SIDNEY HOOK, ROBERT NOZICK, AND THE PARADOXES OF FREEDOM

2005 ◽  
Vol 22 (1) ◽  
pp. 200-220
Author(s):  
John Patrick Diggins
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Judicial Review ◽  
Private Property ◽  
Moral Values ◽  
The Other ◽  
Common Interest ◽  
Robert Nozick ◽  
Material Wealth ◽  
Life Of The Mind ◽  
The Mind

Diggins observes in this essay that, while Nozick and Hook shared a passion for freedom and for understanding liberty in all its complexities, the two philosophers, one a libertarian and the other a democratic socialist, occupied different worlds when it came to how they viewed property and power. Nozick believed that freedom and justice depended upon a minimal state that would be severely restricted in its exercise of power. Sidney Hook never renounced his conviction, born of his early attraction to Marxism, that truly dangerous power is wielded not principally by government but by private individuals of great material wealth: by industrialists. Diggins examines the divergent views of these two seminal thinkers on such issues as human rights, private property, democracy, and judicial review. The differences are profound, yet they shared a common interest in the life of the mind and in exploring such hoary philosophical topics as free will versus determinism and the grounding of moral values.

scholarly journals Is There a Metaphysics of Consciousness Without a Phenomenology of Consciousness? Some Thoughts Derived from Husserl's Philosophical Phenomenology

2010 ◽  
Vol 67 ◽  
pp. 141-154
Author(s):  
Eduard Marbach
Keyword(s):  
Subject Matter ◽  
A Priori ◽  
The Other ◽  
Other Hand ◽  
Life Of The Mind ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Mental Acts ◽  
The Mind ◽  
Philosophical Phenomenology

AbstractThe paper first addresses Husserl's conception of philosophical phenomenology, metaphysics, and the relation between them, in order to explain why, on Husserl's view, there is no metaphysics of consciousness without a phenomenology of consciousness. In doing so, it recalls some of the methodological tenets of Husserl's phenomenology, pointing out that phenomenology is an eidetic or a priori science which has first of all to do with mere ideal possibilities of consciousness and its correlates; metaphysics of consciousness, on the other hand, has to do with its reality or actuality, requiring an eidetic foundation in order to become scientifically valuable. Presuming that, if consciousness is to be the subject-matter of a metaphysics which is not simply speculative or based on prejudice, it is crucial to get the phenomenology of consciousness right, the paper then engages in a detailed descriptive-eidetic analysis of mental acts of re-presenting something and tries to argue that their structures, involving components of non-actual experiencing, pose a serious problem for a materialistic or physicalistic metaphysics of consciousness. The paper ends with a brief comment on Husserl's broader view of metaphysics, having to do with the irrationality of the transcendental fact, i.e. the constitution of the factual world and the factual life of the mind.

Compassionate Reasoning

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marc Gopin
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
Social Change ◽  
Moral Reasoning ◽  
Moral Values ◽  
The Self ◽  
The Other ◽  
Compassionate Care ◽  
Emotional Skills ◽  
The One ◽  
The Mind

This book presents the case for Compassionate Reasoning as a moral and psychosocial skill for the positive transformation of individuals and societies. It has been developed from a reservoir of moral philosophical, cultural, and religious wisdom traditions over the centuries, combined with compassion neuroscience, contemporary approaches to conflict resolution, public health methodologies, and positive psychological approaches to social change. There is an urgent need for human civilization to invest in the broad-based cultivation of compassionate thoughts, feelings, and especially habits. This skill is then combined with moral reasoning to move the self and others toward less anger and fear, more joy and care in the pursuit of reasonable policies that build peaceful families, communities, and societies. There are many people who work for the sake of others, and tend to be kinder, more reasonable, more self-controlled, and more goal-oriented to peace. They are united by a set of moral values and the emotional skills to put those values into practice. The aim of this book is to articulate the best combination of those values and skills that lead to personal and communal sustainability, not burnout and self-destruction. The book pivots on the observable difference in the mind—and proven in neuroscience imaging experiments—between destructive empathic distress on the one hand, and on the other, joyful, constructive, compassionate care. Facing existential threats to life on the planet, humans can and must make such skills universally sustainable and ingrained.

A New Basis for Judicial Review in Iraq

2020 ◽  
pp. 1-37
Author(s):  
Oday Talal Mahmood
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Judicial Review ◽  
The Other ◽  
Constitutional Court ◽  
Constitutional Democracy ◽  
The Core ◽  
The Law ◽  
Federal Supreme

Abstract Article 2 of the Iraqi Constitution of 2005, which states that Iraq is a modern Islamic constitutional democracy, contains a ‘repugnancy clause’, prohibiting enactment of any law contrary to Islam’s settled rulings, principles of democracy, and rights guaranteed in the Constitution. This clause allows the Constitutional Court to invalidate laws that violate the Constitution. Currently, the Iraqi Federal Supreme Court’s method for determining whether a particular law is repugnant to the Constitution and Islamic settled rulings as per Article 2 is inconsistent and arbitrary. Here the core question is: What is the best way to successfully implement the Iraqi Constitution’s Repugnancy Clause? We propose an approach focusing on maqāṣid, the classical Islamic concept meaning Sharīʿah’s intent, purpose, or objectives that will also fulfil the other purposes of Article 2 to ensure that the law is consistent with the principles of democracy and the principles of human rights.

Questions and Considerations

1992 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mark R. Schwehn
Keyword(s):  
Statistical Correlation ◽  
The Other ◽  
Scholarly Publication ◽  
Implicit Equation ◽  
College And University ◽  
Life Of The Mind ◽  
Easy Answer ◽  
The Mind ◽  
Conceptual Link

To insist, as I have, that conversation is central to the life of the mind and then to fail to act upon this claim would be at best a serious lapse in judgment. I have accordingly framed a series of questions that my friends and colleagues, all of them named in the Acknowledgments, have actually raised about the analysis and arguments I have thus far advanced. Most of these questions involve practical matters, and they arise from doubts about the desirability of some consequences of my general recommendations or about the feasibility of realizing any one of them. Other questions, however, pose difficulties for some of my basic assumptions. None of them invites an easy “answer”; I have therefore responded to all of them with a set of considerations designed to advance our thinking, not to settle the issues that they raise once and for all. However well intended and even persuasive the alternative account of the academic vocation might be, its effect is likely to be unfortunate. Will it not give aid and comfort to the mediocrities on all college and university faculties, since it will seem to warrant their lack of scholarly publication by legitimating all sorts of other activities as worthy of academic respect? The inadvertent promotion of mediocrity would indeed be unfortunate, but so too would be the acceptance of the implicit equation that the question draws between academic mediocrity and lack of scholarly publication. There may well be an empirical correlation between these two things, but there should not be, for that reason, a strong conceptual link presumed between them. The explanation for the often alleged statistical correlation between mediocrity and low scholarly “productivity” has less relation to the intrinsic connections between scholarship and teaching than to sloth, the vice that leads both to poor teaching and to a lack of publication. It may be that the apprehension that gives rise to the present question involves the conflation of two sets of distinctions into one. One set is qualitative, the other generic; one embraces the excellent, the good, the mediocre, and the bad; the other embraces the academic monograph, the book review, the essay, the textbook, the critique of a colleague’s manuscript, the written lecture, in brief all inscribed instances of pedagogy.

scholarly journals Market Fundamentalism and the Ethics of Democracy in Uganda

2019 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. p172
Author(s):  
Kizito Michael George
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Social Justice ◽  
Private Property ◽  
The Other ◽  
Regulatory State ◽  
Primitive Accumulation ◽  
Other Hand ◽  
The People ◽  
Democratic Systems

Democratic systems ought to have certain central tenets that act as ethical boundaries. The violation of these ethical boundaries relegates democratic systems to mere mirages, perversions and phantoms. The market fundamentalistic stance of neo-liberalism leads to the abuse of virtually all the central tenets of democracy. Neo-liberalism advocates for a weak interventionist state in terms of fostering human rights and social justice and a strong regulatory state in terms of protecting and promoting markets and private property. Democracy on the other hand calls for a strong interventionist state to implement the human rights and social justice mandate on behalf of the people and a strong regulatory state to curtail the abuse of human rights and social justice. This paper argues that in neo-liberal states like Uganda, markets and the accumulations of private property in most cases through primitive accumulation take precedence over democracy. This has culminated into privations of democracy such as; autocratic majoritarianism, mobocracy, kleptocracy, prebendalism and neo-patrimonialism.

scholarly journals The Historical Origins of the Proportionality Doctrine as a tool of Judicial Review: A Critical Analysis

2021 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 251-258
Author(s):  
Dr. Syed Raza Shah Gilani ◽  
Dr. Ilyas Khan ◽  
Shehla Zahoor
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Judicial Review ◽  
Critical Analysis ◽  
National Level ◽  
Fundamental Rights ◽  
The Other ◽  
Domestic Courts ◽  
Fundamental Freedoms ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Historical Origins

It is a fact that the doctrine of Militant Democracy is essential to protect society from the threat of terrorism. On the other hand, we should not ignore the element of its interpretive nature, which means that there is an apprehension that the states having a poor human rights record may use it to achieve their ulterior motives while damaging the fundamental rights of the individual. In Europe, the ECtHR and domestic courts at the national level are duty-bound to save these fundamental rights. Hence, the doctrine of proportionality is an essential tool to check the militant democracy measures on the fundamental freedoms and human rights. To understand the authenticity of the doctrine of proportionality, it is essential to establish its origin and stages of evolution, because this will enable me to explore the use of this doctrine, which is adopted by many nations, before analyzing its use in the UK’s legal system.

Occupazione militare e tutela della proprietŕ privata

2012 ◽  
pp. 5-44
Author(s):  
Noemi Corso
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Private Property ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
The Other ◽  
International Human Rights Law ◽  
Military Operations ◽  
Civilian Population ◽  
The Absolute ◽  
The Right

Moving from the complementary relationship between International Humanitarian Law and International Human Rights Law, this article analyses the issue of private property in occupied territory from the civilians perspective. In the attempt to verify if contemporaneous practice has modified customary international law obligations of Occupying Powers, the Author highlights the complex and heterogeneous evolution of the protection of the right to private property. On the one hand, practice confirms the strengthening of its safeguard by the extensive interpretation of the absolute prohibition on confiscation, forbidding an occupying power to take "permanent" measures of dispossession and de facto transfer of title. The same result is achieved by the enlargement of the material scope of application of the crime of pillage, and by the narrow interpretation of the derogation clause of the "absolute necessity of military operations", contained in the rule prohibiting the destruction of private property. Moreover, practice's development proves the existence of a privileged class of assets (such as foodstuffs, houses, or medical supplies), whose essential nature to the well-being of the civilian population makes them object of a stronger guarantee. On the other hand, recent trends show a weakening in the protection of the right to private property, above all within the context of prolonged occupation as well as trans- formative one. The occupant's widest powers of requisition of private property in these particular cases interfere in a deeper manner with the enjoyment of the right in hand, partly justified by the more and more flexible interpretation given to the general conservationist principle of military occupation law. Actually, this weakening is only apparent. From a broader point of view, the less protection of the right to private property is counterbalanced by the use of the proportionality test, to assess if occupying power action respects the other human rights of the civilian population.

Ethics in the Judiciary System of Bangladesh

1970 ◽  
Vol 1 (2) ◽  
pp. 34-36
Author(s):  
Mehedi Imam
Keyword(s):  
Rule Of Law ◽  
Judicial Independence ◽  
Moral Values ◽  
The Other ◽  
Considerable Time ◽  
Ethical Knowledge ◽  
Judicial Practice ◽  
Independent Judiciary ◽  
Role Players ◽  
High Level

In Bangladesh, demand for judicial independence in practice has been a much debated issue and the demand is fulfilled but expectation of people is not only limited to have an independent judiciary but to have an impartial system and cadre of people, which will administer justice rationally being free from fear or force. The independence of judiciary and the impartial judicial practice are related concepts, one cannot sustain without the other and here existence as well as the need of practicing impartiality is well recognized. But the art of practicing impartiality does not develop overnight as it’s related to development of one’s attitude. It takes a considerable time resulting from understanding, appreciating and acknowledging the moral values, ethics and professional responsibility. The judiciary includes Judges, Advocates mostly who are expected to demonstrate a high level of moral values and impartiality towards people seeking justice and ‘rule of law’. This is true that bench officers and clerks are also part of the process to ensure rule of law with same level of participation by the law enforcing agencies such as police. However the paper includes only those who either join judiciary as Judge/Magistrate or Advocate to explore level and extent of ethical knowledge they receive being key role players of the system. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.3329/bioethics.v1i2.9628 Bangladesh Journal of Bioethics 2010; 1(2): 34-36

Óscar Romero and the Politics of Sainthood

2011 ◽  
Vol 5 (3) ◽  
pp. 265-291
Author(s):  
Manuel A. Vasquez ◽  
Anna L. Peterson
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Civil War ◽  
El Salvador ◽  
The Other ◽  
Post Colonial ◽  
Holy See ◽  
The Poor ◽  
The Face ◽  
Crisis Of Modernity ◽  
The One

In this article, we explore the debates surrounding the proposed canonization of Archbishop Oscar Romero, an outspoken defender of human rights and the poor during the civil war in El Salvador, who was assassinated in March 1980 by paramilitary death squads while saying Mass. More specifically, we examine the tension between, on the one hand, local and popular understandings of Romero’s life and legacy and, on the other hand, transnational and institutional interpretations. We argue that the reluctance of the Vatican to advance Romero’s canonization process has to do with the need to domesticate and “privatize” his image. This depoliticization of Romero’s work and teachings is a part of a larger agenda of neo-Romanization, an attempt by the Holy See to redeploy a post-colonial and transnational Catholic regime in the face of the crisis of modernity and the advent of postmodern relativism. This redeployment is based on the control of local religious expressions, particularly those that advocate for a more participatory church, which have proliferated with contemporary globalization

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