Spooner

2020 ◽  
pp. 99-129
Author(s):  
Daniel Layman
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Private Property ◽  
Human Life ◽  
A Priori ◽  
Individual Rights ◽  
Political Rights ◽  
Robert Nozick ◽  
Private Property Rights ◽  
Political Morality ◽  
The World

More than any other thinker, Lysander Spooner has a plausible claim to the title of founder of libertarianism. In his mature works, he developed the conception of Lockean rights that began to emerge in Hodgskin into a nearly anarcho-capitalist vision that would later reemerge in the philosophy of twentieth-century libertarians like Robert Nozick. But Spooner did not begin his scholarly life in quite this vein. In his early works, Spooner defends a version of liberal republicanism that has room for collective rights and is by no means anarchistic. As his career wore on, however, he began to argue that political morality is a kind of a priori natural science—or, perhaps, mathematics—of individual rights, complete and determinate in all its details and innately knowable by all who reflect on it. This conception of justice left little room for legitimate political legislation (since there is no facet of human life it does not govern on its own), let alone collective political rights. So, in the end, Spooner, more clearly than his philosophical forbear Hodgskin, developed a right-libertarian solution to Locke’s property problem. According to this solution, there is no positive common right to the world, so there is no tension between a natural common right to the world and natural private property rights.

Review of Article 27.3(b) and the Patenting of Life Forms: Hitting a BRIC Wall in the WTO?

2021 ◽  
Vol 26 (2) ◽  
pp. 289-318
Author(s):  
Jagjit Plahe ◽  
Nitesh Kukreja ◽  
Sunil Ponnamperuma
Keyword(s):  
Developing Countries ◽  
Property Rights ◽  
Intellectual Property Rights ◽  
World Trade ◽  
Private Property ◽  
Life Forms ◽  
Private Property Rights ◽  
Ethical Concerns ◽  
The World ◽  
Over Time

Abstract Under Article 27.3(b) of the Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) Agreement of the World Trade Organization (WTO), all members are required to extend private property rights to life forms. Using official WTO documents, this article analyzes the negotiating positions of WTO members on life patents during a review of Article 27.3(b) which commenced in 1999 and is currently ongoing. Initially, developing countries raised serious ethical concerns regarding life patents, creating a clear North-South divide. However, over time the position of Brazil and India moved away from the ethics of life patents to the prevention of bio-piracy, a position supported by China. Russia too is supportive of life patents. A group of small developing countries have, however, continued to question the morality of life patents despite this “BRIC wall,” changing the dynamics of the negotiations from a North-South divide to one which now includes a South-South divide.

“All the World Was America”

2018 ◽  
pp. 20-43
Author(s):  
Eli Jelly-Schapiro
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Political Discourse ◽  
Private Property ◽  
Economic Order ◽  
Colonial Modernity ◽  
Process And Outcome ◽  
The World ◽  
History Of ◽  
Political Economic

Though ubiquitous in contemporary political discourse, the trope of “security” is under-historicized. Countering ahistorical accounts of “post-9/11” political-economic order, this chapter situates the contemporary manifestation and twentieth-century evolution of security rhetoric and practice within the long history of colonial modernity at large. It proceeds through an examination of three elemental relations: security and property, security and race, and security and emergency. The security state emerges to guarantee the process and outcome of capitalist accumulation, in the colony as in the metropole. The securing of private property is enabled by and in turn reinforces race thinking and practice. And the enactment of emergency or exception legitimates the preemptive and punitive violence of the security state.

Reichenbach, Hans (1891–1953)

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Wesley C. Salmon
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
A Priori ◽  
Vienna Circle ◽  
Philosophy Of Physics ◽  
Theory Of Relativity ◽  
Sense Experience ◽  
Space And Time ◽  
The World ◽  
Synthetic A Priori ◽  
And Mathematics

Philosophy of science flourished in the twentieth century, partly as a result of extraordinary progress in the sciences themselves, but mainly because of the efforts of philosophers who were scientifically knowledgeable and who remained abreast of new scientific achievements. Hans Reichenbach was a pioneer in this philosophical development; he studied physics and mathematics in several of the great German scientific centres and later spent a number of years as a colleague of Einstein in Berlin. Early in his career he followed Kant, but later reacted against his philosophy, arguing that it was inconsistent with twentieth-century physics. Reichenbach was not only a philosopher of science, but also a scientific philosopher. He insisted that philosophy should adhere to the same standards of precision and rigour as the natural sciences. He unconditionally rejected speculative metaphysics and theology because their claims could not be substantiated either a priori, on the basis of logic and mathematics, or a posteriori, on the basis of sense-experience. In this respect he agreed with the logical positivists of the Vienna Circle, but because of other profound disagreements he was never actually a positivist. He was, instead, the leading member of the group of logical empiricists centred in Berlin. Although his writings span many subjects Reichenbach is best known for his work in two main areas: induction and probability, and the philosophy of space and time. In the former he developed a theory of probability and induction that contained his answer to Hume’s problem of the justification of induction. Because of his view that all our knowledge of the world is probabilistic, this work had fundamental epistemological significance. In philosophy of physics he offered epoch-making contributions to the foundations of the theory of relativity, undermining space and time as Kantian synthetic a priori categories.

In Defense of Productive Human Rights

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bas van der Vossen ◽  
Jason Brennan
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Private Property ◽  
Human Life ◽  
Theory And Practice ◽  
Individual Rights ◽  
Theory Of Justice ◽  
Freedom Of Contract ◽  
The Right

The chapter defends economic liberties such as the right to private property and freedom of contract as basic human rights, which the authors refer to as productive human rights. Despite being largely ignored or criticized in the theory and practice of human rights, they serve all the key functions that human rights generally serve. Using a basic interest framework, the chapter show that productive rights qualify as human rights because they both directly serve the interests of individual rights-holders, as well as the interests of people across the societies in which they are upheld. The chapter concludes by reflecting on the theoretical implications of a theory of justice that omits productive rights, and focuses only on things like meeting people’s needs. Such a theory will end up distorting important truths about human life and agency.

The Concept of Rights as Limits on Government

1990 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
pp. 8-9
Author(s):  
Jennifer Nedelsky
Keyword(s):  
Civil Rights ◽  
Private Property ◽  
The Political ◽  
Individual Rights ◽  
Political Rights ◽  
Bill Of Rights ◽  
The People ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
Central Argument ◽  
Republican Government

Most Americans take for granted the notion that the powers of government are circumscribed by individual rights. But this commonplace notion is, in fact, very complicated conceptually and poses difficult problems institutionally. This course explored both the conceptual and the institutional problems, from their origins to their contemporary manifestations. We began with the formation of the Constitution: the writing of the document in the Constitutional Convention of 1787, its ratification, the addition of the Bill of Rights in 1789, and the establishment of judicial review. As a starting point, I offered my own perspective through excerpts from my forthcoming book, Private Property and the Limits of American Constitutionalism: The Madisonian Framework and Its Legacy. My central argument is that the Framers' concern with protecting the rights of property distorted both their understanding of constitutionalism and the institutions they designed to implement that understanding. The Framers wanted to design a republican form of government based on the notion of consent by the governed, and thus some form of democratic (as we would call it today) representation. But the Federalists, whose views dominated the convention, also wanted to ensure that civil rights would be secure in the new republic. Property became the focus of their efforts to make the political rights implicit in republican government compatible with the security of civil rights. Unfortunately, their focus on the protection of unequal property, the property of the minority as threatened by the (future) propertyless majority, distorted their vision of the basic problem of protecting individual rights in a democracy. Their fears of the propertyless bred a focus on containing the political power of the people.

Councils without Customs, Qadis without States: Property and Community in the Algerian Touat

2010 ◽  
Vol 17 (3-4) ◽  
pp. 350-374 ◽  
Author(s):  
Judith Scheele
Keyword(s):  
Private Property ◽  
Islamic Law ◽  
Individual Rights ◽  
Political Rights ◽  
Algerian Sahara ◽  
Communal Responsibility

AbstractThis article investigates relations between qadis and local assemblies in the Touat in the Algerian Sahara. It argues that both drew on an Islamic framework of reference, even though they were frequently obliged to conjugate universal legal injunctions with local notions of overriding communal responsibility that had no place in Islamic law. Islamic notions of private property remained central to the functioning of local assemblies, in which political rights depended on ownership rather than residence. Meanwhile, qadis necessarily relied on the assembly as a source of expertise, for the validation of documents and judgments, and for political and at times also financial backing. Tensions did occur between individual rights of ownership and collective responsibilities, but assemblies and qadis tended to deal with them in similar ways.

scholarly journals The phenomenon of suffering of the righteous in the Orthodox thought of God

2000 ◽  
pp. 31-35
Author(s):  
N. I. Kavunenko
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Human Life ◽  
The World

The problem of the existence of suffering in the world originally disturbed people. Particular attention is paid to it in the twentieth century, when the negative states of human life in the world become global.

The Quality of Life

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard Kraut
Keyword(s):  
Quality Of Life ◽  
No Value ◽  
Thought Experiment ◽  
Human Life ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Robert Nozick ◽  
Experience Machine ◽  
The World ◽  
Better Than

The Quality of Life: Aristotle Revised presents a philosophical theory about the constituents of human well-being. It begins with Aristotle’s thoughts about this topic, but often modifies and sometimes rejects them. The principal idea is that what Aristotle calls “external goods” (wealth, reputation, power) have at most an indirect bearing on the quality of our lives. A good internal life—the way in which we experience the world—is what well-being consists in. Pleasure is one aspect of this experience, but only a small part of it. Far more valuable is the quality of our emotional, intellectual, social, and perceptual experiences. These aspects of our existence make it potentially richer and deeper than the quality of life available to many other animals. A good human life is immeasurably better than that of a simple creature that feels only the pleasures of nourishment. Even if it felt pleasure for millions of years, human life would be superior. Contemporary discussions of well-being often appeal to a thought experiment devised by Robert Nozick, which holds that we should not attach ourselves to an “experience machine”—a device that manipulates our brains and gives us any illusory experiences of our choosing. This is thought to show that one’s interior life has little or no value on its own; that we must live in “the real world” to live well. In fact, however, this thought experiment supports the opposite conclusion: the quality of our lives consists in the quality of our experiences.

Astrology

2021 ◽  
pp. 138-158
Author(s):  
Marek Tuszewicki
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Human Life ◽  
The Sun ◽  
Deep Roots ◽  
Jewish Culture ◽  
The Bible ◽  
Jewish Society ◽  
The World ◽  
Attributes Of God

This chapter discusses the role of astrology in Jewish medicine, which was another field of great significance for therapeutics. The Bible exhorted Israel not to fear 'portents in the sky' that caused the pagans to tremble. While they rejected the speculations of astrologers of other nations and doubted the accuracy of their predictions, the actual idea of astral influences recurred frequently in their own writings. Knowledge of basic astrological concepts was crucial to an understanding of many aspects of Jewish culture, above all the calendar and the rabbinic discussions surrounding it. The conviction that the seven planets influenced human life and health, in particular at the hour of one's birth, had put down deep roots in the popular consciousness. The Jews perceived a link between the movements of the heavenly bodies and the comparable phenomena of dying and returning to life that they observed in nature. In the folk imagination, the image of the sky was enriched by the conviction that everybody had a light, or lamp, up there which was extinguished with their death. It is pertinent to add that the sun, moon, and stars (and sometimes also the seven planets) featured extremely frequently in the texts of Jewish conjurations. They were mentioned above all in incantations, alongside the attributes of God and religious paraphernalia endowed with an aura of sanctity. Astrology was an intrinsic aspect of views on the rules governing the world that dominated thought in Jewish society until the early twentieth century.

scholarly journals ВОЗМОЖНО ЛИ ГОВОРИТЬ О РАЦИОНАЛЬНОСТИ ЙОГИ?

2019 ◽  
pp. 157-169
Author(s):  
В. В. Лобас
Keyword(s):  
Design Thinking ◽  
Human Life ◽  
A Priori ◽  
General Nature ◽  
Modern World ◽  
Modern Culture ◽  
Eastern Culture ◽  
Domestic Literature ◽  
The World ◽  
The Individual

In world philosophical practice, yoga is given great attention: courses are given at leading universities of the world, various kinds of projects are being opened to study this type of spiritual technique, research in history continues, and of course, there are a number of scientists who associate knowledge about it as a scientific character. , and with its practical application in modern culture. Unfortunately, in domestic literature not enough attention paid to such an ancient and relevant philosophy in the modern world. In the article we set the task to analyze this aspect of multifaceted human life from the standpoint of the modern European researcher. Eastern culture can be viewed in the context of art, religion, mythology, but the question arises: can it be viewed and evaluated in the context of mental, rational discourse? On the basis of ancient texts, on the basis of works of famous Indologists, modern European philosophers, an attempt was made to describe the rationality of yoga and give it a definition. The author goes to the general nature of the rationality of the East, represented by a cosmological-mythological worldview. He concludes that for a man of the East there are other norms and criteria of rationality than for a European-oriented worldview. The author also analyzes the nature of the design thinking of a person with this form of worldview. For a person of the East, there are other norms and criteria for rationality than for a European-oriented worldview. The rationality of the philosophy of yoga should be the basis for research practices and technologies of yoga. It can be given a conditional definition, but its meaning is deep and rooted in hoary antiquity, and requires careful and thorough analysis. The union of all ascetic practices and religious teachings takes place in the Gita, so without analyzing its texts, it is impossible to understand the rationality of yoga. Yoga rationality is mythological and cosmological in nature: it is an a priori scheme of man’s perception of the world and himself, in which ideas about karma and nirvana were central to world orientation and activity, and the mystic of cosmic and biological emphasized the polyvalence of these apriorisms. Such rationality allows the yogi to mentally move from the world of carnal beings into the world of gods and into the world of transcendental gods. The last world appears as an intermediate between the phenomenal world and the non-world of nirvana. Various Indian practices, techniques, and methods aimed at freeing the spirit through separation acquired their followers, because after the “Upanishads” the rejection of life due to socio-political structures and history became the most worthy soteriological solution. Hence the orientation of the yogi to internal self-improvement and indifference to the outside world. Moral decency and cosmic order here are concepts of the same level, starting with the moral positions of the individual soul, which is akin to the spiritual essence of the Cosmos, and Good and Evil act as metaphors for the rhythmic nature of life, both of Cosmos and of Man.

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