In February 1993, Judge Charles R. Richey of the United States District Court issued a summary judgment in the case of Animal Legal Defense Fund, et al. v. The Secretary of Agriculture, et al. The decision, which was in favor of the Animal Legal Defense Fund, requires the U.S. Department of Agriculture to withdraw its current regulations governing exercise for dogs and the psychological well-being of nonhuman primates used for biomedical research and (...) to issue new regulations containing only minimum, measurable standards. Both plaintiffs and defendants contended that they were seeking the best interests of the laboratory animals. The issue at stake is whether animals are better protected if the government establishes limited minimal standards or is allowed to require institutions to provide additional standards, which will be judged on the basis of their effectiveness in maintaining healthy animals. The Court avoided this dispute, however, by placing primary emphasis on applying the Administrative Procedures Act and stating that it was merely interpreting the "plain meaning" of the Animal Welfare Act, as amended. In this article, arguments are presented for interpreting the law in a far more flexible way than Judge Richey did. The conclusion is also reached that there were no winners in the Animal Legal Defense Fund case and that the real losers are the laboratory animals. (shrink)

In what ways and to what extent should cultural background be taken into consideration in response to legal problems? The first book-length study of the topic, The Cultural Defense provides a comprehensive overview of the debate surrounding the admissibility of cultural evidence in the courtroom. Documenting an extraordinary range of cases in which individuals have attempted to invoke a cultural defense, this book provides an in-depth look at the complexities of invoking cultural agreements in the diverse bodies (...) of law under which the cases fall. Cases considered include homicide and rape prosecutions, child abuse cases, drug use cases, the treatment of animals, and custody battles. Disputing current practices, Renteln contends that the cultural defense should, in both criminal and civil matters, be given formal recognition. (shrink)

In Switzerland, the importance of transparency in animal experimentation is emphasized by the Swiss Federal Council, recognizing the public’s great interest in this matter. Federal reporting on animal experimentation indicates a total of 585,991 animals used in experiments in Switzerland in 2022. By Swiss law, the report enables the public to learn about many aspects such as the species and degree of suffering experienced by the animals, but some information of interest to the public is missing, such as (...) the fate of the animals at the end of the experiment (e.g., euthanized, rehomed in a private home, reused in another experiment). When it comes to animals bred in facilities but not used in experiments, further information of interest is not required to be made public according to Swiss law, for example, the number and fate of “surplus” animals (i.e., animals bred but not used in experiments for a variety of reasons such as not carrying the phenotypical properties needed). Considering that the Swiss government has a duty to provide a full accounting of animal experimentation conducted on the public’s behalf, further relevant information should be disclosed. While efforts toward transparency, such as the STAAR Agreement, have been made in the scientific community, these mostly reflect the legal requirements already in force. If Switzerland is to move toward more transparency in public information on animal experimentation, an update of the legal requirements is needed. In this article, we give recommendations for Swiss law to move toward more transparency in public information on seven aspects: (1) the fate of the animals at the end of the experiment; (2) the sources of funding for animal experimentation; (3) the harm-benefit analysis performed by researchers and ethics committees to justify an experiment using animals; (4) the number of breeding/surplus animals; (5) the fate of breeding/surplus animals; (6) the harms experienced by animals in facilities; and (7) the funding of animal facilities. (shrink)

There has been an extraordinary resurgence of interest in the enigma of human consciousness among neuroscientists, psychologists, and professional philosophers. Much work is aimed at accommodating consciousness within the currently dominant physicalist world picture. This book is a comprehensive and sometimes impassioned attack to "biologize" consciousness by explaining its origin in evolutionary terms and identifying mental phenomena with brain processes; to "computerize" it by identifying mind with the supposed computational activity of the brain; and to empty or eliminate it by (...) denying the reality of qualia. Raymond Tallis's critique concludes with a long look at man--"the explicit animal"--that makes the irreducible mystery of human consciousness impossible to overlook or deny. (shrink)

Conspiracy has probably become one of the key notions—or fantasies—of our times. Conspiracy, in the modern acceptation of the word, as in "conspiracy theory," has not only filled the mediasphere in which we live and breathe but it has also overshadowed—maybe we should say repressed—its ancient meaning. Surprisingly, this forgotten sense was revived on a poster lithographed by Andy Warhol in 1969 for a group exhibition in a Chicago gallery. The poster was meant to benefit the legal defense (...) fund for the Chicago Seven (who were charged by the federal government with conspiracy for organizing anti-Vietnam War protests). Warhol used the image of an electric chair (as he did in a series of paintings titled Little... Read More. (shrink)

On June 11, 1963, in a dramatic gesture that caught the nation's attention, Governor George Wallace physically blocked the entrance to Foster Auditorium on the University of Alabama's campus. His intent was to defy Attorney General Nicholas Katzenbach, sent on behalf of the Kennedy administration to force Alabama to accept court-ordered desegregation. After a tense confrontation, President Kennedy federalized the Alabama National Guard and Wallace backed down, allowing Vivian Malone and James Hood to become the first African Americans to enroll (...) successfully at their state's flagship university. That night, John F. Kennedy went on television to declare civil rights a "moral issue" and to commit his administration to this cause. That same night, Medgar Evers was shot dead. In The Schoolhouse Door, E. Culpepper Clark provides a riveting account of the events that led to Wallace's historic stand, tracing a tangle of intrigue and resistance that stretched from the 1940s, when the university rejected black applicants outright, to the post-Brown v. Board of Education era. We are there in July 1955 when Thurgood Marshall and lawyers at the NAACP Legal Defense Fund win for Autherine Lucy and "all similarly situated" the right to enroll at the university. We are in the car with Lucy in February 1956 as university officials escort her to class, shielding her from a mob jeering "Lynch the nigger," "Keep 'Bama white," and "hit the nigger whore." Clark exposes the many means, including threats and intimidation, used by university and state officials to discourage black applicants following the Lucy episode. And he explains how University of Alabama president Frank Anthony Rose eventually cooperated with the Kennedy administration to ensure a smooth transition toward desegregation. We also witness Robert Kennedy's remarkable face-to-face plea for Wallace's cooperation and the governor's adamant refusal: "I will never submit voluntarily to any integration in a school system in Alabama." As Clark writes, Wallace's carefully orchestrated surrender would leave the forces of white supremacy free to fight another day. And the Kennedys' public embrace of the civil rights movement would set in motion a political transformation that changed the presidential base of the Democratic party for the next thirty years. In these pages, full of courageous black applicants, fist-shaking demonstrators, and powerful politicians, Clark captures the dramatic confrontations that transformed the University of Alabama into a proving ground for the civil rights movement and gave the nation unforgettable symbols for its struggle to achieve racial justice. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Kennedy Institute of Ethics Journal 11.1 (2001) 113 [Access article in PDF] Letters Rats, Mice, and Birds and the Animal Welfare Act Madam:In the September 2000 issue of the Kennedy Institute of Ethics Journal, I argued for the inclusion of laboratory rats, mice, and birds under provisions of the Animal Welfare Act (AWA). This act sets humane standards for animals used in biomedical experimentation, but these three (...) species are excluded despite the fact that they comprise 90 percent of all animals used. Recent actions have been taken on this issue that temporarily maintain the status quo of exclusion.On 25 September 2000, a legal suit brought by the Alternatives Research Development Fund was settled out of court when the U.S. Department of Agriculture agreed that the AWA enforcement regulations should be extended to rats, mice, and birds. This was a significant victory heralded by the animal protection movement and some sections of the scientific community. Federal Court Judge Ellen S. Huvelle dismissed motions by pro-animal research groups to block this agreement.But the tide soon turned. On 11 October, a last-minute amendment to the USDA appropriations bill submitted by the Senate Appropriations Committee chair Thad Cochran (R-Miss.) precluded the department from spending any funds in the coming fiscal year to effect this change. This amendment had been drafted by the National Association for Biomedical Research and passed to the University of Mississippi to be forwarded to Cochran. This now congressionally approved amendment postponed for a year any action to implement the legal agreement. USDA plans to initiate the formal rule-making process for rats, mice, and birds by 1 October 2001. F. Barbara Orlans Senior Research Fellow Kennedy Institute of Ethics Georgetown University Washington, DC... (shrink)

In this paper, the future of bullfighting in France not long to break the moral value and aesthetic experience in disputes arising from conduct analysis to facilitate thinking about aesthetic experience and the relationship between animal existence. This paper is seeking to explore, and not in the evaluation of an article or opinion on a work conflict, but conflict involved to judge the value of multiple values. Guardian of moral values ​​and oppose bullfighting events, the main slogan is to (...) respect life, refused pain; and aesthetic value of the defenders, usually held in the name of safeguarding cultural heritage and maintain the aesthetic quality of performance. Evaluation criteria of the dispute and defend the value caused by the conflict is not the same evaluation criteria dispute is business volume, but as long as both parties agree, you can also stop the dispute; but to defend the value caused by the conflict is poured out not In order, because the two sides都that the other side The defense held the right of speech is not. This will work for contemporary art in the use of animals in vivo action conducted research to explore the contemporary art of the new research topics implied by the reach of the arts domain and the domain of U.S. academic issues. Contemporary art in the works use living animals move, going beyond In order to both logic system recognized by the precinct, including the U.S. academic field naturalist館exhibition science precinct, ethics and moral of the bounded domain, the legal precinct, and so on. The definition of contemporary art across borders is an important factor in the definition. This paper will examine the Huang Yong Ping's "World Theatre" Case, this was originally a huge cultural center complete degree 1994's "beyond boundaries" arranged by one of the works on display, but In several animal protection requirements under the Joint Association was eventually canceled. Case in other article, is the author of contemporary art in the study of the U.S. boycott of the case made ​​by the observation results. These different Case studies - is currently on-going research work - at least lead to two problems: artists at work using live or dead animals, whether in what form cross In order moral bounded domain and / or the U.S. academic Domain? Also, from one precinct to another precinct of the transition, the leap of variables that? Description of the future, after all, this issue of intense controversy, is originated from the West, so that this issue regardless of whether the problem is the West competition, but more is not Chinese or Asian issues of concern? Based on various conflicts of evaluation , this study of the relationship between aesthetic experience and animality evidences the existence of value registers, above the very values ​​such as beauty or sensitiveness. Aesthetic register is used by the supporters of a work in the name of cultural traditions or artistic quality, while ethical register is used by its opponents in the name of respect for living beings or of refusal to inflict sufferings. Whereas value conflicts allow discussions that may end up with an agreement, value registers conflicts can generate but endless fights, since the arguments of one party are without any relevance for the other party. Out of various case studies, mostly in France and in the USA, two questions arise. First, what kinds of moral and / or aesthetic boundaries are transgressed by the use of animals "living or even dead" in artistic proposals? Second, how do these transgressions change according to different cultures? Do they raise more difficulties in western culture than in Chinese or Asian culture, since the latter provides the propositions which have been most violently attacked in the Western world? (shrink)

In order to maximize human performance, defence forces continue to explore, develop, and apply human performance enhancement (HPE) methods, ranging from pharmaceuticals to (bio)technological enhancement. This raises ethical, legal, and societal concerns and requires organizing a careful reflection and deliberation process, with relevant stakeholders. We discuss a range of ethical, legal, and societal aspects (ELSA), which people involved in the development and deployment of HPE can use for such reflection and deliberation. A realistic military scenario with proposed HPE (...) application can serve as a starting point for such an iterative and participatory process. Stakeholders can discuss this application, modify its features, and design appropriate processes around it – for instance, procedures for informed consent. We propose that organizing aspects into these three categories – ethical, legal, and societal – can help involve appropriate interlocutors at different moments: legal aspects with people in strategy or management roles, from the start of a project; ethical aspects with people in operations and medical roles, during development; and societal aspects with people in communication and personnel roles, during deployment. Notably, we developed and discussed this framework and the three aspects in close collaboration with personnel from the military. (shrink)

Beginning by reading a 1992 feminist appropriation of Michelangelo's Creation of Adam – in a cartoon in which the finger of a nude Adamic woman touches a computer keyboard, while the god-like VDT screen shows a disembodied fetus – ‘Virtual Speculum’ argues for a broader conception of ‘new reproductive technologies’ in order to foreground justice and freedom projects for differently situated women in the New World Order. Broadly conceptualized reproductive practices must be central to social theory in general, and to (...) technoscience studies in particular. Tying together the politics of self help and women's health movements in the United States in the 1970s with positions on reproductive freedom articulated within the Legal Defense and Educational Fund of the NAACP in the 1990s, the paper examines recent work in feminist science studies in several disciplinary and activist locations. Statistical analysis and ethnography emerge as critical feminist technologies for producing convincing representations of the reproduction of inequality. Untangling the semiotic and political–economic dialectics of invisibility and hypervisibility, ‘Virtual Speculum’ concludes by linking the well-surveyed amniotic fluid of on-screen fetuses and the off-frame diarrhea of uncounted and underfed infants in regimes of flexible accumulation and structural adjustment. (shrink)

Thurgood Marshall (1908?1993) profoundly shaped the direction and success of the American civil rights struggle. Joining the staff of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) in 1936, he headed its Legal Defense and Educational Fund from 1939 until 1961, subsequently becoming a federal appeals court judge, Solicitor General, and Justice of the US Supreme Court. Marshall was more an egalitarian integrationist than a pluralist and deployed the law in pursuit of this moral objective. (...) Although tolerant of the Communist Party in the 1930s and 1940s, he supported anti?communism in the 1950s as a means of gaining significant support for black civil rights from the federal government. On the Supreme Court, Marshall sought to extend equality not only to African Americans but also to women, gays and the poor. Flexible and pragmatic, Marshall viewed the law as a means to an end, and the relevant end, or ideal, for him was liberal equality. (shrink)

This article describes the emerging bipartisan political coalition supporting commercial competitiveness as a rationale for research and development, points to selected changes in legal and funding structures in the 1980s that stem from the success of the new political coalition and suggests some of the connections between these changes and academic science and technology, and examines the consequences of these changes for universities. The study uses longitudinal secondary data on changes in business strategies and corporate structures that made business (...) elites in the defense and health industries consider supporting competitiveness R&D policies. The article identifies and assesses an array of national R&D legislation concerned with competitiveness that was passed in the 1980s and 1990s and that has implications for academic R&D. The effects of competitiveness R&D policies on universities and academic science and technology are appraised by analyzing changes in time-series data on science and technology indicators compiled by the National Science Foundation. (shrink)

This paper offers an articulation and defence of the modal account of legal risk in light of a range of objections that have been proposed against this view in the recent literature. It is argued that these objections all trade on a failure to distinguish between the modal nature of risk more generally, and the application of this modal account to particular decision-making contexts, such as legal contexts, where one must rely on a restricted body of information. It (...) is argued that once the modal account of legal risk is properly understood as involving information-relative judgements about the modal closeness of the target risk event, the objections to the view are neutralized. (shrink)

The question of the nature and extent of our moral obligations to non-human animals has featured prominently in recent moral debate. This book defends the novel position that a contradictarian moral theory can be used to justify the claim that animals possess a substantial and wide-ranging set of moral rights. Critiquing the rival accounts of Peter Singer and Tom Regan, this study shows how an influential form of the social contract idea can be extended to make sense of the concept (...) of animal rights. (shrink)

There is interest in more and better interaction between civil society and actors developing nanotechnologies, nano-materials and nano-enabled products: government agencies but also branch organizations in the chemical sector position civil society organizations (CSOs) as ‘voices of civil society’, and invite CSOs to participate in multistakeholder events. In such events, CSOs are expected to articulate societal needs, issues and values so that these can be taken up by actors with institutional roles and mandates to develop and embed newly emerging nanosciences (...) and nanotechnologies (NEST). This article argues that such a division of moral labor between CSOs and nanotechnology actors is not productive to address NEST and its emerging societal issues. There is an assumption that societal issues are ‘out there’ and can be recognized by CSOs, while in fact, societal issues might co-evolve with new development trajectories and thus have to be discovered and articulated. More productive deliberation requires, ideally, overcoming the traditional division of moral labor between these two groups of actors: technology developers should also inquire into and articulate emerging societal issues, and CSOs should inquire into and reflect on actual development trajectories. In order to explore issues and repercussions that arise in such a repositioning, this article will discuss a bottom up experiment of such an interaction between a nanotechnology developer (DuPont) and a CSO (Environmental Defense Fund). Based on the empirical analysis of this bottom up experiment, tentative requirements will be developed for how joint inquiries between technology developers and CSOs can be realized on a larger scale in our society. (shrink)

In ‘Moral case for legal age change’, I argue that sometimes people should be allowed to change their age. I refute six immediate objections against the view that age change is permissible. I argue that the objections cannot show that legal age change should always be prohibited. In this paper, I consider some further objections against legal age change raised by Iain Brassington, Toni Saad and William Simkulet. I argue that the objections fail to show that age (...) change should never be allowed. (shrink)

This article addresses, from a Frankfurt School perspective on law identified with Franz Neumann and more recently Habermas, the attack upon the principles of war criminality formulated at the Nuremberg trials by the increasingly influential legal and political theory of Carl Schmitt. It also considers the contradictions within certain of the defence arguments that Schmitt himself resorted to when interrogated as a possible war crimes defendant at Nuremberg. The overall argument is that a distinctly internal, or “immanent”, form of (...) critique is required of Schmitt's position, in which its is found wanting even on its own terms. In principle, the application of this dialectical mode of critique can allow a genuine debate to emerge between those seeking to continue both the Schmittian and critical theory traditions, whilst safeguarding the latter from the dangers of formulating polemical interventions that are, in effect, counterproductive to their own intentions. (shrink)

Journal of Political Philosophy, EarlyView.

Increasing numbers of women in Turkey are murdered by their relatives, spouses or significant others. The perpetrators plead provocation for their crimes, claiming their actions are provoked by women’s initial acts which they deem to violate societal norms. Pleading provocation enables more lenient sentences. This article investigates the interplay of the legal rules and societal norms on ‘proper’ female behaviour in femicide, based on data drawn from the Journal of Legal Proceedings, which publishes select rulings of the Court (...) of Cassation – the Highest Court in the Turkish legal system – from 2004 to 2018. This article argues that there is a collision between cultural, societal norms and legal rulings in criminal law, and displays linkages between legal processes and social norms which perpetuate patriarchal structures. Accordingly, the article proposes that legal rulings on femicide reflect societal norms and traditional expectations on women’s roles in Turkish society through employing provocation defence. Consequently, law becomes complicit in femicide through provocation, and provocation could be seen as the legal system’s concession to patriarchy. (shrink)

In Law as a Moral Practice, Scott Hershovitz defends the pluralist view that there are many sets of legal norms which we can validly employ for different purposes, none of which qualifies as uniquely legal. He claims, further, that there is no set of moral rights and duties that is distinctly legal either, because the domain of morality is unified. I argue, against Hershovitz, that the existence of different sets of norms within legal practice does not (...) mean that no set is basic, or fundamental. There is arguably one set (the actual moral rights and duties that law re-arranges) which is fundamental, and from which all the other sets are derivative. I argue, moreover, that we have strong deontological reasons to doubt that the domain of morality is unified. If political morality comprises distinct domains, not collapsible to a single moral concern, then the possibility of a distinctively legal domain of morality remains open. (shrink)

As the market and civil society sectors reflect different core logics, non-governmental organisations (NGOs) that partner with companies need strategies to cope with these differences. This paper seeks to provide insight into the coping strategies of environmental NGOs that partner with corporations. We present an assessment framework to analyse the strategies of the Environmental Defense Fund and the World Wildlife Fund for Nature Netherlands as case studies. The analysis demonstrates that the strategic options for a partnering NGO (...) are guided and constrained by the choices the NGO makes with regard to its action strategy towards companies. Although individual NGOs manage to cope adequately with the challenges that the partnership trend poses to their organisations, we argue that the partnering trend also creates challenges for the NGO field as a whole. (shrink)

The availability of the defence of belief in consent under section 265(4) is a question of law, subject to review on appeal. The statutory provision is based on the common law rule that applies to all defences. Consideration of the defence when it is unavailable in law and failure to consider it when it is available are both incorrect. A judge is most likely to avoid error when ruling on availability of the defence if the ruling: (1) is grounded on (...) sound analysis of the substantive basis for the defence and its relationship to the principles of criminal responsibility; and (2) uses precise legal criteria to govern practical application of section 265(4) to the evidence in specific cases. The guidelines proposed in Part I are based on analyses of the substantive defence and culpable awareness and were developed to ensure that appropriate criteria are properly used when section 265(4) is applied. When a trial judge rules that the defence is available in law, the trier of fact must determine whether the defence is available on the facts as found, based on the evidence in the case. The model jury instructions proposed in Part II are designed to ensure that deliberations by the trier of fact are also guided and shaped by appropriate legal criteria. At both stages, the objective is to ground the deliberation process on fact, not fiction, and to regulate the exculpatory effect of the defence by using legal norms to exclude excuses based on extra-legal considerations such as sexual/racial fantasy, stereotype and myth, or community attitudes and custom. (shrink)

When it comes to humans, ‘homosexuality’ refers to a variety of characteristics, ranging from sexual behaviours, desires, preferences, and orientations, to sexual identities. The question driving this paper is whether, and to what extent, it is justified to also ascribe such characteristics to nonhuman animals. Scientific opinions are divided on this issue, ranging from militantly positive to cautiously positive to markedly negative, with many in between suggesting we should at least change the vocabulary.

Jules Coleman, one of the world's most influential philosophers of law, here expounds his recent views on a range of important issues in legal theory. Coleman offers for the first time an explicit account of the pragmatist method that has long informed his work, and takes on the views of highly respected contemporaries such as Ronald Dworkin and Joseph Raz.

In this paper we aim to offer a balanced argument to motivate (re)thinking about the mental illness clause within the insanity defence. This is the clause that states that mental illness should have a relevant causal or explanatory role for the presence of the incapacities or limited capacities that are covered by this defence. We offer three main considerations showing the important legal and epistemological roles that the mental illness clause plays in the evaluation of legal responsibility. Although (...) we acknowledge that these advantages could be preserved without having this clause explicitly stated in the law, we resist proposals that deny the importance of mental illness in exculpation. We argue, thus, that any attempt at removing the mental illness clause from legal formulations of the insanity defence should offer alternative ways of keeping in place these advantages. (shrink)

This paper offers a diachronic reconstruction of MacCormick's theory of law and legal argumentation: In particular, two related points will be highlighted in which the difference between the perspective upheld in Legal Reasoning and Legal Theory and the later writings is particularly marked. The first point concerns MacCormick's gradual break with legal positivism, and more specifically the thesis that the implicit pretension to justice of law proves legal positivism false in all its different versions. The (...) second point concerns MacCormick's acceptance of the one-right-answer thesis and the consequent thinning of the differences between MacCormick's theory of legal reasoning and that of Ronald Dworkin and of Robert Alexy. The intent, however, is not only to describe this change in MacCormick's thought, but also to attempt a defence of the original view that we find in Legal Reasoning and Legal Theory. (shrink)

Post-9/11, concern about bioterrorism has transformed public health from unappreciated to a central component of national security. Within the War on Terror, bioterrorism preparedness has taken a back seat only to direct military action in terms of funding. Domestically, homelessness, joblessness, crime, education, and race relations are just a few of a litany of pressing issues requiring government attention. Even within the biomedical sciences and healthcare, issues surrounding the fact that more than 40 million Americans lack health insurance, the rising (...) cost of prescription medications, and the use of government funds for research using embryonic stem cells remain unresolved. Should we prioritize a hypothetical threat (bioterrorism), or existing conditions that have implications for identifiable individuals? Even more fundamentally, should we prioritize research aimed at defense from bioterrorism (or even terrorism in general) when there are so many pressing social problems that affect the U.S. population? (shrink)

Historians of political thought have begun to discover how contemporaries attempted to argue about armed conflict within the body politic without giving licence to anyone to escape order and subjection. During the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, the concept of 'self-defence' became of overriding importance. English and Scottish interest in German affairs grew after the battle at the White Mountain in 1620. English and Scottish pamphleteers and writers subsequently began to recognize some of the argument concerning 'self-defence' that had been elaborated (...) in the Empire until this point. As the English 'ancient constitution' began to crumble under the mounting pressure of conflict between King and Parliament from 1642 onwards, the exhaustive philosophical and legal reasoning on the nature and basis of the body politic found within political texts emanating from Germany thus appeared increasingly attractive. However, as German ideas on self-defence were used, they underwent a significant transformation within their new English context. Because the sovereignty of the King in Parliament did not allow the integration of German ideas on self-defence based on the peculiar nature of sovereignty in the Empire, English thought gradually transformed the state of necessity in German thought into ideas of a state of nature. (shrink)

Diplomatic theory and practice -- International funding for animal protection -- International conferences and delegation management -- The media as a tool for diplomacy -- Important associations and international organizations -- Epilogue.

This article brings animal protection theory to bear on Temple Grandin’s work, in her capacity both as a designer of slaughter facilities and as an advocate for omnivorism. Animal protection is a better term for what is often termed animal rights, given that many of the theories grouped under the animal rights label do not extend the concept of rights to animals. I outline the nature of Grandin’s system of humane slaughter as it pertains to cattle. (...) I then outline four arguments Grandin has made defending meat-eating. On a protection-based approach, I argue, Grandin’s system of slaughter is superior to its traditional counterpart. Grandin’s success as a designer of humane slaughterhouses however is not matched by any corresponding success in offering a moral defence of meat-eating. Despite, or perhaps because of, the popularity of her work, Grandin’s arguments for continuing to eat animals are noteworthy only in how disappointing and rudimentary they are. If we can thank Grandin for making a difference in the lives of millions of farm animals, her work can also be criticized for not engaging the moral status of animals with the depth and rigor that it deserves. (shrink)

Traditionally, acts of civil disobedience are understood as a mechanism by which citizens may express dissatisfaction with a law of their country. That expression will typically be morally motivated, non-violent and aimed at changing their government’s policy, practice or law. Building on existing work, in this paper we explore the limits of one well-received definition of civil disobedience by considering the challenging case of the actions of animal activists at sea. Drawing on original interviews with advocates associated with Sea (...) Shepherd, Greenpeace and Humane Society International we find that even if animal activists are morally motivated and civil, the transnational nature of their activity makes it difficult to assess their intention to bring about a change in law or public policy. This means that a civil disobedience defence may not be available to activists operating across international borders. This raises important questions about the usefulness of the civil disobedience concept within the context of a globalised world. We conclude that while the actions of some anti-whaling activists may not meet definitions of civil disobedience as conventionally understood, this says more about the narrow way in which that concept has been traditionally defined, than it does about the type of activity some anti-whaling activists have undertaken in the Southern Ocean. Finally, we argue that activists wishing to make a stand against whaling may have no choice but to act as global citizens because policy change within a single nation-state is unlikely to lead to the cessation of this inherently transnational activity. (shrink)

The defence of necessity has had a long, though confused, legal career. Like self-defence, consent, duress, insanity and mistake of law, necessity is rooted in moral intuitions about when conduct which causes harm to another's person or property is not wrong, or should be tolerated, permitted or praised. If a man is literally starving to death and steals a loaf of bread, we are reluctant to say that his extreme circumstances should make no difference at all to the way (...) we treat him at trial. And if two men, adrift at sea, are clinging to a log which can only support the weight of one, we are once again reluctant to say that if one pushes the other off the log, it is just a case of murder. These intuitions are deepseated; but it is extremely difficult to articulate the defence they seem to support, or to isolate the circumstances which mark the difference between a situation where the defence ought to apply and where it ought not. (shrink)

Many if not most sperm donors in the early years of IVF donated under conditions of anonymity. There is, however, a growing awareness of the ethical cost of withholding identifying parental information from donor children. Today, anonymous donation is illegal in many jurisdictions, and some jurisdictions have gone as far as retrospectively invalidating contracts whereby donors were guaranteed anonymity. This article provides a critical evaluation of the ethics and legality of anonymous donation. We defend Australian and British legislation that has (...) outlawed donor anonymity, and we argue for the establishment of a central registry that provides donor children with the ability to easily and reliably access identifying information about their donor parents. (shrink)

Rats and mice are very much more likely to be experimented on today in biomedical research than dogs, cats, or primates. Rats and mice, however, are explicitly excluded from the federal Animal Welfare Act's protections against animal pain and suffering in a research setting. This paper is a response to an invitation to reflect on how medical and scientific researchers should think about the rats and mice they use, in light of ongoing legal developments in the human- (...) class='Hi'>animal relationship. The invitation was extended by the Michigan Society for Biomedical Research, an organization for the promotion of biomedical research and defense of the use of animals in research. It was extended to a teacher of Animal Law at the University of Michigan Law School who was serving as the non-scientist member from the University on the University's Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee. Considerations to which attention is directed include developments in experimentation on humans paralleling and connected with developments in experimentation on animals, developments in the science of animals beyond the biomedical field, general movements in the legal treatment of animals that are not the outcome of conflicts between animal activists and research institutions, and the importance of attitude as a focus in any regulation of experimentation, animal or human. (shrink)

The debate on concept possession in animals has moved at a very abstract level, with scant detailed consideration of case studies in animal behaviour. In this paper, we go against this trend by examining a specific prey defence mechanism, thanatosis or death-feigning, in order to determine what it can tell us about the minds of the predators it targets. We argue that thanatosis gives us evidence of conceptual abilities in predators. In particular, we defend that the best available explanation (...) for the evolution of thanatosis comes from positing that the predators whose cognition acted as selection pressure and shaped thanatosis displays satisfy the concept possession requirements of distance, inferentiality, aspectuality, generality, and a minimal semantic net. Moreover, we argue that the semantic content of the concept targeted by thanatosis likely corresponds to a minimal concept of death. We end on a methodological note, by showing how the consideration of case studies can help move this philosophical debate forward, while also generating concrete empirical predictions that can be put to the test, thus favouring interdisciplinary collaborations. (shrink)

Scholars of international law have been increasingly troubled by states’ vast powers and practices of migrant exclusion. There is no doubt that much of this uneasiness is catalyzed by a keen sense of the demands of a basic liberalism at the international legal order's core. Indeed, the increased construction of border walls,1 the continuously widespread use of deportation as a migration control tool,2 and new digital bordering technologies3 have all come under scrutiny precisely because of the challenges they pose (...) to the notion of supposedly universal entitlements, both substantive and procedural, that often appear disabled or overridden when it comes to the treatment of different sorts of migrants. My goal in this contribution is not to add to such legal critiques, but rather to provide the contours of a broader normative argument to rebuke—or at least complicate—what is often called the state's “right to exclude” all or most would-be immigrants. This right is not just standardly assumed in legal and political practice—indeed, standardly viewed as the linchpin of sovereignty—but has also enjoyed sophisticated defense by liberal political theorists.4 The main goal of my argument is to suggest that anyone with basic liberal inclinations—including political theorists, lawyers, and practitioners of politics—should be able to agree that, under current circumstances, granting states a potent “right to exclude” entails deep tensions with basic moral standards of legitimate authority. This is because the deeply entrenched characteristics and historical background conditions of immigration control today tend structurally to push states to violate the appropriate moral conditions of their legitimate authority to enforce immigration restrictions.5 While moving above and beyond legal argumentation, my hope is that the argument may underscore and give further analytical expression to some of the animating concerns of contemporary legal contestations of states’ exclusive powers and practices. (shrink)

This edited work collates novel contributions on contemporary topics that are related to human rights. The essays address analytic-descriptive questions, such as what legal personality actually means, and normative questions, such as who or what should be recognised as a legal person. As is well-known among jurists, the law has a special conception of personhood: corporations are persons, whereas slaves have traditionally been considered property rather than persons. This odd state of affairs has not garnered the interest of (...) legal theorists for a while and the theory of legal personhood has been a relatively peripheral topic in jurisprudence for at least 50 years. As readers will see, there have recently been many developments and debates that justify a theoretical investigation of this topic. Animal rights activists have been demanding that some animals be recognized as legal persons. The field of robotics has prompted questions about driverless cars: should they be granted a limited legal personality, so that the car itself would be responsible for damages? This book explores such concepts and touches on matters of bioethics, animal law and medical law. It includes matters of legal history and appeals to both legal scholars and philosophers, especially those with an interest in theories of law and the philosophy of law. (shrink)

This article presents the dual conception of legal regulation of funding of political parties. In general, funding of political parties is considered as part of public law, however, this article explains that it also could be understood as an institute of private law. When funding of political parties is analysed not only through the conception of public law, but also taking into consideration the idea of private law, it is possible to apply different (than usual) principles of legal (...) regulation of such relations. Those principles are followed in this article in order to reveal different practical problems pertaining to legal regulation of political party funding. A conclusion is made that the legal provisions on funding of political parties form an integral system that consists of both public law and private law provisions. The relations when natural and legal persons assign property to political parties are considered as part of private law and those property relations that are based on state subsidies to political parties or other financial support by the state are the object of public law regulation. In the case of Lithuania, all such relations are regulated by the Law on Funding of, and Control Over Funding of Political Parties and Political Campaigns, which is an act of private law and also a source of public law. The legal regulation that stems from this law is supplemented by the Civil Code of the Republic of Lithuania and other related laws. The legislator, while regulating the legal relations pertaining to the funding of political parties, and the courts, when dealing with disputes related to those relations, are advised to take into consideration the general principles of civil law. It is important to point out that some legal provisions of the Law on Funding of Political Parties that are in force as of 1 January 2012 are against those principles. A prohibition for legal persons and limitations for natural persons to fund political parties should be critically considered, since those restrictions limit the possibilities for private persons to dispose their property and for political parties – to acquire it. Moreover, it is important to point out that such restrictions can be circumvented by assigning property through a third party and by other legal means. In order to avoid such cases, it is recommended to provide an opportunity for natural and legal persons to fund political parties, but with reasonable limitations for such donations. (shrink)

Democratic backsliding and autocratisation tendencies raise the question of what liberal democracy can do to defend itself. Of particular concern are populists, who are often perceived to have an ambiguous commitment to the principles of liberal democracy. The defence of liberal democracy has often been conceived in legal terms, for example, with party bans and propaganda restrictions. However, legal means are criticized for being elitist because they are directed against irrational and emotionally driven masses and because they allegedly (...) violate the very values that they are supposed to protect by limiting the democratic freedom of some groups. Instead, critics have proposed cultural and socio-economic means as non-elitist and non-exclusionary alternatives more in line with the values of democracy. This article discusses whether the employment of cultural and socio-economic means against groups – in casu populists – who are perceived as a challenge to liberal democracy can avoid the charge of elitism and exclusion by analysing whether these means are consistent with the publicity constraint. It finds that the use of education and money to defend democracy against such groups relies on a form of elitism and exclusion similar to the one that the defence by legal means is charged with. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Chair’s Perspective on the Work of the Advisory Committee on Human Radiation ExperimentsRuth Faden (bio)On January 15, 1994, President Clinton created the Advisory Committee on Human Radiation Experiments in response to his concern about the increasing number of reports describing alleged unethical conduct of the U.S. Government, and institutions funded by the government, in the use of, or exposure to, ionizing radiation in human beings at the height of (...) the Cold War. He directed the Committee: (1) to uncover the history of human radiation experiments and intentional environmental releases of radiation; (2) to identify the ethical and scientific standards for evaluating these events; and (3) to make recommendations to ensure that whatever wrongdoing may have occurred in the past will not be repeated.The Committee was composed of 14 members: a citizen representative and 13 experts in bioethics, radiation oncology and biology, epidemiology and statistics, public health, history of science and medicine, nuclear medicine, and law. We reported to a cabinet-level group (the Human Radiation Interagency Working Group) convened by the president, which includes the secretaries of defense, energy, health and human services, and veterans affairs; the attorney general; the administrator of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration; the director of the Central Intelligence Agency; and the director of the Office of Management and Budget.On April 21, 1994, at the end of the first day of our first meeting, President Clinton invited us to the White House to personally communicate his commitment to the process we were about to undertake. He urged us to be fair, thorough, and unafraid to shine the light of truth on this hidden and poorly understood aspect of our nation’s past. Our most important task, he said, was to tell the full story to the American public. [End Page 215] At the same time, we were to examine the present, to determine how the conduct of human research today compares with that of the past, and to assess whether, in light of this inquiry, changes need to be made in the policies of the federal government. Eighteen months later, the Committee’s attempt to tell the story of the past and to report on our inquiry into the present was delivered to the president in a 900-page Final Report (ACHRE 1995) and several supplemental volumes.The Committee’s charge was enormous. We were asked to conduct a massive investigation into events that occurred as much as 50 years ago and that involved the highest reaches of the defense establishment and the medical community. This investigation necessitated an examination of the conduct and policies of six federal agencies and countless agents in the private sector, as well as the location and interpretation of hundreds of thousands of documents, many of which were buried in obscure locations or were still classified.In addition, the Committee was instructed to establish standards for judging, in moral terms, the events that it uncovered. This charge necessitated the confrontation of contentious debates in moral thought and theory about history, relativism, and the significance of context in moral judgment. But our purpose was not to engage in these debates in the abstract. Although the Committee was not expressly charged with considering issues relating to remedies, including financial compensation, we felt obliged to address the type of remedies that we believed the government, as an ethical matter, should provide to subjects of experiments where the circumstances warranted such a response. Thus our deliberations about relativism and moral judgment were tied to concrete recommendations for public policy and were conducted in a public context that included participants from numerous adversarial legal proceedings.In tandem with our reconstruction of the past, we undertook three projects to examine the current state of human radiation experiments. First, we studied how each federal agency that currently conducts or funds research involving human subjects regulates and oversees its research activity. Second, from among the very large number of federally-supported research projects involving human subjects, we randomly selected 125 projects for closer scrutiny. We reviewed all available relevant documentation for each project in order to assess how well it appeared to protect the rights and interests of the participating subjects. Third... (shrink)

This paper mounts a philosophical defence of Peter Shaffer's 1973 play Equus by interpreting it from three perspectives: that of Freud, Jung, and Deleuze and Guattari. The latter's concept of becoming-animal is offered as a leading perspective which reveals the deep philosophical significance of the drama, belying the claims of those critics who have dismissed it as bogus or banal. This interpretation also allows Equus to be seen as an exemplary illustration of what Deleuze and Guattari mean by their (...) intriguing concept of becoming-animal, and throws fresh light on this fascinating but difficult notion. (shrink)

In this paper I bring together self-defense theory and animal rights theory. The extension of self-defense theory to animals poses a serious problem for proponents of animal rights. If, in line with orthodox self-defense theory, a person is a legitimate target for third-party self-defensive violence if they are responsible for a morally unjustified harm without an acceptable excuse; and if, in line with animal rights theory, people that consume animal products are responsible for (...) unjustified harm to animals, then many millions, if not billions, of otherwise law abiding and decent people will be legitimate targets for third-party self-defense violence on behalf of animals. I call this problem: the multiple inappropriate targets problem for animal rights. (shrink)