Liberal defences of nationalism have become prevalent since the mid-1980 s. Curiously, they have largely neglected the fact that nationalism is primarily about land. Should liberals throw up their hands in despair when confronting conflicting claims stemming from incommensurable national narratives and holy texts? Should they dismiss conflicting demands that stem solely from particular cultures, religions and mythologies in favour of a supposedly neutral set of guidelines? Does history matter? Should ancient injustices interest us today? Should we care who reached (...) the territory first and who were its prior inhabitants? Should principles of utility play a part in resolving territorial disputes? Was John Locke right to argue that the utilisation of land counts in favour of its acquisition? And should Western style settlement projects work in favour or against a nation s territorial demands? When and how should principles of equality and equal distribution come into play? Territorial Rights examines the generic types of territorial claims customarily put forward by national groups as justification for their territorial demands, within the framework of what has come to be known as liberal nationalism . The final outcome is a multifarious theory on the ethics of territorial boundaries that supplies a workable set of guidelines for evaluating territorial disputes from a liberal-national perspective, and offers a common ground for discussion (including disagreement) and for the mediation of claims. (shrink)

The conduct of hostilities is very bad for the environment, yet relatively little attention has been focused on environmental military ethics by just war theorists and revisionist philosophers of war. Contemporary ecological concerns pose significant challenges to jus in bello. I begin by briefly surveying existing literature on environmental justice during wartime. While these jus in bello environmental issues have been addressed only sparsely by just war theorists, environmental jus ad bellum has rarely been tackled within JWT or the morality (...) of war. In line with the theme of this special issue, I focus my discussion of war and the natural environment primarily on the jus ad bellum level. I set out with the presumption against the use of force, and its possible exceptions. The principal question raised is whether environmental harm can trigger a new justification for war. Beyond just cause, I consider what might be a proportionate response to “environmental aggression,” or negligent harm to nature. The use of force is clearly justified in response to military attacks, against the natural environment or otherwise. Where harm to nature or its inhabitants are not caused by military aggression, just war theory criteria point in favor of responding via measures short of war. Finally, I suggest that responding by means that are not themselves harmful to nature serves to fulfill the further jus ad bellum criterion of “right intention.”. (shrink)

This essay sets out from the strain of liberal political thought which, in recent years, has come to the defence of nationalism, and raises some preliminary thoughts concerning its appropriate application to the very concrete issue of national territorial rights. It asks what type of justifications could be morally acceptable to “liberal nationalism” for the acquisition and holding of territory. To this end, the paper takes a brief look at five central arguments for territorial entitlement which have become predominant in (...) political debates. These are: so called “historical rights” to territory; demands for territorial restitution; efficiency arguments; claims of entitlement to territories settled by co‐nationals; and lastly, territorial demands based on claims of equal entitlement to the earth's natural resources. These popular arguments point towards several potential criteria for the arbitration of territorial conflicts. The paper attempts to outline the morally relevant guidelines for thinking about territorial issues that flow from, or are at least consistent with, applying liberal values to the national phenomenon. It places the territorial aspect of nationalism at the head of the liberal nationalist agenda and offers an initial common ground for discussion (including disagreement) among liberals, and for the mediation of claims between nations. (shrink)

-This book offers a renewed defense of traditional just war theory and considers its application to certain highly controversial contemporary cases, particularly in the Middle East. The first part of the book addresses and responds to the central theoretical criticisms levelled at traditional just war theory. It offers a detailed defense of civilian immunity, the moral equality of soldiers and the related dichotomy between jus ad bellum and jus in bello, and argues that these principles taken together amount to a (...) morally coherent ethics of war. In this sense this project is traditional. In another sense, however, it is highly relevant to the modern world. While the first part of the book defends the just war tradition against its revisionist critics, the second part applies it to an array of timely issues: civil war, economic warfare, excessive harm to civilians, pre-emptive military strikes, and state-sponsored assassination, which require applying just war theory in practice. This book sets out to reaffirm the basic tenets of the traditional ethics of war and to lend them further moral support, subsequently applying them to a variety of practical issues. This book will be of great interest to students of just war theory, ethics, security studies, war and conflict studies, and IR in general.---Provided by publisher. (shrink)

What is terrorism and can it ever be defended? Beginning with its definition, proceeding to its possible justifications, and culminating in proposals for contending with and combating it, this book offers a full theoretical analysis of the issue of terrorism. Tamar Meisels argues that, regardless of its professed cause, terrorism is diametrically opposed to the requirements of liberal morality and can only be defended at the expense of relinquishing the most basic of liberal commitments. Meisels opposes those (...) who express sympathy and justification for Islamist terrorism and terrorism allegedly carried out on behalf of developing nations, but, at the same time, also opposes those who would tolerate any reduction in civil liberties in exchange for greater security. Calling wholeheartedly for a unanimous liberal front against terrorism, this is a strong and provocative attempt to address the tension between liberty and security in a time of terror. (shrink)

Liberal defences of nationalism, prevalent since the mid-1980’s, have largely neglected the fact that nationalism is primarily about land. Territorial Rights examines the generic types of territorial claims customarily put forward by national groups as justification for their territorial demands, within the framework of what has come to be known as ‘liberal nationalism’.

This paper argues that philosophers require a strict canonical definition of terrorism if they are to be of any use in morally evaluating the changing character war. This definition ought to be a narrow, critical one, articulating precisely what is wrong with terrorism and strictly specifying which incidents fall into this derogatory category and which do not. I argue against those who avoid definitions or adopt wide and apologetic ones. The latter claim neutrality for themselves and accuse those who define (...) terrorism strictly of political bias. The apologetics of terrorism often allege that stringent, critical, definitions of terrorism beg important questions of justification, rendering terrorism unjustifiable by definition. The apologetics of terrorism however, have an obvious political agenda. Those who deliberately blur the distinctions between terrorism and other forms of violence cannot claim academic ?neutrality? or ?objectivity? for their wide, defensive definitions, which are in fact deliberately designed to advance particular political views. (shrink)

Just war theory focuses primarily on bodily harm, such as killing, maiming, and torture, while other harms are often largely overlooked. At the same time, contemporary international conflicts increasingly involve the use of unarmed tactics, employing 'softer' alternatives or supplements to kinetic power that have not been sufficiently addressed by the ethics of war or international law. Soft war tactics include cyber-warfare and economic sanctions, media warfare, and propaganda, as well as non-violent resistance as it plays out in civil disobedience, (...) boycotts, and 'lawfare.' While the just war tradition has much to say about 'hard' war - bullets, bombs, and bayonets - it is virtually silent on the subject of 'soft' war. Soft War: The Ethics of Unarmed Conflict illuminates this neglected aspect of international conflict. (shrink)

Tamar Meisels responds to the preceding article.

Known terrorists are often targeted for death by the governments of Israel and the United States. Several thousand have been killed by drones or by operatives on the ground in the last twenty years. Is this form of killing justified? Is there anything about it that should disturb us? In this for-and-against book, political theorists Jeremy Waldron and Tamar Meisels engage in extended debate to illuminate these issues. They consider the actions of targeting and hunting down named individuals, (...) and they address concerns about the possibility of this practice getting out of hand and being extended beyond the realm of counter-terrorism. (shrink)

This paper reflects on the highly contested Israeli restrictions on the importation of civilian goods into the Gaza Strip, with reference to a wide range of principled questions within military ethics regarding sieges, sanctions and blockades. Beginning with Israel's unilateral withdrawal from the Gaza Strip and culminating in its recent easing of sanctions, the paper attempts to bring out the central issues of principle embedded in the political polemic: unilaterally terminated occupation; the responsibilities of a former, though recent, occupier; the (...) semantic distinction between siege and sanction and their respective ramifications; harm to civilians; necessity and proportionality. Overall, it argues in the specific case that Israel's restrictions on Gaza were not indefensible from the start as a first attempt to halt terrorism while avoiding full-scale conflict. In view of their ineffectiveness in achieving these goals, however, the harm they inflicted on civilians increasingly proved unnecessary and therefore excessive. There could then be no justification for continuing to restrict the flow of civilian goods into Gaza, as Israel itself eventually recognized. Nonetheless, Israel retains the right to search and regulate the passage of all relief supplies into Gaza, whether by land or by sea, as well as to secure its own borders for the safety of its citizens. (shrink)

The purpose of this article is twofold. First, it presents the urgent case of civil war, relatively undertheorized by just war theorists, along with the normative issues that pertain to this type of conflict and its participants specifically. Second, it suggests that this civil war perspective offers fresh support for the traditional “independence thesis”— separating just cause for war from the rules of its conduct—which is often criticized by contemporary moral philosophers.

The purpose of this article is twofold. First, it presents the urgent case of civil war, relatively undertheorized by just war theorists, along with the normative issues that pertain to this type of conflict and its participants specifically. Second, it suggests that this civil war perspective offers fresh support for the traditional “independence thesis”— separating just cause for war from the rules of its conduct—which is often criticized by contemporary moral philosophers.

This essay looks at the contemporary just war theory literature on preventive war that has emerged largely in reaction to the US invasion of Iraq. Recent sanctions on Iran and the debate over its nuclear program now suggest the usefulness of a forward looking perspective on preventive strikes, rather than the retroactive analyses offered thus far primarily with reference to Iraq. With Iran closely in mind, I address the various arguments for and against preventive war indicating throughout that the various (...) principled objections to early military action can be overcome in this case. Many of the crucial concrete questions regarding costs and benefits need to be settled in practice, rather than in the realm of political theory. Ultimately, the discussion suggests that Iran is a legitimate candidate for early military action aimed to prevent it from developing nuclear weapons. I argue that in principle, subject to credible intelligence information and requirements of proportionality, a unilateral Israeli strike against Iran will be justifiable, both morally and legally, as self-defense. (shrink)

As an Israeli writing at the turn of the twenty-first century, I have become accustomed to hearing the word ‘settlement’ used by liberals almost invariably as a derogatory term. The Jewish settlements to the west of the Jordan river, now populated by close to a quarter of a million Jews, are often said to be a central obstacle to peace in the Middle East, as well as being immoral in and of themselves. Consistent liberals realize that this attitude poses a (...) problem for the endorsement of the Zionist effort altogether, since settlement has been a central tenet of this doctrine from the start and the main practical tool for achieving its goals within contested territories. It was also the primary apparatus for achieving Western control over North America, Australia, and New Zealand, wholly at the expense of the aboriginal inhabitants of those places. This, too, is the source of a great deal of contemporary liberal breast-beating. (shrink)

The question of how to contend with terrorism in keeping with our preexisting moral and legal commitments now challenges Europe as well as Israel and the United States: how do we apply Just War Theory and International Law to asymmetrical warfare, specifically to our counter terrorism measures? What can the classic moral argument in Just and Unjust Wars teach us about contemporary targeted killings with drones? I begin with a defense of targeted killing, arguing for the advantages of pin pointed (...) attacks over any alternative measure available for combatting terrorism. Assuming the legitimacy of killing combatants in wartime, I argue, there is nothing wrong, and in fact much that is right, with targeting particular terrorists selected by name, as long as their assassinations can be reasonably expected to reduce terrorist hostilities rather than increase it. Subsequently, I offer some further thoughts and comments on the use of remotely piloted aircrafts to carry out targeted killings, and address the various sources for discomfort with this practice identified by Michael Walzer and others. nema. (shrink)

Since 2007, five scientists involved in Iran’s nuclear program have been killed under mysterious circumstances. This is not the first time that nuclear scientists have come under direct attack. Scientists are legally civilians. Like the rest of us, they are protected by laws prohibiting murder and perfidious killing, and enjoy civilian immunity during wartime. Moreover, powerful moral arguments oppose assassination policies specifically. Nevertheless, contemporary theories of just war allow for the partial extension of combatant status to civilians who are either (...) threatening or responsible for unjust threats. Weapons manufacturers, their factories and employees, are accorded less than absolute protection within just war theory, and even under international law. Dramatic events compel us to think through these issues of political violence in a principled manner, whatever our particular views on the Iranian case may be. The various moral arguments against assassination on the one hand and the complex status of munitions workers on the other suggest that scientists involved in weapons manufacturing may in some cases be morally liable to direct harm, as well as being legally liable to proportionate collateral damage. (shrink)

This essay sets out from the strain of liberal political thought which, in recent years, has come to the defence of nationalism, and raises some preliminary thoughts concerning its appropriate application to the very concrete issue of national territorial rights. It asks what type of justifications could be morally acceptable to “liberal nationalism” for the acquisition and holding of territory. To this end, the paper takes a brief look at five central arguments for territorial entitlement which have become predominant in (...) political debates. These are: so called “historical rights” to territory; demands for territorial restitution; efficiency arguments; claims of entitlement to territories settled by co‐nationals; and lastly, territorial demands based on claims of equal entitlement to the earth's natural resources. These popular arguments point towards several potential criteria for the arbitration of territorial conflicts. The paper attempts to outline the morally relevant guidelines for thinking about territorial issues that flow from, or are at least consistent with, applying liberal values to the national phenomenon. It places the territorial aspect of nationalism at the head of the liberal nationalist agenda and offers an initial common ground for discussion among liberals, and for the mediation of claims between nations. (shrink)

Our third and final article on the the Israel/Palestine conflict and anti-semitism.

"Expanding the Palace of Torah" offers a broad philosophical overview of the challenges the women's revolution poses to Orthodox Judaism, and Orthodox Judaism's response to those challenges.

The problem of imaginative resistance holds interest for aestheticians, literary theorists, ethicists, philosophers of mind, and epistemologists. We present a somewhat opinionated overview of the philosophical discussion to date. We begin by introducing the phenomenon of imaginative resistance. We then review existing responses to the problem, giving special attention to recent research directions. Finally, we consider the philosophical significance that imaginative resistance has—or, at least, is alleged to have—for issues in moral psychology, theories of cognitive architecture, and modal epistemology.

In this paper I defend Kant’s Incorporation Thesis, which holds that we must “incorporate” our incentives into our maxims if we are to act on them. I see this as a thesis about what is necessary for a human being to make the transition from ‘having a desire’ to ‘acting on it’. As such, I consider the widely held view that ‘having a desire’ involves being focused on the world, and not on ourselves or on the desire. I try to (...) show how this view is connected with a denial of any deep distinction between reason and inclination. I then argue for an alternative view of what ‘having a desire’ involves, one according to which it involves being focused both on the world and on ourselves. I show how this view fits naturally with the Kantian distinction between reason and inclination, accounts for independent intuitions about ‘having a desire’, and supports the Incorporation Thesis. I then make some further suggestions about how we might conceive of the object of incorporation. (shrink)

In “Proposed Principles for International Bioethics Conferencing: Anti-Discriminatory, Global, and Inclusive” the authors offer a framework for assessing the ethics of international bioethics confe...

_Humanizing Education_ offers historic examples of humanizing educational spaces, practices, and movements that embody a spirit of hope and change. From Dayton, Ohio, to Barcelona, Spain, this collection of essays from the _Harvard Educational Review_ carries readers to places where people have first imagined—and then organized—their own educational responses to dehumanizing practices and conditions. Contributors include Montse Sánchez Aroca, William Ayers, Kathy Boudin, Fernando Cardenal, Jeffrey M. R. Duncan-Andrade, Marco Garrido, Jay Gillen, Maxine Greene, Kathe Jervis, Nancy Uhlar Murray, Valerie (...) Miller, Wendy Ormiston, Ana Y. Ramos-Zayas, Vanessa Siddle Walker, Arthur E. Thomas, and Travis Wright. (shrink)

The founder of modern linguistics, Ferdinand de Saussure inaugurated semiology, structuralism, and deconstruction and made possible the work of Jacques Derrida, Roland Barthes, Michel Foucault, and Jacques Lacan, thus enabling the development of French feminism, gender studies, New Historicism, and postcolonialism. Based on Saussure's lectures, _Course in General Linguistics_ traces the rise and fall of the historical linguistics in which Saussure was trained, the synchronic or structural linguistics with which he replaced it, and the new look of diachronic linguistics that (...) followed this change. Most important, Saussure presents the principles of a new linguistic science that includes the invention of semiology, or the theory of the "signifier," the "signified," and the "sign" that they combine to produce. This is the first critical edition of _Course in General Linguistics_ to appear in English and restores Wade Baskin's original translation of 1959, in which the terms "signifier" and "signified" are introduced into English in this precise way. Baskin renders Saussure clearly and accessibly, allowing readers to experience his shift of the theory of reference from mimesis to performance and his expansion of poetics to include all media, including the life sciences and environmentalism. An introduction situates Saussure within the history of ideas and describes the history of scholarship that made _Course in General Linguistics_ legendary. New endnotes enlarge Saussure's contexts to include literary criticism, cultural studies, and philosophy. (shrink)

Over the last decade, iterated learning studies have provided compelling evidence for the claim that linguistic structure can emerge from non‐structured input, through the process of transmission. However, it is unclear whether individuals differ in their tendency to add structure, an issue with implications for understanding who are the agents of change. Here, we identify and test two contrasting predictions: The first sees learning as a pre‐requisite for structure addition, and predicts a positive correlation between learning accuracy and structure addition, (...) whereas the second maintains that it is those learners who struggle with learning and reproducing their input who add structure to it. This prediction is hard to test in standard iterated learning paradigms since each learner is exposed to a different input, and since structure and accuracy are computed using the same test items. Here, we test these contrasting predictions in two experiments using a one‐generation artificial language learning paradigm designed to provide independent measures of learning accuracy and structure addition. Adults (N = 48 in each study) were exposed to a semi‐regular language (with probabilistic structure) and had to learn it: Learning was assessed using seen items, whereas structure addition was calculated over unseen items. In both studies, we find a strong positive correlation between individuals' ability to learn the language and their tendency to add structure to it: Better learners also produced more structured languages. These findings suggest a strong link between learning and generalization. We discuss the implications of these findings for iterated language models and theories of language change more generally. (shrink)

Self-tracking devices point to a future in which individuals will be more involved in the management of their health and will generate data that will benefit clinical decision making and research. They have thus attracted enthusiasm from medical and public health professionals as key players in the move toward participatory and personalized healthcare. Critics, however, have begun to articulate a number of broader societal and ethical concerns regarding self-tracking, foregrounding their disciplining, and disempowering effects. This paper has two aims: first, (...) to analyze some of the key promises and concerns that inform this polarized debate. I argue that far from being solely about health outcomes, this debate is very much about fundamental values that are at stake in the move toward personalized healthcare, namely, the values of autonomy, solidarity, and authenticity. The second aim is to provide a framework within which an alternative approach to self-tracking for health can be developed. I suggest that a practice-based approach, which studies how values are enacted in specific practices, can open the way for a new set of theoretical questions. In the last part of the paper, I sketch out how this can work by describing various enactments of autonomy, solidarity, and authenticity among self-trackers in the Quantified Self community. These examples show that shifting attention to practices can render visible alternative and sometimes unexpected enactments of values. Insofar as these may challenge both the promises and concerns in the debate on self-tracking for health, they can lay the groundwork for new conceptual interventions in future research. (shrink)

Since the outbreak of COVID-19, governments have turned their attention to digital contact tracing. In many countries, public debate has focused on the risks this technology poses to privacy, with advocates and experts sounding alarm bells about surveillance and mission creep reminiscent of the post 9/11 era. Yet, when Apple and Google launched their contact tracing API in April 2020, some of the world’s leading privacy experts applauded this initiative for its privacy-preserving technical specifications. In an interesting twist, the tech (...) giants came to be portrayed as greater champions of privacy than some democratic governments. This article proposes to view the Apple/Google API in terms of a broader phenomenon whereby tech corporations are encroaching into ever new spheres of social life. From this perspective, the advantage these actors have accrued in the sphere of the production of digital goods provides them with access to the spheres of health and medicine, and more worrisome, to the sphere of politics. These sphere transgressions raise numerous risks that are not captured by the focus on privacy harms. Namely, a crowding out of essential spherical expertise, new dependencies on corporate actors for the delivery of essential, public goods, the shaping of public policy by non-representative, private actors and ultimately, the accumulation of decision-making power across multiple spheres. While privacy is certainly an important value, its centrality in the debate on digital contact tracing may blind us to these broader societal harms and unwittingly pave the way for ever more sphere transgressions. (shrink)

Oxford Studies in Epistemology is a biennial publication which offers a regular snapshot of state-of-the-art work in this important field. Under the guidance of a distinguished editorial board, it publishes exemplary papers in epistemology, broadly construed. Anyone wanting to understand the latest developments in the discipline can start here.

Oxford Studies in Epistemology is a biennial publicaton which offers a regular snapshot of state-of-the-art work in this important field.

This is the most comprehensive book ever published on philosophical methodology. A team of thirty-eight of the world's leading philosophers present original essays on various aspects of how philosophy should be and is done. The first part is devoted to broad traditions and approaches to philosophical methodology. The entries in the second part address topics in philosophical methodology, such as intuitions, conceptual analysis, and transcendental arguments. The third part of the book is devoted to essays about the interconnections between philosophy (...) and neighbouring fields, including those of mathematics, psychology, literature and film, and neuroscience. (shrink)

Antibiotic resistance poses an urgent public health risk. High rates of ABR have been noted in all regions of the globe by the World Health Organization. ABR develops when bacteria are exposed to antibiotics either during treatments in humans or animals or through environmental sources contaminated with antibiotic residues. Spread beyond those administered antibiotics occurs through direct contact with the infected or colonized person or animal, through contact or ingestion of retail meat or agricultural products contaminated with ABR organisms, or (...) through the environment. ABR bacteria spread from individuals to populations and across countries. (shrink)