The RSPO and RTRS are global private partnerships that have been set up by business and civil society actors from the North to curb de-forestation and to promote sustainable production of palm oil or soy in the South. This article is about the launch of new national standards in Indonesia and Brazil that are look-alikes of the global standards but have been set up and supported by government or business actors from the South. The two main questions of this (...) article are: do the new national standards in Indonesia and Brazil provide a fundamental challenge to the RSPO and RTRS, or do they demonstrate the successful diffusion and adoption of global private rules into national contexts? Do the new national standards help or undermine the RSPO and RTRS in their efforts to reduce de-forestation? Combining the theoretical notions of proto-institution and rival governance network, a comparative analysis is offered of the launch of the new national standards in Indonesia and Brazil. The conclusion is that, whilst the RSPO and RTRS have served as models for the general design and principles of the national standards, they really differ from the global standards in terms of normative contents: the national standards offer more room to palm oil plantations and large-scale soy producers to expand production at the expense of forests and other high conservation areas. Governments and producer associations in Indonesia and Brazil have not launched national standards to implement the RSPO or RTRS but to challenge these interventions from the North. (shrink)

This book provides a critical survey of Western political philosophy from a classical liberal perspective, paying particular attention to knowledge problems and the problem of political authority. Its central argument is that the state is a tool for solving a historically changing set of problems, and that, as a tool, the state is frequently deficient on both moral and practical grounds. Government action can be considered as a response to a set of problems, all of which may conceivably be (...) solved in some other manner as well. The book examines in particular the relationship between the state and technology over time. Technological developments may make the state more or less necessary over time, which is a consideration that is relatively new in the history of political philosophy, but increasingly important. The book is organized chronologically and concludes with an essay on trends in the history of political philosophy, as well as its surprisingly bright prospects for future development. (shrink)

This chapter argues that dual-use emerging technologies are distributing unprecedented offensive capabilities to nonstate actors. To counteract this trend, some scholars have proposed that states become a little “less liberal” by implementing large-scale surveillance policies to monitor the actions of citizens. This is problematic, though, because the distribution of offensive capabilities is also undermining states’ capacity to enforce the rule of law. I will suggest that the only plausible escape from this conundrum, at least from our present vantage point, is (...) the creation of a “supersingleton” run by a friendly superintelligence, founded upon a “post-singularity social contract.” In making this argument, the present chapter offers a novel reason for prioritizing the “control problem,” i.e., the problem of ensuring that a greaterthan-human-level AI will positively enhance human well-being. (shrink)

This article will explore some previously unrecognised legal and ethical issues associated with informal care-giving and criminal justice in the context of end of life decision-making. It was prompted by a recent case in Leeds Crown Court, which raises important issues for the people who care for their loved ones at home and for the criminal justice system more generally. Government figures estimate that over 5.2 million Britons are responsible for the care of relatives or loved ones. In order (...) to evaluate some of the ways in which they might find themselves exposed to unexpected criminal liability we have characterised this group as untrained carers who assume responsibility. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:The End of This World: Climate Justice in So-Called Canada by Angele Alook et al.Evangeline KroonAngele Alook, Emily Eaton, David Gray-Donald, Joël Laforest, Crystal Lameman, and Bronwen Tucker. The End of This World: Climate Justice in So-Called Canada. Toronto: Between the Lines, 2023. 240 pp., paperback, $25.95. ISBN 9781771136129.[End Page 280]The End of This World: Climate Justice in So-Called Canada by Angele Alook, Emily Eaton, David Gray-Donald, Joël (...) Laforest, Crystal Lameman, and Bronwen Tucker is both an imagining of a utopic, fossil-fuel-free world and a spirited call to action. Written in plain language and aimed at a wide audience, the book examines contemporary so-called Canada through an indigenous-centered,1 decolonial lens and frames the current climate crisis that we are in as one of relationship failure. The authors state: "We believe it is important for a just transition discussions to be accessible to all audiences because, fundamentally, what we're talking about in this book is repairing relationships. Repairing relationships with each other and with the land" (13). Key to repairing this relationship is putting indigenous rights and sovereignty at the center of any proposal or policy, instead of appearing as an add-on or afterthought. As the authors lead us through their plan for a just energy transition, they assert that any change, any movement, and any economic strategy that does not assert indigenous rights is not only "greening theft," it is also doomed to fail (7).The book is organized into two parts. The first part consists of the introduction and the first two chapters, where the authors outline broken promises and political and private decisions that have led to the current climate crisis in so-called Canada. The second half then outlines indigenous-informed solutions and possible paths forward, with the most concrete and "winnable" strategies in the last two chapters (153). The End of This World is a collaborative piece, written in one voice, while the individual authors' voices can be heard through various examples and anecdotes given throughout the book.In the first half of the volume, they lay out the rise and reliance on fossil fuels, the ongoing empowerment of the industry, and the swaths of broken promises the Canadian government has made since public concern for climate has been on the rise. The authors focus on two dynamics that they believe are the worst contributors to this crisis in so-called Canada: "the violation of indigenous people's inherent rights and sovereignty, and the fossil fuel economy that relies on this violation" (11). This is done by tracing the sordid history of indigenous-settler relations through official documents such as the [End Page 281] Indian Act and the residential school system, which systematically destroyed traditional indigenous relationships with each other and the land and replaced them with patriarchal capitalist colonial hierarchies. The authors argue that this destruction, along with the forced removal of indigenous people from their lands, effectively brought about an apocalypse, the aftereffects of which indigenous people across all of so-called Canada are still dealing with. This is an incredibly effective rhetorical strategy, pulling on the popular cultural imagination of the apocalypse and reframing the settlers' view of this world as an indigenous dystopia.The authors then lay out how the official policies and privatization of the industry by the Canadian state laid the groundwork for weakening resistance against fossil fuel projects on traditional indigenous territories, and for stripping the lands of resources and further alienating all people from their relationships with the land. They point out that when indigenous mobilization was finally recognized in the 1970s and 1980s, a swell of popular support from unions, labor activists, and environmentalists pushed back against rampant development and extraction. However, instead of strict regulation and limitation, the authors make it clear how the government and industry simply switched from climate denialism to "climate delayism," using terms like "sustainable development," "net zero goals," and "carbon neutrality" to push responsibility to the future and make no real changes, all while actually increasing development and projects in the industry.The greatest strength of this section is how... (shrink)

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

This treatise redefines reason as a tripartite phenomenon comprising rational, emotional and experiential modes of knowledge acquisition, whose application serves as the foundation of moral practice, itself the prerequisite to philosophic happiness. In so doing, it outlines a visionary theory of universal morality, unifying disparate schools of thought previously incompatible throughout the history of philosophy. "The End of Knowledge"is a revolutionary work in several regards, most especially in its reinvention of reason as both a theoretical and practical tool able to (...) identify and craft ideal axiological judgments. Equally important is its refinement of classical utilitarianism permitting the inclusion of calculations of individual merit, and applying this theory to the realm of economic and political organization in society.The primacy of reason as a prerequisite to moral behavior, itself the surest means of experiencing meaningful happiness, is emphasized, and in so doing, is presented a bold new theory of ethics consistent in formulation and one which subsumes all existing major schools of thought, including deontology and virtue ethics, as well as hedonism and stoicism.The sheer scope, rigor and creative power of this treatise foretell that the radical new philosophy presented shall signify a profound challenge to current orthodoxies as diverse and impactful as legitimate governance to the aesthetic ideal. Uniquely expansive and articulate, The End of Knowledge proves a rare work in its fusion of the abstruse and the practical, the good and the right, conveyed in a style combining technical precision with poetical lyricism. The result is an exemplar of philosophy at its most powerful and personally relevant. (shrink)

Herbert Marcuse’s One-Dimensional Man is framed as a response to the “end of ideology” thesis of political equilibrium and a criticism of mainstream theoretical construction in advanced industrial countries. Such formulations obscured new forms of self-alienation in totally administered society, and replaced any conceived potential subjectivity with objective laws that govern social relations. One-Dimensional Man is also framed as a response to the “crisis of Marxism” by underscoring the importance of popular ideology in shaping subjective action, which at present, precludes (...) proletarian revolution. (shrink)

Feminist theory has enhanced and expanded the agency, influence, status and contributions of women throughout the globe. However, feminist critical analysis has not yet examined how the assumption that religion is natural, timeless, universal and omnipresent supports sexist and race based oppression. This book proposes radical new thinking about religion in order to better comprehend and confront the systematic disempowerment of women and marginalized groups. Utilising feminist and post-colonial analysis of access, equity and violence, contributors draw on recent critical theory (...) to collapse accepted boundaries between religion and secularity with the aim of understanding that religion is a technology of governance in its function, meaning and history. The volume includes case studies focusing on how the category of religion is deployed to perpetuate male hegemony and racist inequities in Australia, Mexico, the United States, Britain and Canada. This trenchant feminist critique and academic analysis will be of key interest to scholars and students of Religion, Sociology, Political Science and Gender Studies. (shrink)

With the rise of populism, European solidarity risks being eroded by a clash of solidarities based on nation and religion. Ranging from hospitality to hostility, ‘refugees welcome’ to ‘close the borders’, asylum seekers from Syria and other war-torn countries test the very ideas upon which the EU was founded: human rights, tolerance and the free movement of people. European solidarity is not only rooted in philosophical ideas of equality and freedom but also in the memory of nationalism, war and violence. (...) The response to refugees seeking asylum into Europe cannot only be resolved by appealing to emotions, moral sentiments and a politics of pity. Disenchantment with government, fear of terrorism and resentment towards foreigners weaken European solidarity at a time when it is needed most. (shrink)

The 1951 Refugee Convention and its 1967 Protocol are the main legal documents governing the movement of refugee and asylum seekers across international borders. As the number of displaced persons seeking refuge has reached unprecedented numbers, states have resorted to measures to circumvent their obligations under the Convention. These range from bilateral agreements condemning refugees to their vessels at sea to the excision of certain territories from national jurisdiction. While socio-economic developments and the rise of the worldwide web have led (...) to deterritorialization of vast domains of the economy and the media which enable them to escape from state control, territorial presence, whether on terra firma or on vessels at sea which are functional surrogates for territorial sovereignty, continues to be the basis for the entitlement to human and citizens’ rights. We are facing a dual movement of deterritorialization and territorialization at once, both of which threaten the end of the 1951 Convention. This article is an exercise in non-ideal theory which, nonetheless, has implications for a seminal question in ideal democratic theory as to how to define and justify the boundaries of the demos. If the demos refers to the constitutional subject of a self-determining entity in whose name sovereignty is exercised, regimes of sovereignty, including those which govern the movement of peoples across borders, define the prerogatives as well as obligations of such sovereign entities under international law. The period ushered in by the 1951 Convention was such a sovereignty regime which today may be nearing its end. (shrink)

The author presents a history of the attempts to find the final "theory of everything," gives a forceful argument that one can never be found, and a warning that the compromises necessary to produce a final theory may well undermine the rules of doing good science. At the heart of the story is the rise of the particle physicists and their attempts to reach far out into the cosmos for a unifying theory. Unable to subject their findings and theories to (...) experimental scrutiny, they have moved into a world governed entirely by mathematical and highly speculative theories, none of which can be empirically verified. "Does physics then become a branch of aesthetics?" Lindley asks. For an opposing viewpoint, see Stephen Weinberg's Dreams of a Final Theory. Annotation copyright by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR. (shrink)

End-of-life decision making constitutes a major challenge for bioethical deliberation and political governance in modern democracies: On the one hand, it touches upon fundamental convictions about life, death, and the human condition. On the other, it is deeply rooted in religious traditions and historical experiences and thus shows great socio-cultural diversity. The bioethical discussion of such cultural issues oscillates between liberal individualism and cultural stereotyping. Our paper confronts the bioethical expert discourse with public moral attitudes. The paper is based on (...) a qualitative study comprising 12 focus group discussions with religious and secular persons in the USA, Germany, and Israel. Considering the respective socio-political and legal frameworks, the thematic analysis focuses on moral attitudes towards end-of-life decision making and explores the complex interplay between individual preferences, culture, and religion. Our findings draw attention to the variety and complexity of cultural and religious aspects of end-of-life decision making. Although there is local consensus that goes beyond radical individualism, positions are not neatly matched with national cultures or religious denominations. Instead, the relevance of the specific situatedness of religious beliefs and cultural communities becomes visible: Their status and role in individual situations, for example, as consensual or conflicting on the level of personal perspectives, family relationships, or broader social contexts, e.g., as a majority or minority culture within a political system. As the group discussions indicate, there are no clear-cut positions anchored in “nationality,” “culture,” or “religion.” Instead, attitudes are personally decided on as part of a negotiated context representing the political, social and existential situatedness of the individual. Therefore, more complex theoretical and practical approaches to cultural diversity have to be developed. (shrink)

Since the advent of democracy in South Africa, there has been a concerted effort at reviving the notion of ubuntu. Variously conceived, it is seen as the authentic African ethical concept, a way of life, an authentic mode of being African, an individual ideal, the appropriate public spirit, a definition of life itself and the preferred manner of conducting public and private business. Thus, among other public displays of the spirit of ubuntu, the government of the day has deliberately (...) chosen its service delivery mantra and its public slogan as Batho Pele to animate, or perhaps pay obeisance to, ubuntu. In this paper we seek to advance arguments that question such a public, widespread, and concerted ‘ubuntu-isation’ of the intellectual, business, public and private lives. Our project follows two main lines of reasoning. We seek to show that the aggressive promotion of ubuntu in post-apartheid South Africa is an elitist project so conceived by the new black elite. It is conceived both as a restorative move that is aimed at securing the dignity of the black masses as well as an attempt at forging a so-called black identity. This line of reasoning will rely on similar historical cases on the continent that sought to aggressively promote an African mode of being, which coincided with both the end of colonialism and the rise of black elitism. We note that such attempts always ended in very public social and political failure. We seek to question the desirability of ubuntu as a mark/guide of the spirit of the nation. Here our critique shall be concentrated on the disjunct that exists between the metaphysical conditions necessary for the attainment of ubuntu and the stark ontological and ethical crisis facing the new elite and ‘our people’. (shrink)

Are we rapidly approaching the end of the work-centered society? This article contends that at the century's end we may witness the disappearance of the great productivist utopias of the 1920s and 1930s. The crisis of productivist systems and ideologies may be far more significant than the more narrowly defined crisis of communism, or of `Fordism', that many critics have identified. Shifts in the forms of metaphor and the technology of work are taking place which call into question traditional notions (...) of the biopolitics of work. Modern productivism - the productivism of the industrial revolution - was governed by the belief that human society and nature are linked by the primacy and ultimate interchangeability (convertibility) of all productive activity. It presupposes a metaphor of the motor which first appeared during the first quarter of the 19th century. With the eclipse of the metaphor of the human motor, we can ask whether the end of the `work-centered model of society' might be attributed to the decline of its most compelling metaphor. If the body no longer occupies the central metaphor of productivism, what does this mean for the new configuration of labor and the model of labor based on information processing rather than the generation of things or the conversion of force? (shrink)

ABSTRACT Clear guidelines addressing the ethically appropriate use of anti‐infectives in the setting of hospice care do not exist. There is lack of understanding about key treatment decisions related to infection treatment for patients who are eligible for hospice care. Ethical concerns about anti‐infective use at the end of life include: (1) delaying transition to hospice, (2) prolonging a dying process, (3) prescribing regimens incongruent with a short life expectancy and goals of care, (4) increasing the reservoir of potential resistant (...) pathogens, (5) placing unreasonable costs on a capitated hospice system. Although anti‐infectives are thought to be relatively safe, they can place a burden on patients and be inconsistent to particular care plans. The current complex, and at times fragmented, medical care often fails to address these issues in decision‐making. In many ways, the ethics governing the end of life decisions related to dialysis, hydration/nutrition, and hypercalcemia parallel those of anti‐infectives. In this article we articulate important elements in ethical decision‐making in the application of anti‐infectives for patients who are eligible for hospice care, and we point to the need for prospective studies to help refine particular guidelines in these cases. (shrink)

Clear guidelines addressing the ethically appropriate use of anti-infectives in the setting of hospice care do not exist. There is lack of understanding about key treatment decisions related to infection treatment for patients who are eligible for hospice care. Ethical concerns about anti-infective use at the end of life include: (1) delaying transition to hospice, (2) prolonging a dying process, (3) prescribing regimens incongruent with a short life expectancy and goals of care, (4) increasing the reservoir of potential resistant pathogens, (...) (5) placing unreasonable costs on a capitated hospice system. Although anti-infectives are thought to be relatively safe, they can place a burden on patients and be inconsistent to particular care plans. The current complex, and at times fragmented, medical care often fails to address these issues in decision-making. In many ways, the ethics governing the end of life decisions related to dialysis, hydration/nutrition, and hypercalcemia parallel those of anti-infectives. In this article we articulate important elements in ethical decision-making in the application of anti-infectives for patients who are eligible for hospice care, and we point to the need for prospective studies to help refine particular guidelines in these cases. (shrink)

Since independence, governance in Nigeria has faced several roadblocks at all levels of government. There are issues of corruption, of government institutions, and officeholders lacking the capacity to fulfil their mandates and hardly engage with citizens. This paper focuses on the issue of virtue and the business of governance in Nigeria. It distinguishes itself by its introduction of ethics—virtue in the discourse on governance to search for solutions to the challenges of governance in Nigeria. The paper adopts the (...) philosophical theoretical frameworks of Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle on virtue, and employs the thematic and analytical methods of inquiry. In the end, it discovers that imbibing virtue by those in governance can deal with the challenges of governance in Nigeria. (shrink)

This paper addresses the issue of mineral resources’ governance and trading rules. In doing so, it takes a closer look at the 2012 World Trade Organization case pertaining to Chinese exportation quotas of rare earth elements and other minerals. It argues that the current governance system based on national responsibility over resources control and global trading rules is not well adapted to a sustainable and fair management of mineral resources, and concludes by suggesting two paths towards a better governance of (...) such resources. (shrink)

Beauty and the End of Art shows how a resurgence of interest in beauty and a sense of ending in Western art are challenging us to rethink art, beauty and their relationship. By arguing that Wittgenstein's later work and contemporary theory of perception offer just what we need for a unified approach to art and beauty, Sonia Sedivy provides new answers to these contemporary challenges. These new accounts also provide support for the Wittgensteinian realism and theory of perception that make (...) them possible. -/- Wittgenstein's subtle form of realism explains artworks in terms of norm governed practices that have their own varied constitutive norms and values. Wittgensteinian realism also suggests that diverse beauties become available and compelling in different cultural eras and bring a shared 'higher-order' value into view. With this framework in place, Sedivy argues that perception is a form of engagement with the world that draws on our conceptual capacities. This approach explains how perceptual experience and the perceptible presence of the world are of value, helping to account for the diversity of beauties that are available in different historical contexts and why the many faces of beauty allow us to experience the value of the world's perceptible presence. -/- Carefully examining contemporary debates about art, aesthetics and perception, Beauty and the End of Art presents an original approach. Insights from such diverse thinkers as Immanuel Kant, Hans-Georg Gadamer and Arthur Danto, Alexander Nehamas, Elaine Scarry and Dave Hickey are woven together to reveal how they make good sense if we bring contemporary theory of perception and Wittgensteinian realism into the conversation. (shrink)

The COVID-19 pandemic, which was first reported at the end of 2019, has had a massive impact on the Chinese economy and society. The pandemic has seriously tested the emergency management capabilities of the Chinese government regarding public health. Based on the panel data of 31 provinces in China for the period of 2006–2019, this paper examines the impacts of government public health spending on regional economic growth. Furthermore, the possibility of spatial spillover effects of government public (...) health spending is investigated through spatial econometric analysis. Government public health spending and regional economic growth have significant positive spatial correlation and spatial agglomeration effects. The indicator of government public health spending significantly promotes regional economic growth. In addition, it significantly promotes the economic growth of neighboring areas through certain spatial spillovers. (shrink)

'Man being born...to perfect freedom...hath by nature a power...to preserve his property, that is, his life, liberty and estate.'Locke's Second Treatise of Government is one of the great classics of political philosophy, widely regarded as the foundational text of modern liberalism. In it Locke insists on majority rule, and regards no government as legitimate unless it has the consent of the people. He sets aside people's ethnicities, religions, and cultures and envisages political societies which command our assent because (...) they meet our elemental needs simply as humans. His work helped to entrench ideas of a social contract, human rights, and protection of property as the guiding principles for just actions and just societies.Published in the same year, A Letter Concerning Toleration aimed to end Christianity's wars of religion and called for the separation of church and state so that everyone could enjoy freedom of conscience. In this edition of these two major works, Mark Goldie considers the contested nature of Locke's reputation, which is often appropriated by opposing political and religious ideologies. (shrink)

1. Understanding.--2. Purpose.--3. Conciliation.--4. Justice.--5. Justice, science and religion as contributions to civilization.--6. Uniformitarian process under supreme law.

There has been increasing awareness of the medical and moral challenges in the care of unrepresented patients: those who cannot make their own medical decisions, do not have any surrogate decision maker, and have not indicated their treatment preferences. Most discussions have focused on procedural questions such as who should make decisions for these patients. An issue that has not gotten enough attention is the ethical standard that should govern medical decision making. I explore the question of which ethical standard (...) provides better justification for end-of-life decisions for unrepresented patients. Two options are considered: the conventional and less demanding best interest standard, and the novel and more demanding medical futility standard. I explain the similarities and differences between these two standards, examine arguments for and against each one, and suggest that the medical futility standard is ethically superior and should replace the established best interest standard. (shrink)

In the corporate social responsibility literature, the principle of voluntarism is predominant and implies that responsible business activities are discretionary and reach beyond the rule of law. This principle fails to explain that governments have a great interest in CSR and exercise influence on firms’ CSR activities. Therefore, we argue in favour of a contingency approach on voluntarism in CSR. To this end, we analyse the academic literature to demonstrate how governments are part of the CSR debate. We selected 703 (...) papers where the impact of governments is mentioned from five journals in our field in the period 1982–2011. We studied the titles and abstracts of these papers and provide an overview of: the geographical orientation of the reviewed studies; the variety of government levels involved; and the various subjects where governments appear to be involved. In addition, an in-depth reading of a subsample of 39 articles offers more details on the role of governments in the CSR literature. Hence, we offer a structured overview on the discussion of CSR and governments while stimulating a contingent understanding of the voluntarism concept in CSR. (shrink)

Religious-secular distinctions have been crucial to the way in which modern governments have rationalised their governance and marked out their sovereignty – as crucial as the territorial boundaries that they have drawn around nations. The authors of this volume provide a multi-dimensional picture of how the category of religion has served the ends of modern government. They draw on perspectives from history, anthropology, moral philosophy, theology and religious studies, as well as empirical analysis of India, Japan, Mexico, the United (...) States, Israel-Palestine, France and the United Kingdom. (shrink)

This essay introduces this special issue on virtue ethics in relation to military AI. It describes the current situation of military AI ethics as following that of AI ethics in general, caught between consequentialism and deontology. Virtue ethics serves as an alternative that can address some of the weaknesses of these dominant forms of ethics. The essay describes how the articles in the issue exemplify the value of virtue-related approaches for these questions, before ending with thoughts for further research.

This paper discusses the role of consent in decision making generally and its role in end of life decisions in particular. It outlines a conception of autonomy which explains and justifies the role of consent in decision making and criticises some misapplications of the idea of consent, particular the role of fictitious or “proxy” consents.Where the inevitable outcome of a decision must be that a human individual will die and where that individual is a person who can consent, then that (...) decision is ethical if and only if the individual consents. In very rare and extreme cases such a decision will be ethical in the absence of consent where it would be massively cruel not to end life in order to prevent suffering which is in no other way preventable.Where, however, the human individual is not a person, as is the case with abortion, the death of infants like Mary , or in the very rare and extreme cases of those who have ceased to be persons like Tony Bland, such decisions are governed by the ethics of ending the lives of non-persons. (shrink)

It would be good to end the controversy over Locke's ideological orientation. In the most well-known of recent commentaries on Locke's political thought his ideological placement ranges across the spectrum. Ashcraft believes Locke's thought is that of a radical left-wing revolutionary; Macpherson argues that the Second Treatise provided a conservative justification for the class rule of the rising bourgeoisie; and Gough finds that Locke stands mid-way between the two extreme positions in politics, *¾*his position is not, however, exactly mid-way between (...) these two extremes, but inclines somewhat toward the left*¾*. Each of these analyses rests largely on a particular interpretation of Locke's view of the franchise in the Two Treatises of Government (1690), and this kind of ideological analysis is historically problematic. Yet the premise seems plausible: the authoritarian, arbitrary rule of an absolute sovereign is the position of the far right in seventeenth-century England, and egalitarian popular democracy is the position of the far left at this time. Given this structure, Locke does stand between the extremes, but he is inclined towards the right. This is the position argued for in this essay: Locke's seemingly radical arguments were designed to reinforce socially conservative beliefs. Presenting the evidence for Locke's ideological commitment may help illuminate some other unsettled, secondary, points of interpretation. (shrink)

This edited volume takes a close look at Nicos Poulantzas’s thought as a means of understanding the dynamics of the capitalist, neoliberal state in the 21st century. Nicos Poulantzas has left us with one of the most sophisticated theories of the state in the second half of the 20th century. Poulantzas’s influential theory draws inspiration from Marx, Lenin, Weber, and Foucault, among other thinkers, conceiving of the relationship between capitalism and the state as particularly original. This book aims to use (...) Poulantzas’s theory of the capitalist state in order to understand important political and economic trends that have taken place since Poulantzas’s death in 1979. By entering into a dialogue with current Marxist and critical research in diverse fields such as political science, philosophy, sociology, history, and geography, this volume purports to evaluate the actuality of Poulantzas’s thought. (shrink)

Properly speaking, money and law are natural outgrowths of human society, evolving over time via the voluntary cooperation that lies at the heart of the social enterprise. And as gold and the golden rule have for millennia formed the basis, respectively, of society’s money and law, they accordingly constitute the “twin pillars of civilization,” governing the social enterprise such that, in Mises’s words, “the human species has multiplied far beyond the margin of subsistence.” It stands to reason, then, that if (...) money and law are corrupted, the social enterprise will be corrupted as well. And as this is precisely what the state has done, essentially toppling the twin pillars of civilization, it is necessary to understand what the state is, where it came from, and how it has systematically gone about corrupting money and law, and thus the social enterprise as a whole. For only then can money and law be returned to their rightful owners, and only then can the state be put in its proper place. Which is no place so far as the proper functioning of civil society is concerned. (shrink)

Is the Right to the City (RTTC) still a useful framework for a transformative urban politics? Given recent scholarly criticism of its real-world applications and appropriations, in this paper, we argue that the transformative promise in the RTTC lies beyond its role as a framework for oppositional struggle, and in its normative ends. Building upon Henri Lefebvre's original writing on the subject, we develop a “radical-cooperative” conception of the RTTC. Such a view, which is grounded in the lived experiences of (...) the current city, envisions an urban society in which inhabitants can pursue their material and social needs through self-governed cooperation across social difference. Growing and diversifying spaces and sectors of urban life that are decoupled from global capitalism are, we argue, necessary to create space for this inclusionary politics. While grassroots action is essential to this process, so is multi-scalar support from the state. (shrink)

The quality of end-of-life care in this country is often poor. There is abundant literature indicating that dying individuals do not receive adequate pain medication or palliative care, are tethered to machines and tubes in a way that challenges their dignity and autonomy, and are not helped to deal with the emotional grief and psychological angst that may accompany the dying process. While this is true for individuals in many settings, it seems to be especially true for individuals in nursing (...) homes. This is somewhat puzzling given that considerable resources have been devoted to bringing public attention to this problem, we have the knowledge and expertise to provide such care, and we have a government-financed benefit that covers this type of care - the Medicare hospice benefit.While utilization of hospice care has increased during the last decade, there is considerable evidence that hospice care remains underutilized particularly in the long term care setting. (shrink)

More than forty years of commitment to nuclear weapons may have prepared Britain to take part in Armageddon, but not to defend itself against attack. What made British governments choose this path and how have they justified it? How have they responded to the moral questions it raises? Using material from recently-released official documents, Roger Ruston presents a moral history of British defence policy, from the 'lesson' of Appeasement to the nuclear modernizations of the eighties, and answers many of the (...) questions that governments have avoided. The book will be of great interest to defence historians, moralists, politicians, and general readers who need a clear account of their country's defence predicament as a basis from which to devise workable and morally acceptable alternatives. (shrink)

The 14th general election in Malaysia held on May 9, 2018 is anhistoric event that altered the political landscape of the nation. For the firsttime over sixty years this election has caused to change the government fromBarisan Nasional coalition to another coalition named PakatanHarapan, formed in 2015. This article has analysed theelection results and the probable factors that might have contributed to thehistoric change. It argued that since 1999 the ruling Malay elites have becomepermanently divided challenging the dominance of (...) United Malay NationalOrganisation in politics and the prospect for a viable alternativebecame consolidated with the rise of Parti KeAdilan Rakyat offeringan avenue for a new generation politics. The return of Mahathir Mohamad topolitics and a strategic coalition mainly between his party and PKR, party ofthe jailed leader Anwar Ibrahim, made an alternative to BN/UMNO a realitythrough winning the election. (shrink)

Multistability—the plurality of meanings of technological artifacts—is an emancipatory phenomenon insofar as it allows the user to freely appropriate the object according to his or her interests, even against the will of the designer. The objective of this article is to show how the trend to connect physical and digital artifacts to the Internet poses a danger to the freedom that there is in multistability. By reducing the traditional separation between the artifact and the designer, the connection of the artifact (...) to the Internet allows the designer to continually modify the software that governs or constitutes it, which involves a relative loss of power for the user to determine its meaning. This change, in favor of the designer in the correlation of power among the actors—designer, artifact, and user—from whose interplay the meaning of artifacts arises, favors concentric stabilities and hinders eccentric ones with respect to the will of the designer. Thus, we should rethink the truth value of the designer fallacy, that is, the claim that the meaning of artifacts is determined only by the designer. From a political point of view, the remote control of artifacts and their multistability is an effective pedagogical tool to educate human beings in a time in which texts, according to Sloterdijk, no longer serve this function. (shrink)

The work of Giorgio Agamben could perhaps best be described as an original extension of the onto-theological critique that has dominated much of the last century’s philosophical endeavors. For him, this fundamental critical perspective extends itself toward the deconstruction of traditional significations, including the boundaries said to exist between the human and the animal as well as between the human and the divine. By repeatedly unveiling these arbitrary divisions as being a result of the state of ‘original sin’ in which (...) we dwell, Agamben aims to advance philosophical discourse ‘beyond representation’ and toward a ‘pure’ encounter with the myriad of faces always ever present before us. In this sense, he works toward redefining ‘revelation’ as being little more than an exposure of our animality, something which indeed lies now unveiled at the real root of our being. This animality is in fact locateable beyond the separation of being into form and content, a division which is rather indebted to the onto-theological representations that have governed the discourse of being.By focusing instead on the manner in which paradigms could be said to operate over and against the rule of representations, he articulates a movement from particularity to particularity that resists the temptation to universalize our language on being. In this sense, then, the analogical logic of the paradigm, expressed always through the absolutely singular, exposes the beings which we all are before another, rather than violently condense any given being into a formal representation. By thus determining the contours of the paradigmatic expression, this essay intends to unite several ‘loose’ strands of Agamben’s thought in order to demonstrate the consequence of this line of inquiry: that the end of representation, often criticized as a form of political nihilism, is the only way in which to develop a justifiable ethics, one beyond the traditional binary divisions of subject and object, or of universal and particular. In the end, as Agamben illustrates repeatedly, there is only the ‘thingness’ that each thing is, and which must be safeguarded in its precarity, thus paving the way for an ethical discourse to appear.It is a final gesture toward the messianic, then, toward a religiously-inflected terminology which hovers over his entire oeuvre, that will ultimately guide Agamben’s ‘political’ project back toward its canonical moment most clearly identifiable within the Christian heritage. As his reading of Benjamin’s relationship to Saint Paul indicates, there is much to be discerned for him in the transition from Judaic law to Christian ‘forms of life’ . Rather than be content with a simple re-affirmation of Christian claims, however, Agamben deftly maneuvers his own position toward one of exposing the logic of Christianity as that which reveals a deep investment in a pantheistic worldview, one which theology can no longer afford to ignore. (shrink)

One of the most common contemporary approaches for developing an ethics of artificial intelligence (AI) involves elaborating guiding principles. This essay explores the limitations of this approach, using the history of bioethics as a comparative case. The examples of bioethics and recent AI ethics suggest that principles are difficult to implement in everyday practice, fail to direct individual action, and can frequently result in a pure proceduralism. The essay encourages an additional attention to virtue, which forms the dispositions of actors, (...) directs them to valued ends, and encourages right action in particular situation to complement principles. Practices and professions like medicine or warfighting that already have rich traditions of reflection on virtue ethics will be especially fruitful fields for developing an AI ethics of virtue. (shrink)

In the corporate social responsibility (CSR) literature, the principle of voluntarism is predominant and implies that responsible business activities are discretionary and reach beyond the rule of law. This principle fails to explain that governments have a great interest in CSR and exercise influence on firms’ CSR activities. Therefore, we argue in favour of a contingency approach on voluntarism in CSR. To this end, we analyse the academic literature to demonstrate how governments are part of the CSR debate. We selected (...) 703 papers where the impact of governments is mentioned from five journals in our field (BEER, BEQ, BSE, BAS, JBE) in the period 1982–2011. We studied the titles and abstracts of these papers and provide an overview of: (i) the geographical orientation of the reviewed studies; (ii) the variety of government levels involved; and (iii) the various subjects where governments appear to be involved. In addition, an in‐depth reading of a subsample of 39 articles offers more details on the role of governments in the CSR literature. Hence, we offer a structured overview on the discussion of CSR and governments while stimulating a contingent understanding of the voluntarism concept in CSR. (shrink)

The essays in this collection are concerned with the philosophical problems that arise in connection with the understanding and evaluation of literature - such problems as the relationship between the work and the author (authorial intention), between the work and the world (reference and truth), the definition of a literary work, and the nature of literary theory itself. Professor Olsen attacks many of the orthodoxies of modern literary theory, in particular the enterprise to build a comprehensive systematic literary theory. His (...) own work is informed by a consistent perspective: the assumption that literature is a social institution governed by conventions, and that answers to problems of interpretation and appreciation can be found only through an analysis of these conventions. This is an important book for scholars and students of literary theory and philosophy, especially for those who see an ever-increasing cross-fertilization between the two disciplines. (shrink)

Significant minority populations confer richness and diversity to British society. Responsive end-of-life care is a universal need that has ascended the public agenda following myriad reports of inadequate provision. Nevertheless, the potential exists for unwitting discrimination when caring for terminally ill patients on the basis of their religion or faith. Recent implementation of the Equality Act 2010, together with the government and professional initiatives, promises to positively impact upon this area of contemporary relevance and concern, although the extent to (...) which facilitative policies can truly enhance patient care will depend upon how these are translated into care at the bedside. The contributions of health professionals will be central in meeting the challenges and seizing the opportunities for meeting the religion and faith interests of patients of South Asian descent. (shrink)

Gerald Dworkin provides an insightful starting point for determining acceptable paternalism through his commitment to protecting our future autonomy and health from lasting damage. Dworkin grounds his argument in an appeal to inherent goods, which this paper argues is best considered as a commitment to human flourishing. However, socialconnectedness is also fundamental to human flourishing and an important consideration when determining the just limits of paternalistic drug controls, a point missing from Dworkin’ essay. For British philosopher Thomas Hill Green, regulation (...) of alcohol sales emerged from the social ideal. Green argued that policy interventions, including restricted opening hours and locations, improved the conditions for humans to flourish. Green offers a compelling political vision but fails to account for the fact pleasure is also an inherent good. He focused excessively on our social nature, excluding our more pleasure-seeking and egoistic characteristics. In contrast, a more realistic and complete vision of human flourishing can be found in an amended version of Gerald’s Dworkin’s arguments. In conclusion, this paper argues drug policy makers should remain committed to the harm principle as applied to criminal law whereby a person should never be criminalized for self-harm. Such a limit on paternalistic interventions is deemed necessary when eudaimonia is the end of government action. In practical terms, this means that the criminalization of drug use, as opposed to drug production, is always unjust. (shrink)

This paper presents the results of a qualitative interview study exploring English and French physicians’ moral perspectives and attitudes towards end-of-life decisions when patients lack capacity to make decisions for themselves. The paper aims to examine the importance physicians from different contexts accord to patient preferences and to explore the role of advance directives in each context. The interviews focus on problems that emerge when deciding to withdraw/-hold life-sustaining treatment from both conscious and unconscious patients; decision-making procedures and the participation (...) of proxies/relatives; previous experience with ADs and views on their usefulness; and perspectives on ways in which the decision-making processes in question might be improved. The analysis reveals differences in the way patient preferences are taken into consideration and shows how these differences influence the reasons physicians in each country invoke to justify their reluctance to adhering to ADs. Identifying cultural differences that complicate efforts to develop the practical implementation of ADs can help to inform national policies governing ADs and to better adapt them to practice. (shrink)

In the early 1990s the American academic, political commentator and government advisor, Francis Fukuyama, leapt to prominence with his argument that society had entered a new and lasting phase. He claimed that the change was so dramatic that it might be accurately depicted as the end of history. Fukuyama derived his argument from the writings of Kant, Hegel and a critical reading of Marx. This new phase represented the worldwide triumph of liberal democracy with the collapse of communism. History (...) has ended in the sense that there is no more room for large ideological battles. (shrink)

Jeffrey Sachs, an economist with a passion and experienced global view, makes a compelling call to action to bring an end to extreme poverty worldwide by the year 2025. He makes a strong case that not only is this goal within our reach, but that Americans have a vested interest in seeing the rest of the world in a stable economic situation.Based on years of experience in impoverished countries and his work as the director of the Columbia Earth Institute at (...) Columbia University, Sachs makes a direct comparison between poverty, government instability, and an ongoing threat to the safety of the United States. He points out that any time a country is impoverished and its population lacking in education, the citizenry .. (shrink)

Democracy in the 21st century is exhibiting some radical discontinuities in terms of its forms and institutions and needs to be rethought, if we wish to have a sustainable future. Democracy increasingly will be shaped by three realities: the demise of the nation state; the failure of representational liberal democracy; and the radical impacts of resource insufficiency and climate change. Yet if no government, however tyrannical, survives for long except by consent of the people, then that consent can serve (...) as the starting point for rethinking what is meant by “democracy.” Three terms are offered as functional categories that allow for an assessment of democratic forms and institutions: subsistence, operational and systemic. Each describes how and why the population acquiesces to governance and under what conditions. (shrink)