This article tries to discuss the potential dangers of proposing a world order in the form of the morally based idea of perpetual peace as it is developed by Kant and further propagated by Habermas and Derrida. Drawing on a distinction between the Kantian idea of morality (Moralität) attributed to the internality of man via its theological connection with god and an idea of ethics akin to Aristotelian and/or Hegelian notions (ethos or ethical life – Sittlichkeit), the article posits (...) the question of the role of morality in the formation of the idea of perpetual peace. While doing this, it will also discuss some of the dangers of imposing a moral law under the pretext of moral necessity onto a humanity who may not will to adhere to the same principles. Thus, even though it does not discuss human rights directly, all the argument revolves around the question of the status of universal human rights as the law of the cosmopoli- tan world and the institutions imposing that law on today’s nations. (shrink)

In this article I discuss whether from Kant’s philosophy we can determine a moral duty to deal with global inequality, a problem that in Kant’s time was inexistent since it is a modern trend resulting from the industrial revolution. In doing this, I consider three main issues related to Kant’s thought and partially re-developed by contemporary authors: the individual moral duty to collaborate with nature’s purposiveness, which is aimed at attaining perpetual peace through humans fully developing their capacities, the (...) normative requirement to reform the global economic structure so as to prevent cases of coercion and deception suffered by vulnerable economic agents, and the validation of global property titles, in the same way as occurs at the national level when people leave the state of nature and enter a civil condition. The aim of the article is to investigate whether in Kant’s philosophy of history and of right, which can be considered as the theoretical connection point between the ancient cosmopolitan aspiration and a modern and articulate cosmopolitan philosophy, we may find some first moral insights regarding the contemporary debate over the existence of global duties of socio-economic justice. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Kant’s Just War TheoryBrian OrendKant is often cited as one of the first truly international political philosophers. Unlike the vast majority of his predecessors, Kant views a purely domestic or national conception of justice as radically incomplete; we must, he insists, also turn our faculties of critical judgment towards the international plane. When he does so, what results is one of the most powerful and principled conceptions of international (...) justice ever constructed. Kant’s central concept, that it is a demand of our own practical reason that we forge a cosmopolitan federation of free republics, based on the rule of law, human rights, and cultural and commercial development, still resonates today as a plausible and hopeful prescription for humanity’s future.Much of Kant’s international theory has recently received searching analysis and evaluation. But the bulk of this consideration has focused on Kant’s descriptive, as opposed to prescriptive, claims. Lavish attention, for example, has been showered on his assertion that perpetual peace is inevitable—that our natural antagonism will irresistibly incline us, after many failures, to establish an international juridical condition. Comparatively little has been done on thoroughly evaluating Kant’s normative claims of international justice, particularly with regard to his ideal corpus of international law and his concrete recommendations for moving from a global state of nature to a cosmopolitan civil society.1In this paper, I would like to contribute to the latter task by focusing on the moral problem that war poses as, arguably, the most frequent and severe cause [End Page 323] of ruptures in the functioning of the international system.2 In particular, I would like to argue in favour of the controversial, and original, thesis that Kant has a just war theory.3 I would then like to develop that theory in some detail and to explain its strength and suggestiveness. The focus on war seems both helpful and timely. It is helpful in that it provides a specific, graphic example with which one can apprehend more clearly the abstract architecture of Kant’s international vision. It is timely in that, in the wake of the very recent conflicts in Bosnia and Rwanda, and in light of the subsequent formation of the International War Crimes Tribunals at The Hague, renewed attention has been paid to considering what, if anything, constitutes a just war and what is permitted, and what punishable, in terms of conduct in war. A rigorous consideration of what one of the true giants of moral philosophy thought about these issues can only serve to illuminate our understanding of these current events.1. THE TRADITIONAL READING OF KANT: NO JUST WARNearly every commentator on Kant’s international theory of justice who discusses the problem of war in any detail believes that Kant not only has no just war theory, but that he is, moreover, a vicious critic of the core propositions of classical just war theorists, such as Augustine, Aquinas, and Grotius. Howard Williams, for example, says that “Kant has no theory of just war … (j)ustice and war are in conflict with one another and it is our duty as human beings to try to overcome war.” Fernando Teson contends that “Kant dismisses the idea that there could be a just war” and Georg Geismann asserts that, for Kant, “there is no such thing as a just war.” Similarly, W. B. Gallie asserts that “Kant agreed … that nothing but confusion and harm resulted from regarding any wars as just … ” There is a bevy of quotes in the Kantian corpus to support this reading.4One prominent anti-just war quote occurs in Perpetual Peace, when Kant [End Page 324] reflects on the contributions of traditional just war theorists and arrives at the following judgment:It is therefore to be wondered at that the word right has not been completely banished from military politics as superfluous pedantry, and that no state has been bold enough to declare itself publicly in favour of doing so. For Hugo Grotius, Pufendorf, Vattel and the rest (sorry comforters as they are) are still dutifully quoted in justification of military aggression, although their philosophically or diplomatically formulated codes do not and... (shrink)

All efforts undertaken so far to establish peace between Israel and the Palestinians have failed to seriously address the right of return of the Palestinian refugees. This failure stemmed from a conviction that the question of historical justice in general had to be avoided. Since justice is a subjective construct, it was argued, allowing it to become a subject of negotiation would only perpetuate the conflict. However, the experience of these peace efforts has shown that without solving the problem of (...) the Palestinian refugees an agreement cannot be reached. And the problem cannot possibly be solved without addressing the key Palestinian demand on this issue — the right of return. For both sides, the right of return, more than any other issue, touches on the essence of their history since the beginning of the conflict between them, and on their future. The national narrative of each side thus centers on its version of the history of the 1948 Arab-Israeli war, in the course of which the Palestinian refugee problem was created. And each side maintains the fundamental belief that its future national existence hinges on whether, and how, the issue of the right of return is resolved. For the Palestinians, the right of return is an inalienable right that defines their national identity and their struggle for liberation. For Israeli Jews, the right of return is perceived as an existential threat to the Jewish character of their society, if not to its very existence. It is not surprising, therefore, that within each of the two societies a national consensus has been built around this issue and that the position of each society seems to stand in complete opposition to that of the other. However, we argue that a morally and politically sound basis could and should be established for a workable solution and that such a basis can be provided by the notion of "transitional justice." Transitional justice stresses two major steps as necessary for reconciliation between parties involved in an historic conflict: recognition and restitution. Recognition entails revealing the historical truth about the injustices committed and according their victims dignity and respect as rights-bearing human beings. Restitution is meant to alleviate some of the material deprivation suffered by the victims and is also a form of recognition. In the Israeli-Palestinian case, recognition by Israel of the right of return would entail its assumption of responsibility for the uprooting of the majority of Palestinian society in 1948. This would satisfy a demand that has become a fundamental element in Palestinian national identity. Recognition would then enable the two parties to enter negotiations over restitution, in particular the implementation of the right of return. In these negotiations, as many Palestinian political leaders have indicated, the concerns of Israeli Jews with their national identity would be taken into account. Only if the fundamental concerns of the two parties, which center on the issue of the right of return, are met can the road towards reconciliation between them be opened. (shrink)

"Human dignity" has been enshrined in international agreements and national constitutions as a fundamental human right. The World Medical Association calls on physicians to respect human dignity and to discharge their duties with dignity. And yet human dignity is a term--like love, hope, and justice--that is intuitively grasped but never clearly defined. Some ethicists and bioethicists dismiss it; other thinkers point to its use in the service of particular ideologies. In this book, Michael Barilan offers an (...) urgently needed, nonideological, and thorough conceptual clarification of human dignity and human rights, relating these ideas to current issues in ethics, law, and bioethics. Combining social history, history of ideas, moral theology, applied ethics, and political theory, Barilan tells the story of human dignity as a background moral ethos to human rights. After setting the problem in its scholarly context, he offers a hermeneutics of the formative texts on Imago Dei; provides a philosophical explication of the value of human dignity and of vulnerability; presents a comprehensive theory of human rights from a natural, humanist perspective; explores issues of moral status; and examines the value of responsibility as a link between virtue ethics and human dignity and rights. Barilan accompanies his theoretical claim with numerous practical illustrations, linking his theory to such issues in bioethics as end-of-life care, cloning, abortion, torture, treatment of the mentally incapacitated, the right to health care, the human organ market, disability and notions of difference, and privacy, highlighting many relevant legal aspects in constitutional and humanitarian law. (shrink)

Separate issues of possible relations between generations in the context of the concept of social justice are investigated. Special attention is paid to the need to preserve the environment, natural resources, the preservation of life on earth, biological diversity, the need to search for alternative energy sources, to ensure favorable living conditions for future generations. The author draws attention to the theoretical difficulties in unambiguously defining the rights of future generations, to the difficulties of their legal formulations. The (...) author explores the problem of justice in relations between generations from the point of view of the materialistic understanding of history, the dialectic of social existence and social consciousness, the relationship of needs, interests and values, the principle of development and the principle of historicism. The study of possible relations between generations in the context of the realities prevailing in the modern world contributes to the reassessment of the established values of modern society and the formation of a new worldview that takes into account the need to preserve peace, the cultural heritage of mankind, natural resources, human habitat, biological diversity, the transfer of resources to future generations. In this regard, there is a reassessment of the known norms of justice, morality and law. Modern interpretations of global problems, including issues of intertemporal justice, were a reflection of new historical realities. The creation of favorable conditions for future generations should not harm the necessary and reasonable needs of modern society. (shrink)

"Human dignity" has been enshrined in international agreements and national constitutions as a fundamental human right. The World Medical Association calls on physicians to respect human dignity and to discharge their duties with dignity. And yet human dignity is a term--like love, hope, and justice--that is intuitively grasped but never clearly defined. Some ethicists and bioethicists dismiss it; other thinkers point to its use in the service of particular ideologies. In this book, Michael Barilan offers an (...) urgently needed, nonideological, and thorough conceptual clarification of human dignity and human rights, relating these ideas to current issues in ethics, law, and bioethics. Combining social history, history of ideas, moral theology, applied ethics, and political theory, Barilan tells the story of human dignity as a background moral ethos to human rights. After setting the problem in its scholarly context, he offers a hermeneutics of the formative texts on Imago Dei; provides a philosophical explication of the value of human dignity and of vulnerability; presents a comprehensive theory of human rights from a natural, humanist perspective; explores issues of moral status; and examines the value of responsibility as a link between virtue ethics and human dignity and rights. Barilan accompanies his theoretical claim with numerous practical illustrations, linking his theory to such issues in bioethics as end-of-life care, cloning, abortion, torture, treatment of the mentally incapacitated, the right to health care, the human organ market, disability and notions of difference, and privacy, highlighting many relevant legal aspects in constitutional and humanitarian law. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Buddhism and the Idea of Human Rights:Resonances and Dissonances1Perry Schmidt-LeukelIn 1991 L.P.N. Perera, Professor of Pāli and Buddhist Studies in Sri Lanka, published a Buddhist commentary on the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. In this commentary Perera tries to show that, in the Pāli canon, i.e. the canonical scripture of Theravāda Buddhism, for every single article of the Human Rights Declaration a substantial (...) parallel or at least a statement with a similar tendency can be found. Indeed, says Perera, Article 1, which affirms the dignity and rights of all humans, "is in complete accord with Buddhist thought, and may be said to be nothing new to Buddhism in conception" (Perera 1991:21). In contrast, the Buddhist Peter Junger, Professor of Law at the University of Cleveland, Ohio, judged in 1995 that... though followers of Buddhist traditions do value most, if not all, of the interests underlying the rhetoric of human rights, they may not have much use for the label itself, which is, after all, a product of the traditions of Western Europe and the parochial histories of that region.(Junger 1998: 56)Junger goes on to say that "the concept of human rights is not likely to be useful in...following the Buddha Dharma" (Junger 1998: 55).Thus Perera and Junger agree that the content of the various human rights is acceptable for Buddhists. However, they disagree strongly in their evaluation of the idea of human rights in itself. In this respect Damien Keown has rightly argued that the crucial question on 'Buddhism and Human Rights' is not so much whether Buddhism can accept any particular human right but rather whether the idea of human rights as such can find a philosophical justification within the "overall Buddhist vision of individual and social good" (Keown 1998: 24).It is this problem that I would like to pursue in this paper. In the first part I will sketch some basic characteristics of the idea of human rights. In the second part I will point out what resonances this idea finds in Buddhism or by which Buddhist concepts the human rights idea can be justified. And finally, in the third part, I will deal [End Page 33] with the question of potential dissonances between the idea of human rights and Buddhist concepts.On the Nature of Human RightsWith the United Nations' Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948 and the various subsequent human rights conventions the rights of individuals were for the first time inscribed into international law, which had previously recognised only collectives as legal subjects. By formulating universal rights as valid for every individual human being regardless of race, colour, sex, religion, birth, etc. the Universal Declaration points to the most important feature of the idea of human rights: the protection of the individual or, to be more precise, the protection of the individual against powerful institutions of the state, society, religion or others. It is individual self-determination and free agency that are protected through human rights. Human rights define the minimum of what is necessary in order to guarantee the freedom of individual agency and the freedom of self-determination. By the definition of inalienable rights,2 the idea of human rights sets limits to those collectives and institutions in which we usually live, limits which for the sake of the basic liberty of the individual are not to be transgressed. Michael Ignatieff summarises this understanding of human rights with the words: "rights exist to protect individuals" (Ignatieff 2001: 67), and "they are worth having only if they can be enforced against institutions like the family, the state, and the church" (Ignatieff 2001: 66f.). Therefore "moral individualism" is "the core of the Universal Declaration" (Ignatieff 2001: 66).It is true that the further development of the human rights debate, particularly within the context of the United Nations, has led to an extension of the idea of human rights to collective rights and collective legal entities by including among human rights, for example, a nations' right to self-determination and the right to peace and the right to development. However, in my opinion it would be highly... (shrink)

Because the goal of reducing violence is nearly universally accepted, the uniquely prescriptive character of peace and conflict studies is rarely scrutinized. However, prescriptive pacifism in social psychological peace research (SPPR) masks a diversity of opinion on whether nonintervention is more effective in promoting peace than intervention to punish aggression, restore stability, and/or prevent atrocity. SPPR’s skepticism is sharper in the post–9/11 era when states use public fear of terrorist threat to promote sometimes-unrelated domestic and geostrategic interests. The most frequently (...) proposed remedy for this kind of abuse is some form of international legal positivism that permits the use of force only in self-defense, per strict interpretation of the United Nations Charter, or not at all—a position the author calls ‘prescriptive pacifism." This project critically examines the metaethical premises of prescriptive pacifism, positivism, and realism, how these animate the moral and political skepticism of peace studies, psychology, and international relations, respectively, and meet in SPPR. After comparing the intellectual development of these fields and just war theory, I present influential psychologist Albert Bandura’s social cognitive theory (SCT) of moral judgment and aggression as a case study. I present evidence of the problematic nature of Bandura and others’ formulation of moral engagement and disengagement, tracing their contradictions to the named premises. In brief, I argue that SCT’s underlying skepticism of individual moral judgment implies elite or consensus-driven models of social and political change whose institutional gradualism contradicts these authors’ and SPPR’s stated progressive aims, and whose utilitarian ethos undermines the egalitarian individualism that underpins both the liberal conception of the rule of law and the international human rights regime. Finally, I present an alternative model of moral reasoning and engagement based on a Kantian constructivist understanding of international ethics, and the theory of the just war. I outline two instruments inspired by these related normative frameworks that in addition to being more internally coherent, operationalize moral engagement and disengagement in a manner more consonant with political liberalism, existing international humanitarian law, and the emergent norm known as Responsibility to Protect. Intended for use in the collection and coding of qualitative responses to survey research of public opinion on morally ambiguous issues in international politics such as intervention and territorial integrity, these instruments avoid the tendency of existing SPPR frameworks toward false positives of militarism and pacifism. Their presentation also makes mutually comprehensible the often-confusing professional idioms of international relations, political theory, moral philosophy, and social psychology, standing to make a contribution to each. (shrink)

Modern moral and political philosophy is in debt with natural law theory, both in its ancient and mediaeval elaborations. While the very notion of a natural law has proved highly controversial among 20th Century scholars, the last decades have witnessed a renewed interest in it. Indeed, the threats and challenges as result of multiculturalism, plural societies and global changes have generated a renewed attention to natural law theory. Clearly, it offers solid basis as possible framework to a (...) better understanding of human goods without contradictions and partial bias. The purpose of the present volume is to provide an overview of the history of this concept (Cicero, St. Paul, Aquinas, Melanchthon, Montaigne, Descartes, Leibniz, Hume, Burke, Kant, MacIntyre, etc.) as well as a deep understanding of ongoing research, both in Europe and in America. Furthermore, the specificity of these studies will be of particular value to philosophers, law-philosophers, historians, anthropologists, sociologists and theologians, and those concerned on such issues as the relation between law and moral norm, law and practical reason, and the presence of the idea of natural law in several prominent thinkers. It includes a selected bibliography on natural law. The book also provides an excellent introduction to several of the major topics in natural law theory making it useful both as a reference text and as a sourcebook for academics alike. Natural law is a rich, complex, and highly disputed term. Since its first appearances in the history of Western civilization, it has been used both to point to God as the source of the moral order and to assert that there is an objective order of justice in nature that men and their laws ought to respect. In modern times, natural law theory gave birth to what we usually call "human rights." Unlike the meaning of the term, the importance of an ongoing debate on natural law and on the theories related to it is undisputable. This is why I welcome today this new collection of essays edited by Alejandro Nèstor Garcìa Martìnez, Mario Å ilar and Josè M. Torralba. Natural Law: Historical, Systematic and Juridical Approaches includes a wide variety of studies, covering key authors and issues in natural law theory. Younger students will appreciate the clarity of the chapters, and more trained readers the detailed and accurate bibliographical references that each of them offers. The editors's choice to go from a historical approach to contemporary theories, and then to theoretical and more practical issues is also commendable. Students in philosophy and in legal theory will greatly benefit from this book. Fulvio Di Blasi, author of God and the Natural Law: A Rereading of Thomas Aquinas. (shrink)

In this paper, I shall try to elucidate the relationship between nature and providence with regard to the function of guaranteeing perpetual peace in Kant's 1795 essay, an issue which, presumably for the very reason of providence being granted some role in the first place, has led to noticeable unease in Kant scholarship. Providence simply does not seem to fit in well into Kant’s philosophical account of history given the emphasis he puts on the notion of human freedom. (...) The main idea grounding my approach is that the notion of providence is not only not a threat to human freedom, but perhaps the most important ingredient in Kant’s solution of the compatibility problem with regard to human freedom and natural causal determinism. This solution of the compatibility problem, as I have argued elsewhere, must be understood along the lines of a so-called “altered law-compatibilism” which makes the special laws of nature dependent on human freedom. The role of providence then is to elucidate or explicate how such a dependency is possible. Moreover, Kant’s own definition of “providence”, which he develops as an alternative to Baumgarten’s, provides the resources of identifying it – in a sense to be qualified below – with nature and hence provides the means for solving a long-standing riddle in Kant’s account. Of course, the compatibility problem does not take centre stage in the guarantor section in any way. Rather, what Kant is doing there can best be understood as presupposing and being closely related to his compatibility argument: He can be read as spelling out the dependency of laws on nature with regard to the course of history. (shrink)

The study of social, ethical, and political issues from a naturalistic perspective has been pervasive in social sciences and the humanities in the last decades. This articulation of empirical research with philosophical and normative reflection is increasingly getting attention in academic circles and the public spheres, given the prevalence of urgent needs and challenges that society is facing on a global scale. The contemporary world is full of challenges or what some philosophers have called ‘existential risks’ to humanity. Nuclear wars, (...) natural and/or engineered pandemics, climate change, global totalitarianism, and emergent technologies, are some of the challenges mentioned by many authors devoted to the study of long-term potential risks for the survival of the human species. However, while there are many reasons to be a pessimist about the future of humanity, there is also a lot of ink wasted in showing that the world today is far better than we had in the past and also that there have been many instances of social and moral progress in the last centuries. Some authors have even claimed that “we have made more progress over the last 100 years than in the first 100,000”. According to ‘our world in data’, some of the most relevant advances of humanity in the last centuries have to do with the reduction of poverty and/or inequality, better health and security, the decline of violence and war, and the development of democracy and institutional mechanisms to guarantee individual freedom and rights. Yet, there is a more concrete concern that our world faces nowadays, and requires a particularly detailed analysis. In a few words, the advance in information and communication technologies, the huge volume of people migration because of prevalent instances of global inequality, and the reality of an interconnected world that just mirrors an extensive history of massive human intergroup relations open the question about the feasibility of social and moral progress in the contexts of diverse, multicultural, and unequal societies. This makes it crucial to reflect not only on whether human societies may keep advancing on a path of social progress, but how this can be achieved by addressing the challenges of inequality and potential intergroup conflict. This concern closely relates to the further consolidation of democratic values and the achievement of a more generalized consideration of the equal moral value of human individuals far from group, ethnic, or collective distinctions. This vision of progress follows the moral convictions that have been considered right and worthy to be pursued by most ethical theories explored by philosophers and social scientists so far. This work aims to contribute to the study of the mechanisms and feasibility of social and moral progress grounded on the precept of human equality and is guided by the idea that social and moral progress in a plural world requires the accomplishment of a more democratic and tolerant society. These forms of progress have already been defined by philosophers Allen Buchanan and Russel Powell as inclusivist forms of moral progress. According to these authors, inclusivist moral progress is featured by the transformation of moral judgments, motivations, and norms guided by the rejection of “group-based restrictions on moral standing and moral status” (2018). The work of Buchanan and Powell is fundamental for the argumentation developed in this work since they have pioneered a more complex debate in the field of evolutionary social sciences and philosophical anthropology. In brief, these authors have inquired how human nature, conceptualized by the advances in evolutionary thinking and the empirical sciences, is related to our moral convictions and the possibilities that we have to establish certain forms of social and moral progress. The work of Buchanan and Powell contributes to the debate on moral progress by incorporating empirically-informed concepts and arguments. With this objective in mind, they develop their discussion around a generalized tension between exclusivist and inclusivist forms of moral progress. This tension revolves around the question of whether and to what extent human moral concerns, motivations, and norms, are limited or bounded by social identities, group thinking, or collective values. This question is at the center of this work. In other words, I aim to answer whether and to what extent the nature of our social and moral cognition hinders or enables the development of inclusivist forms of morality and moral progress. As I mentioned so far, the distinction between exclusivist and inclusivist forms of morality has a practical implication and facilitates the reflection on the mechanisms and feasibility of concrete forms of progress based on the precept of human equality, which is the road to progress that we should follow according to most ethical theories. The distinction between exclusivist and inclusivist morality is not used here as a form of summarizing highly divergent descriptive approaches to morality, but as a way to address the practical implications of morality research, particularly around the question of the feasibility of social forms of progress based on the precept of equality and tolerance. My objective then has less to do with offering a conceptualization of human morality or with the proposition of a new ethical perspective. Instead, I aim to identify, from an empirically informed perspective, what enables the achievement of egalitarian forms of social progress, to subsequently offer a normative reflection about what we should do if we want to accomplish such inclusivist forms of progress. This task is of great relevance, having in mind that some theoretical proposals on the matter have claimed that human prosocial behavior and morality are constrained by exclusivist fixed tendencies as a product of our evolutionary history. According to these views, human morality is a group-centered cognitive and behavioral expression that has severe limits in its scope and extent, which hinders in the end the emergence of inclusivist forms of moral concerns and behaviors. These claims align with the philosophical intuition about the ‘dissociation of empathy’, or the fact that human individuals tend to express empathy and sympathy preferably for members of their group whereas their empathic and moral concern and recognition for outgroup individuals tend to be reduced or eliminated in real-life social interactions. Multiple theorists have expressed, however, that these assumptions are wrong for empirical and philosophical reasons, which results in a serious challenge to the conception of human morality as exclusivist by nature. Furthermore, simple intuition and practical experience constantly show us that human individuals can develop and endorse a broad spectrum of moral considerations and adopt an arguably inclusivist stance concerning the kind of persons or agents that deserve moral concern. Moreover, and adopting a historical perspective, the expansion of cultural and commercial exchanges, the consolidation of democracy, the development of welfare states, or the emergence of institutions based on the concept of universal human rights, have partially driven human progress based on the impartial concern for the well-being of persons. These historical instances of cultural evolution and institutional design have shown that it is feasible to promote behaviors and attitudes grounded in impersonal prosocial and inclusivist principles. This optimistic perspective, however, still begs the question of the exact relationship between social, cultural, and historical contexts, and the emergence of certain behavioral expressions of inclusivist morality. This is crucial since a great number of human individuals around the world still do not make part of these instances of social progress, and some authors have suggested that such instances of social and moral progress are particularly favored by the contexts of the WEIRD world, that is the world of Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich, and Democratic societies. Some of these approaches consider moral inclusivity a ‘luxury good’ and follow the ‘dependency thesis’ according to which the expression of moral inclusivity depends on the presence of very concrete material conditions that trigger inclusivist and impersonal prosocial tendencies that human beings are not able to express in threatening contexts without physical security. This thesis is problematic for various reasons and has led to incomplete explanations about the enabling and causal factors of inclusivist moral progress, as well as unsatisfactory suggestions about what we should do to foster the accomplishment of more generalized instances of progress based on inclusivist concerns. In an attempt to contribute to this debate, the main objective of this thesis is to offer an alternative proposal about the nature of human morality and a more detailed reflection on what we should do if we want to further accomplish such instances of progress. More precisely, this work adopts a particular developmental and constructivist vision of human morality to answer the question of how feasible it is to reach generalized forms of social progress based on the precepts of moral inclusivity. Furthermore, it offers some ideas about what are the most adequate and favorable conditions to foster such progress both at the individual and the collective level. At this point, a preliminary clarification of some starting points is necessary. In the first place, and contrary to what other authors have proposed when debating moral progress from an empirically-based approach, my perspective adopts a radical developmental and constructivist perspective, following particularly the conceptual and empirical ideas of the social-domain theory in moral psychology. From this perspective, morality is a domain of normative and social knowledge that develops and emerges in human interactions. Moral concerns, judgments, and norms are not only the result of the expression of innate adaptive intuitions, nor the product of social conformity and a simple process of mirroring the normativity that communities have established to organize their social life. Human individuals, instead, construct moral concerns and judgments during their situated interactions. More specifically, the constructivist tradition claims that we need to research how moral concerns, judgments, and reasons emerge in social interactions and how human beings construct the content of their moral knowledge in the first place. Based on these ideas, morality is defined here as the result of a constructive process through which human individuals, by the means of constant interactions on a background of mutual respect and recognition, develop evaluative concerns about how we ought to treat others, and how to ‘care’ and ‘respect’ others’ well-being, needs, and vulnerabilities. This developmental-constructivist theory of human psychology contributes to an alternative understanding of the origins of moral variability and informs a very particular normative stance about the most desirable contexts needed for the urgent accomplishment of inclusivist forms of morality in contemporary societies. This is so given that the very same definition of morality adopted presupposes the feature of inclusivity. The main objective of this work is then to argue, based on a developmental perspective, what are the most favorable conditions to foster the development of moral inclusivity and what we should do to accomplish concrete instances of moral progress that truly help us to overcome our most urgent moral challenges. The whole thesis is organized as follows. In part I, I show how received visions about human social evolution have informed conceptions of morality as an adaptive function evolved to solve the challenges of cooperative life. Based on these assumptions, some theories argue that human morality is limited by the boundaries of group thinking, and always obeys the mandates of collective interests and the will of the majority. However, this conception has problematic implications from a normative and ethical perspective. The aim of Chapter 1 is to present this introductory debate in detail. In chapter 2, I consider a relevant amount of scientific evidence that helps to consolidate a more optimistic and inclusivist perspective about the starting conditions of human prosocial behavior. Later, I will summarize some ideas offered to explain the possible evolutionary mechanisms that led to the consolidation of these inclusivist capacities. However, I will also show how evolutionary theories that share the same adaptationist foundations but initially seem relevant to explain the feasibility of moral inclusivity, result incomplete when considering the complexity of moral behavior and its ethical implications. Part II is devoted to presenting a developmental alternative to the adaptationist versions around the starting conditions of morality. In this section, I first summarize the epistemological, conceptual, and empirical basis of a constructivist perspective already proposed by several authors in the last decades. This is the goal of chapter 3. More precisely, I adopt the conceptualization of morality established by the social-domain theory school and clarify its conception of the situated development of moral concerns, motivations, and norms. All these ideas are essential for my argumentation on the feasibility of inclusivist moral progress offered later. Chapter 4 provides a more detailed idea of constructivist thinking about moral development, by analyzing one particular dimension: the development of moral concerns for fairness and the sense of justice in distributive dilemmas. In Part III, I assume a constructivist perspective on morality to contribute to the philosophy of moral progress. In particular, I discuss the implications of such a perspective for the conceptualization of human moral nature and discuss what are the most favorable conditions for moral inclusivity to emerge. Answering that question is of enormous relevance since favoring the transition of human societies towards more inclusivist forms of moral concern and behavior supposes a more generalized accomplishment of our most urgent moral convictions. Previous developmental or culturally-sensible attempts to explore this issue are already on the market. As mentioned before, most authors have approached the topic by situating the cultural evolution and development of (inclusivist) moral progress in the WEIRD world. For instance, some of these authors claim that very concrete material conditions (mostly present in the Western World) have been necessary for triggering inclusivist and impersonal prosocial tendencies that human beings are not able to express in threatening contexts without physical security. Despite their interest in explaining inclusivist morality and the feasibility of inclusivist forms of progress following a naturalistic and culturally situated approach, these theories are problematic for two main reasons. In the first place, most of the authors that explain moral progress tend to focus exclusively on the consolidation of liberal values in the Western world and the underlying adoption of laws, social-epistemic practices, and public narratives about tolerance and inclusivity, as unequivocal signs of inclusivist morality. Nevertheless, there is an enormous distance between the institutional and public support of inclusivist moral values or the construction of public images of tolerance and inclusivity, and the real materialization of impersonal moralities in situated social interactions. Secondly, the variability of human moral behavior is far bigger than most of the theories in moral psychology and moral progress tend to assume. Accordingly, inclusivist and exclusivist forms of morality may develop simultaneously in similar or divergent geographical and socio-ecological environments, including those with harsh conditions such as competition for scarce resources, potential intergroup conflict, and risks of disease transmission. In addition, harsh environmental conditions are usually present in almost all societies around the globe, and the presence of socio-ecological conditions such as physical security and prosperity, predominant in highly resourced populations, do not prevent the existence of exclusivist moral tendencies. My model explores a different perspective on the relationships between cultural, institutional, and historical factors, and the situated development of human morality. This supposes a clear distinction from previous approaches to the matter since it offers a different view on what we should do to pursue further instances of inclusivist social progress. In the fifth chapter, I first analyze the proposals of some defenders of the ‘dependency’ theory. The attention is focused on the ‘Evolutionary Developmental Model’ proposed by Buchanan and Powell (2018). Based on a critique of this approach, I will argue that to explain the evolution and development of human morality in its multiple manifestations, it is essential to put focus on social interactions. This also involves a different perspective on human-environment relations that in line with a constructivist worldview makes an innovative contribution to the philosophy of moral behavior and moral progress. Later, in the sixth chapter, I will define my alternative relational view of inclusivist morality and I will offer my view on how to establish favorable conditions that make inclusivist morality possible. Complementing the constructivist approach, my conception is based on the essential role of equality and individuality and on how moral inclusivity is favored if moral concerns do not develop driven by the accomplishment of group-centered, binding, and communitarian concerns and values. In brief, my relational model suggests that the accomplishment of moral inclusivity not only depends on the overall achievement of certain levels of physical security or economic prosperity. Instead, its development is favored by transforming the interactional contexts in which moral concerns towards autonomy and individuality emerge. In arguing so, I will need to start with a critique of contemporary situated and embodied approaches in ethics. Then, I will show how societies guided by the accomplishment of group-centered values of power, dominance, and relational inequality tend to express exclusivist moral behaviors, while individualistic societies tend to be more inclusivist. Starting from this diagnosis, my final attempt is then to reflect on which are the best conditions for the moral valuation of individuality to emerge and what we should do to promote the accomplishment of moral inclusivity at the societal level. (shrink)

Human rights have become an important ideal in current times, yet our age has witnessed more violations of human rights than any previous less enlightened one. This book explores the historical and theoretical dimensions of this paradox. Divided into two parts, the first section offers an alternative history of natural law, in which natural rights are represented as the eternal human struggle to resist opression and to fight for a society in which (...) people are no longer degraded or despised. At the time of their birth in the 18th Century and again in the popular uprisings of the last decade, human rights became the dominant critique of law and society. The radical rhetoric of rights and its apparently endless expansive potential has led to its adoption by governments and individuals alike seeking to justify their actions on moral grounds and has undermined its radical edge. Part Two examines the philosophical logic of rights. The classical critiques of Kant, Burke, Hegel and Marx illuminate traditional aproaches to the concept of human rights. The work of Heidegger, Sartre and psychoanalysis is used to deconstruct the metaphisical essentialism of bothe universalists and cultural relativists. Finally, through a consideration of the ethics of otherness, and with reference to recent human rights violations, it is argued that the end of human rights is to judge law and politics from a moral stand point which both transcends the present and is historically relevant. (shrink)

Although Hobbes talks about the laws of nature as prescribing the virtues, it is easier to think of them as proscribing the vices. The nine vices that are proscribed by the laws of nature are injustice, ingratitude, greed or inhumanity, vindictiveness , cruelty, incivility or contumely, pride, arrogance, and unfairness . The corresponding virtues that are prescribed by the laws of nature are justice, gratitude, humanity or complaisance, mercy, , civility, humility, , modesty, and equity. The difficulty of coming up (...) with names for some of the virtues, and even for some of the vices, shows that they are not all among the most common moral virtues and vices. Nonetheless, as described by Hobbes, they are genuine moral virtues and vices, traits of character such that all impartial rational persons would favor everyone having the virtues and no one having the vices. All of these virtues are such that they benefit everyone impartially by promoting peace, and are not primarily of benefit to the person having them. This is what makes them moral virtues and distinguishes them from the personal virtues of courage, prudence, and temperance. The laws of nature are the dictates "of right reason, conversant about those things which are either to be done or omitted for the constant preservation of life and members, as much as in us lies." But the law of nature "dictating peace, for a means of the conservation of men in multitudes;" is also the moral law because "in the means to peace, [it] commands also good manners, or the practice of virtue; and therefore it is called moral." Hobbes correctly sees both that peace benefits all persons impartially and that impartiality is essential to morality. His account of the moral virtues correctly makes them traits of character that would be favored by all impartial persons. His argument for the rationality of these moral virtues is that one's self-interest, which for Hobbes is primarily one's long-term preservation, is enhanced by having these virtues. There is no incompatibility between morality and self-interest as long as what is in one's own self-interest is equally in the interest of everyone else. Hobbes sees this point quite clearly and it is at the heart of his justification of the moral virtues. (shrink)

The reflection of global justice demands an innovative revision of traditional patterns of argument of political theory. How can moral responsibility be defined in connection with intergovernmental action? Ethical, institutional, and logical implications of a human legal foundation of intergovernmental justice are discussed in three theoretical chapters in this book. Further chapters deal with the structure of intergovernmental responsibility in connection with ethics of peace, humanitarian intervention, the fight against poverty, as well as migration. Moreover, the book analyzes governmental (...) liability and collective political duties towards individuals, who are citizens of other states. (shrink)

This essay discusses Immanuel Kant’s project of perpetual peace. Kant runs into several difficulties in this undertaking, a series of “political antinomies” such as the opposing goals of nature or providence and of individuals, and the competing models of a federation of states or a world state to enforce perpetual peace. I argue that cosmopolitan right is Kant’s answer to the inconsistencies of his political philosophy and of his philosophy of history. Cosmopolitanism brings the individual back into historical (...) development by merging the political rights each person enjoys within a state with the relentless progress of the human race as a whole. Further, it provides a transition from a federation of states to a global political system of rights. I contend that cosmopolitanism can be regarded as the political supplement to the categorical imperative that applies universally to all rational beings. (shrink)

In a significant early case, the ICTY commented: “The essence of the whole corpus of international humanitarian law as well as human rights law lies in the protection of the human dignity of every person…. The general principle of respect for human dignity is . . . the very raison d'être of international humanitarian law and human rights law.” Is it true that international humanitarian law and international human rights law share the (...) same “essence,” and that essence is the general principle of respect for human dignity? Is it true that, in the words of Charles Beitz, humanitarian law is “perhaps better described as the law of ‘human rights in armed conflicts’”? To answer yes, I argue, amounts to a reinterpretation of IHL that drifts far from its history. This reinterpretation is what I label human rights thinking . In its origins, IHL was not designed to protect human dignity, but to reduce human suffering; it was a form of disaster relief. Human rights law, by contrast, originated as a blueprint for the kind of peacetime societies that would no longer plunge the world into what the UN Charter calls the “untold sorrow” of war. Nevertheless, law changes. Perhaps the nature of IHL has evolved over time in the direction of human rights thinking, and should evolve that way. That is the view I defend-–with some qualifications-–in the final sections of this essay. First, I explore the very different genealogies of IHL and human rights law, and explain how human rights thinking migrated into IHL. I attribute the migration to international criminal law, military occupations, and reactions to the U.S. war on terrorism. In the final sections, I explore two ways human rights thinking can be pursued in wars. One of them, I will argue, overplays and overestimates what human rights thinking can accomplish. It does so by, in effect, willing away fundamental differences between war and peace. The other is an approach that I have defended for more than three decades. It consists, at bottom, of taking a civilian’s-eye view of the disasters of war and reading the law accordingly-–recognizing, one might say, that Mother Courage and her children matter just as much to the law of war as Henry V and his band of brothers. (shrink)

Human rights are a construct of international law. Their legitimacy depends on them being informed by the deep-seated fact of global cultural pluralism and the concern of establishing a system that recognizes this pluralism, transcends a narrow parochial perspective and thus avoids the accusation of cultural or moral colonialism. There are two broad strategies to do this: by invoking an individualist-moral conception of HR designed to promote well-being and by invoking a social-political conception of HR aimed at preserving (...) world peace and stability. Economic rights are rights to commodify—to sell one’s labor, to buy goods and services and so on—under fair terms. That is to say, to take part in economic activities such as production and consumption within a distinctive social form by which they are mediated through exchange. I argue that endorsing rights of commodification is incompatible with a genuine concern with parochialism. Economic rights are neither necessary to protect some natural interest shared by all humans, nor the stability of a peaceful world order. Hence, economic rights should not be considered human rights. (shrink)

The United Nations General Assembly adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948. A burgeoning human rights movement followed, yielding many treaties and new international institutions and shaping the constitutions and laws of many states. Yet human rights continue to be contested politically and legally and there is substantial philosophical and theoretical debate over their foundations and implications. In this volume distinguished philosophers, political scientists, international lawyers, environmentalists and anthropologists discuss some of the (...) most difficult questions of human rights theory and practice: What do human rights require of the global economy? Does it make sense to secure them by force? What do they require in jus post bello contexts of transitional justice? Is global climate change a human rights issue? Is there a human right to democracy? Does the human rights movement constitute moral progress? For students of political philosophy, human rights, peace studies, and international relations. (shrink)

Immanuel Kant, in his political project, “Perpetual Peace” has attempted to show a moral hope for the scourge of humanity, i.e. war. For Kant, man’s intrinsic selfish nature is a cause of constant collision that can be controlled by universal laws of reason to ensure an enduring peace among the warring nations. But is this idealistic approach towards war equally applicable to concrete particular situations of humankind? What if there are conditions under which war becomes inevitable or even a (...) desirable alternative? Can the choice of war be a morally justified alternative? And again, with the choice of war, can we ever hope for perpetual peace? It seems not! There are certain conditions when humanity is put at stake and war turns out to be the ultimate way to find peace Kant hinted but has not explored at length. In this paper, I want to explore and expound on these human conditions by bringing the situational examples of Mahābhārata and its idea of Dharma Yudha (righteous war). Mahābhārata serves as illuminating justifications for irremediable difficulties and dilemmas behind the inescapability of war in certain human circumstances. I will try to understand how far this “realistic” effort is ethically warranted in the way of seeking peace. I argue that although the Kantian universal model of rejection of war is a valuable ideal, and Mahābhārata’s realistic solution in terms of recognition of righteous war is relevant on the practical ground, both these positions of morality and corporality do not seem to provide a sufficient means of achieving perpetual peace in a contingent world, and therefore, it requires to look at some other alternatives. In doing so, an attempt will be made to critically analyse the incessant struggle between universal and particular, or idealism and realism by highlighting the existential contingencies and ambiguities of human finitude in the light of Kant and Mahābhārata in relation with perpetual peace and war. (shrink)

This Special Issue is an outcome of the lectures and discussions on ‘Cross-cutting Themes and Concepts in Human Rights’, offered as a Seminar Course to the students of the MA Programme, School of International Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University. As part of the Course, a Webinar on ‘Rethinking Rights and Justice for Non-Humans’ was held in 2022, in which the participants advanced some of the most compelling arguments for the meaningful representation of non-human entities in law and (...) governance. In the three sessions of the webinar, the participants explored the terrain of relevant concepts, emerging norms, and moral justifications that underline the case of non-human entities: (i) The Limits of Animal Rights: Exploring the Case for Multispecies Justice, (ii) Humanist Dimensions of Machines, and (iii) Representing Nature: Rights, Crimes, and Diplomacy. Scholarly literature on the subject matter sheds light on the gaps in existing legal frameworks concerning the responsibilities of human beings towards non-human life forms. There is evidence of a growing universal consciousness embedded in the worth and sacredness of non-human life forms. A series of developments in the fields of technology, philosophy, and other disciplines have moved non-human entities to the forefront of legal reforms, domestic and international. (shrink)

This Element addresses three questions about Kant's guarantee thesis by examining the 'first addendum' of his Philosophical Sketch: how the guarantor powers interrelate, how there can be a guarantee without undermining freedom and why there is a guarantee in the first place. Kant's conception of an interplay of human and divine rational agency encompassing nature is crucial: on moral grounds, we are warranted to believe the 'world author' knew that if he were to bring about the world, the 'supreme' (...) good would come about too. Perpetual peace is the condition that enables the supreme good to be realized in history. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Bioethics and Natural Law: The Relationship in Catholic TeachingJ. Bryan Hehir (bio)In the discipline of Catholic moral theology, bioethics (traditionally described as medical ethics) has held a major place. The systematic development of bioethics has drawn principally upon a natural law ethic, supported by broader religious arguments. The purpose of this essay is to examine the status and role of natural law in Catholic teaching as (...) it bears upon bioethics.Natural Law and Catholic TheologyThe role of natural law in Catholic theology is rooted in a prior conviction about the complementary relationship of faith and reason. The conviction finds initial expression in patristic authors, then preeminently in Thomas Aquinas and consistently in modern papal teaching of the twentieth century. Flowing from this conviction, as a premise of Catholic theology and teaching, is the [End Page 333] notion that a second source of moral wisdom exists along side the revealed wisdom of the Hebrew and Christian scriptures. This second source of wisdom is the product of rational reflection upon human nature and experience. In the tradition of natural law ethics (expressed in a plurality of versions), such reflection affirms an objective moral order, accessible to reason and based upon a conception of the person as both spiritual and social. The spiritual nature, expressed in the capacity for reflection and free choice, is the foundation of the natural law ethic, providing the human person a unique status in the created order. The social nature of the person locates each human being in a framework of social relationships, articulated in a complex of rights and duties and finding expression in three basic communities: the family, civil society, and the human community.The fully developed framework of a natural law ethic has five dimensions. It yields a theory of society, a doctrine of the state, a charter of duties and rights, a jurisprudence, and an applied ethic. At each level of this framework, the natural law ethic is contested by other contemporary philosophical positions. In this article, space demands that stress must be placed on the natural law affirmations without trying to engage the critics.The centrality of the social nature of the person yields a theory of society that is organic in character, laying strong emphasis on the social fabric of existence. Hence the theory has traditionally emphasized both order and justice more strongly than claims of freedom. The doctrine of the state, in contemporary natural law arguments, supports a limited yet activist state, limited by constitutional restraints and human rights claims, yet activist in its conception of a broad range of social obligations, particularly to the poor. The charter of rights affirms a range of both political-civil and socio-economic rights; the traditional natural law emphasis on a structure of duties has been complemented in the twentieth century by its stress on the role of human rights. The jurisprudential theory of natural law has been its most prominent aspect; it affirms a moral grounding for civil law, but distinguishes precisely between the comprehensive nature of moral law and the more limited scope of civil law, restricted to the maintenance of public order in society. Finally, the natural law framework finds expression in Catholic teaching in three areas of applied ethics: social ethics (civil society and international relations), sexual ethics, and bioethics.History and StatusWhile a natural law ethic has been a staple of Catholic social and bioethical teaching, it has not held similar status in the wider arena of contemporary philosophical or theological ethics. Through the 1950s, therefore, one could find a strong consensus supporting natural law within the Catholic community and ongoing debates within the wider world of philosophy and bioethics. Since the 1960s, any description of the status and role of natural law must consider the debates within Roman Catholicism itself about the role and status of natural law. [End Page 334]It is possible to distinguish two stages of these internal arguments in the church. In the period from 1960 to 1990, three events in Catholicism directly influenced the standing of a natural law position: John XXIII’s encyclical Pacem In Terris (1963), Paul XI’s encyclical Humanae Vitae (1968), and the teaching of... (shrink)

Immanuel Kant is the author of the project of “perpetual peace” as a concept for a global federation of states remaining in peaceful relations towards each other. According to the philosopher, in order for such a federation to be possible at some time in the future, individual states need to be institutions which respect their citizens’ right of self-determination. An additional necessary condition for the future implementation of “perpetual peace” is the appearance of at least one state with (...) a republican system of government. The German thinker saw that as the first step towards realising “perpetual peace”. According to Kant, “perpetual peace” is not only limited to the existence of a certain set of institutions, appropriate laws, or external relations among states and individual people. “Perpetual peace” chiefly demands that people internalise the following obligations: 1. peaceful conduct towards others; 2. hospitality; 3. fairness; 4. respect towards the self-determination of others; 5. self-sufficiency; 6. respecting the freedom of others; 7. refraining from actions which might raise distrust in others. Based on those requirements, the philosopher suggests that the fundamental condition for a future existence of “perpetual peace” is the proper moral education of people. (shrink)

Immanuel Kant is the author of the project of “perpetual peace” as a concept for a global federation of states remaining in peaceful relations towards each other. According to the philosopher, in order for such a federation to be possible at some time in the future, individual states need to be institutions which respect their citizens’ right of self-determination. An additional necessary condition for the future implementation of “perpetual peace” is the appearance of at least one state with (...) a republican system of government. The German thinker saw that as the first step towards realising “perpetual peace”. According to Kant, “perpetual peace” is not only limited to the existence of a certain set of institutions, appropriate laws, or external relations among states and individual people. “Perpetual peace” chiefly demands that people internalise the following obligations: 1. peaceful conduct towards others; 2. hospitality; 3. fairness; 4. respect towards the self-determination of others; 5. self-sufficiency; 6. respecting the freedom of others; 7. refraining from actions which might raise distrust in others. Based on those requirements, the philosopher suggests that the fundamental condition for a future existence of “perpetual peace” is the proper moral education of people. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Instinct of Nature: Natural Law, Synderesis, and the Moral SenseRobert A. Greene“Instinct is a great matter.”—Sir John FalstaffThis essay traces the evolution of the meaning of the expression instinctus naturae in the discussion of the natural law from Justinian’s Digest through its association with synderesis to Francis Hutcheson’s theory of the moral sense. The introduction of instinctus naturae into Ulpian’s definition of the natural law by (...) Isidore of Seville in the seventh century posed a problem of definition for medieval commentators. Some said that it meant a universal and providential natura naturans; some defined it as the urge to self and species preservation in animals, degenerating in man into sensual and shameful impulses; some advanced the humanistic and paradoxical notion that it referred to a unique exercise of human reason in coming to know the natural law. The contemporaneous revival in the twelfth century of St. Jerome’s puzzling new term “synderesis,” and its gradual definition as the immediate apprehension of the first practical moral principles of the natural law, brought the two terms into proximity and loose association.A half-century later St. Bonaventure made explicit what had remained latent in the thinking of Thomas Aquinas by relocating synderesis in the affective rather than the intellectual part of man’s nature. Accordingly the moral discoveries of synderesis came to be spoken of as not only non-discursive but instinctive in nature—apprehensions for which no reason could be given, apprehensions somehow rooted in affective human experience. During the bilingual early modern period an increasingly secularized, internalized, and reified instinctus [End Page 173] naturae, together with its abbreviated vernacular cognate, “instinct,” came to serve as a substitute and synonym for the obsolescent synderesis. Edward Herbert’s attention to instinctus naturae in his De Veritate (1624), Sir Matthew Hale’s speculations about the place of rational instinct in the natural law, and Francis Hutcheson’s theory of a moral sense all exemplify this semantic legacy.The first entry in Justinian’s Digest has had a disproportionate influence on later speculation about the natural law. It begins a chapter that gives pride of place to general definitions of justice, law, jus naturale and jus gentium, and it is drawn from the writings of the Roman jurisconsult Domitius Ulpianus (d. 223), whose work constitutes forty percent of the Digest. Ulpian defines the natural law, with insistent repetition, as that which nature has taught to, or is common to, all animals:Jus naturale is that which nature has taught to all animals; for it is not a law specific to mankind but is common to all animals—land animals, sea animals, and the birds as well. Out of this comes the union of man and woman [male and female] which we call marriage, and the procreation of children, and their rearing. So we can see that the other animals, wild beasts included, are rightly understood to be acquainted with this law. Jus gentium, the law of the nations, is that which all human peoples observe. That it is not coextensive with natural law can be grasped easily, since this latter is common to all animals whereas jus gentium is common only to human beings among themselves. 1Justinian’s compilers gave Ulpian’s definition striking prominence at the beginning of the Digest and then in the same short chapter quoted the incompatible and more traditional definitions of his contemporaries Gaius and Paulus. They confined the operation of the natural law to mankind and spoke of reason as its source. 2 The compilers had been charged to eliminate just such conflicts; yet here at the very outset they set a conundrum that perplexed commentators [End Page 174] and invited explanation from Isidore of Seville to Hugo Grotius. Their selection of quotations suggests that as lawyers they regarded such general definitions as “for legal purposes no more than ornament to discussion.” 3 For those of a more speculative bent, however, the dilemmas could not have been more fundamental. How was the natural law to be defined in relation to those appetitive and self-preservative urges that man seemed to share with animals? Or did the term law apply only... (shrink)

Despite the prevalence of human rights talk in Western jurisprudence, there has never been less belief in or acceptance of, any genuine form of objective morality. Academics reject the reality of moral objectivity and proclaim, as an objective truth, that morality is a mere “socio-historical construct”, illusory because always outweighed by worse consequences, expressions of subjective preference or mere evidence of culturally relative predilections. If morality is not that, then it is thought to be evidence of the power (...) of the ruling elite in an essentially value-free universe. This article examines moral scepticism and moral relativism as a bedrock for human rights laws. It argues that if we are to retain any coherent and meaningful concept of human rights we will have to jettison our moral relativism. (shrink)

This book studies the history of intercultural human rights. It examines the foundational elements of human rights in the East and the West and provides a comparative analysis of the independent streams of thought originating from the two different geographic spaces. It traces the genesis of the idea of human rights back to ancient Indian and Greco-Roman texts, especially concepts such as the Rigvedic universal moral law, the Upanishadic narratives, the Romans' model of governance, (...) the rule of law, and administration of justice. It also looks at Cicero's concept of rights and duties which focuses on quality of compassion and fair play, and Seneca's expositions on mercy, empathy, justice and checks on the arbitrary exercise of power. An important contribution, this book fills a significant gap in the study of human rights. It will be useful for students and researchers of political science, ancient history, religion and civilizations, philosophy, history, human rights, governance, law, sociology, and South Asian studies. The book also caters to general readers interested in the history of human rights. (shrink)

PHILOSOPHY OF HUMAN RIGHTS: HUMAN RIGHTS IN LIGHT OF THEIR INTERNATIONAL PROTECTION Summary The book consists of two main parts: in the first, on the basis of an analysis of international law, elements of the contemporary conception of human rights and its positive legal protection are identified; in the second - in light of the first part -a philosophical theory of law based on the tradition leading from Plato, Aristotle, and St. Thomas Aquinas is (...) constructed. The conclusion contains an application of the results of the analysis conducted in the second part. The first part comprises four chapters. The first aims at revealing characteristics of human rights on the basis of an analysis of historical conditioning of the inter-national law of human rights and its development. The historical context displays the practical, vindicative, and critical character of the positive legal protection of human rights. Moreover, the process of change of positive human rights law is distinguished from the process of change of human rights as such. In the second chapter the content of human rights - a topic which is only auxiliary to the conducted analysis - is discussed. Basic typology and catalogues of rights proclaimed in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and protected in the International Covenants of Human Rights are presented. The review of the content of rights aims at a more precise limitation of the field of research. The examination shows a diversity of rights which poses a serious challenge to the coherence of every philosophical theory of human rights. In the third chapter, central in the first part, international law is analyzed with regard to the characteristics of rights and the foundations of them. The analysis of documents shows a number of solutions referring to the anthropological foundations of rights. The inherent dignity of the human person is the source of all human rights. Each human being is recognized as free, and endowed with both reason and conscience. In the propounded conception of man individuals are not rivals but create a community which is a condition for their development. International law characterizes the rights as universal, inherent, inalienable and inviolable. The reconstructed conception also comprises the following basic elements: on the level of the structure of rights, a recognition of their equality, interdependence, and comprehensiveness; in the grounding of these rights, a recognition of the anthropological foundations of law; in the conception of positive law, a recognition of the secondariness of the positive law of human rights to human rights themselves, and a recognition of human rights and justice as the basis for legal order; in the conception of state, a recognition of the well-being of the individual as the fundamental aim of actions undertaken by political institutions, and recogni¬tion of rights which form an impassable boundary to the power of the state, includ¬ing its legislative actions. The characterization of the international legal paradigm serving for the under¬standing of human rights is supplemented by analyses of the structure of their posi¬tive legal protection. Various meanings of the terms "right" and "freedom" are distinguished. Subjective right, as basic structure of the positive legal protection of human rights, is understood as a complex relation formed by various legal situations of the subject of a right which create a functional whole in respect of the subordi-nation of human person to its good. Subordinating person to a good proper for it, expressed usually in a proclamatory norm, is the central element of particular rights around which further elements aiming at the realization of this good are built. In the second part of the book a philosophical theory is developed which allows for the location of a coherent foundation for the presented characterization of human rights and their positive legal protection. This part consists of two chapters. The first includes a review of some - not entirely satisfactory - means of founding of human rights; the second presents philosophical conceptions of law and man which may form a basis for the constructed theory. The review of arguments contained in the first chapter does not aim at a detailed analysis of various specific ways of argumentation encountered in works on this subject but rather at a concise presentation of the main possible lines of argumentation. These analyses also serve to emphasize the positive solutions which are pro¬posed later and to underscore the explanatory power of the elaborated theory. This theory, retaining accurate intuitions contained in the presented types of argumenta¬tion, helps in avoiding their consequences which are difficult to reconcile with the reconstructed paradigm of human rights. Efforts to base human rights on the norms of international law rightly take into account the necessity of determining the content of the rights and their positive legal protection as a means for the realization of man's good. These attempts, how¬ever, do not properly take into account the inherent character of human rights, which are independent of positive law and provide grounds for applying specific legislative measures and not others. Founding human rights on freedom accurately points at the freedom of an indi¬vidual as a constitutive element of some rights; however, absolutization of freedom leads, to a loss of an important element of the contemporary paradigm of under¬standing human rights. This foundation undermines recognition of the fact that human rights may set limits to both the freedom of others and the freedom of the subject of rights itself. Additionally, attempts at the so-called axiological justification of human rights are discussed. This type of justification has a few variants depending on the as¬sumed conception of value. Subjectivistic conceptions have similar advantages and disadvantages to the conceptions basing human rights on freedom; objectivistic conceptions while providing for the universality of human rights place, the fundamental aim of human rights protection beyond the individual human being - in the idealistically existing world of values; finally, conceptions rooting values and human rights in culture, while accurately noting that human rights are learned through the medium of culture, place the source of human rights beyond a concrete individual - in culture and processes which take place in it - which leads to difficulties in finding a basis for the universality of rights. Furthermore, attempts to ground human rights in specific characteristics of the human being are presented. This type of approach points to an important problem of dependence of the content of rights on what man is. However, recognition of specific characteristics of a human being as an ontic foundation of the existence of rights poses a danger to their universality since one has to accept that it is not enough to be a man to be a subject of rights, but a man possessing specific charac¬teristics. The second chapter aims at outlining solutions worked out by Saint Thomas Aquinas. For a fuller understanding of his propositions selected elements of Plato's and Aristotle's philosophy are presented. It was them who formulated the founda¬tions for reflection on law and justice in the ontological context. A qualification is made that Stoicism is not be analysed in depth. Although Thomas' concept of law was undoubtedly developed under the influence of the Stoic doctrine as well, it is not in this that one should look for the tools to understand the ontic foundations of human rights and law in general since the Stoic moral philosophy and philosophy of law were developed in the context of a theory of being which assumed monistic and pantheistic premises as foundations, leading to the recognition of a total subor¬dination of the human individual to a larger unity of which man is only a part. The analysis of Plato's and Aristotle's texts concentrates on problems of justice. Plato seems to be the first philosopher who reflected on the formula basic in the history of European thought: to render to each his due. It appears that justice as both a characteristic of man and his acts is understood in the perspective of that which is just, that which is a good for another man - the recipient of the act. The basis for determining what is just is the relation of correspondence between some¬one and something. While in the case of Plato this relation is based on something beyond its terms, namely on ideas, in the case of Aristotle the relation occurs on account of the elements of the relation itself. Something is just when it contributes to the develop¬ment of the recipient of an act realizing that which is just. At the same time, the realization of that which is just is a good for the agent. In the analysis of the just two types of relation are revealed: the relation of due-to-recipient occurring on account of the compatibility of that which is due, with the recipient of the act; and - a "superstructure" - a relation of obligation-of-subject occurring on account of the compatibility of the acting subject with the thing which should be done. The basis for being that which is due is formed by various potentialities of development of man - the recipient of agency; the basis of being that which is an obligation is the possibility of development of the subject of action. Aristotle distinguishes various types of freedom and points to the necessity of taking them into account in the discussion of justice. Among other things, as the core of man's freedom, he considers life for its own sake, which can be seen as his expression of the basic indices of the autotelic character of man - which is funda¬mental for later conceptions of dignity. The freedom which is described by him is not, however, inherent and inalienable; being free is conditioned by a factual possi¬bility of undertaking actions, which are not solely means to the realization of aims set by others. Thomas Aquinas takes over the Aristotelian research perspective both in his conception of man and of law. At the same time, however, he significantly enriches it. In anthropology he develops a conception of personal being. Drawing upon his distinction between existence ("that something is") and essence ("what something is"), he sees the basis for being a person in the dignity of personal being which is a certain way of existence of a rational being more perfect than that of non-personal beings. The person is a being which, by virtue of its act of existence, is individual¬ized in a specific way. It is an aim in itself. Expressing it in a negative way, one may say that it does not exist as a means for the realization of the aims of others and, in this sense, that it is free. As distinct from Aristotelian conclusions, being a person is not conditioned by the specific actions of a being. Dignity is inherent, based on that which is the foundation of the factual existence of every rational being. Although freedom requires that a being is rational, dignity still encompasses all being, all its properties and potentialities. Thus an act conforming with dignity has to take into account a whole human being. Among different types of that which is just, ius, the first place, from the point of view of understanding law, falls to "the just thing itself ("ipsa res justa"), which is right in the full meaning of the word. On the one hand, it is that which is due; on the other hand, it determines the way of acting in the utmost degree, since the course of every act is determined in the fullest extent by its aim. The content of ius may be determined both by elements independent of free decisions - ius naturale - and by free decisions taking into account the state of things - ius positivum. Recognition of the objective structure of being as the basis of law does not entail that it is possible or desirable to determine unequivocally "the only right" patterns of conduct. This concept is very well justified within the system proposed by Saint Thomas. Individualization of being is a significant element of the develop¬ment of a person as a person. It is attained by the realization of individual aims which are not unequivocally determined by circumstances and the nature common to all people. By virtue of free choices made in the sphere of that which is not by its nature unjust, the object of action becomes ius. Since in the realization of the person the individualization of human being is central, Aquinas clearly sees the need for the protection of the sphere of "dominion of will". This sphere itself constitutes ius naturale, something which is due to man independently of the acts of will. Therefore "law should forbid nothing which is not unjust" ("nihil debet lege prohiberi quod licite fieri potest", In 3 Sent., dist. 40, q. I, a. 1, 3). Besides the relation of due-to-recipient, ius also includes the relation of obligation-of-subject which is superimposed on the relation of due-to-recipient. As far as the ontic foundations of obligation are concerned, in explaining why man is subordinated to realization of the good of others, Aquinas generally follows Aristotle in accepting that this basis is the subordination to moral good - to actions conforming with the learned truth about reality. Aquinas' systemic solutions allow, however, to reach deeper and understand why moral development is also a development of the whole human being. This was difficult within Aristotle's system, since he was reluc¬tant to decide whether precedence should be given to intellectual or moral develop¬ment. The inclination to realise good of another appears to be a transcendental characteristic of being, based on its very existence. Morality understood as rational and free subordination to realize the good of another is a specifically personal way of the realization of this inclination. Thus just actions contribute to the actualization of being in the aspect of its existence and therefore to the actualization of being as a whole. Thomas' conception of natural law (lex naturalis) as participation in eternal law (lex aeterna), offers possibilities for grasping that which is just as something which is basically accessible cognition, independently of Revelation and independently of faith in God, and at the same time as something based in eternal law, understood as a design of God's wisdom. Eternal law, embracing all particular actions, is not, from the human perspective, accessible cognition directly. It is enacted in the struc-ture of the created being and - in case of human beings - in free choices taking this structure into account. In the concluding remarks, the results obtained earlier are applied directly to the contemporary conception of human rights. Human rights are understood in the first place as "just things" - concrete goods of man; as that which is due because of subordination, based on dignity, to the personal development of man. That which is just is understood as a relational - actual or potential - state of things, which exists by virtue of existing relations. Evaluations referring to that which is right are true when respective relations of due-to-recipient take place; norms of conduct are true when respective relations of obligation-of-subject take place. Examples of the application of the sketched theory outside the field of human rights are also presented. Procedural consequences of the developed theory are shown, such as the discrimination of two types of legislative procedures which differ significantly in the structure of argumentation: the first aims at recognition of that which is just independently of the will of the legislator, and the second, at making individual or collective "projects" of development compatible. Finally the possibilities of applying the theory to the increasingly important problems of the protection of the environment and the "rights" of animals are mentioned. The central issue is a philosophical conception of man and his freedom and a conception of law. It is also indispensable to turn to a general theory of being. The search for a comprehensive theory of human rights requires attention to the Abso¬lute Being - God - as well. This is important for at least two reasons. First, a conception of the Absolute Being is integral to philosophy of the systemic type -of which the present book is a piece. A conception of the Absolute Being is signifi¬cant for understanding all being, including, first of all, man as a personal being. Second, every theory of human rights which does not comprise the problem of the Absolute may be questioned as to whether solutions adopted in it do not lead, in consequence, to eliminating God from the perspective of the understanding of law. It is desirable that a philosophical theory should deal with this problem directly. A theory which eliminates God from the perspective of the understanding of rights will be unacceptable for all those who, for philosophical reasons or relying on faith, consider God as the author of inherent rights. Nevertheless, a theoretical approach to rights from the perspective of the Absolute Being should only be a possible extension of a philosophical approach which bases rights on something which is cognizable independently of the acceptance of the existence of God so that the theory is also acceptable for those who reject the existence of God or suspend their judgment on this subject. The pursued theory should therefore contain, on the one hand, reference to natural, faith-independent foundations of human rights, but on the other hand, point to a possible extension accounting for the Absolute Being. The analyses contained in this chapter have undoubtedly some historical value since they are based on source texts. Nevertheless, the use of these texts and not critical works was dictated, first of all, by a conviction that analyses embrace a given theory in the aspect selected by the interests of the researcher. Therefore to find out what past thinkers say on the subject characterized in the first part it is simpler to reach to the sources than to adopt the existing critical works. The pre¬sented reconstruction of Aquinas' views on philosophy of law incorporates proposi¬tions of supplementing and developing some of the ideas undertaken by him. Obligation to act in this and not an other way arises because human actions are subordinated to the conformity, on the one hand, of aims realized by these actions and, on the one hand, the order of being determining that which is favourable to man or destroys him. The content of the order of being is, on the one hand, determined by the structure of being independent from man's will and, on the other, by free decisions of man. (shrink)

This paper contrasts conceptions of global distributive justice focused on natural resources with human rights–based approach. To emphasize the advantages of the latter, the paper analyzes three areas: (1) the methodology of normative theorizing about natural resources, (2) the category of natural resources, and (3) the view of the system of sovereignty over natural resources. Concerning the first, I argue that global justice conceptions misconstrue the claims made to natural resources and offer conceptions (...) which are practically unfeasible. Concerning the second, I show that contemporary philosophy of justice downplays the plurality of meanings resources have for collectives and argue that conflicts over natural resources can best be accounted for using human rights. Finally, the paper looks at sovereignty over natural resources and argues that rather than dismissing it as unjustifiable on moral grounds, it should be reformed in line with valid principles of international law, most importantly with human rights. (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: I. Kant's Practical Political Teleology II. Demands of Practical Reason and Nature's Will III. Perpetual Peace as the End of Right.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:BOOK REVIEWS 273 my judgment, in the fact that he has limited the historical inquiry to the scholarly study of documents and discussions without showing those cultural, social, psychological, and economic motivations which formed an accompaniment to the individual protagonists of the discussions. The motivation for what a philosopher says is not justified by revealing only his most immediate opponent's name and ideas, but by showing, as Goldmann (La (...) communautd humaine chez Kant, Paris, 1948) and, very briefly, Stark (The Sociology of Knowledge) did, the reason for his thinking and his presuppositional needs. In the case of Kant, it is obvious that we cannot leave out his pietist formation, the fears about the French Revolution and Hume's scepticism. The historicity of a study cannot be limited to the history of polemics or to the discovery of documents which, theoretically, add nothing to what an author has already stated in his works. The vast philological material Pupi has gathered, seems to me very good, and it represents, I think, the greatest value of Pupi's work, because of its usefulness in the field of the sociology of knowledge. And to this field I take the liberty of referring Pupi for an example of a method that is historical and not tautological. ANTONELLA GUARALDI Kant und der Friede. By Wilhelm Miiller. (Diisseldorf: Monitor-Verlag, 1962. Pp. 16.) Perpetual Peace records the noble and humane dream of an old man. Such dreams are not without historical precedent, but rarely have they been invested with the earnestness and the conceptual rigor of a Kant--even of a Kant in his declining years. This short essay is at the very least a minor but noteworthy contribution to political theory. Its main thesis call be simply stated. A truly lasting peace can be achieved only through the agency of a world federation of states operating under moral law. The moral law in question is an extension of the guiding principles of Kant's ethics from the private to the public sphere. It is contrary to the dictates of reason as well as of moral conscience to suppose that political order may be conceived or established apart from or even in opposition to moral law. A state or nation, Kant declares, is a free moral person, possessed of an inviolable integrity, not to be exploited as a thing for purposes of aggrandizement on the part of other states. Were that all that Perpetual Peace contained, the essay would stand as testimony to Kant's political idealism. But he pursues with equal seriousness the question of how such an ideal might be realized in practice. Underlying Kant's federalism is his republicanism, his insistence that the only sound civil constitution is one in which each citizen is free, equal, and fully represented under common law publicly promulgated. It is Kant's contention -perhaps less naive today than it might have seemed earlier in this century--that where the consent of the subjects is required, as it is under a republican form of government, to decide whether or not there shall be war, they may be expected to think twice before bringing such sufferings upon themselves. Further, Kant sees in the ever-tightening and expanding web of international relations a natural deterrent to war, since any war will increasingly involve most if not all of mankind. Both considerations appeal, not to the questionable good will of politicians, but to enlightened self-interest. Finally, Kant lays down a series of "preliminary articles" whose purpose is to specify the conditions without which perpetual peace, as things stand, will not even become a real possibility. Among the principles here formulated are that a peace treaty is invalid if made with secret reservations, that the autonomy and constitutional integrity of independent states must be preserved, that standing armies must gradually be abolished, that national debts shall not be contracted externally, and that in the event of war "dishonorable stratagems" such as assassination, 274 HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY poisoning, spying, etc., which would render postwar mutual confidence impossible, shall not be countenanced. It is mainly with an eye to these preliminary articles that Professor Wilhelm Miiller argues for Kant's relevance to contemporary... (shrink)

“What must we do to prevent a nuclear omnicide?” I want to answer this question from a Kantian perspective. For Kant a state of peace is not only the denial of a state of war but also a state of justice, in which right rules might. Kant’s concept of peace is normative. According to him, practical reason commands us to leave the state of nature, which is a state of war, and establish a state of peace, inasmuch as this is (...) a necessary condition for a state of justice. For Kant justice is an a priori concept “entirely derivable from the concept of freedom in the mutual relationships of human beings.” Accordingly, the pursuit of peace is a political duty dictated by practical reason, and the task of realizing peace is a moral task incumbent upon everyone engaged in the conduct of government. This paper has three parts. In the first two parts, we will explore Kant’s perspective of peace, focusing on his concept of peace and his view of the task of peace. In the third and concluding part, using Kant’s perspective as our vantage point, we will reflect upon the prevailing mode of peace-thinking in our time and then address our question: “What must we do to prevent a nuclear omnicide?”. (shrink)

:Recent years have seen an increase of interest on the part of human rights theorists in the “supply-side” of human rights, i.e., in the duties or obligations correlative to human rights. Nevertheless, faced with the practically urgent and seemingly simple question of who owes the duties related to international human rights, few human rights theorists provide an elaborate answer. While some make a point of fitting the human rights (...) practice and hence regard states as the sole human rights duty-bearers merely by referring to that practice, others criticize the “state-centric” approach to human rights duty-bearers and expand the scope of the latter to include any international institution beyond the state and even private actors. Curiously, however, even those more expansive accounts of human rights duty-bearers are usually very evasive about why it should be so and especially how it should work. The time has come to broach anew the issue of the bearers of human rights duties, and responsibilities of international institutions in human rights theory, addressing two challenges: focusing on relational and directed human rights duties specifically and not on duties of global justice in general, thereby distinguishing between human rights duty-bearers and other bearers of responsibilities for human rights, on the one hand, and accounting for and justifying the point of international human rights law and practice in this respect, thereby also securing internal arguments for reform, on the other. The essay’s argument is four-pronged. It starts with a few reminders about the relational nature of human rights and the relationship between human rights and duties and what this means for the specification of human rights duties. It then focuses more specifically on the identification of human rights duty-bearers, i.e., states and international institutions of jurisdiction like the European Union, and the allocation of human rights duties to them. The third section of the article is devoted to the concurrent moral responsibilities for human rights that are incurred by other various responsibility-bearers outside institutions of jurisdiction. In the final section, the essay considers the revolution potential of the EU’s fast-developing human rights’ duties, and discusses the normative implications of the development of universal international institutions’ human rights duties stricto sensu for international law and politics more generally. (shrink)

Summary. Religious differences may rise and actually historically rose tensions and even wars. In the history, Christians also caused wars and were a threat to social integration and peace, despite the fact that Christianity is a religion of peace. God in Christians’ vision is a God of peace, and the birth of Son of God was to give peace «among men in whom he is well pleased». Although Christians themselves caused wars, died in them, were murdered and had to fight, (...) the social doctrine of Christianity is focused on peace. Also the social thought of the Roman Catholic Church strives to build peace. Over the years, the social teaching of the Roman Catholic Church was formed, which sees the conditions and foundations for peace. These are: the dignity of the human person, the natural law, human rights, common good, truth, freedom, love and social justice. The development of the Roman Catholic Church’s teaching on peace was contributed by popes of XX century: Pius XI, Pius XII, with high impact – John XXIII, Paul VI, Pope John Paul II and Pope Benedict XVI. After Pope Benedict XVI’s resignation, the most important role of the preceptor in the Church of Rome fulfills Francis – the pope from Argentina. Although his pontificate is not long, and teaching is not complete, but you can tell that he continues to build the social doctrine of the Roman Church in matters of peace through the development of so-called «culture of encounter». Based on selected speeches and letters of two years’ pontificate of Francis, the first figure of «culture of encounter» can be lined out as a way of preventing and resolving tensions in the contemporary world. Fundamentals of the concept of dialogue Francis created in the days of being a Jesuit priest and professor at Jesuit universities. He based it on the concept of Romano Guardini’s dialogue. Foundations of the look at the dialogue – in terms of Jorge Mario Bergoglio are strictly theological: God enters into dialogue with man, what enables man to «leaving himself» and enter into dialogue with others. Bergoglio dealt with various aspects of the dialogue: the Church and the world, culture and faith, dialogue between religions and cultures, dialogue inter-social and inter-national, dialogue rising solidarity and co-creating the common good. According to him the dialogue is a continuous task, not a single event; is overcoming widespread «culture of effacement» and «culture of fight» towards a «culture of encounter»; it releases from autism, isolation, gives strength and meaning of life, renews the ability to listen, lets looking at community in the perspective of the whole and not just selected units. As Bishop of Rome Jorge Mario Bergoglio continues and develops his idea of «a culture of dialogue and encounter». In promoting dialogue, he sees his own mission and permanent commitment imposed on him. He promotes the atmosphere – a kind of «music» – of dialogue, by basing it on emotions, respect, intuition, lack of threat and on trust. The dialogue in this sense sees a partner in each person, values the exchange always positively, and as a result it leads to making life ethical, bringing back respect for life and rights of every human being, granting the world a more human face. «Culture of encounter» has the power of social integration: it removes marginalization, the man is the goal not the means of actions, it does not allow a man to be reduced to a mere object, tools for profit or authority, but includes him into a community that is created by people and for their benefit. Society integrated in this way, constantly following «culture of encounter» rule, renews itself all the time and continually builds peace. All people are called to such building: believers and those who do not believe, all of good will. Also, the heads of state have in this effort of breaking the spiral of violence and a «culture of conflict» – both in economic and political dimension – big task and responsibility. Pope Francis reminded about this in a special letter to president of the Russian Federation Vladimir Putin on September 14, 2014 year. In the letter he wrote: «it is clear that, for the world’s peoples, armed conflicts are always a deliberate negation of international harmony, and create profound divisions and deep wounds which require many years to heal. Wars are a concrete refusal to pursue the great economic and social goals that the international community has set itself, as seen, for example, in the Millennium Development Goals. Unfortunately, the many armed conflicts which continue to afflict the world today present us daily with dramatic images of misery, hunger, illness and death. Without peace, there can be no form of economic development. Violence never begets peace, the necessary condition for development». On thebasis of the current teaching of PopeFrancisthe following conclusion can be drawn, thatthe key topeace in the worldin many dimensions- evenbetweenreligions–isadialoguedeveloped under «cultureof encounter». (shrink)

For much the greater part of Western history, moral and political thinking took fundamental guidance from "natural law," a standard of justice and human flourishing resting ambiguously on the dual foundation of the rational knowledge of human nature and the revelation of divine will. Modern politics and philosophy, by contrast, may be said to have emerged through the rise of a doctrine of "natural rights," which rested ambiguously on the rejection and the transformation of (...) class='Hi'>natural law. In the present "postmodern age", as we struggle to comprehend just what modernity was and how it got started, we urgently need to re-examine the complex fate of natural law, especially in the work of such thinkers as Hobbes, Spinoza, and above all John Locke, the father of the modern, liberal, "rights-based" theory of the state. (shrink)

This book articulates a systematic vision of an international legal system grounded in the commitment to justice for all persons. It provides a probing exploration of the moral issues involved in disputes about secession, ethno-national conflict, "the right of self-determination of peoples," human rights, and the legitimacy of the international legal system itself. Buchanan advances vigorous criticisms of the central dogmas of international relations and international law, arguing that the international legal system should make justice, not simply peace (...) among states, a primary goal, and rejecting the view that it is permissible for a state to conduct its foreign policies exclusively according to what is in the "national interest." He also shows that the only alternatives are not rigid adherence to existing international law or lawless chaos in which the world's one superpower pursues its own interests without constraints. This book not only criticizes the existing international legal order, but also offers morally defensible and practicable principles for reforming it. Justice, Legitimacy, and Self-Determination will find a broad readership in political science, international law, and political philosophy. (shrink)

he idiom of human rights, like those of natural law and natural rights, picks out a special class of moral concerns that are among the most weighty of all as well as unrestricted and broadly sharable . It is more specific than the other two idioms by presenting all and only human beings as sources of moral concern and by being focused on threats that are in some sense official. The latter specification can be (...) explicated as follows: By postulating a right to X as a human right, we assert that every society ought to be so organized that all its members enjoy secure access to X . By not organizing itself in this way, a society expresses official disrespect for the human right in question - especially if insecure access to X is due to the threat of official violations, i.e. to persons' being denied X or deprived of X by those in positions of political authority. The members of such a society violate a negative duty of justice: the duty not to participate in the imposition of unjust social institutions, if they do not do what they reasonably can do toward initiating and supporting appropriate institutional reform.This understanding of human rights undercuts one important objection to the admissibility of social, economic, and cultural human rights, as these, too, can now be understood as entailing only a negative duty: not to impose upon one's compatriots a social order under which they lack secure access to basic necessities. Moreover, one can argue that even classic civil rights have social and economic aspects: To secure freedom from inhuman and degrading treatment, for instance, a society may need to do more than introduce and enforce appropriate criminal statutes. It may also need to establish adequate social and economic safeguards, ensuring perhaps that domestic servants are literate, know about their rights and options, and have some economic security in case of job loss. Die Rede von Menschenrechten - ebenso wie die von Naturrecht und von natürlichen Rechten - bezieht sich auf eine besondere Klasse von moralischen Anliegen, die zu den gewichtigsten gehören, uneingeschränkt gelten und allgemein akzeptierbar sein sollen. Dabei ist die Rede von Menschenrechten spezifischer als die Rede von Naturrecht und die von natürlichen Rechten, indem sie sich einerseits auf die moralischen Ansprüche von Menschen - aller Menschen - konzentriert und andererseits nur Bedrohungen ausschließt, die einen offiziellen Charakter haben. Das letztere Merkmal läßt sich wie folgt interpretieren: Wer ein Recht auf X als ein Menschenrecht behauptet, fordert, daß jede Gesellschaft so organisiert sein sollte, daß alle Mitglieder sicheren Zugang zu X haben . Wenn eine Gesellschaft sich nicht so organisiert, ist das eine offizielle Mißachtung der betreffenden Menschenrechte. Dies wiegt besonders schwer, wenn der Zugang zu X aufgrund offizieller Rechtsverletzungen unsicher ist, also von politischen Autoritäten verweigert wird. Mitglieder einer Gesellschaft, die in einer solchen Situation nicht nach Kräften auf die erforderlichen institutionellen Veränderungen hinarbeiten, verletzen eine negative Rechtspflicht: die Pflicht nämlich, nicht an der Durchsetzung ungerechter Institutionen mitzuwirken.Dieses Verständnis von Menschenrechten erleichtert die Begründung von sozialen, ökonomischen und kulturellen Menschenrechten. Auch diese Rechte können nämlich so verstanden werden, daß sie nur eine negative Pflicht implizieren, die Pflicht nämlich, Mitbürgern keine soziale Ordnung aufzuerlegen, unter der sie keinen sicheren Zugang zur Befriedigung ihrer Grundbedürfnisse haben. Darüber hinaus läßt sich plausibel machen, daß auch die klassischen Bürgerrechte soziale und ökonomische Implikationen haben. Um Freiheit von unmenschlicher oder erniedrigender Behandlung zu gewährleisten, wird eine Gesellschaft vielleicht mehr tun müssen, als lediglich geeignete Strafrechtsnormen durchzusetzen. Vielmehr werden häufig auch soziale und wirtschaftliche Vorkehrungen notwendig sein, die z.B. sicherstellen, daß Hausangestellte lesen und schreiben können, ihre Rechte und Möglichkeiten verstehen und im Falle plötzlicher Entlassung ökonomisch abgesichert sind. (shrink)

This volume reflects on questions of human rights in the context of globalization. The essays responding to this subject are rich and varied: they focus on legal acceptance as well as consequences of human rights with regard to social rights and the necessary protection of the environment connected or close to those rights. Another approach to the subject featured in the volume is the legal recognition and the consideration of human rights as (...) moral rights. With concepts on universality, a new cosmopolitism, cultural pluralism and perspectives on religious variants and technological advances the debate on human rights is concluded. Index / Indice I. The Foundation of Rights / El fundamento de los derechos: J. Rubio Carracedo: El legalismo occidental: un problema para la universalizacion de los derechos humanos J. A. Seoane: El caracter juridico de las leyes injustas M. Borowski: Classifying and qualifying properties of fundamental rights J. von Platz: Faith in reason: questioning practical reason as fact, norm, end, and function of human rights R. Cruft: Policy implications of the philosophical foundations of human rights Maria Gabriela Scataglini: Derechos humanos: otra mirada sobre la cuestion de su universalidad II. A New Cosmopolitism / Un nuevo cosmopolitismo: V. de P. Barreto: Derecho cosmopolita y derechos humanos Luis Fernando Barzotto: Reconocimiento y fraternidad A. R. Bernstein: Justifying universal human rights via Rawlsian public reason H. Khatchadourian: Democracy and the globalization of human rights Milagros Otero Parga: Derechos humanos y globalizacion Halim Bepari: Human rights and the United Nations Miracy B. S. Gustin: Rescate de los derechos humanos en situaciones adversas de paises perifericos III. Multiculturism and Pluralism of Values /Multiculturalidad y pluralismo de valores: M. Herrero / M. Saralegui: Dogmatismo politico y pluralismo religioso Berry Tholen: Migration, justice, and Europe's identity. The relevance of special ties for EU's migration policy C. M. Alvarez Chicano: Implicaciones de la inconmensurabilidad de los valores en la aplicacion de principios de orden etico y juridico L. Perez Conejo: Axiologia juridica y pluralismo de valores: algunas consideraciones sobre la nocion de 'inconmensurabilidad' S-I. Liu: Fundamental legal values and globalization with regard to historical experience in freedom of speech L. C. Amezua: Libertad natural y esclavitud voluntaria: reflexiones de F. Suarez sobre la esclavitud IV. Rights and Gender / Derechos y genero: J.M. Gil Ruiz: La violencia de genero en el contexto familiar y la agresion de la ciencia juridica A. Goiriena Lekue: El interes superior del/la nino/a, coparentalidad y neutralidad de genero en la atribucion de la guarda y custodia de los hijos e hijas P. Garcia Guevara: Las politicas de genero en los paises globalizados del 'Tercer Mundo' V. Technological Impact and New Generation Rights / Impacto tecnologico y nuevas generaciones de derechos: M. Ahteensuu: Understanding the precautionary principle in the light of the traditional weak-strong distinction: a critical comment Cristina Monero Atienza: Bases para una teoria de los derechos en el siglo XXI M. Kitahara: Personal data processing and business ethics: personal data processing and personal data protection in business A. D. Oliver Lalana: El lado empirico de la legitimidad comunicativa: sobre la publicidad organizativa del derecho de proteccion de datos en internet J. Ebbesson / M. Zamboni: Transbordering democracy? The case of environment protection Sagrario Moles Nieto: El impacto medioambiental de los cultivos transgenicos VI. Bioethics and Law / Bioetica y derecho: M. Cruz Diaz de Teran: Principios para una biojuridica global C. Faralli / S. Tugnoli: Bioethics between law and science: the Italian law on medically assisted procreation (Law No. 40, February 19, 2004) N. Zeegers: The working of power in communicative regulation: the case of research with human embryos J. A. Fernandez Suarez: La bioetica en la era de la globalizacion F. J. Blazqez Ruiz: Privacidad y discriminacion genetica: propuestas bioeticas y juridicas ante los desafios de un mundo globalizado. (shrink)

The United Nations General Assembly adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948. A burgeoning human rights movement followed, yielding many treaties and new international institutions and shaping the constitutions and laws of many states. Yet human rights continue to be contested politically and legally and there is substantial philosophical and theoretical debate over their foundations and implications. In this volume distinguished philosophers, political scientists, international lawyers, environmentalists and anthropologists discuss some of the (...) most difficult questions of human rights theory and practice: What do human rights require of the global economy? Does it make sense to secure them by force? What do they require in jus post bello contexts of transitional justice? Is global climate change a human rights issue? Is there a human right to democracy? Does the human rights movement constitute moral progress? For students of political philosophy, human rights, peace studies, and international relations. (shrink)

Summary. Religious differences may rise and actually historically rose tensions and even wars. In the history, Christians also caused wars and were a threat to social integration and peace, despite the fact that Christianity is a religion of peace. God in Christians’ vision is a God of peace, and the birth of Son of God was to give peace «among men in whom he is well pleased». Although Christians themselves caused wars, died in them, were murdered and had to fight, (...) the social doctrine of Christianity is focused on peace. Also the social thought of the Roman Catholic Church strives to build peace. Over the years, the social teaching of the Roman Catholic Church was formed, which sees the conditions and foundations for peace. These are: the dignity of the human person, the natural law, human rights, common good, truth, freedom, love and social justice. The development of the Roman Catholic Church’s teaching on peace was contributed by popes of XX century: Pius XI, Pius XII, with high impact – John XXIII, Paul VI, Pope John Paul II and Pope Benedict XVI. After Pope Benedict XVI’s resignation, the most important role of the preceptor in the Church of Rome fulfills Francis – the pope from Argentina. Although his pontificate is not long, and teaching is not complete, but you can tell that he continues to build the social doctrine of the Roman Church in matters of peace through the development of so-called «culture of encounter». Based on selected speeches and letters of two years’ pontificate of Francis, the first figure of «culture of encounter» can be lined out as a way of preventing and resolving tensions in the contemporary world. Fundamentals of the concept of dialogue Francis created in the days of being a Jesuit priest and professor at Jesuit universities. He based it on the concept of Romano Guardini’s dialogue. Foundations of the look at the dialogue – in terms of Jorge Mario Bergoglio are strictly theological: God enters into dialogue with man, what enables man to «leaving himself» and enter into dialogue with others. Bergoglio dealt with various aspects of the dialogue: the Church and the world, culture and faith, dialogue between religions and cultures, dialogue inter-social and inter-national, dialogue rising solidarity and co-creating the common good. According to him the dialogue is a continuous task, not a single event; is overcoming widespread «culture of effacement» and «culture of fight» towards a «culture of encounter»; it releases from autism, isolation, gives strength and meaning of life, renews the ability to listen, lets looking at community in the perspective of the whole and not just selected units. As Bishop of Rome Jorge Mario Bergoglio continues and develops his idea of «a culture of dialogue and encounter». In promoting dialogue, he sees his own mission and permanent commitment imposed on him. He promotes the atmosphere – a kind of «music» – of dialogue, by basing it on emotions, respect, intuition, lack of threat and on trust. The dialogue in this sense sees a partner in each person, values the exchange always positively, and as a result it leads to making life ethical, bringing back respect for life and rights of every human being, granting the world a more human face. «Culture of encounter» has the power of social integration: it removes marginalization, the man is the goal not the means of actions, it does not allow a man to be reduced to a mere object, tools for profit or authority, but includes him into a community that is created by people and for their benefit. Society integrated in this way, constantly following «culture of encounter» rule, renews itself all the time and continually builds peace. All people are called to such building: believers and those who do not believe, all of good will. Also, the heads of state have in this effort of breaking the spiral of violence and a «culture of conflict» – both in economic and political dimension – big task and responsibility. Pope Francis reminded about this in a special letter to president of the Russian Federation Vladimir Putin on September 14, 2014 year. In the letter he wrote: «it is clear that, for the world’s peoples, armed conflicts are always a deliberate negation of international harmony, and create profound divisions and deep wounds which require many years to heal. Wars are a concrete refusal to pursue the great economic and social goals that the international community has set itself, as seen, for example, in the Millennium Development Goals. Unfortunately, the many armed conflicts which continue to afflict the world today present us daily with dramatic images of misery, hunger, illness and death. Without peace, there can be no form of economic development. Violence never begets peace, the necessary condition for development». On thebasis of the current teaching of PopeFrancisthe following conclusion can be drawn, thatthe key topeace in the worldin many dimensions- evenbetweenreligions–isadialoguedeveloped under «cultureof encounter». (shrink)

The book reconstructs the history of Western ethics. The approach chosen focuses the endless dialectic of moral codes, or different kinds of ethos, moral doctrines that are preached in order to bring about a reform of existing ethos, and ethical theories that have taken shape in the context of controversies about the ethos and moral doctrines as means of justifying or reforming moral doctrines. Such dialectic is what is meant here by the phrase ‘moral traditions’, taken as a name for (...) threads of moral discourse, made in turn of other interwoven threads, including transmission of shared codes, appeals to reform of prevailing custom, rational argument about the justification of some precept on the basis of some shared general teaching or principle, and rational argument about the ultimate basis for principles and justification of authoritative teaching. That is, the approach adopted to the reading of ethical texts depends on a firm belief in the fact that philosophers hardly created any ethical doctrine out of nothing. The main point this book tries to highlight is how different philosophical theories emerged and followed each other as a result of attempts at accounting for what was going on in the world of moral traditions. Changes were propelled by controversies between different schools, and highly abstract arguments were the unintended effects of moves made by controversialists forced to transform (and occasionally to turn upside down) their own doctrines in order to face the challenge posed by other arguments. This is the reason why the book examines not only texts that already enjoy pride of place in the history of philosophy (Aristotle, Kant, Hegel), but also other texts usually treated in the histories of religions (the Bible, the Talmud, the Quran), and others considered to be much less philosophical (Plutarchus, Pufendorf). -/- 1. Plato and a response to ethical scepticism. Two different traditions of morality in VI-V century Greece are described. The birth of philosophical questioning of traditional morality and temporal and spatial variation of custom is described within the context of the v century crisis, the demise of traditional aristocratic and tyrannical rule and the birth of democracy. Two conflicting answers to the challenge are reconstructed, namely conventionalist or immoralist theories formulated by the Sophists and the eudemonist and intellectualist Socratic theory. Plato’s own reformulation of Socrates answer to the Sophists is reconstructed. His psychological views, his classification of the four cardinal virtues and his political theory are described as parts of a unitary system, culminating in an extremely realist moral ontology identifying the idea of the good with the essence of the (moral and extra-moral) world itself. -/- 2. Aristotle and the invention of practical philosophy. Aristotle’s invention of practical philosophy as a field separated from first philosophy is shown to be an implication of his break with Plato moral ultra-realism. Aristotle’s agenda in his moral works is arguably dependent on a polemical intention, namely dismantling Socratic intellectualism. The semi-inductive or virtuously circular method of practical philosophy is illustrated, starting with the received opinions of the better and wiser individuals and trying dialectically to sift what is left of mistake and inconsistence in such opinions, finally trying to correct mistakes and make the overall practical science more consistent. The chapter illustrates then the relationship of individual ethics, or ‘monastics’, with the art and the science of the pater familias, or ‘economics’, and the science of the ruler and citizen, or politics. The nature of virtues, or better, excellences of character, is discussed, highlighting the basic role of hexis, or ‘disposition’. Prudence, or better practical wisdom, is the focus of the chapter. Its relationship with bouleusis or deliberation is examined, and its autonomous status vis-à-vis theoretical knowledge is stressed. -/- 3. Diogenes and philosophy as a way of life. The chapter provides an overview of Hellenistic ethics, which almost amounts to Hellenistic schools of philosophy, in so far as ‘philosophy’ became in these centuries primarily the name for a way of life. The typical character of the Cynical movement is highlighted, that of a school of life, not a school aimed at providing any kind of intellectual training was to be provided. -/- 4. Epicurus and ethics as self-care. The peculiar character of the Epicurean school is described, a combination of a science of well-being aiming, more than at pleasure as in the popular view, at reduction of useless suffering, of unnecessary needs, and at a balanced selection of pleasures of the best and most durable kind. -/- 5. Epictetus and ethics as therapy of the passions. The various phases of Stoicism are described, and the shifting place given to ethics in the Stoic system of idea, culminating in the paradoxical view of ethics, its impossibility in principle notwithstanding, as the only truly significant and necessary part of philosophy. Cicero is treated, showing how his own synthesis of various Hellenistic trends is as a truly philosophical enterprise, deserving serious consideration after one or two centuries when he was confined to the role of literate. Epictetus is chosen as the best example of what the Stoic tradition could yield, an art of living based on sophisticated introspection, in turn aimed at making a kind of cognitive therapy possible, dismantling obnoxious passions at their root by systematically correcting false representations. -/- 6. Philo and the reconciliation of Torah and Platonism. A reconstruction of basic ideas from a few books of the Hebrew Bible is provided, starting with the Prophetic tradition and the focus on God’s mercy as the source of motivation and standard for human behaviour. Then a comparative analysis is undertaken of a parallel tradition, namely the three codifications of the Torā (Law or, better, Instruction), highlighting how a core of moral ideas may be recognized as a basis and preamble of codification of civil law, cultural practice, and regulation of ritual purity. The importance of Leviticus is stressed as the turning point when emphasis mercy, typical of the Prophetic tradition, is combined with the legal tradition, yielding the change in sensibility of the Second Temple time. Philo of Alexandria is described as one of the three leading figures – together with Rabbi Hillel and Rabbi Yeshua – at the apex the emergence of the mentioned new sensibility, gradually including mercy as an essential part of justice and establishing the starting point of both the Rabbinic and the Christian tradition. This consists precisely in the precept of one’s neighbour’s love or of the golden rule, two eventually identical precepts whose meaning is arguably more sober and sensible than the long-lasting Christian tradition deriving from John and Augustine has made us believe and no novelty vis-à-vis so-called Ancient-Testament teachings. -/- 7. Augustine and Christianity as Neo-Platonism. The first section examines the moral doctrines of so-called 'ethical Treaties' from the Talmud, a group of treaties, among which the best known is Pirqé Avot, that were left out of the six "orders" of the canon as they did not fit in any of the six groups of issues ritual or legal on which the division was based. According to Maimonides, their peculiar theme is provided by the Deòt, 'opinions', i.e., mental dispositions, that is, the translation of the Greek term hexeis and Arab akhlak (in turn providing in this language the name for ethics as such). The three topics I reconstruct are: i) the notion of Torah: The Torah is understood as the world order itself, or as the ‘Wisdom’ that existed even before creation and was ‘the tool by which the world was built’; however, the Torah is an earthly and human entity, as it was "received" by humans, and from that very moment belongs to them; ii) the relationship between love of God and love of neighbour; the treaties require us to study and practice the Torah ‘for its own sake’, that is, require us to act out of love, not out of fear or hope of reward; iii) the idea of sanctification of daily life: having disappeared with the destruction of the Temple the possibility of any conflict between liturgical service and everyday life, the latter is assumed to be in itself divine service: to give food to the poor has the same value as sacrifices in the Temple, and as an implication, the insistence become recurrent on the goodness of created things in themselves along with a polemic against ascetic currents. The conclusions drawn are: i) the moral teachings of the Talmud and those of Yeshua are, rather than similar, virtually identical; one may safely say that the precept of love and the golden rule are central ones for all Talmudic rabbis, that mercy plays an indispensable role alongside with justice, and the latter is not a different thing from one’s neighbour’s love; ii) a peculiarity of Talmud rabbis facing Yeshua is the idea of study as worship, and knowledge as a source of justice; but this is an idea of Judaism after the Temple's destruction that cannot be attributed to the Pharisees of Yeshua’s time; iii) the relation of study and practice in the Talmud parallels that between faith and deeds in Paul's epistles, that is, respectively faith or learning are a necessary and sufficient condition to be recognized as righteous , but deeds are the inevitable effect of either faith or learning. The sayings ascribed to Yeshua are examined first, yielding the conclusion that a close equivalent may be found for every saying in Talmudic literature and yet the whole is ascribed to one rabbi, with rather consistent stress on God’s mercy and unconditional forgiving as the mark of true imitation of God. Thus, Yeshua’s teaching is pure Judaism. The third section describes briefly the galaxy of Gnostic currents and Manichaeism, trying to sketch the profile of moral teachings resulting from an encounter of Asian spiritual traditions, Hellenistic lore and sparks of teachings from apocalyptic Jewish currents. The last section summarizes the turbulent history of several encounters between Christian currents and Hellenistic philosophical schools. The first one was with late Cynicism. Recent, rather controversial, literature discovered the jargon and a few topics from the Stoic-Cynical popular philosophy in a few books from the New Testament itself. This, far from proving that Rabbi Yeshua had been influenced by cynic preachers, is a proof of the necessity felt by Christian preachers to translate the original ‘Christian’ teaching into a Greek lexicon deeply impregnated with cynic terminology. The second was with Platonism, yielding the mild and temperate moral teaching of Clemens of Alexandria, teaching the sanctity of nature and the human body, the joy of moderate fruition of ‘natural’ kinds of pleasures, and the beauty of the marital life – in short, the opposite of the standard picture of Medieval Christianity. Ambrose of Milan brings about a different kind of synthesis, namely with Middle Platonism, where Stoic themes prevail. The most shocking case is Augustine, where an early Manichean education is overcome in a former phase by a synthesis of Plotinian Neo-Platonism and Christian preaching, yielding a sustained polemic with the Manicheans and rather optimistic views on life and Creation, the body and sexuality, and Hebrew-Judaic tradition not far from Clemens of Alexandria. In a later phase, occasioned by controversy on the opposite front, with such Christian currents as the Pelagians and Donatists, Augustine comes back to heavily anti-Judaic and world-denying ascetic attitudes where is earlier Manichean upbringing seems to emerge again. The tragedy of medieval Christianity will be the later Augustine’s overwhelming influence. A final section is dedicated to the monastic tradition where a curious mixture of world-denying asceticism with an astonishingly penetrating ‘science’ of introspection emerges. -/- 8. Al Farabi and the reconciliation of Islam and Platonism. The Qurān and the qadit, that is, collections of sayings ascribed to the prophet Muhammad contain a wealth of precepts and catalogues of virtues mirroring moral contents from the Jewish and the Christian traditions, among them the basic notion of imitation of the Deity, where mercy is assumed to be its basic trait. An important tradition within Islam, namely Sufism, stressed to the utmost degree the role of mercy, turning Islam into a mystic doctrine centred on retreat from the world, abandonment to God’s will, and a peaceful and fraternal attitude to our fellow-beings. A secular literary tradition originating in the Sassanid Empire, the literature of advice to the Prince had for a time a widespread influence in the newly constituted Arabic-Islamic commonwealth. In a later phase, the legacy of Hellenic philosophy made its way into the intellectual elite of the Islamic world. The first important legacy was Platonic, and the Republic became the main text for Islamic Platonism. Al-Farabi wrote an enjoyable remake of the Platonic Republic, arguing that the citizen’s virtues were the basis on which the political building needs to rest. The secular lawgiver is enlightened by the light of reason in his everyday practice of governance, but room is made for the Prophet as the voice of revealed truth that confirms and completes the rational truth that philosophy may afford. In a second phase also Aristotelian and Stoic influence were assimilated. Miskawayh’s treatise was the masterwork at the time Arabic philosophy reached its Zenith. It is a treatment of the soul’s diseases and their remedies, combining the Aristotelian doctrine of the golden mean with the Stoic doctrine of the passions and elements of Galenic medicine. Towards the eleventh-twelve centuries a war raged among theologians and philosophers, finally won by the former with disappearance of philosophy as such. The newly established mainstream, yet, was no kind of intolerant fanaticism. It drew from the work of mystic theologian Al-Ghazālī, the best heir of Sufism, teaching a tolerant and peaceful attitude to our fellow-beings and a passive attitude to destiny as an expression of the Divine will. -/- 9. Moshe ben Maimon and the reconciliation of Torah and Aristotelian ethics. The encounter between the Talmudic tradition and Hellenic philosophy had taken place a first time in Alexandria at the time of Philo but the two traditions had parted way again. In fact, the kind of Platonic Judaism founded by Philo survived only within Christianity, in the fourth Gospel and then in writings by Clemens of Alexandria. The Talmudic literature had absorbed just less striking traits from the Hellenic Philosophy, namely an idea of ethics as care of the self and a role for the education of character as propaedeutic to theoretical knowledge. In the Arabic-Islamic world, a second round started when Jewish authors writing in Arabic undertook the task to prove the full compatibility of the tradition deriving from Torah and Platonic philosophy. The culmination of this attempt is provided by Moshe ben Maimon who tried to use Aristotelian ethics as a language into which the teaching from the Pirké Avot could be translated. -/- 10. Thomas Aquinas and the reconciliation of Christian morality and Aristotelian ethics. In the first section the fresh start is described of philosophical ethics in Latin Europe at the turn of the Millennium. In a first phase, Anselm and Peter Abelard built on a Platonic and Augustinian legacy. In this phase. remarkable innovations are introduced, including Abelard’s claim of the obliging character of erring consciousness. In a second phase, the rediscovery of Nicomachean Ethics thanks to Latin translation of Arabic versions gives birth to a new wave of ethical studies, recovering the very idea of Aristotelian practical philosophy, with the potential implication of full legitimization of natural morality, i.e. ethics without Revelation. Aquinas’s ethics is a theological ethics out of which it would be vain to try to extract a self-contained philosophical ethics. His treatment of topics in philosophical ethics, yet, does not boil down to repetition of Aristotelian arguments but is rather a creative reshaping of such arguments. For example, he introduces also in the practical philosophy a first principle parallel to the principle of non-contradiction; and he also carries out a synthesis of Aristotelianism, Stoicism, and neo-Platonism. Even though it is essentially moral theology, Aquinas’s doctrine - unlike Augustine – grants full citizenship to "natural" morality, firstly by rejecting the claim that the corruption of human nature due to the original sin is so radical as to leave "pure nature" incapable of moral goodness. The doctrine is presented in a more sophisticated formulation in a few of the Quaestiones, such as De Malo and De Veritate, in the Summa contra Gentes and in the commentaries to Aristotle than in the famous Summa Theologica, but the latter work includes the only or the largest exposition of some decisive part of the theory. Thus, the Summa Theologica should be read for what it is more than criticized for not being what it was not meant to be. It was not meant to be the brilliant synthesis of all that Reason he had been able to produce with what Revelation had added about which the Neo-Thomists used to dream, but rather a manual for the training of preachers and confessors, where theoretical claims are not too demanding and a few serious tensions are left. Besides a jump between the Prima Secundae and the Secunda Secundae, being the former an essay in virtue theory and the latter a handbook for confessors, the most serious tension is perhaps the one between the ethics of right reason presented in most of Ia-IIae and the eudemonistic ethics developed in quaestiones 1-5 of the same part; the alternative ethical theory which also may be found in Augustine, the Stoic view of a cosmic reason eventually coincident with the moral law, was believed by Anselm (followed by John Duns Scotus and William of Ockham) to be incompatible with eudemonism. It is questionable whether Thomas could reduce the tension proving that it is just an apparent tension, in so far as the right reason and bliss derived from knowledge of God tend to coincide, but this is just a conjecture. Thomas’s ethics is a virtue ethic, not a law-based one, and moral judgment focuses on the virtues, particularly charity, not on the commandments and even less on absolute prohibitions; Thomas, however, would not have considered a drastic alternative between law and the virtues such as the one which has been advanced in late twentieth-century philosophy to be justified. Nonetheless, when it discusses ‘special’ virtues, it ceases to be an ethics of virtue and becomes a disappointing and often contradictory discussion of legal and illegal acts. Such a discussion takes most of the time ‘reasonable’ middle positions on controversial issues but not the alternative approach that Aristotelianism would have made possible; even when some occasional Aristotelian claim shows up, such as money’s barrenness as a reason against usury, this seems to be made by an author who apparently ignores the Aristotelian Thomas of the Prima Secundae. It is an ethic of human autonomy which recognizes the binding character of the individual conscience and, potentially, even a duty to disobey unjust laws. It is true that what Thomas writes in his discussion of death penalty and persecution of heretics is simply disgusting, and yet we should blame Thomas the man, not Thomist ethical theory. Finally, Thomas’s ethics is not ethical ‘absolutism’, as both traditionalist Catholic theologians and secularist enemies of dogmatic morality tend to believe. It is instead an ethic of prudential judgment. Exceptions to this approach – or better results of logical fallacies – are such claims as the absolute character of negative precepts and of the existence of "intrinsically evil acts", claims that simply cease to make sense in the light of Thomas’s own distinction between human act and natural act, carrying consequences Thomas did not live long enough to draw or was not consistent enough to dare to draw. -/- 11. Francisco de Vitoria and casuistry. The first topic illustrated is the discussion about the notion of pura natura, namely the human condition after the original sin and before divine revelation. The core notion was already there in Aquinas but was later developed by Caietanus (Thomas de Vio) with a number of interesting implications: firstly a view of human nature as such much more positive than Augustine’s and his followers’ view, including both Calvinists and Jansenists; secondly, the implication that the philosopher’s morality, as opposed to the Christian’s morality, is a quite respectable kind of morality; thirdly, that theocracy and prosecution of the unfaithful lacked justification, with more far-fetching consequences than Aquinas himself had dared to draw. The second topic is casuistry, a new name for a comparatively older way of thinking, which was already there in late Stoicism and Cicero as well as in the Talmudic literature. This is an approach aimed at yielding probable enough solutions for doubtful cases even in absence of completely safe staring points. The genre developed from medieval reference books for confessors and became by the sixteenth-century a sophisticated tool-box for dealing with various fields of applied ethics. Francisco Vitoria, the main authority of Baroque Scholasticism, was a controversial figure, among the proponents of the new discipline of casuistry and a consistent proponent of more separation between the religious and the civil authority, stricter limits to the legitimacy of war, innate rights of non-Christian nations in the New World based on the notion of pura natura, providing a standard of ‘natural’ goodness, previous to revelation, on which the Indian nations were judged to live in a naturally good condition, provided with the institutions of family, justice, and religion had accordingly a right to full respect by Christian sovereigns. Bartolomé de Las Casas, arguing along similar lines, was the leader of a historical battle in defence of the rights of the Indios. -/- 12. Michel de Montaigne and the art of living. A short description of one of the Renaissance Phyrronism, one of the classical philosophies revived in the fifteenth and sixteenth century. Montaigne combines the sceptical epistemology with an understanding of ethics – indeed of philosophy as a whole – in terms of an art of living inspired by two basic ideas, sagesse, that is, practical wisdom as the only kind of rationality available after theology, science, and tradition have declared bankrupt, and an aesthetic ideal of self-transformation through the art of writing and introspection. -/- 13. Pierre Nicole and neo-Augustinianism. The chapter illustrates first the vicissitudes of Augustinianism newly born after the late medieval triumph of Thomist Aristotelianism in the alternative Protestant and Catholic versions processed by the Calvinists and the Jansenists. Then it illustrates the doctrines of Pierre Nicole, Blaise Pascal’s best disciple, on the impossibility of introspection, on the ubiquity of self-deception, on the incurably evil character of the passion of love, and on the two moralities, the one of the man of the world, the morality of honesty which is indispensable for granting peace and order but devoid of any true value for eternal salvation, since the same external behaviour may be prompted by opposite motivations, and the morality of charity, the only true one but also useless to society. The third topic is Pierre Malebranche’s view of self-deception as a ubiquitous phenomenon accounting for human action and responsibility and his reformulated theory of self-love, no less ubiquitous than for Nicole and yet not as incurably evil, given the distinction between morally indifferent and even necessary amour de soi and vicious amour proper, a distinction on which the whole of Rousseau’s moral and political theory rests. -/- 14. Samuel von Pufendorf and the new science of morality. The chapter is dedicated to the discovery of the idea of a ‘new moral science’. Hugo Grotius is discussed first highlighting the real character of his project, much closer to the Thomist idea of a natural law accessible to non-corrupted human reason when human beings are living in a state of pura natura. Then Hobbes’s combination of scepticism, voluntarism, and conventionalism is described and both the continuity with Grotius’s new science, in the search for non-revealed rational morality, and the break with him, in the adoption of voluntarism and refusal of an intellectualist view of natural law, are illustrated. Pufendorf’s work is illustrated as a synthesis of the two previous attempts and the – up to Schneewind underestimated – paradigmatic example of the new science of morality. -/- 15. Richard Cumberland and consequentialist voluntarism. The chapter gives an overview of eighteenth-century Anglican ethics, noticing how the Cambridge tradition gave special weight to natural theology as opposed to positive or revealed theology – and how two Cambridge fellows, John Gay and Thomas Brown, elaborated on Cumberland’s (and Malebranche’s, as well as Leibniz’s) strategy for finding a third way between intellectualist view and voluntarist view of the laws of nature. The result of their elaboration was a kind of a rational-choice account of the origins of natural laws, where a law-giver God chooses among a number possible sets of laws on a maximizing criterion, and God’s maximandum is happiness for his creatures. The chapter notices also how such a solution aimed at solving at once the problem of evil and that of the foundation of moral obligation by proving how God’s choice was justified as far as it was the one minimising the amount of suffering in the world. 16. Richard Price and intuitionism. The chapter describes first the doctrines of the Cambridge Platonists, an example of hyper-rationalist reaction to Calvinism. Secondly it describes the sophisticated and universally ignored – from Sidgwick to Anscombe –version of what was later labelled ‘ethical intuitionism’ – showing how it escapes familiar objections and misrepresentations of intuitionism – from Mill to Rawls – in grounding its argument on transcendental arguments while carefully avoiding recourse to introspection and psychological evidence, which has been taken as a too easy target by critics of intuitionism. Thirdly, the chapter discusses Whewell’s ‘philosophy of morality’, as opposed to ‘systematic morality’, not unlike Kant’s distinction between a pure and an empirical moral philosophy. Whewell worked out a systematization of traditional normative ethics as a first step before its rational justification; he believed that the point in the philosophy of morality is justifying a few rational truths about the structure of morality such as to rule hedonism, eudemonism, and consequentialism; yet a system of positive morality cannot be derived solely from such rational truths but requires consideration of the ongoing dialectics between idea and fact in historically given moralities. Whewell’s intuitionism turns out closer to Kantian ethics than commentators have made us believe until now, and quite different from what Sidgwick meant by intuitionism. -/- 17. Adam Smith and the morality of role-switch. The chapter describes first, Hutcheson’s attempt at basing the ‘new science’ of natural law on different bedrock than Pufendorf and the English Platonists, namely a moral sense, a faculty whose existence is assumed to be proved on an empirical basis. The second step is a reconstruction of Hume’s rejoinder in terms of a new science of man including morality on an ‘experimental’ basis, that is, a ‘Newtonian’ hypothetical-deductive approach, distinguished from Hutcheson’s allegedly uncritical descriptive approach to human nature. The third step is a reconstruction of Adam Smith theory of morality understood as emerging from a spontaneous interplay of exchanges of situations (the most basic meaning of the word ‘sympathy’ as construed by this author). -/- 18. Jeremy Bentham and utilitarianism. The bulk of the chapter is dedicated to the doctrines of Jeremy Bentham. The Enlightenment spirit that suggested the idea of a new morality, free from religion, is illustrated. The notion of utility is illustrated as well as the subsequent formulations of the principle of utility. The idea of felicific calculus is discussed, showing how its inner difficulties prompted several reformulations of the principle of utility in order to avoid undesirable implications of proposed formulations. The role of the thesis of spontaneous convergence between interest and duty is discussed, showing how it left numberless questions open, and the distinction between the virtues of prudence, justice and beneficence is described as a way out of the deadlocks of classical utilitarianism. After Bentham, Mill’s reformed utilitarianism is reconstructed, showing how it is a kind of mixed system – as closer to common sense as it gives up Bentham’s claims to consistency and simplicity – resulting as unintended consequences from the controversies in which Mill was too keen to engage. The hidden agenda of the controversy between Utilitarianism and Intuitionism, going beyond the image of the battle between Prejudice and Reason, is described, showing how both competing philosophical outlooks turn out to be more research programs than self-contained doctrinal bodies, and such programs appear to be implemented, and indeed radically transformed while in progress thanks to their enemies no less than to their supporters. -/- 19. Immanuel Kant, practical reason and judgment. The chapter argues that Kant took from Moses Mendelssohn the idea of a distinction between geometry of morals and a practical ethic. He was drastically misunderstood by his followers precisely on this point. He had learned from the sceptics and the Jansenists the lesson that men are prompted to act by deceptive ends, and he was aware that human actions are also empirical phenomena, where laws like the laws of Nature may be detected. His practical ethics made room for judgment as a holistic procedure for assessing the saliency of relevant moral qualities in one given situation; this procedure yields the same results as the geometry of morals does for abstract cases but does so immediately and without balancing conflicting duties with each other, since what makes for the salient quality of a situation is perceived from the very beginning. Kant's practical philosophy is richer than the received image, making room for an ‘empirical moral philosophy’ or moral anthropology including treatment of commerce, needs, value and price, happiness and well-being; the overall social theory and philosophy of history is less different from Adam Smith's than the received image makes believe; the paradox of happiness is central to Kant's philosophy; a distinction between happiness and well-being is clearly drawn; the distinction plays a basic role in establishing a link between the economic and the moral life. -/- 20. Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel and the critique of abstract universalism. The chapter describes first the Romantic movement and the implications some of its concerns, rescuing passions, community, tradition, the individual as the bearer of a unique destiny, and the longing for organic unity between the individual, mankind and nature. Hegel’s contribution is discussed then, highlighting how, on the one hand, he shared a number of these concerns and on the other he had more rationalist leanings. The notion of morality is the pivotal point of the reconstruction, highlighting how Hegel construes this notion as a key to his own diagnosis of the malaise of modernity – the separation of individual and Gemeinschaft – and how his attack on Kant turns around this very idea. -/- 21. Friedrich Nietzsche against Christianity and the Enlightenment. The chapter illustrates first the idea of deconstruction of the back-world of values. Nietzsche claims to be legitimate heir of the French moralists, Leibniz, Kant and Hegel, in so far as he allegedly carries out to its deepest implications their discovery of what lies behind traditional naïve belief in the existence of an objective realm of values just waiting for description by the philosopher. The two exemplars form which genealogy draws inspiration are the classical philologist’s historical reconstructions of lost meanings and the chemist’s decomposition of elements. Then the genealogy of the notions of good and evil carried out in the first dissertation of Genealogy of morals is illustrated with its paradoxical conclusion that will to power is in fact the only ‘genuine’ kind of goodness. The third point illustrated is the dialectic of ascetism and self-realization with its ambiguous outcome. The suggested interpretation of such outcome is that Nietzsche’s normative ethics is a kind of virtue ethics taking an aesthetic ideal as a normative standard -/- 22. George Edward Moore and ideal utilitarianism. The chapter discusses the ideas of common sense and common-sense morality in Sidgwick. I argue that, far from aiming at overcoming common-sense morality, Sidgwick aimed purposely at grounding a consist code of morality by methods allegedly taken from the natural sciences to reach, also in ethics, the same kind of “mature” knowledge as in the natural sciences. His whole polemics with intuitionism was vitiated by the a priori assumption that the widespread ethos of the educated part of humankind, not the theories of the intuitionist philosophers, was what was worth considering as the expression of intuitionist ethics. In spite of a naïve positivist starting-point, Sidgwick was encouraged by his own approach in exploring the fruitfulness of coherentist methods for normative ethics. Thus, Sidgwick left an ambivalent legacy to twentieth-century ethics: the dogmatic idea of a “new” morality of a consequentialist kind, and the fruitful idea that we can argue rationally in normative ethics albeit without shared foundations. Then it reconstructs the background of ideas, concerns and intentions out of which Moore’s early essays, the preliminary version, and then the final version of Principia Ethica originated. I stress the role of religious concerns, as well as that of the Idealist legacy. I argue that PE is more a patchwork of rather diverging contributions than a unitary work, not to say the paradigm of a new school in Ethics. I add a comparison with Rashdall’s almost contemporary ethical work, suggesting that the latter defends the same general claims in a different way, one that manages to pave decisive objections in a more plausible way. I end by suggesting that the emergence of Analytic Ethics was a more ambiguous phenomenon than the received view would make us believe, and that the wheat (or some other gluten-free grain) of this tradition, that is, what logic can do for philosophy, should be separated from the chaff, that is, the confused and mutually incompatible legacies of Utilitarianism and Idealism. -/- 23. Edmund Husserl and the a-priori of action. The chapter illustrates first the idea of phenomenology and the Husserl’s project of a phenomenological ethic as illustrated in his 1908-1914 lectures. The key idea is dismissing psychology and trying to ground a new science of the a priori of action, within which a more restricted field of inquiry will be the science of right actions. Then the chapter illustrates the criticism of modern moral philosophy carried out in the 1920 lectures, where the main target is naturalism, understood in the Kantian meaning of primacy of common sense. The third point illustrate is Adolph Reinach’s theory of social acts as a key the grounding of norms, a view that basically sketches the very ideas ‘discovered’ later by Clarence I. Lewis, John Searle, Karl-Otto Apel and Jürgen Habermas. A final section is dedicated to Nicolai Hartman, who always refused to define himself a phenomenologist and yet developed a more articulated and detailed theory of ‘values’ – with surprising affinities with George E. Moore - than philosophers such as Max Scheler who claimed to Husserl’s legitimate heirs. -/- 24. Bertrand Russell and non-cognitivism. The chapter reconstructs first the discussion after Moore. The naturalistic-fallacy argument was widely accepted but twisted to prove instead that the intuitive character of the definition of ‘good’, its non-cognitive meaning, in a first phase identified with ‘emotive’ meaning. Alfred Julius Ayer is indicated as a typical proponent of such non-cognitivist meta-ethics. More detailed discussion is dedicated to Bertrand Russell’s ethics, a more nuanced and sophisticated doctrine, arguing that non-cognitivism does not condemn morality to arbitrariness and that the project of a rational normative ethics is still possible, heading finally to the justification of a kind of non-hedonist utilitarianism. Stevenson’s theory, another moderate version of emotivism is discussed at some length, showing how the author comes close to the discovery of the role of a pragmatic dimension of language as a basis for ethical argument. Last of all, the discussion from the Forties about Hume’s law is described, mentioning Karl Popper’s argument and Richard Hare’s early non-cognitivist but non-emotivist doctrine named prescriptivism. -/- 25. Elizabeth Anscombe and the revival of virtue ethics. The chapter discusses the three theses defended by Anscombe in 'Modern Moral Philosophy'. I argue that: a) her answer to the question "why should I be moral?" requires a solution of the problem of theodicy, and ignores any attempts to save the moral point of view without recourse to divine retribution; b) her notion of divine law is an odd one more neo-Augustinian than Biblical or Scholastic; c) her image of Kantian ethics and intuitionism is the impoverished image manufactured by consequentialist opponents for polemical purposes and that she seems strangely accept it; d) the difficulty of identifying the "relevant descriptions" of acts is not an argument in favour of an ethics of virtue and against consequentialism or Kantian ethics, and indeed the role of judgment in the latter is a response to the difficulties raised by the case of judgment concerning future action. A short look at further developments in the neo-naturalist current is given trough a reconstruction of Philippa Foot’s and Peter Geach’s critiques to the naturalist-fallacy argument and Alasdair MacIntyre’s grand reconstruction of the origins and allegedly unavoidable failure of the Enlightenment project of an autonomous ethic. -/- 26. Richard Hare and neo-Utilitarianism. The chapter addresses the issue of the complex process of self-transformation Utilitarianism underwent after Sidgwick’s and Moore’s fatal criticism and the unexpected Phoenix-like process of rebirth of a doctrine definitely refuted. A glimpse at this uproarious process is given through two examples. The first is Roy Harrod Wittgensteinian transformation of Utilitarianism in pure normative ethics depurated from hedonism as well as from whatsoever theory of the good. This results in preference utilitarianism combined with a ‘Kantian’ version of rule utilitarianism. The second is Richard Hare’s two-level preference utilitarianism where act utilitarianism plays the function of eventual rational justification of moral judgments and rule-utilitarianism that of action-guiding practical device. -/- 27. Hans-Georg Gadamer and rehabilitation of practical philosophy. The post-war rediscovery of ethics by many German thinkers and its culmination in the Sixties in the movement named ‘Rehabilitation of practical philosophy’ is described. Among the actors of such rehabilitation there were a few of Heidegger’s most brilliant disciples, and Hans-Georg Gadamer is chosen as a paradigmatic example. His reading of Aristotle’s lesson I reconstructed, starting with Heidegger’s lesson but then subtly subverting its outcome thanks to the recovery of the central role of the notion of phronesis. -/- 28. Karl-Otto Apel and the revival of Kantian ethics. Parallel to the neo-Aristotelian trend, there was in the Rehabilitation of practical philosophy a Kantian current. This started, instead than the rehabilitation of prudence, with the discovery of the pragmatic dimension of language carried out by Charles Peirce and the Oxford linguistic philosophy. On this basis, Karl-Otto Apel singled out as the decisive proponent of the linguistic and Kantian turn in German-speaking ethics, worked out the performative-contradiction argument while claiming that this was able to provide a new rational and universal basis for normative ethics. An examination of his argument is some detail is offered, followed by a more cursory reconstruction of Jürgen Habermas’s elaboration on Apel’s theory. -/- 29. John Rawls and public ethics as applied ethics. Rawls’s distinction between a “political” and a “metaphysical” approach to one central part of ethical theory, namely the theory of justice, is interpreted as a formulation of the same basic idea at the root of both the principles approach and neo-casuistry, both discussed in the following chapter, namely that it is possible to reach an agreement concerning positive moral judgments even though the discussion is still open – and in Rawls’ view never will be close – on the basic criteria for judgment. -/- 30. Beauchamp and Childress and bioethics as applied ethics. The chapter presents the revolution of applied ethics while stressing its methodological novelty, exemplified primarily by Beauchamp and Childress principles approach and then by Jonsen and Toulmin’s new casuistry. -/- . (shrink)

History plays an important role in the philosophy of human rights, more so than in philosophical discussions on related concepts, such as justice. History tends to be used in order to make it credible that there is a tradition of rights as a moral idea, or an ethical ideal, that transcends national boundaries. In the example that I investigate in this chapter, this moral idea is tightly spun around the moral dignity of the human person. There (...) has been a shift in conceptions of human rights during the twentieth century, from ‘politics of the state to the morality of the globe’. Rather than figuring in, or as, constitutional principles of the political life of a polity and the relation between a state and its members, the notion of rights has come to serve as the name of a state- and politics-transcending ethical position on the status of the human person, and the relations between human persons. Given that this move from politics of the state to morality of the globe is a recent one, it goes without saying that trying to ground a state-transcending morality of human rights with the help of early modern history is problematic. Still, philosophers of this kind of morality of human rights are prone to claiming, for their accounts, a long-standing human rights tradition that, frankly, is not there, at least not in that form. One example is James Griffin, whose reliance on what he refers to as a historical notion of human rights is the focus of my critical discussion here. Griffin claims that ‘our’ concept of human rights is a product of eighteenth century Enlightenment thought. If ‘our’ concept of human rights is Griffin’s concept, then his claim is false – as I show. I agree, however, that the eighteenth century is a pivotal moment, but if we wish to understand natural rights in eighteenth century thought, we need to grasp the fact that power over others, and the capacity of those who hold that power to also abuse it, was not a contingent concern, or merely part of the extension of a concept defined prior to, or independently of, any such concern. It was built into the concept itself; it was its very point. (shrink)

The ideal of the United Nations was first put forward by Immanuel Kant in his 1795 essay Perpetual Peace. Kant, in the tradition of Locke and Rousseau is a liberal who believes that relations between individuals can either be based upon law and consent or upon force and violence. One way that such the ideal of world peace could be achieved would be through the creation of a single world state, of which every human being was a citizen. (...) Such an ideal was advocated by a number of eighteenth century liberals. Kant, however, rejects this ideal and instead argues that the universal rule of law can be achieved through the establishment a federation of independent states. I examine the relevance of Kant’s arguments today, focusing on two questions: Firstly, as advocates of the rule of law, why advocate a federation of independent nations rather than a single world state. Secondly, is this ideal realizable? Is Kant right to think that republics are natural and are likely to live peacefully with one another? Kant’s arguments on this issue have been taken up again in recent decades by defenders of the theory of the “democratic peace”, the theory that democracies are more likely to live at peace with one another. (shrink)

In the 17th and 18th centuries, the doctrine of just war was one of the most popular theories in international law. According to this doctrine, the right to war is an integral part of natural law and, under specific circumstances, morally justified. To my mind, Kant was a fervent critic of the theory of just war. He critically reformulates the rational and normative principles of right in a way that leaves no place for war as a legitimate procedure to (...) resolve a conflict between states. In section, I shall analyze the fundamental principles of ius gentium, in particular, the duty to leave the state of nature at the international level and the juridical form that the association between states must adopt. The exit of the state of nature between nations must generate an international legal framework that not only protects human rights but also safeguards the sovereignty of the peoples. In section, I shall examine Kant’s critique of the doctrine of just war in Zum ewigen Frieden and in the Rechtslehre, exploring why the idea of an ius ad bellum is incompatible with the critical reformulation of the right of nations proposed there. (shrink)

The question is: How is a global peace order possible in the shape of an international legal system? The article focuses on the problems of international law within the present system of the UN and tries to actualise the Kantian concept of perpetual peace (1795), with regard to positions of international lawyers. A peaceful international order must have the means to protect against unlawful violence, even by armed forces, e.g. to intervene against gross violations of fundamental human (...) class='Hi'>rights. It is necessary that even the great powers are obliged to act only within this legal framework. Unilateralism must be abolished in a continuing process. ‘Good leadership under law, not above the law’ (J. Delbrück). (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: Introduction Cosmopolitanism and the Rights of Man: The Radicalisation of Natural Law Cosmopolitanism and Social Theory: The Preservation and Transcendence of Natural Law Cosmopolitanism and Human Rights: The Dialectics of Progress Cosmopolitanism and the Crisis of Human Rights: The Turn to Judgment Acknowledgments References.

As a natural result of globalization and migration from village to city, peace, ease, and happiness of people who have to coexist in cities are extremely important. Beliefs, systems, ideologies, and institutions aim to achieve this. This situation forces individuals and groups who live together, whether they want to or not, to get to know and communicate with each other within a trust environment. The most important factor that makes recognizing segments of society with different characteristics and communicate with (...) them in a healthy way is to develop a culture of coexistence among the community members. Coexistence means that people with different identities and affiliations are united around the citizenship denominator and contributing to the continuation of social life in unity and solidarity. This understanding must be transformed into a cultural consciousness in the community members. Because, polarization, marginalization, discrimination, and violence become common among individuals who live in societies where the culture of living together and the awareness of citizenship are not developed. It is not possible to ensure coexistence only by law. In societies where a culture of cohabitation develops, differences are not seen as a cause of separation, but as a richness that diversifies society and gives dynamism to social life. In societies dealing with political, social, economic, and moral problems, religion, language, race, ethnic identity, and regional sense of belonging might be more likely used as terrorization tools. The self-confidence that accurrate religious knowledge gives to individuals might weaken such a possibility. Islam anticipates a social system that facilitates a pecaful and easeful life for the people. Giving importance to principles such as love, respect, tolerance, justice, consultation, assistance, and solidarity in the Qur'an is an indication of the need for this system. The Prophet Mohammad had the opportunity to apply an example of this system in Madinah anticipatedin the Qur'an in Madinah. After the migration, some principles related to the basic rules of coexistence were included in the Madinah agreement, which the Prophet signed with representatives of different segments living in Madinah. It is very important that these principles are able to shed light on the issues happenin in the recent world. The experience of living together in the time of the Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) should be introduced to the next generations with correct information. Because, The Medina Agreement, which has an important place in the history of Muslims, is an important example of the ability to live together in peace and ease by maintaining differences in society. The Medina Agreement is the first written document that allows different groups of people residing in Medina to live together. The main purpose of this agreement, which the Prophet made with the Jewish, Christian, and polytheistic tribes in Medina after the migration, is to protect the fundamental rights stemming from the citizenship of people who live in the same city by having different faiths and cultural values. If so, the Madinah Agreement might be an example for many societies that recently experience discord and unrest due to their characteristics such as religion, language, race, political thought, and etc. In this regard, this article focuses on the importance of the culture of coexistence in the context of the Madinah Agreement and the process of formation of this culture and offers some suggestionsthat will facilitate peace and ease for different groups living in the same society. Some of these suggestions are as follows: Differences such as language, religion, race, culture, and political thought among the realities of social life should not be seen as an element of discrimination, everyone should contribute to the peace and well-being of society by combining in the common denominator of citizenship. In educational institutions, it should be taken into account values such as human love, respect for the other, tolerance, freedom of thought, empathy, and peace. In addition to educational institutions, all segments operating in the field of law, politics, economics, religion, and media should unite, and thus, should develop a consciousness of citizenship in society, where differences in race, religion, language, culture and political views are seen as richness. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:BOOK REVIEWS 273 my judgment, in the fact that he has limited the historical inquiry to the scholarly study of documents and discussions without showing those cultural, social, psychological, and economic motivations which formed an accompaniment to the individual protagonists of the discussions. The motivation for what a philosopher says is not justified by revealing only his most immediate opponent's name and ideas, but by showing, as Goldmann (La (...) communautd humaine chez Kant, Paris, 1948) and, very briefly, Stark (The Sociology of Knowledge) did, the reason for his thinking and his presuppositional needs. In the case of Kant, it is obvious that we cannot leave out his pietist formation, the fears about the French Revolution and Hume's scepticism. The historicity of a study cannot be limited to the history of polemics or to the discovery of documents which, theoretically, add nothing to what an author has already stated in his works. The vast philological material Pupi has gathered, seems to me very good, and it represents, I think, the greatest value of Pupi's work, because of its usefulness in the field of the sociology of knowledge. And to this field I take the liberty of referring Pupi for an example of a method that is historical and not tautological. ANTONELLA GUARALDI Kant und der Friede. By Wilhelm Miiller. (Diisseldorf: Monitor-Verlag, 1962. Pp. 16.) Perpetual Peace records the noble and humane dream of an old man. Such dreams are not without historical precedent, but rarely have they been invested with the earnestness and the conceptual rigor of a Kant--even of a Kant in his declining years. This short essay is at the very least a minor but noteworthy contribution to political theory. Its main thesis call be simply stated. A truly lasting peace can be achieved only through the agency of a world federation of states operating under moral law. The moral law in question is an extension of the guiding principles of Kant's ethics from the private to the public sphere. It is contrary to the dictates of reason as well as of moral conscience to suppose that political order may be conceived or established apart from or even in opposition to moral law. A state or nation, Kant declares, is a free moral person, possessed of an inviolable integrity, not to be exploited as a thing for purposes of aggrandizement on the part of other states. Were that all that Perpetual Peace contained, the essay would stand as testimony to Kant's political idealism. But he pursues with equal seriousness the question of how such an ideal might be realized in practice. Underlying Kant's federalism is his republicanism, his insistence that the only sound civil constitution is one in which each citizen is free, equal, and fully represented under common law publicly promulgated. It is Kant's contention -perhaps less naive today than it might have seemed earlier in this century--that where the consent of the subjects is required, as it is under a republican form of government, to decide whether or not there shall be war, they may be expected to think twice before bringing such sufferings upon themselves. Further, Kant sees in the ever-tightening and expanding web of international relations a natural deterrent to war, since any war will increasingly involve most if not all of mankind. Both considerations appeal, not to the questionable good will of politicians, but to enlightened self-interest. Finally, Kant lays down a series of "preliminary articles" whose purpose is to specify the conditions without which perpetual peace, as things stand, will not even become a real possibility. Among the principles here formulated are that a peace treaty is invalid if made with secret reservations, that the autonomy and constitutional integrity of independent states must be preserved, that standing armies must gradually be abolished, that national debts shall not be contracted externally, and that in the event of war "dishonorable stratagems" such as assassination, 274 HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY poisoning, spying, etc., which would render postwar mutual confidence impossible, shall not be countenanced. It is mainly with an eye to these preliminary articles that Professor Wilhelm Miiller argues for Kant's relevance to contemporary... (shrink)

The United Nations General Assembly adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948. A burgeoning human rights movement followed, yielding many treaties and new international institutions and shaping the constitutions and laws of many states. Yet human rights continue to be contested politically and legally and there is substantial philosophical and theoretical debate over their foundations and implications. In this volume, distinguished philosophers, political scientists, international lawyers, environmentalists and anthropologists discuss some of the (...) most difficult questions of human rights theory and practice: what do human rights require of the global economy? Does it make sense to secure them by force? What do they require in jus post bello contexts of transitional justice? Is global climate change a human rights issue? Is there a human right to democracy? Does the human rights movement constitute moral progress? For students of political philosophy, human rights, peace studies and international relations. (shrink)