process. Chaos theory shows that what seems spontaneous is an unpredictable interaction of causes. Finally Sino-Japanese culture has not a traditional concept of freedom, because it focuses the spontaneity of Dao or nature that is conceived as whole necessary for the comprehension of the individuals’ life. The aim of this text is to give just some hints for a “mise en question” of the concept of liberty related to recent problems such as globalization, environmental problems and crisis of modern political systems. (shrink)

This paper discusses the nature of liberty from the point of view of value. Liberty is the highest value for liberals. The root of this liberal view is their particular conception of self. Rawls says 'the self is prior to the ends which are affirmed by it.' This is also the Kantian view of the self: the self is prior to its socially given roles and relationships. Therefore, no end is exempt from possible revision by the self. There (...) is nothing wrong with this basic idea. In fact, all theories agree on free choice of life plan or self-determination. But they disagree about what package of rights and resources best enables people to pursue their own conceptions of the good. However, the liberal view of liberty is based on a metaphysically reasoned idealism. This results in a conception of liberty that is absolute, supreme, and has infinite value compared with other things. Communitarians have several arguments against the liberal view. I consider the following two points to be of utmost import: The liberal view of the self is empty; The liberal view ignores our embeddedness in communal practices. My reasoning is not exactly that of the communitarians. I view 'emptiness' as freedom associated with the substance of an action, which has a value that does not lie in itself. (shrink)

This paper is a section that is included in a philosophy of education doctoral thesis on John Locke’s educational epistemology. In this part, I argue that Locke’s conception of liberty as limited based on the natural law and later the civil laws can shed a light on our understanding of freedom in our educational practice. Lockean call for the balance between limited freedom of individual and limited governance of political authority is theoretically translated at the end of this paper (...) into the call for the practical balance between limited freedom of students and limited governance of teachers. Then this paper will offer logical ground for Locke’s understanding of freedom and its limitation, and suggest a theoretical connection to an argument on epistemic liberty in education. (shrink)

In this paper I will study the theoretical foundations of autonomy and argue that many of the disputes around the principle follow from different understandings of what is "true freedom." My analysis will center on the two notions of liberty introduced by Isaiah Berlin in his "Two Concepts of Liberty" (originally published in 1959). The problem is that there is no unequivocal way to understand the division. In my paper, I will give one interpretation of Berlin's two concepts, (...) and argue that this reading both captures the essence of his essay and explains why there are so many ways of respecting autonomy. (shrink)

In this paper I will study the theoretical foundations of autonomy and argue that many of the disputes around the principle follow from different understandings of what is "true freedom." My analysis will center on the two notions of liberty introduced by Isaiah Berlin in his "Two Concepts of Liberty" (originally published in 1959). The problem is that there is no unequivocal way to understand the division. In my paper, I will give one interpretation of Berlin's two concepts, (...) and argue that this reading both captures the essence of his essay and explains why there are so many ways of respecting autonomy. (shrink)

New Proposals for New Questions Nuevas propuestas para nuevas cuestiones In six sections, the volume deals with different questions of political philosophy. The first section focuses on democratic theories, the second on conceptual debates, discussing topics such as collective rights, the terrorist phenomenon, Libertarianism and conceptions of freedom. In a third section on contemporary debates, perspectives on sovereignity and legitimacy as well as discourse theory versus political liberalism are discussed. The volume also features essays on democracy and law, and in (...) a section entitled oJudicial construction of democracyo papers on constitutional reviews by judges in the Netherlands as well as the construction of democracy in the context of Latin-American democracies. Finally, in the last section the volume deals with the European Constitutional Treatise, analysing the arguments and examining the legitimacy crisis and the main objections displayed against this treatise. Contents I. On Democratic theory / Teoria de la democracia: Eerik Lagerspetz: The Problem of the Common Good in Democratic Theory Sergiy Maksymov: The Kantian Project of the Law Governed Society and New Democracies II. Conceptual debates / Debates conceptuales: Martin Blanchard: Recognition and the Case of Indigenous Reparations: A Habermasian Critique of Habermas Bronik Matwijkiw: The failed Model of Terrorism Susumu Morimura: The Libertarian View of Human Nature Jonathan E. Soeharno: Freedom as Second Nature. Exploring the value of Hegel's concept of Autonomous Personality for Global institutional theory Hashimoto Tsutomu: On the Concept of Positive and Negative Liberty III. Contemporary debates / Debates contemporaneos: Terhi Kiiskinen: Sovereignty Revisited: On Inalienable Constitutional Power Luiz B. Leite Araujo: A Decade of Debate: Discourse Theory versus Political Liberalism IV. Democracy and law / Democracia y derecho: Kenneth E. Himma: Does it really mather whether a Judicial Decision is morally Legitimate? The practical implications of Judicial Illegitimacy in a otherwise Legitimate State Carl Lebeck: Commitments, Rules and the limits of Constitutionalism Oliver W. Lembcke: Exception Rules? Freedom and the Order in a State of Exception Bart van Klink: Does Necessity knows no Laws? Application of Law in a State of Exception Costanza Margiotta: Ideas and Values of the oLegalo State Jiri Priban: Constitution-Making. Morality and Legal Symbolism: on Identity, Temporality and Differentiation of the legal, political and moral Systems V. Judicial construction of democracy / Construccion judicial de la democracia: Maurice Adams: Judging the Constitution: the Third Way. Some reflections on the introduction of Constitutional Review by Judges in The Netherlands Larry Alexander: What is the Problem of Judicial Review? Roberto Corona Copado: Las reglas del juego democratico. La Suprema Corte de Justicia de Mexico en la solucion de controversias entre organos del poder politico desde 1995 Jose de J. Ibarra Cardenas: La construccion judicial de la Democracia en Iberoamerica VI. Deliberation on European constitutional norm / Deliberacion sobre la nueva constitucion europea: Olaf Tans: Deliberating European Constitucional Norms. An Analysis of arguments Carla M. Zoethout: The Court and the Charter or Who Guards the Court of Justice of the EU under the new Constitution?. (shrink)

Human life in contemporary society is extremely complex and there are various external factors that directly affect the realization in the individual ends. In this work I analyze the effects of the global market economy, manifested by a mode of production and distribution of goods and services in the form of a global network of economic relations, which involve people, transnational corporations and political and social institutions in moral sphere of people, affecting their choices and the realization of these choices. (...) Individual freedom can be understand as a freedom to realize our choices in the environment of a global economic market, but it is still problematic in the sense that the choices of goods and services available in this market do not reflect individual choices, but a set of preferences standardized according to the market itself. In this paper I will reflect about the individual freedom in economic globalization pointing from the debate between Pettit and Berlin that social freedom advocated by Republican Petit can be satisfactory for a start. (shrink)

Recent developments in biology have made it possible to acquire more and more precise information concerning our genetic makeup. There are four groups of people who may want to know about our genes. First, we ourselves can have an interest in being aware of own health status. Second, there are people who are genetically linked with us, and who can have an interest in the knowledge. Third, individuals with whom we have contracts and economic arrangements may have an interest in (...) knowing about our genetic makeup. Fourth, society as a whole can have an interest in the composition of our genes. As regards the question of motivation, the term 'should' can be interpreted in three ways. Prudentially speaking, to say that individuals should act in a certain manner is to say that the actions in question promote the long-term self-interest of these individuals. From the viewpoint of morality, we should do what is right and avoid doing what is wrong. When it comes to legal thinking, it is held in most liberal societies that grave other-regarding harm should be the primary justification for the use of coercion and constraint. In the paper, all these aspects are examined in more detail. (shrink)

In this paper, Professor Wiggins explores the relationship between conservative economic theories and major bankruptcy reforms recently enacted by the United States Congress. First, she describes three key components of conservative economic theory as advanced by the Bush Administration and conservative scholars. These include: a strong preference for private ordering over public ordering, the promotion of private property as a means to expand personal freedom and liberty, and the encouragement of individual risk internalization. Next, she describes two theoretical components (...) of the new bankruptcy reforms. These include: a preference for creditor collection over debt relief and the promotion of individual risk internalization. Then Professor Wiggins examines two questions: First, is there meaningful theoretical symmetry between conservative economics and the new bankruptcy law? Second, is there significant operational symmetry between the two? The paper suggests theoretical convergence for two reasons: First, both conservative economics and the new bankruptcy law aim to promote private bargains over administratively adjusted ones. Second, both seek to force individuals to absorb more of the risks of financial decision-making. The paper suggests, however, that at the operational level there exists significant divergence between the aims of conservative economics and the predicted consequences of the new law. Professor Wiggins concludes, among other things, that economic conservatives should pay more rigorous attention to personal bankruptcy policy because operational asymmetry between their theories and the new legislation could blunt their ambitious economic agenda for American consumers. (shrink)

How does a country repair its harm to a vulnerable minority targeted during times of national fear because of race? How did the United States redress its then popular yet unconstitutional WWII incarceration of 120,000 innocent Japanese Americans in desolate barbed wire prisons without charges, hearings, or bona fide evidence of military necessity? In response to a Congressional inquiry, political lobbying, and lawsuits, the Civil Liberties Act of 1988 directed the President to apologize and authorized over one billion dollars in (...) reparations. Congress also created a fund to educate the public about the government’s false assertion of “national security” to restrict civil liberties. Some considered redress a tremendous victory — rewriting history and personal healing. Others questioned reparations for one U.S. group but not others. Japanese American Redress served as a catalyst for reparations movements worldwide. This paper examines its genesis, legal implementation, and apparent effects. It also explores wide-ranging political mobilization and social meanings of redress and “unfinished business”. Reparations cannot be measured by laws alone. Diverse communities must engage contested questions of history, justice, and belonging. Reparations claims face often unforeseen benefits and limitations. The paper concludes with these “lessons learned” to date. (shrink)

DNA identification methods are such an established part of our law enforcement and criminal justice systems it is hard to believe that the technologies were developed as recently as the mid-1980s, and that the databases of law enforcement profiles were established in the 1990s. Although the first databases were limited to the DNA profiles of convicted rapists and murderers, the success of these databases in solving violent crimes provided the impetus for Congress and state legislatures to expand the scope of (...) the databases with little critical examination of each expansion's value to law enforcement or cost to privacy and civil liberties.We are now entering a new stage of DNA forensics, in which successive database expansions over the last decade have raised the possibility of creating a population-wide repository. In addition, new applications of DNA profiling, including familial and low stringency searches, have been added to DNA dragnets, the use of medical samples for forensic analysis, and other measures to create a series of crucial, yet largely unexplored, second-generation legal and policy issues. (shrink)

Comrade Hu Qili, on behalf of the Central Secretariat, has delivered a speech of congratulations at the Fourth Congress of the National Writers' Association. This speech is very important. In it, Comrade Hu Qili stated: "As regards the freedom of [artistic] creation, the Party and state should provide the necessary conditions [for it] and create the necessary environment and atmosphere. At the same time, the writers' own thoughts and feelings and their creative activities as a whole should be in step (...) with the environment of freedom provided by the Party and state." Demands are made on both sides. On the one hand, the Party and state should create the requisite conditions, environment, and atmosphere for literary creation. The civil liberties stipulated in the Constitution include the freedom of creation. For writers who are Party members, the rights of Party members, stipulated by the Party constitution and by the Party's criteria for political life, also include the right of freedom of creation. Many problems still exist in this respect; situations still exist wherein no active measures are being taken to create the conditions, environment, and atmosphere for writers to fully enjoy the freedom of creation due to them. [The authorities] in some localities even obstruct or willfully interfere with the realization of this freedom, or they suppress democracy, resort to persecution and retaliation, or employ crude and simplistic means to deal with writers and with artistic creation—a meticulous form of mental labor that has its own special regularities. The thorough solution of problems of this sort still requires great efforts on our part. On the other hand, Comrade Hu Qili also said in his congratulatory speech that the writers' own thoughts and feelings and their creative activities as a whole should be in step with the environment of freedom provided the Party and state. That is to say, they must remain in step with the Constitution, and where Party-member writers are concerned, they should remain in step with the Party constitution, and they should ensure the implementation of relevant stipulations in the Constitution and Party constitution. Many efforts must be made, whether by Party committees and governments at various levels or by the writers, to promote the healthy development and continued flourishing of socialist literature and art. Hence, the two sentences in Comrade Qili's congratulatory speech address the matter very comprehensively. (shrink)

Times of heightened risk to the physical safety of their citizens inevitably cause democracies to recalibrate their institutions and processes and to reinterpret existing legal norms, with greater emphasis on security, and less on individual liberty, than in "normal" times. This article explores the ways in which the American courts have responded to the tension between civil liberties and national security in times of crises. This history illustrates that courts have rejected both of the two polar positions that characterize (...) public discourse on these issues. Civil libertarians argue that political bodies are too easily gripped by passions, hysteria, and self-interest in these times and that courts therefore ought to play a central role in protecting liberty. Executive unilateralists argue that the qualities that uniquely characterize the executive branch, such as decisiveness, access to information, and efficiency, must become so dominant in these moments that few checks, if any, should constrain executive prerogatives. Oddly, civil libertarians and executive unilateralists find implicit consensus in the view that, in times of war, courts have tended not to play a significant role in overseeing executive power. We argue to the contrary: historically, a significant constitutional tradition of judicial scrutiny in the United States during times of war does exist. But this scrutiny does not take the form of courts making first-order substantive judgments about the content of liberty or other claimed constitutional rights. Nor does it take the form of judicial assessment of how significant or credible the national security claims of the executive branch might be. Instead, judicial oversight has been focused on preserving the institutional structures and processes through which decisionmaking on these issues takes place. The judicial role has centered on the second-order question of whether the right institutional processes have been used to make the decisions at issue, rather than on what the content of the underlying rights ought to be. This approach has historically rejected or resisted most claims of executive unilateralism. When courts have upheld the government's actions, they have done so only after a judgment that Congress, as well as the executive, has endorsed the action. This approach has also rejected the civil libertarian framework. When courts find bilateral institutional endorsement, they have typically accepted the joint political judgment of how liberty and security tradeoffs ought to be made. By focusing on congressional endorsement of emergency measures, the courts have created a broad-based political accountability for the actions taken in the name of national security. We suggest that even if congressional endorsement is more apparent than real in some of these contexts, the judicial maintenance of this structure of rhetorical justifications sustains desirable understandings of political structure. Because the President and Congress draw from different political constituencies in a presidential rather than a parliamentary system, we also raise questions about whether the American judicial approach to these questions should be limited to political systems with separated executive and legislative powers. (shrink)

Spain occupies an area of 504.645 km, and it has a population of 46.5 million people, out of which 4,538,503 are immigrants. Life expectancy is 82.5 years. Its economy grew 1.4 % in 1014. Its current Constitution was enacted in 1978. It has been part of the European Union since 1986. Spain is a social and democratic state subject to the rule of law. Liberty, justice, equality, and political pluralism are the highest values of the legal order of the (...) rule of law. Spain is a constitutional monarchy with a parliamentary government. The legislative power rests upon two chambers: the Congress and Senate. The government exercises the executive powers and the regulatory powers. There have been six presidents since 1978 from all parties, socialist, centrist, and conservative. The judicial power rests upon the courts and tribunals established by law. (shrink)

One of the chief arguments against a constitutional Bill of Rights is that it gives judges too much power. The courts interpret the constitution, and from the highest court there is no appeal (though the Constitution can be amended -- a difficult process). As Americans sometimes say, "The US Constitution is whatever the Supreme Court says it is". In many cases the Supreme Court has interpreted the Bill of Rights by means of wire drawn reasoning, reflecting the judges' political and (...) social views. For a survey of Supreme Court Cases on the Bill of Rights see M. Konvitz, Fundamental Liberties of a Free People . The Supreme Court's power to interpret the constitution has made the appointment of judges a political issue, and in 1937 President Roosevelt sought to appoint additional judges (to "pack" the Court) so as to change the court's attitude (the US Constitution does not fix the number of judges). A President is expected to nominate judges ideologically acceptable to his supporters, and the Congress scrutinises these nominations in a partisan way. See article on George W. Bush's nominations. Since judges hold office for life, a President's nominations may make a long term difference to the interpretation of the constitution. (shrink)

Tocqueville’s gifts as an observer and commentator on American life and democracy are brought to vivid life in this splendid volume. In On Tocqueville, Alan Ryan brilliantly illuminates the observations of the French sociologist Alexis de Tocqueville, who first journeyed to the United States in 1831 and went on to catalog the unique features of the American social contract in his two-volume masterpiece, Democracy in America. Often thought of as the father of "American Exceptionalism," Tocqueville sought to observe the social (...) conditions of emerging political equality in America, "a river that may be channeled but cannot be stopped in its course." In choosing America, he posed a central question of how a moderate, stable, and constitutional government is to be maintained in the wake of a revolution. As a dispassionate visitor, Tocqueville wanted to discover the social, moral, and economic arrangements that made liberty and self-government possible. In doing so, Tocqueville made a number of prescient observations about American life—whether it be the contrast between equality and liberty or Americans’ belief that they all belong to the middle class—that remain as relevant today as when they were first written. While Tocqueville is often praised by both conservatives and liberals, either for his distrust of big government and fondness for decentralized power or for his concern with association and community, both tend to overlook his contempt for the “coarse appearance” of the individual members of Congress as well as his enthusiasm for the brutal nature of our prison system. Alan Ryan examines the often complicated and elusive Democracy in America, tracing the influence of writers such as Rousseau, Montesquieu, and Guizot, and explaining Tocqueville’s original conceptions of equality and individualism within their historical context. In Ryan’s hands, On Tocqueville becomes the perfect introduction and guide to Democracy in America. On Tocqueville: Democracy and America features: • a chronology of Alexis de Tocqueville's life • an introduction and text by Alan Ryan that provides crucial context and cogent analysis • key excerpts from Democracy in America. (shrink)

In my 1990 work – Marxism, Morality, and Social Justice – I argued for four modifications of Rawls’s principles of social justice and rendered a modified version of his theory in four principles, the first of which is the Basic Rights Principle demanding the protection of people’s security and subsistence rights. In both his Political Liberalism and Justice as Fairness Rawls explicitly refers to my version of his theory, clearly accepting three of my four proposed modifications but rejecting the fourth (...) ‐‐ the demand for social and economic democracy – on grounds that it automatically justifies socialism as opposed to capitalism. I argue, contrary to Rawls, that it is not true that this demand automatically picks socialism as the preferablesocioeconomic/political system and that a Social and Economic Democracy Principle demanding workplace and neighborhood democracy is officially neutral between these two systems … although plausible empirical assumptions may, indeed, favor the former. I then significantly elaborate my second version of Rawls’s theory of social justice which is composed of the following principles arranged in a very strong order of priority : Basic Rights Principle, Equal Basic Liberties Principle, Fair Equality of Opportunity Principle, Modified Difference Principle, and Social and Economic DemocracyPrinciple. I argue that this elaborated version of the theory – which I call “Justice as Fair Rights” – is better than either Rawls’s original theory or my previous versions of it. (shrink)

Richard Price, Welsh dissenting minister, actuary, and moral philosopher, is best remembered for A Review of the Principal Questions in Morals, a masterpiece of eighteenth-century British ethical theory that anticipated some twentieth-century theses, such as the naturalistic fallacy. Price is also famous for his joining the American cause in the pamphlet literature that flourished during the American revolution. His pamphlet Observations on the Nature of Civil Liberty, published in London in February 1776, is credited with influencing events that led (...) to the Declaration of Independence and, among other things, induced the Continental Congress in 1778 to grant him American citizenship on condition that he come here to accept it. One of the editors of the present volume, W. Bernard Peach, has already advanced Price's case for a more prominent niche in history with the publication of selections from the pamphlets, which he introduced by means of an insightful interpretative essay. Peach's earlier volume is Richard Price and the Ethical Foundations of the American Revolution. (shrink)

Rousseau is considered to be at once the most modern political thinker of the 18th century and the most ancient in his allegiance to classical republicanism. These essays address the place of liberty in his moral and political philosophy, and the origins, meaning, strength, weakness and significance of his argument.

The absolute characteristic and function of spirit is effective reason, i.e. the self-determining and self-realizing notion itself – Liberty (Hegel). This process is a system of three conclusions of the logical idea of real as absolute spirit.

The absolute characteristic and function of spirit is effective reason, i.e. the self-determining and self-realizing notion itself – Liberty (Hegel). This process is a system of three conclusions of the logical idea of real as absolute spirit.

Cases of akratic behavior are generally seen as paradigmatic depictions of the knowledge-action gap (Darnell et al 2019): we know what we should do, we judge that we should do it, yet we often fail to act according to our knowledge. In recent decades attention has been given to a particular instance of akratic behavior, which is that of “inverse akrasia”, where the agent possesses faulty moral knowledge but fails to act accordingly, thus ending up doing the right thing. In (...) particular, two literary examples are considered as exemplifying this kind of akratic situation: Huckleberry Finn (Arpaly & Schroeder 1999, Arpaly 2000, Hursthouse 1999, Kleist 2009, Holton manuscript) and Neoptolemus as understood by Aristotle (NE; Arpaly & Schroeder 1999). In this paper I will argue that those of Neoptolemus and Huck Finn are not cases of inverse akrasia (Holton manuscript) but are much better explained as instances of what Williams (1993) called “moral incapacity”. In particular, the reason why they fail to act according to their original judgments is due to a lack of motivation to act accordingly, which is grounded in their moral self-identities (Blasi 1984; Vigani 2016). The paper will unfold as follows: I will, first, argue that neither Neoptolemus nor Huck Finn show akratic behavior; thus, they cannot be legitimately labeled as “inverse akratics” (par 1.); then, I will argue that they act the way they do notwithstanding their faulty judgments because they are effectively motivated to do so. Such motivation originates in their moral self-identities and is experienced through the threat of self-betrayal (par 2); finally, I will argue that when an agent is motivated to act in a way that is integral with her moral self-identity, acting otherwise is experienced as something one cannot ultimately do; that is, as a moral incapacity (par 3). This “cannot” is neither a metaphor for an “I shouldn’t”, nor an instance of what has been recently labeled a “moral impossibility” (Caprioglio Panizza 2020, 2021), since it does not arise from the normative force of deontic judgments, and it is neither physically nor psychologically impossible for the agent to act otherwise. (shrink)

In A Theory of Justice, John Rawls presents a method of determining how a just society would allocate its "primary goods"-that is,those things any rational person would desire, such as opportunities, liberties,rights, wealth, and the bases of self-respect. (1) Rawls' method of adopting the"original position" is supposed to yield a "fair" way of distributing such goods.A just society would also have the need (unmet in the above work) to determine how the victims of injustice ought to be compensated, since history (...) suggests that social contracts are likely to be violated. This paper is an attempt to determine the remedial measures that would be selected using Rawls' method. I contend that only two of the three most widely used "affirmative action" policies would be selected from the original position. I also sketch another compensatory policy that would pass Rawls' fairness test. (shrink)

In A Theory of Justice, John Rawls presents a method of determining how a just society would allocate its "primary goods"-that is, those things any rational person would desire, such as opportunities, liberties, rights, wealth, and the bases of self-respect. Rawls' method of adopting the "original position" is supposed to yield a "fair" way of distributing such goods. A just society would also have the need (unmet in the above work) to ascertain how the victims of injustice ought to be (...) compensated, since history strongly suggests that social contracts are likely to be violated. This paper sets forth the remedial measures that would be selected using Rawls' method. I contend that only two of the three most widely used "affirmative action" policies would be selected from the original position. I also sketch another compensatory policy that would pass Rawls' fairness test. (shrink)

There is widespread agreement that the significant threat of terrorist activity and the importance we attach to safety and security demands that terrorists and terrorist activity be stifled as quickly and effectively as possible. However, much dominant thought about the very nature or approach taken to anti-terrorism legislation has gone without critical reflection. Drawing on a recent article by contemporary political philosopher Ronald Dworkin, in this paper I shall examine whether the metaphor of a balance, with safety or security pitted (...) against individual rights or civil liberties, is an appropriate way to understand or approach anti-terrorism legislation. To simplify matters, I shall depart from close consideration of Canada's new anti-terrorism legislation (in particular the new power of preventive arrest which it creates), with the observation that it is reflective of many other countries' legislative response to terrorism. (shrink)

Of the many ideological blind spots that have afflicted US and, to a lesser extent, European, perceptions and analysis of the economic, political and social milieu, none have been more debilitating than the equation of democracy with political liberalism. Thus those who attempt to derive propaganda value from such an equation are vulnerable, as the US government has found, to the rhetorical counter attack that in opposing democratically elected governments, such as that of Hamas or Hugo Chavez, they are not (...) merely being anti-democratic, but are in illiberally opposition to human rights and civil liberties also; an argument quiteindependent of the same charges, emanating more legitimately, from their support of, for example, the Masharraf regime and the Saud dictatorship.Furthermore no less an august body than the Council of Europe has drawn attention to the US government’s inhumane, humiliating, degrading and cruel treatment, including torture, of prisoners, at Guantanamo, and, seemingly even more extreme treatment of prisoners in the supposedly secret or “black” prisons operated both by the CIA, and other countries, where the torture of prisoners, often illegally or extra judicially rendered to them, has been outsourced. In light of this the paper takes up a discussion of the nature of the relationship between Liberalism, Democracy and Torture as it is germane to the current legitimation crisisfacing liberal democracies. (shrink)

Basic justice is needed everywhere, but the traditional criteria of substantive justice, such as liberty, equality, efficiency, or‘justice as fairness’etc., is challenged in contemporary society because of the ruin of the traditional metaphysics and religions. Habermas’s theory of discourse perhaps provides us a way to set a criterion for the post-metaphysical time. Justice is the union of the content and form. However, what his viewpoint on justice emphasizes is only the form of justice; he fails to consider the substance (...) of justice, even for the criterion of substantive justice. In the post-metaphysical society of pluralized values, we can obtain the criterion of substantive justice from his theory of justice. This criterion is the discursive consensus. (shrink)

We study the two model-theoretic concepts of weak saturation and weak amalgamation property in the context of accessible categories. We relate these two concepts providing sufficient conditions for existence and uniqueness of weakly saturated objects of an accessible category ${\cal K}$. We discuss the implications of this fact in classical model theory.

The paper describes the modern morality as conditional morality, represented by theories of social contract and utilitarianism. They conditionally impose the moral duties on people, if the other people fulfil moral duties, too. As a result they justify the use of the political power to compel the citizens to public morality, leaving a certain margin of freedom to individual morality in the private domain which is fairly inconsequential for collective life. Public morality, on the other hand, is rigorously regulated and (...) precisely defined by statutory laws and political authority. An individual citizen thus becomes incapacitated in the public domain: reduced to accepting decisions adopted by the ruling group, perhaps also electing them once per several years. Unconditional morality, as represented by evangelical or Kant’s ethics, imposes rights, obligations and moral duties on individuals, requires compliance with them regardless of other individuals or groups. It may never constitute a foundation justifying violence, use of force, abuse of power, deception or restriction of liberty. Within this framework, such actions are considered immoral, irrespective of whether they occur in the institutionalized form or otherwise. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:594 Feminist Studies 41, no. 3. © 2015 by Feminist Studies, Inc. Liberty Walther Barnes and Christin L. Munsch The Paradoxical Privilege of Men and Masculinity in Institutional Review Boards In the 1939 Hollywood classic The Wizard of Oz, the great wizard admonishes Dorothy and her friends to “pay no attention to that man behind the curtain.” Dorothy and company turn to see a man standing before a (...) large control panel operating the smoke, holographic image, and voice of the great wizard. Realizing he has been discovered, the man gives up manipulating the switches and the nebulous wizard vanishes.1 Hegemonic masculinity is analogous to the “all-powerful” wizard.2 In order to maintain its grandeur, power, and mystique, the mechanics of masculine ideology—as well as the social actors who participate in its reproduction —must be kept hidden.3 A crucial aim of feminist research is to 1. The Wizard of Oz, directed by Victor Fleming (Culver City, CA: Metro-Goldwyn -Mayer, 1939). 2. See R. W. Connell, Masculinities: Knowledge, Power and Social Change (Berkeley : University of California Press, 1995); R. W. Connell and James W. Messerschmidt, “Hegemonic Masculinity: Rethinking the Concept,” Gender & Society 19 (2005): 829–61; Michael Kaufman, “Me, Feminism, and Men’s Contradictory Experiences of Power,” in Theorizing Masculinities, ed. Harry Brod and Michael Kaufman (Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications, 1994), 142– 63; and Michael S. Kimmel, “Masculinity as Homophobia: Fear, Shame, and Silence in the Construction of Gender Identity” in Brod and Kaufman, Theorizing Masculinities, 119–42. 3. Michael Flood and Bob Pease, “Undoing Men’s Privilege and Advancing Gender Equality in Public Sector Institutions,” Policy and Society 24, no. 4 (2005): 119–38; Allan G. Johnson, The Gender Knot: Unraveling Liberty Walther Barnes and Christin L. Munsch 595 pull back the curtain on men’s lives and masculine institutions in order to demystify socially constructed masculinities, particularly in their most powerful forms. As early feminist scholars note, male privilege renders women’s lives invisible.4 But male privilege renders aspects of men’s lives invisible, too. In this article we highlight how institutional review boards (IRBs) in universities and hospitals erect barriers to research that render particular aspects of men’s lives invisible. We draw on our experiences of submitting ten applications for a series of methodologically diverse studies of masculinity to eight IRBs. First, we argue that, despite their original function of protecting subordinated groups, IRBs are gendered institutions in which members base their decisions on culturally dominant, normative images of women and men. We show how this results in the stringent protection of male research participants, the safeguarding of participants’ personal masculinity, and the shielding of men’s lives from social inquiry. Second, we argue that IRBs are gendering institutions. Our experiences reveal how the privileging and protection of masculinity results in mandatory protocol modifications that idealize hegemonic masculinity. These modifications require researcher-participant interactions that socialize men to engage in gender “appropriate” behavior and reify gendered expectations. Third, our experiences reveal the ways in which IRBs protect the institution itself and privilege the universities, hospitals, and (predominantly male) medical doctors they represent. Consequently, the ways they reproduce social inequality remain impervious to academic inquiry. IRBS AS GENDERED AND GENDERING INSTITUTIONS Every university and hospital in the United States where human research is conducted houses a human research protections program, or IRB, to oversee academic research. Universities with hospitals typically our Patriarchal Legacy (Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press, 1997); Michael Kimmel, Guyland: The Perilous World Where Boys Become Men (New York: Harper Collins, 2008). 4. Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, trans. Howard M. Parshley (New York: Knopf, 1951); Sandra Harding, The Science Question in Feminism (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1986); Dorothy E. Smith, “Women’s Perspective as a Radical Critique of Sociology,” in Feminist Perspectives on Social Research, ed. Sharlene N. Hesse-Biber and Michelle L. Yaiser (New York: Oxford University Press, 2004), 84–96. 596 Liberty Walther Barnes and Christin L. Munsch maintain two types of IRB committees: a social-behavioral committee that oversees studies in the social sciences, and a biomedical committee to supervise clinical drug trials, experimental medical treatments, and tissue and blood research. The duty of the... (shrink)

The central thesis of Spinoza’s Theological-Political Treatise is that the state not only can permit freedom of philosophizing without endangering piety or the public peace, but that it must do so if it is not to destroy piety and the public peace. Spinoza’s argument is not limited to religious toleration, but is an argument for freedom of philosophizing generally. Nevertheless, freedom of philosophizing in religion is the central case. In making such an argument, he contributed greatly toward the transformation of (...) Western culture with respect to toleration and religious liberty. As an historian, I want to understand how this transformation came about and what role Spinoza played in it. As a philosopher, I also want to know whether any of the arguments philosophers made in favor of religious toleration deserved to be effective in bringing about this transformation. (shrink)

The responsibility of the subjects is the most important basis of the social life. Recurrences of irresponsible behaviour on the all levels of the modern society do the problem of the purposeful cultivation of the liberty and the morality to be more actual nowadays. The liberty and the morality realized by any personality become the prerequisites of the responsibility that are so necessary for the society. Became the true reality the responsibility provides the sustainable reproduction of all system (...) of feelings, convictions and actions and raises the liberty to the higher and more deliberate stage. Responding to the changes of the time the philosophy has to be urged to clarify the idea of the closing of the social anthropology, aksiologiya and ethics. (shrink)

While both men and women work out in contemporary gyms, popular conceptions of the gym as a masculine institution continue. The authors examine organizational processes within a chain of women-only gyms to explore whether and how these processes have feminized the historically masculine gym. They examine the physical setting and equipment, the established procedures for customers' use of machines, and the interactional styles of employees as components of the organization's structure. They argue that the organization's use of technology and labor (...) mobilizes customers' participation in a feminized organizational culture of nonjudgmental and noncompetitive sociability. Organizational processes create a context that fosters gendered interactions and identities among customers. The organizational context calls gendered behavior into play such that the performance is naturalized. The processes outlined may occur in other cases of organizational recoding and suggest ways that transposable gender practices may change the gender coding of an institution yet leave gender hierarchies intact. (shrink)

This paper focuses on the nature of cultural group rights in relation to individual rights. The recent liberal acceptance that minority cultures should have a collective power over their cultural matters has been challenged by other liberals on the grounds that cultural rights as group rights cannot be reconciled with the basic moral and political principles of liberalism which are derived from individual liberties and rights. Through tackling some liberal arguments against group rights, we reject the view that regards group (...) rights as normatively and practically incompatible with individual rights, and argue that group rights can be defended and justified on the ground that the interests and values protected through them are the shared interests and values of individuals. Thus, whether they are exercised individually or collectively, justifications of all group rights are derived from the interests and values that individuals have as members of the group. Like any other rights, cultural group rights also have some limitations. That is, the rights of a group to preserve its culture are limited by individual human rights, the rights of other relevant groups and the state. (shrink)

In our essay we try to define the main lines of the Socratic thought and activity that offer subjects for reflection, in order to make a better choice of what could help us lead a better life in the contemporary world, such as, for example, modesty and intellectual honesty, detachment from unlimited material enrichment, liberty and ethical responsibility, respect of all differences, critical dialogue and cooperation, active participation by everyone in political well-being, and courageous but non-violent denunciation of every (...) injustice. (shrink)