We present a cross-cultural analysis showing that the presence of an active or moral High God in societies varies generally along a continuum from lesser to greater technological complexity and subsistence productivity. Foragers are least likely to have High Gods. Horticulturalists and agriculturalists are more likely. Pastoralists are most likely, though they are less easily positioned along the productivity continuum. We suggest that belief in moral High Gods was fostered by emerging leaders in societies dependent on resources that were (...) difficult to manage and defend without group cooperation. These leaders used the concept of a supernatural moral enforcer to manipulate others into cooperating, which resulted in greater productivity. Reproductive success would accrue most to such leaders, but the average reproductive success of all individuals in the society would also increase with greater productivity. Supernatural enforcement of moral codes maintained social cohesion and allowed for further population growth, giving one society an advantage in competition with others. (shrink)

In order to decide whether a comprehensive treaty covering all greenhouse gases is the best next step after UNCED, one needs to distinguish among the four questions about the international justice of such international arrangements: (1) What is a fair allocation of the costs of preventing the global warming that is still avoidable?; (2) What is a fair allocation of the costs of coping with the social consequences of the global warming that will not in fact be avoided?; (3) What (...) background allocation of wealth would allow international bargaining (about issues like 1 and 2) to be a fair process?; and (4) What is a fair allocation of emissions of greenhouse gases (over the long-term and during the transition to the long-term allocation)? In answering each question we must specify from whom any transfers should come and to whom any transfers should go. As the grounds for the answers we usually face a choice between fault-based principles and no-fault principles. (shrink)

I address the usefulness of thinking about a human right to subsistence within conceptions of human rights grounded in ordinary moral reasoning. I argue that that natural rights should be understood as rights in rem, with their dynamism constrained by the requirements of justification and their scope constrained by the distinction between perfect and imperfect duty. I then suggest that many of the most pressing demands which the moral significance of subsistence needs create are plausibly imperfect duties, and (...) so cannot correlate to a natural right to subsistence. This restricts the helpfulness of a human right to subsistence in our reasoning about what we owe to others. (shrink)

With respect to climate change, what is wanted is an account that morally condemns the production of ‘luxury’ greenhouse gas emissions (e.g., joyriding in an SUV), but not ‘subsistence’ emissions (e.g., cooking meals). Now, our individual greenhouse gas emissions either cause harm, or they do not—and those who condemn the production of luxury emissions generally stake their position on the grounds that they do cause harm. Meanwhile, those seeking to defend the moral permissibility of luxury emissions generally do so (...) by arguing that our individual emissions do not cause harm. Here, I argue that, if our individual emissions do cause harm, then this entails too much. For, it entails not only that our luxury emissions are morally impermissible, but that our subsistence emissions are too. This is an undesirable result. Therefore, I propose that we embrace our other option. Namely, I propose that we accept that our individual emissions do not cause harm; or at least, that they make no perceptible difference with respect to the harms associated with climate change. The result of this admission is not as bad as you might think. For, I argue, even if we are individually causally impotent with respect to the harms of climate change, there remains a plausible route toward the moral condemnation of our individual luxury emissions—contrary to what others have argued. What is more, only by accepting our individual causal impotence can we successfully ground the permissibility of our individual subsistence emissions. (shrink)

I argue that, contrary to what Tom Regan suggests, his rights view implies that subsistence hunting is wrong, that is, killing animals for food is wrong even when they are the only available food source, since doing so violates animal rights. We can see that subsistence hunting is wrong on the rights view by seeing why animal experimentation, specifically xenotransplanation, is wrong on the rights view: if it’s wrong to kill an animal to take organs to save a (...) human life, it’s wrong to kill an animal to eat that animal to save a human life or improve human health. I discuss these arguments’ implications for animal rights-based vegan advocacy, insofar as some people claim that they don’t feel their best on vegan diets and so their eating meat is morally justified. I argue that such an attempt to justify consuming animal products fails on Regan’s rights view, but discuss some attempts to morally excuse such violations of animals’ rights. These attempts are inspired by Regan’s attempts at potentially excusing animal rights advocates’ using medications developed using animals. (shrink)

Le « féminisme de la subsistance », à l’intersection du féminisme, de l’écologie et de l’anticapitalisme, a été remis en lumière par des théoricien·nes et activistes du Nord et du Sud dans les années 2010. L’étude des sociétés paysannes montre que l’accomplissement par les femmes des tâches vitales pour le groupe a été sous-estimé et leur confère puissance, sacralité et autonomie, en particulier pour assurer l’égale répartition des biens de subsistance. Face aux critiques dénonçant cet essentialisme, l’auteure propose un « (...) écoféminisme vernaculaire » qui s’appuie sur les pratiques concrètes des femmes intégrant agriculture, artisanat, travaux de mécanique et de maçonnerie, agirs familiaux. Car, sous sa forme moderne, le travail domestique est doublement aliéné : non seulement, il n’est pas rémunéré, mais il est coupé de ses potentialités productives de subsistance pour se cantonner à la consommation et au care. Les écoféministes de la subsistance veulent s’opposer aux vocations « naturelles » des femmes et imaginer des perspectives : se réapproprier et partager collectivement des fonctions nourricières de base dans un monde où s’impose de façon accélérée l’aménagement agro-industriel de la planète. (shrink)

Attention has been given to cross-cultural differences in adolescent growth, but far less is known about developmental variability during juvenility (ages 3–10). Previous research among the Pumé, a group of South American foragers, found that girls achieve a greater proportion of their adult stature during juvenility compared with normative growth expectations. To explain rapid juvenile growth, in this paper we consider girls’ activity levels and energy expended in subsistence effort. Results show that Pumé girls spend far less time in (...) subsistence tasks in proportion to their body size compared with adults, and they have lower physical activity levels compared with many juveniles cross-culturally. Low activity levels help to explain where the extra energy comes from to support rapid growth in a challenging environment. We suggest that activity levels are important to account for the variation of resource and labor transfers in mediating energy availability. (shrink)

The central question I address is whether the inclusion of a right to subsistence among human rights can be justified. The human right to subsistence is conventionally interpreted as a fundamental right to a basic living standard characterized as having access to the material means for subsistence. It is widely thought to entail duties of protection against deprivation and duties of assistance in acquiring access to the material means for subsistence. The inclusion of a right to (...) subsistence among human rights interpreted in this way has been met with considerable resistance, particularly on the part of those who argue that fundamental rights cannot entail positive duties. My purpose in this dissertation is to consider whether a plausible interpretation of the human right to subsistence can succeed in overcoming the most forceful and persistent objections to it. My main thesis is that a minimal interpretation of the human right to subsistence according to which it is a right not to be deprived of access to the means for subsistence provides the strongest interpretation of this right. Although the idea that the human right to subsistence correlates with negative duties is not new, discussion of these duties has been overshadowed in the literature by debate over the positive duties conventionally thought to be entailed by it. I show that the human right to subsistence interpreted as a right not to be deprived of access to the means for subsistence makes an important contribution to reasoning about the normative implications of global poverty. (shrink)

:Most of the liberal moral and political debate concerning global poverty has focused on the duties of justice or assistance that the well-off have toward the needy. In this essay, I show how rights-based theories in particular have unanimously understood subsistence rights just as claims, where all it means to have a claim—following Hohfeld—is that others have a duty toward us. This narrow interpretation of subsistence rights has led to a glaring omission; namely, there has been no careful (...) examination of what the rights-holders themselves may do to realize the object of their rights. Furthermore, in the few cases where this question gets posed, rights are again understood just as claims, but this time of an Austinian kind: rights-holders are limited to the performance of speech-acts like demanding, pleading, and entreating to make noncompliers fulfill their duties. I suggest that this approach betrays the original spirit of subsistence rights as individual moral powers delineating a sovereign sphere of action. More seriously, it is unjust to the rights-holders themselves, to the extent that many of the actions they undertake to realize the objects of their rights fall off the radar of moral analysis. (shrink)

Field research on customaryland tenure conducted in two villages inEastern Senegal suggests that theexisting tenure regime places a higher value onaccess than on security, long considered acornerstone of investment in increasedagricultural productivity. The underlyingreasons point to tenure's cultural dimensions.Interview accounts and observation are used todevelop the cultural link between tenure andsubsistence, and to describe the underlyingsocial relations and processes through which a``subsistence ethic'' is expressed. Such an``embedded'' approach to land tenure analysisimplies that understanding tenure dynamics andsocial change is a (...) complex challenge, onebenefiting from a sociological perspective thatgoes beyond behavior models that treat tenureas a primarily economic phenomenon. Land useand customary tenure are dynamic phenomena, buttheir responsiveness to economic forces istempered by the importance of householdinterdependence and the harsh materialrealities of living on the environmentalmargins. Market-based interventions that woulduse security as a means to effect land usechange may generate more social or spatialproblems than they solve. (shrink)

An expanded and updated edition of a classic work on human rights and global justice Since its original publication, Basic Rights has proven increasingly influential to those working in political philosophy, human rights, global justice, and the ethics of international relations and foreign policy, particularly in debates regarding foreign policy’s role in alleviating global poverty. Henry Shue asks: Which human rights ought to be the first honored and the last sacrificed? Shue argues that subsistence rights, along with security rights (...) and liberty rights, serve as the ground of all other human rights. This classic work, now available in a thoroughly updated fortieth-anniversary edition, includes a substantial new chapter by the author examining how the accelerating transformation of our climate progressively undermines the bases of subsistence like sufficient water, affordable food, and housing safe from forest-fires and sea-level rise. Climate change threatens basic rights. (shrink)

In this essay, I first consider what the implications of global climate change will be regarding issues of equity. Secondly, I consider two types of proposals which focus on sustainable emissions and subsistence rights respectively. Thirdly, I consider where these proposal types conflict. Lastly, I argue under plausible assumptions, these two proposals actually imply similar policies regarding global climate change.

In "The Problems of Philosophy," Russell held that universals not exist, rather, they subsist. In the same work, he stated that universals are nevertheless "something," without intending to suggest that quantification over universals would require a special quantifier. I show these apparently conflicting statements can be reconciled with a simple definition of "subsists.".

S'il reprend des thèmes chers à la patristique, Érigène adapte ces notions théologiques afin de penser non plus tant l'être divin, que l'être créé, en sa condition même de créature. Ainsi Érigène reconnaît-il aux êtres créés, qu'il nomme «existants» (existentia), une subsistence qui, si elle se fonde dans l'essence divine, s'en distingue toutefois.Quoi qu'il en soit du contexte néoplatonicien dans lequel intervient le terme subsistence (utilisé notamment pour traduire l'huparxis du Ps-Denys ou de Maxime le Confesseur), l'on ne (...) saurait le réduire à la nomination de la venue à l'être (c'est l'existence qui évoque cette idée). Réinvestissant la notion de subsistence qui s'est construite chez ses prédécesseurs latins, notre auteur s'en sert pour faire signe vers l'idée d'une permanence de ce qui est au-delà de la procession qui luia permis d'accéder à l'être. (shrink)

S'il reprend des thèmes chers à la patristique, Érigène adapte ces notions théologiques afin de penser non plus tant l'être divin, que l'être créé, en sa condition même de créature. Ainsi Érigène reconnaît-il aux êtres créés, qu'il nomme «existants» (existentia), une subsistence qui, si elle se fonde dans l'essence divine, s'en distingue toutefois.Quoi qu'il en soit du contexte néoplatonicien dans lequel intervient le terme subsistence (utilisé notamment pour traduire l'huparxis du Ps-Denys ou de Maxime le Confesseur), l'on ne (...) saurait le réduire à la nomination de la venue à l'être (c'est l'existence qui évoque cette idée). Réinvestissant la notion de subsistence qui s'est construite chez ses prédécesseurs latins, notre auteur s'en sert pour faire signe vers l'idée d'une permanence de ce qui est au-delà de la procession qui luia permis d'accéder à l'être. (shrink)

I. Three Basic rights. This book is about the moral minimum--about the lower limits on tolerable human conduct, individual and institutional.

Selon K. Perszyk, la description meinongienne des objets apatrides est une nouveauté : elle ne se rattache à aucune théorie ontologique antérieure, qu'elle soit avicennienne ou scolastique. On discute ici cette thèse en s'attachant à deux notions fondamentales de l'ontologie antique et médiévale : la subsistance et l'existence, qui semblent présenter certaines affinités avec les notions meinongiennes de bestehen. Sosein vs. Sein et existieren. On examine sous cet angle la théorie des objets généraux, des entités fictives et des particuliers non-existants (...) chez Porphyre, Proclus, Abélard, Thomas d'Aquin, Roger Bacon. According to Perszyk, Meinong's description of homeless objects is a novelty: it does not trace back to any traditional ontological assumption, neither avicennian nor scolastic. While discussing this claim, one focuses on two key-notions in ancient and medieval ontology: subsistence and existence, which seem to be akin to the meinongian bestehen, Sosein vs. Sein and existieren. In this respect, one comments on Porphyry's, Proclus', Abaelard's, Aquinas' and Bacon's theory of general objects, fictitious entities and non-existing particulars. (shrink)

Dans un fragment de son commentaire perdu sur les Catégories d’Aristote, adressé à Gédalios et transmis par Simplicius dans son propre Commentaire surles Catégories, Porphyre évoque la distinction, à première vue énigmatique, entre les termes techniques grecs huparxis et hupostasis. On avance dans laprésente contribution que des passages tirés d’une source inattendue – le De Incarnatione du moine Théodore de Raithu (VIᵉ-VIIᵉ siècle) – peuvent illuminerle sens de ce texte porphyrien. Ce résultat fournit l’occasion de quelques réflexions sur l’influence de (...) Porphyre sur la pensée patristique. (shrink)

Dans un fragment de son commentaire perdu sur les Catégories d’Aristote, adressé à Gédalios et transmis par Simplicius dans son propre Commentaire surles Catégories, Porphyre évoque la distinction, à première vue énigmatique, entre les termes techniques grecs huparxis et hupostasis. On avance dans laprésente contribution que des passages tirés d’une source inattendue – le De Incarnatione du moine Théodore de Raithu (VIᵉ-VIIᵉ siècle) – peuvent illuminerle sens de ce texte porphyrien. Ce résultat fournit l’occasion de quelques réflexions sur l’influence de (...) Porphyre sur la pensée patristique. (shrink)

This article examines the doctrine of the Trinity taught in the Second London Confession of Faith of 1677. It begins by examining a trinitarian controversy among the Particular Baptists of England in the mid-seventeenth century. After outlining the doctrinal deviations of Thomas Collier, the article proceeds to describe some of the responses to Collier from the Particular Baptist community. In many ways the Second London Confession can be seen as a response to Collier. The article also explores the theology of (...) Hercules Collins, a signatory of the Second London Confession, in contrast to the doctrinal deviations of Collier. The article shows that the Particular Baptists continued in the orthodox Christian tradition of the Apostles, Nicene, and Chalcedonian Creeds. They adopted the Reformed confessional language of the Westminster Confession of 1646 and the Savoy Declaration of 1658 while at the same time not fearing to adjust the language in accordance with their orthodox commitments. (shrink)

The Spanish philosopher Miguel de Unamuno and the American social scientist Ernest Becker see death as humanity’s fundamental anxiety. My essay explores the ethical ramifications attendant upon making that anxiety a well-spring of human activity. More specifically, I am interested in humanity’s effort to escape death via the secular milieu of social remembrance. Does such an effort produce a vista where the other exhibits an intrinsic value? Alternatively, does the other become a mere means in light of one’s project of (...) self-preservation? Pursuing such questions, this reflection will explore both positive and negative responses. It will take up the Columbine school shootings in reference to the latter and a notion of protest with regard to the former. The treatise will culminate with a discussion of Unamuno’s ethics of irreplaceability and its potential to engender a universal human respect while also endorsing one’s commitment to her concrete individuality. (shrink)

The Spanish philosopher Miguel de Unamuno and the American social scientist Ernest Becker see death as humanity’s fundamental anxiety. My essay explores the ethical ramifications attendant upon making that anxiety a well-spring of human activity. More specifically, I am interested in humanity’s effort to escape death via the secular milieu of social remembrance. Does such an effort produce a vista where the other exhibits an intrinsic value? Alternatively, does the other become a mere means in light of one’s project of (...) self-preservation? Pursuing such questions, this reflection will explore both positive and negative responses. It will take up the Columbine school shootings in reference to the latter and a notion of protest with regard to the former. The treatise will culminate with a discussion of Unamuno’s ethics of irreplaceability and its potential to engender a universal human respect while also endorsing one’s commitment to her concrete individuality. (shrink)

This paper constitutes an exploration and evaluation of the so-called ‘linkage argument' in support of the inclusion of a right to subsistence among human rights. While it is uncontroversial that avoiding poverty is hugely important for all humans, the human right to subsistence and other socio-economic human rights are often regarded as social goals rather than genuine rights. The linkage argument aims to show that a commitment to the existence of any human rights at all entails a commitment (...) to the inclusion of a right to subsistence among them. I argue that the linkage argument does not succeed in vindicating the inclusion of a right to subsistence among moral human rights, but I conclude that a modified version of it might support the justification of a legal human right to subsistence. (shrink)

In this paper I argue that the discourse theoretic account of human rights defended by Jürgen Habermas contains a fruitful tension that is obscured by its dominant tendency to identify rights with legal claims. This weakness in Habermas’s account becomes manifest when we examine how sweatshops diminish the secure enjoyment of subsistence, which Habermas himself (in recognition of the UDHR) recognizes as a human right. Discourse theories of human rights are unique in tying the legitimacy of human rights to (...) democratic deliberation and consensus. So construed, their specific meaning and force is the outcome of historical political struggle. However, unlike other legal rights, they possess universal moral validity. In this paper I argue that this tension between the legal and moral aspects of human rights can be resolved if and only if human rights are conceived as moral aspirations and not simply as legal claims. In particular, I shall argue that there are two reasons why human rights must be understood as moral aspirations that function non-juridically: First, the basic human goods to which human rights provide secure access are determinable only in relation to basic human capabilities that are progressively revealed in the course of an indefinite (fully inclusive and universal) process of collective learning; second, the institutional impediments to enjoying human rights are cultural in nature and cannot be remedied by means of legal coercion. (shrink)

Is there a human right to subsistence? A satisfactory answer to this question will explain what makes human rights distinctive, what is meant by subsistence, and why subsistence is an appropriate content of a human right. This article situates the human right to subsistence within the context of recent philosophical discussions of human rights. The argument for human subsistence rights provides an instructive example of how to understand what human rights are, why we must affirm (...) them, and how they fit together as a coherent group. I begin the article by outlining the meaning, content, and justification of human rights in general. I then identify the strongest arguments for affirming a human right to subsistence and the most powerful objections to such a right. Finally, I address the worry about human rights inflation and question any minimalist understanding of human rights that would either exclude subsistence rights altogether or limit their scope in certain ways. (shrink)

A set of basic static predicates, 'in itself, 'existing through itself, 'free', and others are taken to be (at least) extensionally equivalent, and some consequences are drawn in Parts A and? of the paper. Part C introduces adequate causation and adequate conceiving as extensionally equivalent. The dynamism or activism of Spinoza is reflected in the reconstruction by equating action with causing, passion (passive emotion) with being caused. The relation between conceiving (understanding) and causing is narrowed down by introducing grasping (λ (...) μβ?νω) as a basic epistemological term. Part D, 'The road to freedom through active emotion', introduces a system of grading with respect to the distinctions introduced in the foregoing, including 'being in itself, 'freedom', etc. Active emotions are seen to represent transitions to a higher degree of freedom, the stronger and more active ones being the more conducive to rapid increase in degree of freedom. Elementary parts of the calculus of predicates are used in order to facilitate the survey of conceptual relations and to prove some theorems. (shrink)

Cross-cultural studies have revealed broad quantitative associations between subsistence practice and demographic parameters for preindustrial populations. One explanation is that variationin the availability of suitable weaning foods influenced the frequency and duration of breastfeeding and thus the length of interbirth intervals and the probability of child survival (the “weaning food availability” hypothesis). We examine the available data on weaning age variation in preindustrial populations and report results of a cross-cultural test of the predictions that weaning occurred earlier in agricultural (...) and pastoral populations because dairy and cereal production increased the availability of easily digestible, nutrientrich foods appropriate for weaning. We found that, contrary to predictions, supplementation with liquid foods other than breast milk was delayed in agricultural populations relative to less agriculturally dependent ones and complementary feeding with solid foods was delayed in pastoral populations relative to those less dependent on herding. Although the duration of breastfeeding was longer in populations dependent on hunting, there was no qualitative evidence that such populations lacked foods appropriate for weaning. The patterns observed suggest that the relationships between demography and subsistence observed among preindustrial societies cannot be explained by the “weaning food availability” hypothesis. We discuss the implications for understanding the mechanisms underlying prehistoric human demography, subsistence shifts, allocation to parenting and mating effort, and the evolutionary implications of tradeoffs between diet and disease. (shrink)

This article is a response by the author of Defending Life, Francis Beckwith, to Kevin Corcoran’s critical review of that book. In his review Corcoran maintains that Beckwith provides only a “typical” genetic code argument for the zygote’s individual humanity, and that Beckwith fails to show that there exists an individual human organism that subsists from conception and develops into a mature version of itself. Beckwith argues that Corcoran is mistaken on both counts.

The recent Catholic philosophical tradition on the human person has tried to articulate the irreducibility of the human person to anything non-personal, and to synthesize all of the best of what has been said on the human person. Recently, a debate has arisen regarding the concrete existence and relationality of persons. I analyze these debates, and show how both sides of these debates can be synthesized into a view on which human persons are both subsistent beings and identical to certain (...) relations. First, I examine those strands of recent Catholic tradition that defend the concreteness and relationality of the person, drawing on some Existential Thomists and phenomenologists; in connection with this, I consider the ideas of the beauty and mysterium of persons. Second, I examine the opposing view, drawing on some traditional Thomists and personalists. Finally, I show how the scholastic notion of transcendental relations can reconcile these views. (shrink)

That there is a human right to subsistence is a basic assumption for most moral and political theorists interested in the problem of global poverty, but it is not one exempt from controversy. In this article, I examine four justifications for this right and suggest that it takes the form of a claim, that is, a right which creates correlative duties on others who are then taken to be the main agents in its fulfillment. I point to some criticisms (...) made against this conceptualization and offer an alternative approach that emphasizes the key importance of the moral and political agency of the needy. Two aspects of this approach are that the needy are seen as actors in their own right when it comes to poverty alleviation measures and their demands are no longer seen as demands for mere subsistence but ultimately for putting an end to their political marginalization and exclusion. Towards the end, I point to the complementarity of both views. (shrink)

L'article analyse comment Saint Thomas définit la nature de la pauvreté en faisant référence à la controverse moderne, à savoir si la pauvreté doit être définie seulement en termes de subsistance physique. Selon l'A., le théologien a deux conceptions différentes de la nature de la pauvreté. La première définit la pauvreté en termes de subsistance. L'autre en donne une définition rationnelle. L'article indique l'emplacement de ces deux conceptions dans l'œuvre de Saint Thomas, les explique et les compare pour les mettre (...) en contraste de façon critique. (shrink)

In the mainstream of Latin trinitarian theology during the Middle Ages, the Divine Persons were described as subsistent relations. This conception of the persons is commonly held to this day among Roman Catholic theologians. In this paper the author examines the conception, as it is presented by St.-Thomas Aquinas, in the light of philosophical advances that have been made in our knowledge of the nature of relations. The author argues that these advances make it impossible to accept Aquinas's position that (...) the Persons are subsistent relations, although the do not rule out the possibility of their being distinguished from one another by the relations that exist between them. (shrink)

The claimability objection rejects the inclusion of a right to subsistence among human rights because the duties thought to correlate with this right are undirected, and thus it is not claimable. This objection is open to two replies: One denies that claimability is an existence condition on rights. The second suggests that the human right to subsistence actually is claimable. I argue that although neither reply succeeds on the conventional interpretation of the human right to subsistence, an (...) alternative ‘practical’ interpretation provides a viable approach to vindicating this right. (shrink)