In earlier articles, the author developed what is known as the "Supersession Thesis," asserting that historic injustice may be overtaken by changes in circumstances so that a situation that was unjust when it was brought about may coincide with what justice requires at a later time. The Supersession Thesis was developed initially as a tool for considering historic injustice suffered by indigenous peoples in the European settlement of countries like Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and the United (...) States. In this paper, the author explores the application of the Supersession Thesis to issues about the Palestinian right of return and also to Israeli settlements in the Occupied Territories. The paper argues that, while it is not unthinkable that the Supersession Thesis might eventually legitimize the settlements and undermine the Palestinian right of return, there is no guarantee that this will happen. The application of the Supersession Thesis does not depend on the passage of time, but on changes in circumstances that a theory of justice makes relevant. Many of the circumstances that make the Supersession Thesis relevant to the post-colonial situations described do not apply in the Israeli situation. Nevertheless, it is worth considering the possibility of applying the Supersession Thesis in this case, because it enables us to assess the merits of the Thesis more sharply in relation to injustice that is taking place now, as opposed to injustice that took place in the nineteenth century. (shrink)

This article examines the relationship between Jeremy Waldron’s supersession thesis and compensation. Recently, Waldron has argued that claims for material compensation for the original injustice cannot be superseded. He limits supersession to issues of restitution. Waldron’s supersession thesis is frequently cited by opponents of claims based on historical injustice, so his view of compensation warrants close examination. In our article, we explain the details of Waldron’s ‘simple model’ of compensation, offer an internal critique of it, (...) and try to sympathetically reconstruct it. We contend that a crucial claim about this model does not work; his model would result in many more backward-looking compensatory claims than he realizes. Waldron’s allowing for material compensation claims from historical injustice is in tension with, or incompatible with, his long-expressed view that the spirit of the supersession thesis is that justice should be forward-looking and look to present-day costs. We have argued elsewhere that the abstract possibility that restitution claims may be superseded due to changing circumstances (what we call the ‘supersession thesis proper’) is separable from the question of whether justice has a forward-looking or backward-looking orientation. We argue here that Waldron’s model of compensation can best be made sense of through our distinction of ‘full supersession’ and ‘partial supersession.’ This allows us to show that Waldron’s model relies on a more strongly backward-looking orientation than he seems to endorse in his earlier works on restitution and his most recent article discussing compensation. We conclude by offering external criticisms of Waldron’s model of compensation. (shrink)

Jeremy Waldron introduced the notion of rights supersession into the philosophical discussion about restitutive justice in cases of historic injustices. He refers to land claims by indigenous peoples as a real-world example and as an application of his theory of rights supersession. He implies that the changes that have taken place in settler states since the first years of colonialism are the kind of changes that lead to a supersession of land rights. The article proposes to unbundle (...) property rights into rights of benefit, control, use, and access and to distinguish between different forms of attachment. This strategy allows for a third option of restitution and supersession, namely partial restitution. Partial restitution grants current land holders those rights that they need to satisfy their attachments and basic distributive justice claims. At the same time, rights that are not needed for either purpose will revert back to indigenous peoples as the original owners. The article argues that the notion of partial restitution allows for far more extensive land rights than a less nuanced application of the supersession thesis. (shrink)

I argue that changes in the numerical identity of groups do not necessarily speak in favour of the supersession of some historical injustice. I contend that the correlativity between the perpetrator and the victim of injustices is not broken when the identity of groups changes. I develop this argument by considering indigenous people's claims in Argentina for the injustices suffered during the Conquest of the Desert. I argue that present claimants do not need to be part of the same (...) entity whose members suffered injustices many years ago. For identifying the proper recipients of reparation, all that is necessary is that the group who suffered the historical injustice under consideration has survived into the present. I also support a view upon which present living members of a certain group have reasons to redress those injustices perpetrated by their predecessors if they are relevantly connected with each other. In particular, by relying on the notion of collective inheritance, I argue that if present-day members of a certain group claim that they are the continuation of the group whose past members bequeathed them certain goods, they cannot consistently reject such a membership when the very same people legated them certain evils. (shrink)

This interview with Jeremy Waldron covers three topics. Firstly, we dealt with the methodology debate, that is, the discussion about how to proceed in analyzing the nature of law. Does the question ‘What is law?’ require a descriptive analysis of the concept of law or, rather, a normative exercise in political philosophy? Secondly, we spoke about the role of law in response to historic injustice, especially in relation to the restitution of property rights. On this topic Waldron vindicates the ‘ (...) class='Hi'>supersession-thesis’, the idea that, due to changed circumstances and the passage of time, historic injustices become superseded. The third section of the interview is devoted to Waldron’s perspective on the citation of foreign law by national judges. (shrink)

On the basis of Waldron’s supersession thesis, this article discusses the historical injustice argument and contends that in order to evaluate moral claims for restitution of territorial titles it is important to consider the legitimate expectations of citizens that have been formed historically and have been sanctioned by the state through institutional mechanisms of stabilization of expectations. The legitimate expectations of citizens form normative demands that cannot be disregarded when rectifying historical injustices. In his arguments in favour of (...) the supersession thesis, Waldron does not give sufficient attention to the concept of ‘legitimate expectation’, even though the thesis is reinforced by this reference. Unlike exclusively restitutive and rectificatory measures, this paper relies on _present considerations_ of the consequences of past injustices, all within the framework of a theory of justice. In this sense, compensation deals with the past, but in a forward-looking way. (shrink)

There are two main sources of theoretical doubt regarding the validity of claims for reparation: the questions arising from the non-identity problem and those arising from the supersession thesis. Neither of them significantly undermines the Palestinian refugees’ claims to reparations and a right of return.

Should historical injustices always be repaired? Most public institutions and present holdings reveal links to past injustices, making reparation imperative. However, what if repairing historical injustices conflicts with distributive justice demands? Through discussions of post-colonial injustices against Indigenous peoples and of the injustices committed by the Global North against the Global South, particularly in the context of climate change, this book argues that repairing historical injustices can and must be reconciled with the imperatives of distributive justice.

This thesis explores Heidegger's attempt to move beyond the recuperative powers of the dialectic. Its title announces a certain aporia: the "beyond," of course, is precisely what Hegel claims to have transcended; and he has determined that all attempts to overcome him--refutation, opposition, supersession; reversal , inversion , bisection , dissection , periodization --only confirm the potency of the original system. Heidegger displays an acute self-consciousness concerning such aporias of "overcoming." ;This thesis inscribes the Heideggerean project within (...) the horizon of speculative idealism. Heidegger appears to be embroiled in Hegel's earlier struggle with Reflexionsphilosophie . He seems to oscillate between two poles: between a "speculative" drive to surpassing the limit and a "reflective" hesitation or acquiescence at the barrier ; between "good infinite" and "bad infinite"; ultimately between Vernunft and Verstand. Heidegger appears "speculative" in his resistance to the bad infinite in its modern guises , the flux of das Man, the seriality of Technik, the fragmentations of a political aggregate). He appears "reflective" or "Romantic" in his appeal to a "task of thinking": interminable, provisional, forever "underway." He thus appears, at one time, both to resuscitate all Hegel's protests against Reflexionsphilosophie and to vindicate a "philosophy of finitude" which risks relapsing into just the terms Hegel had sought to surpass. Heidegger's thought is neither Spekulation nor Reflexion: it risks the appearance of both in order to negotiate a space between. The movement "'beyond' Aufhebung" is thus in fact a movement between a philosophy of Aufhebung and a philosophy of the "beyond" . ;Such oscillation compels us to rethink the metaphysics of the limit; here a line is traced which may not be comprehended by a speculative logic, and which has many different aspects . This thesis explores these various aspects as they unfold throughout the Heideggerean corpus but with particular reference to Zur Seinsfrage. (shrink)

Luego de la Conquista del Desierto, el Estado argentino impuso su ordenamiento institucional a los miembros sobrevivientes de varias comunidades indígenas. De este modo, sus instituciones fueron desplazadas. Esta es una injusticia histórica cuya reparación, en aquel tiempo, requería la restauración de la vigencia de las instituciones indígenas. Sin embargo, no estamos más en 1885 y muchas circunstancias han cambiado. Muchas personas indígenas y no indígenas viven en las mismas ciudades, tienen intereses en las mismas porciones de tierra, e interactúan (...) entre ellos en innumerables formas. Por lo tanto, debe analizarse si, bajo estas condiciones, los reclamos indígenas por recuperar su soberanía siguen siendo válidos. En este trabajo argumentaré que, debido a cambios en las circunstancias, estos reclamos tienen menos fuerza que en el pasado. Por lo tanto, la injusticia histórica no puede ser reparada del mismo modo que en 1885. No obstante, dada la historia de opresión a la que los indígenas han sido sometidos, el sistema institucional de Argentina tiene que ser reformado de manera tal que su aplicación sobre ellos sea legítima. Propongo tres medidas que contribuyen a conseguir dicho objetivo, a saber, el autogobierno para asuntos internos, la representación en el Senado y el cambio institucional por mayoría simple. -/- After the Conquest of the Desert, the State of Argentina forcibly imposed its institutional system over the surviving members of several indigenous communities. In that way, their institutions were ousted. The reparation of this historical injustice, at that time, required the reversion of the indigenous institutions. However, we are not in 1885 anymore, and several circumstances have changed. Many indigenous and non-indigenous persons live in the same cities, have interests in similar portions of land, and interact with each other in an infinite number of ways. Therefore, it should be assessed whether indigenous claims for their sovereignty to be restored are still valid. In this paper, I argue that, owed to changing circumstances, these claims have less normative force than they had in the past. Therefore, those injustices cannot be redressed in the same way as in 1885. However, I argue that due to the history of oppression indigenous people have suffered, the Argentinian institutional system has to be reformed so that its application over them not being illegitimate. I propose three measures to achieve this aim: self-government over internal affairs, indigenous representatives in the Senate, and institutional change by a simple majority of votes. (shrink)

The Situationist International (1957-1972) was a small group of communist revolutionaries, originally organised out of the West European artistic avant-garde of the 1950s. The focus of my thesis is to explain how the Situationist International (SI) became a group able to exert a considerable influence on the ultra-left criticism that emerged during and in the wake of the May movement in France in 1968. My wager is that the pivotal period of the group is to be found between 1960 (...) and 1963, a period marked by the split of 1962. Often this is described as the transition of the group from being more concerned with art to being more concerned with politics, but as I will argue this definitional shorthand elides the significance of the Situationist critique of art, philosophy and politics. The two axes of my thesis are as follows. First, that the significant minority in the group which carried out the break of 1962, identified a homology between the earlier Situationist critique of art — embodied in the Situationist ‘hypothesis of the construction of situations’ — and Marx’s critique and supersession of the radical milieu of philosophy from which he emerged in the mid- 1840s. This homology was summarised in the expression of the Situationist project as the ‘supersession of art’ (dépassement de l’art). Secondly, this homology was practically embodied in the resolution of the debates over the role of art in the elaboration of the Situationist hypothesis, which had been ongoing since 1957. However, it was the SI’s encounter with the ultra-left group Socialisme ou Barbarie that would prove decisive. Via Guy Debord’s membership, the group was exposed to both the idea of a more general revolutionary criticism, but also ultimately what was identified as the insufficiently criticised ‘political militancy’ of this group. Indeed, in the ‘political alienation’ found in Socialisme ou Barbarie, a further homology was established between the alienation of the political and artistic avant-gardes. This identity would prove crucial to the further elaboration of the concept of ‘spectacle’. By way of an examination of the peculiar and enigmatic ‘Hamburg Theses’ of 1961, and the relationship between these ‘Theses’ and the Situationist criticism of art and politics worked out over the first five years of the group, I will argue that the break in 1962 should be conceived as one against politics as much as art (rather than just the latter, as it is more often represented). Additionally, I will outline how the SI, through the paradoxical reassertion of their artistic origins, attempted to synthesise their criticism of art with the recovery of the work of Marx beyond its mutilation as Marxism. Indeed, it was the synthesis of these critiques that enabled the considerable development of the concept of ‘spectacle’, opening the way to the unique influence the SI exerted in the re-emergence of a revolutionary movement at the end of the 1960s. (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: Introduction The Ideal Form of Mutual Recognition Hegel's State of Nature De Facto Authority De Jure Authority Legitimate Authority Constitutional Authority Conclusion Notes References.

An extensive scholarly literature, written in the past century holds that in ancient Greek and Roman thought history is understood as circular and repetitive - a consequence of their anti-temporal metaphysics - in contrast with Judaeo-Christian thought, which sees history as linear and unique - a consequence of their messianic and hence radically temporal theology. Gerald Press presents a more general view - that the Graeco-Roman and Judaeo-Christian cultures were fundamentally alien and opposed cultural forces and that, therefore, Christianity's victory (...) over paganism included the replacement or supersession of one intellectual world by another - and then shows that, contrary to this view, there was substantial continuity between "pagan" and Christian ideas of history in antiquity, rather than a striking opposition between cyclic and linear patterns. He finds that the foundation of the Christian view of history as goal-directed lies in the rhetorical rather than the theological motives of early Christian writers. (shrink)

Arguments about the supersession of historic injustice often use the dispossession of Indigenous lands as an example of the sort of injustice in the past that can be superseded in certain circumstances. This article aims not to directly challenge the content of such arguments but to place them into a different context, wherein they are seen playing a role in ongoing efforts to remove Indigenous understandings of law, justice, and morals from discussions about state-Indigenous histories and interactions. The normative (...) narrowness of these arguments is explored alongside developments within Canadian law that purport to respond to the historic denial of substantive Indigenous interests in lands by colonial and Canadian authorities. While the analysis predominantly takes a bird’s-eye view of the interaction of varied normative systems, the conclusion advances a normatively charged argument, as I speculate about why courts – and academics writing about the passage of time – seem intent on developing arguments that displace Indigenous understandings. (shrink)

We have become estranged from the cosmic movements, according to Bataille. We are confined by the error linked to the representation of ‘the stationary earth’. We have negated the immersive immanence of the whole and made nature into a fixed world of tools and things. How then do we recognise ourselves as part of the ‘rapture of the heavens’? Bataille urges us to consider life as a solar phenomenon, the free play of solar energy on the earth. This paper argues (...) how Bataille’s cosmic vision anticipates both planetary and ecological thinking. This entails a base materialism of difference based on a radical Nietzschean and Heraclitean theory of becoming and flux. This thought is developed along Bataillean concepts such as the movement of the whole, the labyrinthine, and compound beings, ipseity, as well as the concept of a communifying movement. This materialism paired with Vladimir Vernadsky’s biosphere lays the foundation for the laws of the general economy, which also constitutes an economy inclusive of a general ecology: a tragic vision of Gaia and Dionysos. Finally, poetry is considered, as a way we might reconnect with the universe and stimulate ecological imagination. (shrink)

To be human is to be autonomous, yet this is a trait that most of us lack. We are subject to forces external to our being. We are workers; we are citizens; we are needful creatures. Humanity-proper in these times of neoliberal omnipotence is defined differently. The key terms are familiar: personal betterment, personal responsibility, productivity, pleasantness. A forked tongue slithers in our conscience, tells us that these are the traits of the human condition. Through Bataille, this paper argues the (...) substrate of these oft repeated familiar mantras are other. Neoliberal subjects, propelled by need, understand themselves along the axis of the useful choice. The paper turns to myth to understand the interdependence of need and choice, and how this interdependence posits being as always in desire but never in pleasure. Revisiting Don Giovanni, a character central to Acéphalic thought, and the commentary of Søren Kierkegaard, we think in terms of non-abstraction, of pleasurably floating in change, rather than toiling in desire. For it is by grace in the form of chance, that at the very time of transgression, that we – in and for an instant – become human, become as the sacred in the flesh. (shrink)

Jeremy Waldron argues that claims to reparation for historic injustices can be superseded by the demands of justice in the present. For example, justified Maori claims to reparation resulting from the wrongful appropriation of their land by European settlers may be superseded by the claim to a just distribution of resources possessed by the world’s existing inhabitants. However, if we distinguish between reparative and restitutive claims, we see that while claims to restitution may be superseded by changes in circumstance, this (...) does not entail that claims to reparation are. In contrast, claims to reparation are robust to changes in circumstance. (shrink)

There are several ways in which rights may be lost: by renunciation or “alienation,” through wrongdoing or “forfeiture,” and through “prescription” or the expiration of rights or their expropriation by competing claimants. One form of prescription is “supersession,” where rights are alleged to “fade away” over time to be replaced by others’ claims of right. Chapter 7 is an in-depth examination of the idea of rights supersession. That idea is centrally employed, but inadequately analyzed, in virtually all theories (...) of territorial rights. The chapter distinguishes from true supersession various related phenomena. It then examines and criticizes all of the familiar arguments in favor of supersession, with special reference to Waldron’s well-known approach. The arguments considered concern “fading bases,” shaky counterfactuals, changing circumstances, and the evolving demands of justice. (shrink)

According to the Extended Mind thesis, the mind extends beyond the skull or the skin: mental processes can constitutively include external devices, like a computer or a notebook. The Extended Mind thesis has drawn both support and criticism. However, most discussions—including those by its original defenders, Andy Clark and David Chalmers—fail to distinguish between two very different interpretations of this thesis. The first version claims that the physical basis of mental features can be located spatially outside the (...) body. Once we accept that the mind depends on physical events to some extent, this thesis, though not obvious, is compatible with a large variety of views on the mind. The second version applies to standing states only, and has to do with how we conceive the nature of such states. This second version is much more interesting, because it points to a potential tension in our conception of minds or selves. However, without properly distinguishing between the two theses, the significance of the second is obscured by the comparative triviality of the first. (shrink)

Aristotle’s theory of causes requires a first, unmoved mover outside the sublunary world, along with soul as first and unmoved mover in the natural world below. Aristotle separates the charmed group of causes headed by soul that are jointly sufficient for typical animal behaviour from external causes. The border between external and charmed is permeable: crops growing in the field are co-opted to become an instrument of soul that nourishes the animal. (Instruments of soul like the sumphuton pneuma are internal (...) to the animal from the start.) But no causes, not even the Unmoved Mover, may supersede soul as unmoved mover. (shrink)

H. L. A Hart complained about the ambiguity of legal positivism, and proposed a definition that refers to particular explications of the concept of law, to certain theories of legal interpretation, to particular views on the moral problem of a duty to obey the law, and to a sceptical position with regard to the meta-ethical issue of the possibility of moral knowledge. It is said to be restricted to the Thesis of Separation — the contention that there is no (...) necessary connection between law and morals. In this chapter, the Separation Thesis is discussed even further, and has three shortcomings identified: first, that it has been vacillating between object-level contentions about moral qualities of the law; that the precise logical relation between both levels has never been properly accounted for; and that the question of necessary relations between morality and law hinges crucially on the presupposition that the very concept of law itself does not unravel into different sets of convenient stipulations from different epistemological angles, each of which renders the question of such necessary relations trivial. The Separation Thesis is also identified as having two versions: the Fallibility Law and the Neutrality Law. (shrink)

This account explores the divergent perspectives of supervisor and student interacting in self-study research, showing how both participants were transformed by the experience. Although both supervisor and student had faced similar problems as mature students engaging in doctoral study, and both possessed strong convictions about their chosen paths, their focus was very different. The student, being visually creative, was investigating the value of integrated arts as a transformational learning medium; the supervisor, from a linguistics background, was focused on exploring the (...) nature of written communication. The supervisor/student relationship comprises a complex nexus of interconnections between persons, material objects, times and places: it is never static, but always emerging, with the relationship often ending up being more collegial than at first, as with the authors of this paper. In the counterpoint dialogue presented by student and supervisor, it can be seen that both learned from each other: the student, the rigours of structuring a passionate argument intellectually; the supervisor, to express an intellectual argument more personally. Both authors were transformed by the supervisor/student interaction: the supervisor, in rediscovering the value of interpersonal communication; the student, in mastering a research approach which did justice to her belief in the creative power of the arts. The value of engaging with perspectives which initially appear to be irreconcilable is not just to ‘learn new things’, but to push the inner limits of our perspectives, transforming not only the ways in which we perceive things, but the ways in which we learn. (shrink)

A.E. Taylor's 1938 essay, ‘The Ethical Doctrine of Hobbes’, was widely and for a long time thought to provide the basis of a deontological interpretation of Hobbes that was so distinctive and compelling that it came to constitute the basis of a ‘Taylor thesis’, an analytical construct long prominent in Hobbes Studies. But, the ‘Taylor thesis’ was a myth. First, Taylor's essay of 1938 were, in reality thin, and not well-argued; neither did they stimulate any contemporary response at (...) all from Hobbes scholars, even though they criticized the whole of Hobbes interpretation. Second, it seeming unlikely that so ineffectual a critique could have come from serious scholarly motives, an interesting way of accounting for Taylor's attempt to paint Hobbes morally is to locate that effort in the context of a general reaction against world Facism and against attempts to link Hobbes with totalitarian ideologies. Third, in the final analysis, however, Taylor's essay of 1938 was of such doubtful quality that it is difficult to think that it was ever seriously meant to be taken as scholarly research. Close analysis reveals weaknesses, lapses, and an arbitrariness which cast further doubt on the uncritically received opinion of a ‘Taylor thesis’. (shrink)

info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersion.

Inclusive and exclusive positivists disagree on whether criteria of validity can incorporate moral norms. Inclusive positivists believe there are conceptually possible legal systems in which the criteria of validity include moral norms (the ‘Incorporation Thesis’). Exclusive positivists, following Joseph Raz, reject the Incorporation Thesis on the ground that subjects of a putative legal system incorporating moral criteria of validity could not identify the law without evaluating the very reasons the law is supposed to replace. Since law cannot be (...) authoritative unless it is identifiable without recourse to those dependent reasons, the Incorporation Thesis is inconsistent with the nature of authority. Most defences of the Incorporation Thesis attempt to refute Raz's theory of authority. In contrast, Jules Coleman argues that inclusive positivism is compatible with Raz's theory. In this essay, I examine Coleman's defence of the Compatibility Thesis. (shrink)

I argue that if we claim colonialism is per se wrong, then we face a dilemma that stems from the fact that many states today are a result of past colonialism. We believe that postcolonial states have a right to self-determination such that it is wrong to colonize them. But this entails that there is a process that can turn a colonial state into a rightful state, and so we admit that there is a way to carry out colonialism that (...) is not wrongful. To avoid this conclusion, we must accept that the wrongness of colonialism has been superseded or remedied. These options either entail instrumentalism, which admits that colonialism is not per se wrong, or they are implausible. (shrink)