scholarly journals From Angels to Humans: Law, Coercion, and the Society of Angels Thought Experiment

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lucas Miotto
Keyword(s):  
Thought Experiment ◽  
Traditional View ◽  
Legal Institutions ◽  
Legal Systems ◽  
Human Needs ◽  
The Past ◽  
Key Features ◽  
Do So

AbstractWhether legal systems are necessarily coercive raises normative concerns. Coercion carries a presumption of illegitimacy and a special justificatory burden. If legal systems are necessarily coercive, coerciveness necessarily taints our legal institutions. Traditionally, legal systems have been regarded as contingently coercive. This view is mainly supported by the society of angels thought experiment. For the past few years, however, this traditional view has been under attack. Critics have challenged the reliability of the thought experiment and have urged us to centre the discussion on typical legal systems: legal systems made by humans to address human needs. Once we do so – they claim – we would inevitably reject the traditional view. This paper argues that the critics are wrong. After discussing key features of the society of angels thought experiment and responding to objections, it is argued that even typical legal systems are contingently coercive. Coerciveness is a feature that our legal systems can and should strive to get rid of.

Imagining Mary Magdalene

2014 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-25
Author(s):  
Jodie Eichler-Levine
Keyword(s):  
Comic Books ◽  
Historical Novels ◽  
Religion And Spirituality ◽  
Mary Magdalene ◽  
The Past ◽  
Scholarly Discourse ◽  
Do So

In this article I analyze how Americans draw upon the authority of both ancient, so-called “hidden” texts and the authority of scholarly discourse, even overtly fictional scholarly discourse, in their imaginings of the “re-discovered” figure of Mary Magdalene. Reading recent treatments of Mary Magdalene provides me with an entrance onto three topics: how Americans see and use the past, how Americans understand knowledge itself, and how Americans construct “religion” and “spirituality.” I do so through close studies of contemporary websites of communities that focus on Mary Magdalene, as well as examinations of relevant books, historical novels, reader reviews, and comic books. Focusing on Mary Magdalene alongside tropes of wisdom also uncovers the gendered dynamics at play in constructions of antiquity, knowledge, and religious accessibility.

The Evolution of a Nation

2011 ◽  
Author(s):  
Daniel Berkowitz ◽  
Karen B. Clay
Keyword(s):  
Political Competition ◽  
Common Law ◽  
Civil Law ◽  
Legal Institutions ◽  
Colonial History ◽  
Legal Systems ◽  
Water Transportation ◽  
Long Run ◽  
Access To Water ◽  
Late Twentieth

Although political and legal institutions are essential to any nation's economic development, the forces that have shaped these institutions are poorly understood. Drawing on rich evidence about the development of the American states from the mid-nineteenth to the late twentieth century, this book documents the mechanisms through which geographical and historical conditions—such as climate, access to water transportation, and early legal systems—impacted political and judicial institutions and economic growth. The book shows how a state's geography and climate influenced whether elites based their wealth in agriculture or trade. States with more occupationally diverse elites in 1860 had greater levels of political competition in their legislature from 1866 to 2000. The book also examines the effects of early legal systems. Because of their colonial history, thirteen states had an operational civil-law legal system prior to statehood. All of these states except Louisiana would later adopt common law. By the late eighteenth century, the two legal systems differed in their balances of power. In civil-law systems, judiciaries were subordinate to legislatures, whereas in common-law systems, the two were more equal. Former civil-law states and common-law states exhibit persistent differences in the structure of their courts, the retention of judges, and judicial budgets. Moreover, changes in court structures, retention procedures, and budgets occur under very different conditions in civil-law and common-law states. This book illustrates how initial geographical and historical conditions can determine the evolution of political and legal institutions and long-run growth.

Pakistan’s Development: Successes, Failures, and Future Tasks (Presidential Remarks)

1997 ◽  
Vol 36 (4I) ◽  
pp. 321-331
Author(s):  
Sarfraz Khan Qureshi
Keyword(s):  
Indian Subcontinent ◽  
General Meeting ◽  
The Past ◽  
Past Half Century ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Golden Jubilee ◽  
Freedom Movement ◽  
Past Half ◽  
Do So

It is an honour for me as President of the Pakistan Society of Development Economists to welcome you to the 13th Annual General Meeting and Conference of the Society. I consider it a great privilege to do so as this Meeting coincides with the Golden Jubilee celebrations of the state of Pakistan, a state which emerged on the map of the postwar world as a result of the Muslim freedom movement in the Indian Subcontinent. Fifty years to the date, we have been jubilant about it, and both as citizens of Pakistan and professionals in the social sciences we have also been thoughtful about it. We are trying to see what development has meant in Pakistan in the past half century. As there are so many dimensions that the subject has now come to have since its rather simplistic beginnings, we thought the Golden Jubilee of Pakistan to be an appropriate occasion for such stock-taking.

Other People's Struggles

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nicholas Owen
Keyword(s):  
Social Psychology ◽  
Social Movements ◽  
Political Theory ◽  
Identity Politics ◽  
Global Justice ◽  
British History ◽  
Original Theory ◽  
The Past ◽  
Contemporary Politics ◽  
Do So

Other People’s Struggles is the first attempt in over forty years to explain the place of “conscience constituents” in social movements. Conscience constituents are people who participate in a movement but do not stand to benefit if it succeeds. Why do such people participate when they do not stand to benefit? Why are they sometimes present and sometimes absent in social movements? Why and when is their participation welcome to those who do stand to benefit, and why and when is it not? The work proposes an original theory to answer these questions, crossing discipline boundaries to draw on the findings of social psychology, philosophy, and normative political theory, in search of explanations of why people act altruistically and what it means to others when they do so. The theory is illustrated by examples from British history, including the antislavery movement, the women’s suffrage and liberation movements, labor and socialist movements, anticolonial movements, antipoverty movements, and movements for global justice. Other People’s Struggles also contributes to new debates concerning the rights and wrongs of “speaking for others.” Debates concerning the limits of solidarity—who can be an “ally” and on what terms—have become very topical in contemporary politics, especially in identity politics and in the new “populist” movements. The book provides a theoretical and empirical account of how these questions have been addressed in the past and how they might be framed today.

‘Higher then to her no bookes doe reach’

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Martha Vandrei
Keyword(s):  
Early Stage ◽  
Deep Understanding ◽  
Contemporary Philosophy ◽  
James I ◽  
Historical Method ◽  
The Past ◽  
Classical World ◽  
Material Evidence ◽  
Do So

This chapter and the following both draw the reader into seventeenth-century understandings of the past, and of Boudica in particular, and makes clear that in a time before disciplines, writers of ‘history’ were erudite commentators, immersed in political thought, the classical world, and contemporary ideas, as well as in drama, poetry, and the law. Chapter 1 shows the subtleties of Boudica’s place in history at this early stage by giving sustained attention to the work of Edmund Bolton (1574/5–c.1634), the first person to analyse the written and material evidence for Boudica’s deeds, and the last to do so in depth before the later nineteenth century. Bolton’s distaste for contemporary philosophy and his loyalty to James I were highly influential in determining the way the antiquary approached Boudica and her rebellion; but equally important was Bolton’s deep understanding of historical method and the strictures this placed on his interpretive latitude.

scholarly journals Risk, chance and danger in Classical Greek writing on battle

2020 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
pp. 175-186
Author(s):  
Roel Konijnendijk
Keyword(s):  
Human Agency ◽  
Traditional View ◽  
Random Chance ◽  
Course Of Action ◽  
Literary Sources ◽  
Do So

AbstractThis article highlights two aspects of the language used in Classical Greek literary sources to discuss pitched battle. First, the sources regularly use unqualified forms of the verb kinduneuein, “to take a risk,” when they mean fighting a battle. They do so especially in contexts of deliberation about the need to fight. Second, they often describe the outcome of major engagements in terms of luck, fate, and random chance, at the explicit expense of human agency. Taken together, these aspects of writing on war suggest that pitched battle was seen as an inherently risky course of action with unacceptably unpredictable results, which was therefore best avoided. Several examples show that the decision to fight was indeed evaluated in such terms. This practice casts further doubt on the traditional view that Greek armies engaged in pitched battles as a matter of principle.

The theater of memory: Direct speech in Palestinian oral history

2018 ◽  
Vol 13 (4) ◽  
pp. 633-648
Author(s):  
Kobi Peled
Keyword(s):  
Oral History ◽  
Striking Feature ◽  
Direct Speech ◽  
The Past ◽  
Theatrical Performance ◽  
Main Thing ◽  
Significant Figures ◽  
Arabic Speaking ◽  
Do So

A striking feature of Palestinian oral history projects is the extensive use that interviewees make of direct speech to communicate their memories—especially those born before the 1948 Arab–Israeli war. They do so irrespective of whether or not they participated in or actually heard the dialogues they wish to convey. This article seeks to characterize and explain this phenomenon. In the interviews conducted by the author—an Arabic-speaking Jew—as well as in other projects, this mode of speech is marked by ease of transition from character to character and between different points in time. It clearly gives pleasure to those engaged in the act of remembering, and it grades readily into a theatrical performance in which tone of speech and the quality of the acting become the main thing. This form of discourse sprang up from the soil of a rural oral culture and still flourishes as a prop for supporting memory, a vessel for collecting and disseminating stories, and a technique for expressing identification with significant figures from the past.

After the Ivory Tower: Gender, Commodification and the ‘Academic’

1997 ◽  
Vol 55 (1) ◽  
pp. 130-142 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joanna de Groot
Keyword(s):  
Job Insecurity ◽  
Historical Context ◽  
Ivory Tower ◽  
Academic Identities ◽  
Loss Of Autonomy ◽  
External Power ◽  
Key Features ◽  
And Control ◽  
Radical Transformation ◽  
Do So

This piece uses a feminist approach to explore various aspects of ‘commodification’ in the lives and work of those teaching and researching in UK universities, and in particular its gender dimensions. After setting a historical context for the radical transformation of UK universities during the 1980s, it considers how this transformation was experienced by academics in terms of alienation, anxiety and accountability. Key features of that experience are loss of autonomy and control to the external power of competition and managerialism, insecurity and casualization in employment, and exposure to increasing judgemental scrutiny. For women academics job insecurity and discrimination continue to be disproportionately important, although some of the challenges to old established academic convention and practice have opened up real possibilities to progress more pro-women agendas. In the future they will confront quite depressing developments in the reconstruction of academic identities and labour, but have the legacy of the gains/insights of feminist analysis and politics over the last twenty years with which to do so.

The Primacy of Politics

1951 ◽  
Vol 45 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-17 ◽  
Author(s):  
James K. Pollock
Keyword(s):  
Political Science ◽  
Presidential Address ◽  
Active Participation ◽  
Political Life ◽  
Full Time ◽  
Important Work ◽  
The Past ◽  
Generous Time ◽  
The Status ◽  
Do So

In presenting my valedictory to this distinguished Association which has honored me by selecting me as its President, I should like to point out by way of introduction what has happened to this office, and therefore to me, during the past year. I have heard of one of my distinguished predecessors some twenty-five years ago who had little else to do as President of this Association than work all year on his presidential address. This was important work and I have no word of criticism of it. But the Association has changed, and today it leaves to the harried wearer of its presidential toga little time to reflect about the status of political science and his own impact, if any, upon it. An active Association life, now happily centered in our new Washington office, is enough to occupy the full time of your President, and universities as well as this Association might well take note. Therefore, in presenting my own reflections to you this evening in accordance with the custom of our Association, I do so without the benefit of the generous time and scholarly leisure which were the privileges of some of my distinguished predecessors.Nevertheless I do base my presidential address today upon my own active participation in the problems of government, as well as upon my scholarly experience. I have extracted it in part from the dynamics of pulsating political life. It has whatever authority I may possess after having been exposed these twenty-five years to the cross-fire of politics, domestic and foreign, as well as to the benign and corrective influences of eager students and charitable colleagues.

The Shari’a Approach to Contemporary Problems of Mass Surveillance

2020 ◽  
Vol 0 (0) ◽  
Author(s):  
Sattam Eid Almutairi
Keyword(s):  
North America ◽  
Personal Data ◽  
Legal Systems ◽  
Legal Norms ◽  
Muslim Countries ◽  
Norms And Values ◽  
The World ◽  
State Surveillance ◽  
Mass Surveillance ◽  
Do So

AbstractThe phenomenon of mass surveillance has confronted legal systems throughout the world with significant challenges to their fundamental norms and values. These dilemmas have been most extensively studied and discussed in relation to the kind of privacy cultures that exist in Europe and North America. Although mass surveillance creates the same kinds of challenges in Muslim countries, the phenomenon has rarely been discussed from the perspective of Shari’a. This article seeks to demonstrate that this neglect of mass surveillance and other similar phenomena by Shari’a scholars is unjustified. Firstly, the article will address objections that Shari’a does not contain legal norms that are relevant to the modern practice of state surveillance and that, if these exist, they are not binding on rulers and will also seek to show that, whatever terminology is employed, significant aspects of the protection of privacy and personal data that exists in other legal systems is also be found deeply-rooted in Shari’a. Secondly, it will assess the specific requirements that it makes in relation to such intrusion on private spaces and private conduct and how far it can benefit from an exception to the general prohibition on spying. Finally, it is concluded that mass surveillance is unlikely to meet these Shari’a requirements and that only targeted surveillance can generally do so.

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