The Paradox of the Moral Irrelevance of the Government and the Law: A Critique of Carlos Nino's Approach

Some authors have speculated about the fact that if the law were connected to morality, then it would not be relevant, because morality would be enough to regulate social life. A study of this objection to the connection thesis will be outlined in this paper. In other words, the possible answers to the question about the practical difference that law gives to morality will be analyzed. The work of the Argentine philosopher Carlos Nino will be taken as the starting point for this task.     

功利主义批判：学术自由的道德解读

学术自由是大学之所以为大学的核心。迄今为止 ,尽管基于外在视角的功利主义哲学为学术自由提供了极其重要的和有效的辩护 ,然而 ,由于在功利主义的视野里 ,学术自由仅具工具性价值 ,因此 ,学术自由又不可避免地会同样基于功利主义的考量而受到侵犯。对学术自由的辩护无疑还需立足于学术自由自主性的内在视角的道德审视。它不仅划定了学术自由赖以存在的外在界限 ,而且事实上也构成了对学术自由的功利主义辩护的基本前提。     

Mutually Beneficial Coercion: A Critique of the Coercive Approach to Distributive Justice

Law and Philosophy - According to the coercive approach to distributive justice, the coercive nature of the political state requires justification in the form of distributive benefits owed only to...     

Islamic Dress in Human Rights Jurisprudence: A Critique of Current Trends

This article highlights some of the discursive implicationsof framing the question of Islamic dress as one of religiousrights. It is argued that the very construction of hijab issuesas those of ‘religious identity’, sustained by theuse of Article 9 of the ECHR as the primary legal basis fortheir resolution, has shaped a number of counterproductive trends.These are: avoiding difficult questions through a judicial techniqueof deference to local knowledge; using a language of choiceto produce an obscure and unsatisfactory account of Muslim women'sagency; false dichotomising of culture and gender; and producingan ever more docile and exposed subject through the subtle mechanismsof public scrutiny and moralising. Each trend is consideredin turn. The article's arguments draw on the critical thoughtof Wendy Brown and post-colonial feminism.     

Hermeneutical Violence: Human Rights,Law, and the Constitution of a Global Identity

In this paper I want to analyze the process of denationalization of the law, to show how the globalization of the law can be considered as a new form of imperial control, but this time, labeled as acting for the welfare of its victims. In the first part I will analyze the national character of the law and show how it was used as an imperialistic instrument for the benefit of the imperial powers. In the second part I will show how the discourse of human rights and its universality has been the base to deny indigenous communities their right to define their own identity and how this discourse was used to destroy the old conception of sovereignty. The globalization of human rights implies the imposition of a western conception of rights, regardless of the contextual conception of the indigenous people. The discourse of human rights is part of a hermeneutical violence.     

Objectivity,Interpretation, and Rights: A Critique of Dworkin

Law and Philosophy -     

A Manner of Speaking: Declaration,Critique and the Trope of Interrogation

In this paper I will argue for the ethical and political virtue of a form of critique associated with the work of Michel Foucault. Foucault’s tryptich of essays on critique—namely ‘What is Critique?’ ‘What is Revolution?’ and ‘What is Enlightenment?’—develop a formulation of critique understood as an attitude or disposition, a kind of relation that one bears to oneself and to the actuality of the present. I suggest that this critical attitude goes hand in hand with a mode of intellectual practice realized rhetorically in the form of the interrogative and methodologically in ‘problematology’. But, in addition to highlighting the habitus of critique suggested by Foucault, I also want to consider the entanglement of this critical enterprise in the conditions of the present that it attempts to diagnose. Specifically, I ask, in what way is a critical enterprise in the interrogative mood itself imbricated in the trope of interrogation that fills so much of our current political and public landscape?     

人性·超越·道德——兼论德育的可能与目的

人性问题是一个千古问题.它是对人的一个基本定性,故而是一切有关"人之学"的前提和基础.道德以及道德教育就是针对人的品性的,因此更需要讨论人性前提.人性的基本论断大体有善和恶两种.这两种之间人性恶更为道德教育提供了可能与必要,同时也为人的生活设定了向道德超越的规定.人是一种超越性的存在,已经成为了学界的共识.但是超越的目标和超越的生活论意义仍然需要回归于道德.因此,即便在生活论意义上,仍旧是超越为手段,道德为目的.     

After the Critique of Rights: For a Radical Democratic Theory and Practice of Human Rights

The critique of human rights has proliferated in critical legal thinking over recent years, making it clear that we can no longer uncritically approach human rights in their liberal form. In this article I assert that after the critique of rights one way human rights may be productively re-engaged in radical politics is by drawing from the radical democratic tradition. Radical democratic thought provides plausible resources to rework the shortcomings of liberal human rights, and allows human rights to be brought within the purview of a wider political project adopting a critical approach to current relations of power. Building upon previous re-engagements with rights using radical democratic thought, I return to the work of Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe to explore how human rights may be thought as an antagonistic hegemonic activity within a critical relation to power, a concept which is fundamentally futural, and may emerge as one site for work towards radical and plural democracy. I also assert, via Judith Butler’s model of cultural translation, that a radical democratic practice of human rights may be advanced which resonates with and builds upon already existing activism, thereby holding possibilities to persuade those who remain sceptical as to radical re-engagements with rights.     

User Requirements Elicitation in Security and Counter-Terrorism: A Human Factors Approach

This paper presents work conducted as part the ‘Shades of Grey’ (EP/H02302X/1) research project that aims to develop scientific interventions for the detection of suspicious behaviors in public spaces. To provide an understanding of security and counter-terrorism work in different contexts the project adopted a human factors approach as part of a program of user requirements gathering exercises. These activities focussed on the needs of different end-users and stakeholders, ranging from frontline security personnel, managers and strategic security policy makers. By taking a user-centred approach, the discipline of human factors can be integrated into the security/counter-terrorism domain to support the design of practical security solutions. This paper presents a case study investigation using data collected from three security agencies. Common themes are explored, ranging from ‘the importance of temporal measures’ to ‘enhancing positive user experiences’. These factors are discussed in relation to the practical application of human factors methods within security research.     

On State, Identity and Rights: Putting Identity First

The paper considers the nature of the state understood as the political unity articulated on the basis of a collective identity which provides the state with its capacity to make decisions. The foremost decision of the state to protect and defend this identity is the source of its authority to enforce laws. Collective identity thus represents an object of special interest, unlike both ??political?? interests (Millian other-regarding acts) and private interests (Millian self-regarding acts). The validation of laws through this special interest is a necessary condition for both of these latter kinds of interests to materialize. Hence, unlike the Millian thesis of two different kinds of interests (self- and other-regarding), here we take that there are three types or spheres of interests. Any conception of rights, then, will cover a subset of interests found in the domains of all of those three types of interests: in the domain of political interest the issue concerns selection among competing sets of legitimate interests, within the domain of private interests the point is to discern those that will be protected by law, while the third type of interests, the object of which is a unique collective identity and its defining specificity, represents an overarching interest that is embedded in any legitimate collective concern. In this scheme, well-suited for democratic theory, the majority/minority discourse is a matter of distinguishing which particular set of legitimate interests is chosen to be dominant (e.g., which political party is in power) and which ones are waiting for the opportunity to achieve their transformation from minority (opposition) to majority (i. e. government). If, however, there is no well-defined collective identity, minorities acquire a new meaning. Rather than being possible future majorities, they form a nucleus of competing collective identities with, sometimes hopeless but still alive, aspirations to sovereignty. Thus they become sources of likely conflicts that may go well beyond political controversies.     

当代国外学校道德教育状况综述

道德教育关系到国家的存亡、民族的兴衰、社会的稳定和发展,学校德育作为道德教育的重要组成部分,已为全世界各 国所重视。借鉴当代国外学校道德教育成功的经验,对于加强和改进我国学校德育工作具有重大的意义。     

Overcoming Doctrinal School Thought: A Unifying Approach to Human Dignity

The concept of human dignity is criticized due to its vagueness, but by discussing the most important schools of thought, we can identify a core meaning that is common to most understandings of human dignity: Whether we conceptualize human dignity in terms of autonomy, self‐respect, social acts, or equal status, we always refer to some kind of personal identity. This personal identity consists in those aspects that we consider to be constitutive of our individual personality. Instead of remaining within doctrinal school thought, this core meaning can be taken as a common denominator for human dignity discourse.