My goal in this paper is to show that two theses that are widely adopted among Kantian ethicists are irreconcilable. The paper is divided into four sections. In the first, I briefly sketch the contours of my own positive view of Kantian ethics, concentrating on the issues relevant to the two theses to be discussed: I argue that agents can perform actions from but not in conformity with duty, and I argue that agents intentionally can perform actions they take to (...) be contrary to duty. In the second, I focus on Barbara Herman’s non-accidental rightness condition from “On the Value of Acting from Duty.” In the third, I focus on Christine Korsgaard’s guise of the objectively good from “Formula of Humanity.” In the fourth, I explain why the positions developed by Herman and Korsgaard are irreconcilable and I make a suggestion about how to move forward. (shrink)

Compared to other aspects of Kant’s practical philosophy, Kant’s theory of conscience remains relatively unexplored in the secondary literature on his work. This is no doubt due, at least in part, to the fact that in the Groundwork to a Metaphysics of Morals (henceforth: Groundwork) and the Critique of Practical Reason, Kant's two most widely read works on ethics, conscience plays very little role. However, Kant has extended discussions of conscience in three of his lesser read works: On the Miscarriage (...) of all Philosophical Attempts in Theodicy (henceforth: Miscarriage), the Religion within the Boundaries of mere Reason (henceforth: Religion), and the Metaphysics of Morals. There are also many unpublished notes in which Kant discusses conscience, and it may be conjectured, on the basis of extant copies of students’ notes, that conscience was a frequent topic in Kant’s lectures. As commentators have begun to play closer attention to these lesser read works, the literature on Kant’s theory of conscience has begun to develop. It is thanks to this development that this Element is possible: there is an emerging consensus that Kant’s theory of conscience is important both in its own right and insofar as it can help to correct various misunderstandings that have become part of the standard view of Kant’s ethical thought. This Element is divided into two parts. The first focuses on exegesis of Kant’s ethics. One of the overarching theses of this first part of the Element is that, although many of Kant’s claims about conscience are prima facie inconsistent, a close examination of context generally can dissolve apparent contradictions. The second part of the Element focuses on philosophical issues in Kantian ethics. One of the overarching theses of this part of the Element is that many positions traditionally associated with Kantian ethics, including the denial of moral luck, the nonaccidental rightness condition, and the guise of the objectively good, are at variance with Kant’s ethics. (shrink)

The provocation defence, which militates against full legal responsibility for unjustified killings in several common law jurisdictions, has been the subject of considerable controversy during recent decades. Much of the criticism focused on substantive legal issues. This article examines the philosophical bases for the defence in hopes of establishing a theoretical groundwork for future debate on the legal defence. The defence originated on desert bases and continues to be understood on those grounds. This article thus examines it in light of (...) two dominant desert-based theories of punishment originating with Aristotle and Immanuel Kant respectively.Ultimately, the best theory of punishment and the best theory of defence are provided by different approaches. The more plausible and robust Kantian theory of punishment can nonetheless be supplemented by the Aristotelean theory of defence as a continent sociological morality to create a more nuanced account of defence that better explains both excuses in general and the provocation defence in particular. From a substantive legal perspective, this position justifies continued use of the provocation defence in our imperfect legal order, but the partial excuse of provocation will not exist in the ideal legal order. An ideal political order will sufficiently control its citizens’ emotions such that the defence cannot be justified. A partial excuse of provocation is only necessary in the interim. (shrink)

Boyer & Petersen (B&P) argue that a “rudimentary exchange psychology” is responsible for many of people's folk-economic beliefs that are at odds with the consensus views of economists. However, they focus primarily on macroeconomic beliefs. I argue that the same rudimentary exchange psychology could be expected to produce fairly accurate microeconomic intuitions. Existing evidence supports this prediction.

What grounds human rights? How do we determine that something is a genuine human right? This chapter offers a new answer: human beings have human rights to the fundamental conditions for pursuing a good life. The fundamental conditions for pursuing a good life are certain goods, capacities, and options that human beings qua human beings need whatever else they qua individuals might need in order to pursue a characteristically good human life. This chapter explains how this Fundamental Conditions Approach is (...) better than James Griffin’s Agency Approach as well as Martha Nussbaum’s Central Capabilities Approach. It also shows how it can be compatible with the increasingly popular Political Conceptions of human rights defended by John Rawls, Charles Beitz, and Joseph Raz. (shrink)

The fact that the standard probabilistic calculus does not define probabilities for sentences with embedded conditionals is a fundamental problem for the probabilistic theory of conditionals. Several authors have explored ways to assign probabilities to such sentences, but those proposals have come under criticism for making counterintuitive predictions. This paper examines the source of the problematic predictions and proposes an amendment which corrects them in a principled way. The account brings intuitions about counterfactual conditionals to bear on the interpretation of (...) indicatives and relies on the notion of causal (in)dependence. (shrink)

The present paper argues that a right to work, defined as social and legal guarantees to fair conditions of employment, should be an essential part of a democratic state with market arrangements. This argument proceeds along the following lines. First, I reconstruct an account of rights that defends the “correlativity” thesis of rights and duties. The basic idea is that a social member’s legitimate demand to something of value, such as gainful employment, implies duties on the part of others to (...) respect and fulfill it. These duties include the following with regard to that demand: avoiding actions that cause the harm, protecting it against standard threats, and otherwise providing aid in case it is deprived. Second, I sketch an outline of what a right to work will entail in terms of the correlative duties just described. This means that respect and fulfillment of the demand will require both social members and the democratic state alike to guarantee fair conditions of employment: first, by forbearing from actions that deprive members of access to work; and second, by protecting members against threats of deprivation and aiding them when they are so deprived. Third, I answer some ethical and empirical objections to the idea of a right to work: that it violates the legal rights of owners and employers, fails to impart self-respect, lacks economic efficiency, and erodes human capital by undermining competitive incentives. Finally, I make some concluding observations that a democratic right to work so conceived is ethically and economically superior to alternative arrangements that neither respect nor fulfill these correlative duties to avoid harm, protect against threats, and provide aid in cases of deprivation. (shrink)

Contemporary Kantians who defend Kant''s view of the superiority of the sense of duty as a form of motivation appeal to various ideas. Some say, if only implicitly, that the sense of duty is always ``available'''' to an agent, when she has a moral obligation. Some, like Barbara Herman, say that the sense of duty provides a ``nonaccidental'''' connection between an agent''s motivation and the act''s rightness. In this paper I show that the ``availability'''' and ``nonaccidentalness'''' arguments are (...) in tension with one another. And the ``availability'''' idea, although certainly supported by some passages in Kant himself, is also clearly denied in other passages. My conclusion is that Kantians will need to abandon either availability or nonaccidentalness if they wish to have a consistent set of views about the sense of duty. (shrink)

The increasing awareness of personal health responsibility had led to the claim that patients with ‘self-inflicted’ conditions have less of a right to treatment at the public's expense than patients whose conditions arose from ‘uncontrollable’ causes. This paper suggests that regardless of any social decision as to the limits and scope of individual responsibility for health, the moral framework for discussing this issue is equality. In order to reach a consensus, discourse should be according to the common basis of all (...) theories of justice, Aristotle's formal principle of justice: ‘equals must be treated equally and unequals must be treated unequally, in proportion to the relevant inequality’. This paper deals with the question of whether and under what circumstances risk-taking behaviour could be regarded as a ‘relevant inequality’ with respect to the right to health care. Following a discussion of the relevant inequalities in health care, the conclusion is reached that the fact that the condition was avoidably caused by the patient and is therefore his or her fault can not be regarded necessarily as a relevant inequality. Therefore, the issue is one of societal support for health care; after defining relevant inequalities in this respect, the paper attempts to apply them to self-inflicted conditions. This analysis reveals that, in theory, it may be just to restrict societal support in such cases. However, the application of this conclusion requires proof of many factual claims—for which there is often very limited evidence. (shrink)

To such sanguine expectations, Pheng Cheah responds deftly with a sobering account of how the "inhuman" imperatives of capitalism and technology are ...

If the instance of human rights cannot ensure the protection of the rightless, as Arendt famously claimed, how can the rightless struggle for freedom and equality? In this essay, I attempt to answer this question by reconsidering Arendt’s influential critique of human rights in light of the two polar responses it evoked from contemporary French philosophers Jacques Rancière and Étienne Balibar. Rancière, who objects to Arendt’s delimiting of the political, finds her argument excluding and dangerous. Balibar, on the other hand, (...) believes that it conveys an immense potential for politics to come, as it points to the dialectical political truth of equaliberty. In the following, I show the problematics of Rancière’s ingenious formulation of rights, and the answer Balibar’s original interpretation of Arendt’s thought might suggest in response. I contend that working through Rancière’s critique of Arendt’s argument and Balibar’s affirmation of it not only highlights the merits of her critical account but also points to the fundamental relation between Arendt’s work on rights and her later discussions of the human condition of non-sovereignty and the power of promises. I believe that such a reading can contribute to our interpretation of Arendt, and pave new routes of action for non-citizens (such as refugees, stateless persons and subjects of military occupation), who cannot employ the authorities’ strength for their protection. (shrink)

Retributive theories of punishment argue that punishing a criminal for a crime she committed is sufficient reason for a justified and morally permissible punishment. But what about when the state gets lucky in its decision to punish? I argue that retributive theories of punishment are subject to “Gettier” style cases from epistemology. Such cases demonstrate that the state needs more than to just get lucky, and as these retributive theories of punishment stand, there is no anti-luck condition. I’ll argue (...) that Gettier-style cases demonstrate an impermissible instance of punishment, even though they meet the conditions of retributive theories of punishment. Retributive theories are, therefore, too weak. The safety condition from epistemology provides the anti-luck condition needed for permissible punishment. I argue that two forms of retributivism, rights-forfeiture and what I call standard retributivism, are both subject to Gettier-style cases. Unlike the literature on standards of proof, this paper argues that safety is a condition on punishment itself, i.e., in all nearby possible worlds, the accuser must correctly accuse the convicted for the crime they actually committed. (shrink)

In many countries, there are health care initiatives to make smokers give up smoking in the peri-operative setting. There is empirical evidence that this may improve some, but not all, operative outcomes. However, it may be feared that some support for such policies stems from ethically questionable opinions, such as paternalism or anti-smoker sentiments. This study aimed at investigating the support for a policy of smoking cessation prior to surgery among Swedish physicians and members of the general public, as well (...) as the reasons provided for this. A random sample of general practitioners and orthopaedic surgeons as well as members of the general public received a mail questionnaire. It contained a vignette case with a smoking 57-year old male farmer with hip osteoarthritis. The patient had been recommended hip replacement therapy, but told that in order to qualify for surgery he needed to give up smoking four weeks prior to and after surgery. The respondents were asked whether making such qualifying demands is acceptable, and asked to rate their agreement with pre-set arguments for and against this policy. Response rates were 58.2% among physicians and 53.8% among the general public. Of these, 83.9% and 86.6%, respectively, agreed that surgery should be made conditional upon smoking cessation. Reference to the peri-operative risks associated with smoking was the most common argument given. However, there was also strong support for the argument that such a policy is mandated in order to achieve long term health gains. There is strong support for a policy of smoking cessation prior to surgery in Sweden. This support is based on considerations of peri-operative risks as well as the general long term risks of smoking. This study indicates that paternalistic attitudes may inform some of the support for peri-operative smoking cessation policies and that at least some respondents seem to favour a “recommendation strategy” vis-à-vis smoking cessation prior to surgery rather than a “requirement strategy”. The normative reasons speak in favour of the “recommendation strategy”. (shrink)

Is it justified to hold that an agent S has a (moral) right to P if the duty-bearer is not specified? There is an intense ongoing debate on this question. There are two positions in the literature. On the one hand, O´Neill´s much-discussed account of rights holds that it is justified to say that an agent S has a right to P if and only if the duty-bearer is sufficiently determined – i.e. if and only if it is clear against (...) whom S may claim her right to P (O’Neill 1986, 1988, 1996, 2000, 2005, 2016). Call this, the ‘claimability condition’. On the other hand, interest-based theorists argue that it can be justified to say that an agent S has a right to P even if the duty-bearer is not sufficiently determined (Caney 2007; Griffin, 2008; Raz 1988; Tasioulas 2007; see also: Etinson, 2013; Ypi 2010). Who (if anyone) is correct in this fundamental discussion about the very nature of rights? In this paper, I provide an answer to this crucial question. Neither O´Neill nor interest-based theorists provide good reasons to justify their positions. However, I argue, the claimability condition is an existence condition of rights justified on the basis of their action-guiding character. The reason is that if the duty-bearer is not specified, the content of the right (its correlative obligation) does not sufficiently guide what the agent should do because it is indeterminate who is required to act (or refrain from acting). (shrink)

En la filosofía política latinoamericana predomina una concepción sobre la condición humana,- aunque no siempre se presentase en estos términos-, en lugar de una presunta naturaleza humana, biológicamente determinada o una esencia humana metafísicamente concebida. Los valores por sí mismos, lo mismo éticos que políticos, jurídicos, religiosos, estéticos, etc., no son capaces de realizar absolutamente nada si estos no van acompañados de profundas transformaciones socioeconómico políticas que trascienden su espiritualidad para tratar de convertirse en factor material de impulso al continuo (...) e infinito proceso de enriquecimiento de la condición humana. Este concepto se corresponde mucho mejor con el criterio histórico, holístico, complejo y dialéctico y por tanto contradictorio del perfeccionamiento del hombre en su lucha contra diversas formas de alienación, por lo que resulta más apropiado para concebir el desarrollo progresivo de la democracia y los derechos humanos. Latin American political philosophy is dominated by a conception of the human condition, - though not always he was appearing in these terms-, rather than an alleged human nature, biologically determined or a metaphysically conceived human essence. By themselves, the same ethical values, to political, legal, religious, aesthetic, etc., are not able to do absolutely nothing if they are not accompanied by profound socio-economic political transformations that transcend their spirituality to try to become a material factor of impulse to the infinite and continuous process of enrichment of the human condition. This concept corresponds better with the historical approach, holistic, complex and dialectic and therefore contradictory development of man in their struggle against various forms of alienation, which makes it more appropriate to conceive of the progressive development of democracy and human rights. (shrink)

Scholars in philosophy, political science, and the policy community have recently advocated for a ‘sticks and carrots’, or conditional-coercion, approach to human rights violations. On this model, rights violators are conceived of as rational agents who should be rewarded for good behavior and punished for bad behavior by other states seeking to improve human rights abroad. External states concerned about human rights abroad should impose punishments against foreign rights violators, and these punitive measures should not be lifted until rights violations (...) in target countries cease. Against these scholars, I argue that the conditional-coercion model is mistaken. In this article, I explicate the ‘sticks and carrots’ approach to human rights, criticize it on both theoretical and empirical grounds, and suggest an alternative approach that I term rights diagnostics. The model I propose is sensitive to the internal political struggles in rights violating states and the incentive structures faced by rights violators. This model takes account of relevant empirical evidence on the role of external coercion and inducements in producing institutional change. I conclude by sketching an institutional design that would potentially implement ‘rights diagnostics’ policy.1. (shrink)

In this paper I'm interested in the prospects for the Right Reasons theory of creditworthiness. The Right Reasons theory says that what it is for an agent to be creditworthy for X-ing is for that agent to X for the right reasons. The paper has a negative goal and a positive goal. The negative goal is to show that a class of Right Reasons theories are doomed. These theories all have a Conceptualization Condition on acting for the right reasons. (...) Conceptualization Conditions demand that agents who act for the right reasons deploy or be able to deploy certain normative concepts in acting. I argue that views of this type run into a host of overintellectualization problems. The positive aim is to argue for my Right Reasons view, which appeals to know-how to avoid overintellectualization. (shrink)

According to just war theory, a resort to war is justified only if it satisfies the right intention condition. This article offers a critical examination of this condition, defending the thesis that, despite its venerable history as part of the just war tradition, it ought to be jettisoned. When properly understood, it turns out to be an unnecessary element of jus ad bellum, adding nothing essential to our assessments of the justice of armed conflict.

Many international declarations state that human beings have a human right to health care. However, is there a human right to health care? What grounds this right, and who has the corresponding duties to promote this right? Elsewhere, I have argued that human beings have human rights to the fundamental conditions for pursuing a good life. Drawing on this fundamental conditions approach of human rights, I offer a novel way of grounding a human right to health care.

Given his hostility to intensional locutions, it is not surprising that Quine was suspicious of the subjunctive conditional. Although he admitted its usefulness as a heuristic device, in order to introduce dispositional terms, he held that it had no place in a finished scientific theory. In this paper I argue in support of something like Quine’s position. Many contemporary philosophers are unreflectively realist about subjunctives, regarding them as having objective truth values. I contest this. “Moderate realist” theorists, such as Lewis (...) and Stalnaker, admit that subjunctives are context-relative and often indeterminate; I argue, using some examples from the contemporary literature on conditionals, that these features are deeper and more widespread than they think. “Ultra-realist” theories, which deny any indeterminacy, are not credible. Hence subjunctives are unsuitable for certain purposes, in particular the description of mind-independent reality. (shrink)

Digital platform economy has radically changed the modes in which work is organized, stretching the functionality of legal environment of work and its governance. This article builds on a strand of labor law scholarship that advances the need to rethink the legal construction of work and work relationship in order to adapt it to the dynamically evolving socio-economic context. By applying a business and human rights lens to this process, this article confutes the mainstream argument that labor rights guarantees remain (...) contingent on an individual’s enjoying the status of an employee under national jurisdiction. We survey a largely underexamined conception of affording protection to platform workers under International Human Rights Law (IHRL). In doing so, we argue that the instruments of IHRL may in some respects be even better placed than that of national law, both strengthening and complementing areas where state protection is weak or non-existent. Through the right to just and favorable conditions of work perspective, we outline the non-contested, albeit partly poorly implemented obligations of states, as well as largely contentious and contested responsibilities of private actors such as digital platforms towards the rights-holders. We conclude by arguing that the leverage offered by IHRL in the struggle to curb a quasi-sovereign power of the platform largely outweighs the democratically motivated objections this avenue may raise. (shrink)

The main aim of our paper is to implement Leibniz's analysis of the conditional right in the framework of a dialogical approach to Public Announcement Logic. According to our view, on one hand: PAL furnishes a dynamic epistemic operator which models communication exchange between different agents that seems to be very close to Leibniz understanding of the dynamics between the truth of a proposition and the knowledge of the truth of that proposition (Leibniz calls the latter certification of its truth); (...) on the other hand, the dialogical approach provides a semantics for the dynamic epistemic operator in the context of conditional right by means of which: (i) the exchange between agents leading to a public announcement amounts to the (contractual) interaction of commitments of both the benefactor and the beneficiary of a conditional right (ii) the notion of certification is understood as an action, namely as a move where the beneficiary asks the benefactor to stand to his commitments, (iii) some restrictions specific to the logical nature of the head and the tail of the conditional right can be implemented by combining PAL with some features of linear logic within the same theory of meaning. (shrink)

The topic of this paper is the foundation for individual rights proposed by David Gauthier in his seminal 1986 book Morals by Agreement, and particularly the role of conception of rationality in this foundation. The foundation of rights is a part of Gauthier’s broader enterprise: to ground morals in rationality – more specifically, in the economic conception of rationality. Because of the importance of this conception for the whole of Gauthier’s project, we reconstruct first the conception of rationality which can (...) be found in decision theory and game theory, presenting simultaneously in a relatively non-technical way some basic concepts of the aforementioned disciplines. We proceed then to reconstruction of the foundation of rights itself – it turns on Gauthier’s interpretation of the so-called “Lockean proviso.” Lastly, we turn to the connection between rationality and foundation of rights. It is to be found in the narrow compliance – the disposition to enter only into cooperation which satisfies conditions of fairness set out in part by the Lockean proviso. (shrink)

Two opposite tendencies characterize the intellectual and political developments in our world as a whole at the end of the twentieth century: on the one hand, we promote respect for human rights, i.e., for certain “universal” norms; on the other, we promote equal respect for all cultures, i.e., respect also for sets of parochial, “relative” norms, which are not only often discrepant among themselves, but often discrepant vis-à-vis human rights as well. In light of this, I argue that we need (...) paideia for a sagacious implementation of human rights in the twenty-first century. (shrink)

In the opening sections of his Foundations of Natural Right, Fichte argues that mutual recognition is a condition for the possibility of self-consciousness. However, the argument turns on the apparently unconvincing claim that, in the context of transcendental philosophy, conceptions of the subject as an isolated individual give rise to a vicious circle the resolution of which requires the introduction of a second rational being to ‘summon’ the first. In this essay, my aim is to present a revised account (...) of the opening arguments on which they are more convincing. In particular, I argue that the problem of a circle is genuine and may be seen to result from a relation of mutual dependence between agency and cognition which ensures that for an exercise of either capacity to take place, an exercise of the other would have already had to have taken place with the result that neither can occur. Moreover, the solution is successful. The summons prevents us from being driven around the circle once more because it is a ‘synthesis’ that reconciles the constraint to which I am subject as a cognizer of independently given objects and my freedom as a self-determining subject. (shrink)

This chapter is devoted to the discussion of religious freedom and the anti-racist fight in the Black Diaspora in Latin America, considering the historical processes that involve such discussion, including legal apparatus such as Human Rights and local legislation. Therefore, as a starting point, we take the historical conditions of the emergence of Candomblé in Brazil, that are linked to the trafficking of enslaved African peoples and their resistance to keep alive in their memories, their religious beliefs and their worldviews. (...) Wherefore, it is a discussion in which religious freedom is not dissociated from the anti-racist struggle in the case of Brazil, where, in the 20th century, the myth of racial democracy is produced in the light of studies carried out by Gilberto Freyre in the midst of the 1922 post-week modernist movement. (shrink)

This paper poses a puzzle for contemporary Kantian political philosophy. Kantian political philosophers hold that the state’s purpose is to secure the conditions for people’s innate right to equal freedom, while at the same time claiming that innate right does not give a determinate set of conditions that the state is to bring about. Officials, then, have to make decisions in cases where the considerations of innate right provide no further guidance. I argue that, intuitively, in such cases there are (...) (i) some further considerations that officials may appeal to and (ii) some further considerations that officials may not appeal to in order to decide among the options consistent with people’s innate right and then raise difficulties for the ability of current Kantian accounts to explain how they can accept both (i) and (ii). I conclude by suggesting one potential path forward for Kantians to address this puzzle. (shrink)

While National Human Rights Institutions are widely regarded as particularly promising tools in the emerging transnational regime for the regulation of business and human rights, we still know little about their potential and actual contribution to this field. This article bridges the gap between business and human rights research and NHRI scholarship, proceeding in three steps: Firstly, I analyze the structural conditions for NHRIs to tackle business-related human rights abuses effectively, focusing on the key conditions of legitimacy and competences. Secondly, (...) I examine the envisaged role and functions of NHRIs in business and human rights regulation according to the Paris Principles and the UN Guiding Principles. Thirdly, I reconstruct and critically assess NHRIs’ mandates and powers to address corporate human rights abuse, based on the analysis of surveys and reports. I argue that there is a significant mismatch between the essential structural conditions for effective NHRI engagement with business and human rights, the expected contribution of NHRIs to the prevention and remedy of corporate human rights abuses, and the limitations of their mandates and powers in practice. To overcome that misalignment and unlock NHRIs’ full potential, this article proposes a reform of the Paris Principles which would provide these institutions with a robust source of international legitimacy and increase the pressure on state governments to extend their powers. (shrink)

In Religion within the Bounds of Bare Reason Kant speaks of an ethical state of nature and of an ethico-civil condition, with explicit reference to the juridical state of nature and the juridico-civil condition he discusses at length in his legal-political writings. Given that the Religion is the only work where Kant introduces a parallel between these concepts, one might think that this is only a loose analogy, serving a merely illustrative function. The paper provides a first outline (...) of the similarities and the differences between the state of nature and the civil condition in Right and in ethics. The comparison points to a deeper, structural relation between the two pairs of concepts. By doing so, it makes room for developing a unitary conception of the state of nature and of the civil condition, which would underlie both the ethical and the juridical version. (shrink)

In 2006, a WHO survey found evidence of a substantial increase in patient-led litigation against health authorities and funders over access to medicines around the world. New Zealanders have seldom litigated denials of access to health care. Part of the explanation lies in the fact that New Zealand has a legislated patients' "bill of rights", with enforcement through a complaints mechanism. Although the separate regime does not afford patients substantive legal protection in respect of complaints about lack of access to (...) care, this form of alternative, low-level resolution of health care disputes does condition disgruntled patients not to turn to the courts for legal redress in relation to their rights. But given the increasing need for prioritization arising from serious concern about the sustainability of the public health system, as well as a trend towards greater explicitness when it occurs, increased disappointment on behalf of patients and the public when care is denied or limited seems inevitable. This may well translate into increased patient-led litigation against health boards and funders. Part 1 provides an overview of the New Zealand health system, with a focus on the points at which resource allocation decisions are made, the identity of the decision-maker, and the methods by which priority-setting occurs. Part 1.1 describes inequalities between population groups in New Zealand, both in health outcomes and in access to health care. Part 2 describes the legal framework surrounding the health and disability sector, and discusses the lack of legislated rights to health and the limited right of access to health care in legislation, despite the existence of a legally enforceable Code of Health and Disability Services Consumers' Rights. (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: Background on the Problem: Intrusion, Unjust Infringement, and Enforcement Rights Intrusion‐Harm Reduction Sufficient Conditions for Enforcement Rights against Non‐Culpable Non‐Just Intrusions A Defence Conclusion.

Hohfeld’s analysis on the different types of rights and duties is highly influential in analytical legal theory, and it is considered as a fundamental theory in AI&Law and normative multi-agent systems. Yet a century later, the formalization of this theory remains, in various ways, unresolved. In this paper I provide a formal analysis of how the working of a system containing Hohfeldian rights and duties can be delineated. This formalization starts from using the same tools as the classical ones by (...) Kanger and Lindahl used, but instead of focusing on the algebraic features of rights and duties, it aims at providing a comprehensive analysis of what these rights and duties actually are and how they behave and at saying something substantial on Power too—maintaining all along the Hohfeldian intentions that these rights and duties are sui generis and inherently relational. (shrink)

One point fairly frequently argued by moral philosophers is the capacity of the various forms of Utilitarianism to handle the concept of a right. I want to show that any plausible moral theory must employ a concept of a right that does not allow of Utilitarian analysis. One requirement of any plausible moral code is that it allow us to live together peacefully; in that sense, at least, morality has its home in communities. Somebody might form their own purely personal (...) 'ethical' code according to which she would devote her life to private pleasure or the production of great art or whatever, but that sort of ethical code is of no concern to me here: what concerns me is the sort of ethical code put up as a candidate for regulating the life of a community. One necessary condition of our living together peacefully in communities is that we recognise the concept of a right (whether or not we have one word for that concept) which does not allow of Utilitarian treatment. We need that concept of a right, or something that is definitive in disputes, because of our need for a conventional decision-procedure. (shrink)

S. Matthew Liao argues here that children have a right to be loved. To do so he investigates questions such as whether children are rightholders; what grounds a child's right to beloved; whether love is an appropriate object of a right; and other philosophical and practical issues. His proposal is that all human beings have rights to the fundamental conditions for pursuing a good life; therefore, as human beings, children have human rights to the fundamental conditions for pursuing a good (...) life. Since being loved is one of those fundamental conditions, children thus have a right to be loved. Liao shows that this claim need not be merely empty rhetoric, and that the arguments for this right can hang together as a coherent whole. This is the first book to make a sustained philosophical case for the right of children to be loved. It makes a unique contribution to the fast-growing literature on family ethics, in particular, on children's rights and parental rights and responsibilities, and to the emerging field of the philosophy of human rights. (shrink)

In “Conditions and Analyses of Knowledge”, Robert Shope focuses on the conditions that must be satisfied for a person to have knowledge, specifically knowledge that something is so. Traditionally, knowledge has been analyzed in terms of justified true belief. Shope addresses philosophers’ disagreements concerning the truth and belief conditions. After introducing the justification condition, he presents challenges that have provoked several attempts to replace or to supplement the justification condition for knowledge. Shope presents and assesses several of these, (...) including early causal theories, the nonaccidentality requirement, reliable process and conditional analyses, the reliable‐indicator analysis, the conclusive reasons analysis, defeasibility analyses, analyses in terms of cognitive or intellectual virtues, and proper functionalism as well as his own account of knowledge. (shrink)

Since the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights were adopted by the UN Human Rights Council in 2011, they have diffused into policy frameworks, laws, and regulations across the globe. This special issue seeks to advance the interdisciplinary field of human rights research by examining key elements of the emerging transnational regime for the regulation of business and human rights. In seven original contributions, scholars from political science, law, accounting, and philosophy critically reflect on the theoretical foundations of (...) the UNGPs, they analyze the effectiveness of implementation mechanisms and current regulatory practice, and they advance proposals for the future development of the business and human rights regime. In this introduction, we prepare the ground for these analyses, proceeding in three steps. Firstly, we argue that the adoption of the UNGPs has triggered a norm cascade which requires a distinctive, empirically oriented research agenda focusing on the scope, governance, and effectiveness of corporate human rights accountability norms and instruments. Secondly, we explain how the articles in this special issue contribute to that research agenda by addressing these themes. Thirdly, we provide an overview of the individual contributions and point out avenues for future research. (shrink)

Using the accounts of Gewirth and Griffin as examples, the article criticises accounts of human rights as those are understood in human rights practices, which regard them as rights all human beings have in virtue of their humanity. Instead it suggests that (with Rawls) human rights set the limits to the sovereignty of the state, but criticises Rawls conflation of sovereignty with legitimate authority. The resulting conception takes human rights, like other rights, to be contingent on social conditions, and in (...) particular on the nature of the international system. (shrink)