scholarly journals An Imperfect Firewall: Quebec’s Constitutional Right of Secession as a Device Against Domination

2021 ◽  
Vol 9 (4) ◽  
pp. 475-482 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lluís Pérez-Lozano
Keyword(s):  
Political Philosophy ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Normative Analysis ◽  
Constitutional Right

The idea of including a right of secession in democratic constitutions has been discussed by different political and legal theorists; however, little has been said on the matter from the point of view of democratic-republican political philosophy. This article undertakes this effort by means of a normative analysis of Quebec’s constitutional right of secession, as outlined in the Quebec Secession Reference. This analysis shows how the non-unilateral nature of this right minimises the risks for republican freedom (as non-domination) and inclusion in the Quebec secession conflict, while the fact that it is limited to a national constitutional framework dampens this achievement.

Habermas on Rawls and the normative foundations of democracy

2021 ◽  
pp. 136843102098541
Author(s):  
Krzysztof Kędziora
Keyword(s):  
Political Philosophy ◽  
John Rawls ◽  
Political Liberalism ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Veil Of Ignorance ◽  
Normative Foundation ◽  
Internal Relations ◽  
The Veil ◽  
Politics And Law ◽  
Normative Foundations

The debate between Jürgen Habermas and John Rawls concerns the question of how to do political philosophy under conditions of cultural pluralism, if the aim of political philosophy is to uncover the normative foundation of a modern liberal democracy. Rawls’s political liberalism tries to bypass the problem of pluralism, using the intellectual device of the veil of ignorance, and yet paradoxically at the same time it treats it as something given and as an arbiter of justification within the political conception of justice. Habermas argues that Rawls not only incorrectly operationalizes the moral point of view from which we discern what is just but also fails to capture the specificity of democracy which is given by internal relations between politics and law. This deprives Rawls’s political philosophy of the conceptual tools needed to articulate the normative foundation of democracy.

Justice as a Personal Virtue and Justice as an Institutional Virtue: Mencius’s Confucian Virtue Politics

2020 ◽  
Vol 2019 (4) ◽  
pp. 277-294
Author(s):  
Yong Huang
Keyword(s):  
Political Philosophy ◽  
Virtue Ethics ◽  
Social Institutions ◽  
Affirmative Answer ◽  
The State ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Character Traits ◽  
Social Policies ◽  
Moral Principles ◽  
The Government

AbstractIt has been widely observed that virtue ethics, regarded as an ethics of the ancient, in contrast to deontology and consequentialism, seen as an ethics of the modern (Larmore 1996: 19–23), is experiencing an impressive revival and is becoming a strong rival to utilitarianism and deontology in the English-speaking world in the last a few decades. Despite this, it has been perceived as having an obvious weakness in comparison with its two major rivals. While both utilitarianism and deontology can at the same time serve as an ethical theory, providing guidance for individual persons and a political philosophy, offering ways to structure social institutions, virtue ethics, as it is concerned with character traits of individual persons, seems to be ill-equipped to be politically useful. In recent years, some attempts have been made to develop the so-called virtue politics, but most of them, including my own (see Huang 2014: Chapter 5), are limited to arguing for the perfectionist view that the state has the obligation to do things to help its members develop their virtues, and so the focus is still on the character traits of individual persons. However important those attempts are, such a notion of virtue politics is clearly too narrow, unless one thinks that the only job the state is supposed to do is to cultivate its people’s virtues. Yet obviously the government has many other jobs to do such as making laws and social policies, many if not most of which are not for the purpose of making people virtuous. The question is then in what sense such laws and social policies are moral in general and just in particular. Utilitarianism and deontology have their ready answers in the light of utility or moral principles respectively. Can virtue ethics provide its own answer? This paper attempts to argue for an affirmative answer to this question from the Confucian point of view, as represented by Mencius. It does so with a focus on the virtue of justice, as it is a central concept in both virtue ethics and political philosophy.

«Razao e Liberdade. A Filosofia Politica de James Madison» Arguicao e Resposta

2011 ◽  
Vol 19 (37) ◽  
pp. 217-240
Author(s):  
Alessandra Silveira ◽  
José Gomes André ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Political Philosophy ◽  
Human Nature ◽  
Judicial Review ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
The Political ◽  
Alexander Hamilton ◽  
James Madison ◽  
The Relationship

This paper includes the exam of a Ph.D thesis about James Madison’s political philosophy, as well as the answers presented by the candidate to several criticai observations. Various themes are considered, though always surrounding Madison’s work: the peculiar characteristics of his federalism, the relationship between the idea of human nature and the elaboration of political models, the political and constitutional controversies that Madison entangled with several figures from its time (namely Alexander Hamilton), the problem of “judicial review” and the place of “constitutionality control” taken from a reflexive and institutional point of view, and other similar themes.

scholarly journals Dignity, religion and freedom of expression in South Africa

2011 ◽  
Vol 67 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Jacobus C.W. Van Rooyen
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
South African ◽  
Freedom Of Expression ◽  
Sense Of Self ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
National Pride ◽  
Form Part ◽  
Self Worth ◽  
Constitutional Right ◽  
The Republic

The issue that this article dealt with is whether, in South African law, speech that infringes upon the religious feelings of an individual is protected by the dignity clause in the Constitution of the Republic of South Africa. The Constitution, as well as the Broadcasting Code, prohibits language that advocates hatred, inter alia, based on religion and that constitutes incitement to cause harm. Dignity, which is a central Constitutional right, relates to the sense of self worth which a person has. A Court has held that religious feelings, national pride and language do not form part of dignity, for purposes of protection in law. The Broadcasting Complaints Commission has, similarly, decided that a point of view seriously derogatory of ‘Calvinistic people’ blaming (some of) them as being hypocritical and even acting criminally is not protected by dignity. It would have to be accompanied by the advocacy of hatred as defined previously. The author, however, pointed out that on occasion different facts might found a finding in law that religion is so closely connected to dignity, that it will indeed be regarded as part thereof.

scholarly journals Garrett Barden and Tim Murphy. Law and Justice in Community (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010)

2011 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Guðmundur Heiðar Frímannsson
Keyword(s):  
Political Philosophy ◽  
Adam Smith ◽  
Thomas Aquinas ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Deep Roots ◽  
Oxford University ◽  
History Of ◽  
Law And Justice ◽  
Field Of Inquiry ◽  
Oxford University Press

Jurisprudence is a lively field of inquiry and law and justice are among its most important subjects. They are not exclusive to jurisprudence but are also inquired into in ethics and political philosophy. The book under review is an extensive inquiry into law and justice from the point of view of jurisprudence but it is jurisprudence that has deep roots in the history of the discipline. The authors use ideas from Aristotle, Gaius, Justinian, Thomas Aquinas, Adam Smith, Hobbes and from various law books from the Code of Hammurabi onwards. One way of understanding the book is to see the authors as reworking an old tradition that has not been prominent in modern jurisprudence. This approach leads to surprising conclusions from a modern point of view that are both radical and conventional.

scholarly journals Scenario analysis of level improvement dynamics judicial protection in the digital economy

2020 ◽  
Vol 6 (Extra-B) ◽  
pp. 95-99
Author(s):  
Damir Khamitovich Valeev ◽  
Anas Gaptraufovich Nuriev
Keyword(s):  
Public Relations ◽  
Scenario Analysis ◽  
Digital Technologies ◽  
Digital Economy ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Access To Justice ◽  
Constitutional Right ◽  
Judicial Protection

The introduction of digital technologies is transforming many areas of public relations. The process of administering justice in this sense also cannot be an exception and, taking into account the requirements of modern realities, is actively introducing information and telecommunication technologies into its activities. The introduction of external technical tools into relations, in which the court is a mandatory participant, requires a thorough study of scenarios for the development of procedural relations from the point of view of the implementation of the constitutional right to judicial protection and access to justice in the new digital realities.    

Oppenheim's Defense of Noncognitivism

1971 ◽  
Vol 65 (4) ◽  
pp. 1105-1114
Author(s):  
Donald VanDeVeer
Keyword(s):  
Political Philosophy ◽  
Critical Discussion ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Recent Book ◽  
Moral Principles ◽  
Logical Status ◽  
Attractive Candidate ◽  
History Of ◽  
Positive Support

In his recent book, Moral Principles in Political Philosophy, Felix Oppenheim provides a useful examination of the assumptions of well known figures in the history of political philosophy concerning the logical status of moral principles. Classifying them as cognitivists (if they view fundamental moral principles as either true or false) or noncognitivists (if they view moral principles as neither true nor false), Oppenheim attempts to exhibit the inadequacy of the cognitivist point of view and, importantly, the adequacy of the noncognitivist position. My critique aims at demonstrating the inconclusiveness of Oppenheim’s arguments against cognitivism. Oppenheim presupposes the availability of a plausible and workable criterion for determining when a sentence counts as a statement (statements are for Oppenheim entities which are true or false and, thus, “cognitively meaningful”), but he fails to provide any attractive candidate for that position. Further critical discussion revolves around the following related questions: Is there adequate positive support for the noncognitivist view? Does it allow for the rationality of fundamental moral commitments? And can Oppenheim really justify his case that, far from being irrational or pernicious, noncognitivism is naturally associated with certain humanistic ideals, such as toleration of those of differing moral and political viewpoint?

Restoring Catharine Macaulay’s Enlightenment Republicanism?

2021 ◽  
Vol 31 (3) ◽  
pp. 39-57
Author(s):  
Karen Green ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Political Philosophy ◽  
Political Theory ◽  
Natural Law ◽  
Liberal Democracy ◽  
Tragedy Of The Commons ◽  
Political Authority ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Moral Law ◽  
Moral Principles ◽  
The Commons

Can Catharine Macaulay’s enlightenment democratic republicanism be justified from the point of view of contemporary naturalism? Naturalist accounts of political authority tend to be realist and pessimistic, foreclosing the possibility of enlightenment. Macaulay’s utopian political philosophy relies on belief in a good God, whose existence underpins the possibility of moral and political progress. This paper attempts a restoration of her optimistic utopianism in a reconciliation, grounded in a revision of natural law, of naturalist and utopian attitudes to political theory. It is proposed that the coevolution of language, moral law, and conscience (the disposition to judge one’s own actions in the light of moral principles) can be explained as solutions to the kinds of tragedy of the commons situations facing our ancestors. Moral dispositions evolved, but, in the light of its function, law is subject to rational critique. Liberal democracy plausibly offers the best prospect for developing rationally justifiable law.

scholarly journals At the Margins of Ideal Cities: The Dystopian Drift of Modern Utopias

SAGE Open ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 8 (4) ◽  
pp. 215824401880313
Author(s):  
Felipe Schwember ◽  
Julia Urabayen
Keyword(s):  
Political Philosophy ◽  
Critical Reflection ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
The Ideal ◽  
Perfect World

Contemporary political philosophy has critically reflected on—if not denounced—the theoretical constructions and political enterprises that have been encouraged by modern Utopian tradition. This process of critical reflection has constantly signaled the tension between the emancipatory aspirations of that thought and its dystopian drift. Many authors have highlighted the problems that affect the constitution of those ideal cities. However, this article will be focused on the exclusive and excluding character of those ideal narratives, of those unblemished ideal spaces, of those happy spaces that are, in the end, nonspaces. This article will explain the meanings of the modern utopias taking into account the postmodern point of view that shows the exclusion the modern utopias provoke. At the margins of the ideal cities live all those beings that the utopias have vomited out and expelled from their perfect world: monsters, abnormals, infamous, pariahs, and countryless refugees. Those beings—so well described by Arendt and Foucault, among others—are those who are not part of any ideal city; they are the stones that the builders of the perfect cities have used to build them or have discarded them.

Aristotle on agency, habits and institutions

2016 ◽  
Vol 12 (4) ◽  
pp. 867-884 ◽  
Author(s):  
RICARDO F. CRESPO
Keyword(s):  
Political Philosophy ◽  
Human Action ◽  
Point Of View

AbstractThis paper introduces Aristotle's conception of agency, habits and institutions as a way of contributing to some current discussions about the definition, nature and theory of institutions. Aristotle developed a theory of human action, where we can find a place for ‘agency’. His views on habits are linked to his theory of virtue and art (skill). Concerning institutions, Aristotle provides a sound social and political philosophy that encompasses the nature and role of institutions. The paper will subsequently present Aristotle's ideas on these three notions – agency, habits and institutions – and will finally establish which of the current accounts of institutions involved in the discussion sparked by Hindriks and Guala's recent paper (2005a) he would support. Given that some realities tackled in the paper are nowadays radically different from Aristotle's times, the paper tries to keep an ‘Aristotelian-minded’ point of view – that is, analysing current topics based on Aristotelian concepts.

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