Complicity,Collectives, and Killing in War*

Recent work on the ethics of war has struggled to simultaneously justify two central tenets of international law: the Permission to kill enemy combatants, and the Prohibition on targeting enemy noncombatants. Recently, just war theorists have turned to collectivist considerations as a way out of this problem. In this paper, I reject the argument that all and only unjust combatants are liable to be killed in virtue of their complicity in the wrongful war fought by their side, and that noncombatants are not permissible targets because they are not complicit. I then argue that just combatants have some reason to direct force against unjust combatants rather than unjust noncombatants, because they should respect the reasonable self-determining decisions of other political communities, when those communities settle on the distribution of a negative surplus of cost for which they are collectively but not individually responsible. These collectivist reasons will not fully justify the Permission and the Prohibition, but they can contribute to that justification.     

Self-Defense as Claim Right,Liberty, and Act-Specific Agent-Relative Prerogative

This paper is not so much concerned with the question under which circumstances self-defense is justified (I use the term self-defense to include other-defense), but rather with other normative features of self-defense as well as with the source of the self-defense justification. I will argue (as has been done before) that the aggressor’s rights-forfeiture alone – and hence the liberty-right of the defender to defend himself – cannot explain the intuitively obvious fact that a prohibition on self-defense would wrong victims of attack. This can only be explained by conceiving of self-defense also as a claim-right. However, I will also argue (more innovatively) that a claim-right cannot ground the self-defense justification either. Rather, what grounds the self-defense justification and its particular strength and scope is the fact that self-defense is an act-specific agent-relative prerogative: a defender is allowed to give particularly grave weight to his interest in engaging in self-defense, which distinguishes self-defense from most other acts. This is not the same as saying that he has a right or a liberty to engage in self-defense. Thus, self-defense, understood as a normative concept, is a claim-right, a liberty-right, and an act-specific agent-relative prerogative.     

The Scope of Application of Analogical Reasoning in Precedential Law

This article describes the scope of application of an analogical argument in the province of precedential law. Inter alia, it revolves around such issues of the doctrine of precedent as: distinguishing, ascertaining and crystallizing the meaning of ratio decidendi or expanding its coverage onto the cases of first impression. Allowance has also been made for the presence of analogy in searching for the law-maker’s intention, the determining of the obsolescence of precedents and quoting precedents out-of-jurisdiction. The place analogical reasoning has in legal education has also been touched upon. On top of that, the article highlights the usage of analogy in precedential law which enables the replacement of the conception of rationes decidendi for the proposition of applying judicial precedents directly upon the relationship of similarity that obtains between cases decided previously and the instant case.     

Lesbian Spanners: A Re-appraisal of UK Consensual Sadomasochism Laws

There continues to be legal invisibility of lesbians as sexual beings; in particular, for those lesbians who engage in BDSM. A cursory glance at work both within and outside of the academy gives the impression of increased social and legal acceptability for those who engage in BDSM. However, I suggest that this acceptance is illusory and that instead, gay men who engage in BDSM experience increased legal supervision and increased invisibility for lesbians. These issues are examined in the context of two seemingly disparate legal events. The first is the 30 year anniversary of Operation Spanner and the second is the introduction of the Audiovisual Media Services Regulations 2014. Amongst other things, the 2014 Regulations criminalise the portrayal of female ejaculation (but not male). Given this criminalisation of certain kinds of female sexual pleasure, the potentiality to significantly adversely impact upon lesbians is clear. 2017 will be the 30 year anniversary of Operation Spanner and the subsequent focus has been primarily upon gay male BDSM. I speculate as to the possible legal reaction(s) to a lesbian ‘spanner’ BDSM event. I speculate as to the legal reactions to an all-female BDSM dungeon.     

Restrictions on the Use of Analogy in Law

This article touches on the issue of the restrictions and bans concerning the use of analogical reasoning in law. In order to clearly present this topic, the Author appeals to different branches of law, having thus a separate regard for criminal law, tax law, administrative law, private law and legal procedures. In this context, he also pays attention to the domain of the constitutional law and the practice of the Court of Justice of the European Union. Additionally, allowance has been made for some other interpretative directives that aim to truncate the potential usage of an analogical argument in law such as the principle that exceptions should not be extended, the requirement not to meddle with the plain and precise meaning of the wording of statutory provision or a ban on negating the ‘exhaustive’ nature of some statutory enumerations through extending them analogically.     

The Role of Interface Shape on the Impact Characteristics and Cranial Fracture Patterns Using the Immature Porcine Head Model, ,

The forensic literature suggests that when adolescents fall onto edged and pointed surfaces, depressed fractures can occur at low energy levels. This study documents impact biomechanics and fracture characteristics of infant porcine skulls dropped onto flat, curved, edged, and focal surfaces. Results showed that the energy needed for fracture initiation was nearly four times higher against a flat surface than against the other surfaces. While characteristic measures of fracture such as number and length of fractures did not vary with impact surface shape, the fracture patterns did depend on impact surface shape. While experimental impacts against the flat surface produced linear fractures initiating at sutural boundaries peripheral to the point of impact (POI), more focal impacts produced depressed fractures initiating at the POI. The study supported case‐based forensic literature suggesting cranial fracture patterns depend on impact surface shape and that fracture initiation energy is lower for more focal impacts.     

Appayya’s Vedānta and Nīlakaṇṭha’s Vedāntakataka

The seventeenth century author Nīlaka??ha Caturdhara wrote several works criticising the Vedāntic theology of the sixteenth century author, Appayya Dīk?ita. In one of these works, the Vedāntakataka, Nīlaka??ha picks out two doctrines for criticism: that the liberated soul becomes the Lord (ī?varabhāvāpatti), and that souls thus liberated remain the Lord until all other souls are liberated (sarvamukti). These doctrines appear both in Appayya’s Advaitin and in his ?ivādvaitin writings. They appear to be ones to which Appayya was committed. They raise theological and conceptual problems, however, both in themselves as doctrines, and as part of nondual Vedāntic teaching. A study of the Vedāntakataka reveals those features of Appayya’s Vedānta that Advaitins in Banaras in the century after his life considered to be anomalous, and illuminates aspects of the context in which his ideas developed and circulated.     

Is <Emphasis Type="Italic">Viveka</Emphasis> a Unique <Emphasis Type="Italic">Pramāṇa</Emphasis> in the <Emphasis Type="Italic">Vivekacūḍāmaṇi</Emphasis>?

This is an enquiry based on the Vivekacū?āma?i (VC), the primary focus of which is to present viveka (discrimination) along with its three catalysts, namely, ?ruti, tarka, and anubhava as the unique pramā?a of Ultimate Knowledge. This paper discusses the significance of the six popular pramā?as of Advaita Vedānta (AV) and reiterates that as far as AV is concerned epistemologically those pramā?as have merely a provisional value (vyāvahārika). In accordance with the purport of VC this paper argues that ?ruti and tarka, culminating in anubhava (trans-empirical insight sans experience) are blind in themselves and are enthusiastically carried forward by viveka (discrimination) for the attainment of the final realisation. This paper concludes that viveka, along with its three catalysts namely, ?ruti, tarka, and anubhava is the sole pramā?a of the trans-empirical experiential knowledge of Brahman.