Capitalism and the media: moral, economy, well-Being and capabilities

This article aims to contribute to the renewal of the way media and culture are viewed under capitalism, by seeking solid normative foundations for critique via various compatible elements: moral economy, well-being understood as flourishing, Sen and Nussbaum’s capabilities approach, and culture value. Normative and conceptual issues concerning capitalism, media, and culture have received insufficient attention and moral economy approaches might help fill this gap with a rich and critical ethics-based approach to economy and society, compatible with the best political economy. The article outlines the approach of the capabilities, analyses its rare applications to media and culture, and explains how these applications might be constructed, by developing Nussbaum’s work in a way that contributes to people’s flourishing by grounding critique in an understanding of the potential value of media and culture’.

Introduction

This chapter provides the introduction to the book. It sets out how it will explore the normative foundations of European contract law by addressing fundamental political questions on contract law in Europe from the perspective of leading contemporary political theories. It states the book’s main aims and starting points, and introduces its methodology. The chapter also explains how the approach and focus of this study differs from all other contributions to contract theory, private law theory, and the theory of European law—in particular how it aims to move the debate beyond acquis positivism, market reductionism, normative intuitionism, private law essentialism, and methodological nationalism.

Justifying Contract in Europe

This book explores the normative foundations of European contract law. It addresses fundamental political questions on contract law in Europe from the perspective of leading contemporary political theories. Does the law of contract need a democratic basis? To what extent should it be Europeanized? What justifies the binding force of contract and the main remedies for breach? When should weaker parties be protected? Should market transactions be held legally void when they are immoral? Which rules of contract law should the parties be free to opt out of? Adopting a critical lens, the book interrogates utilitarian, liberal-egalitarian, libertarian, communitarian, civic republican, and discourse-theoretical political philosophies and analyses the answers they provide to these questions. It also situates these theoretical debates within the context of the political landscape of European contract law and the divergent views expressed by law makers, legal academics, and other stakeholders. The book moves beyond the acquis positivism, market reductionism, and private law essentialism that tend to dominate these conversations, and foregrounds normative complexity. It explores the principles and values behind various arguments used in the debates on European contract law and its future to highlight the normative stakes involved in the practical question of what we, as a society, should do about contract law in Europe. In so doing, it opens up democratic space for the consideration of alternative futures for contract law in the European Union, and for better justifications for those parts of the EU contract law acquis we wish to retain.

Autonomy in Transactions

The article presents a ‘critique from within’ of Peter Benson’s book ‘Justice in Transactions’, while sharing its premise that a theory of contract has to be liberal one. It identifies three problems with Benson’s answer to the question of how the relation between freedom and equality in contract law should be understood. It criticizes Benson’s Hegelian metaphysics and claims that a principle of mutual recognition and respect between juridical persons does not require that contracts only allow the alienation and appropriation of different things of the quantitatively same value. It demonstrates that Rawls’s idea of a ‘division of labor’ within principles of justice is more plausible than Benson’s reformulated account, which loses sight of the premise that a liberal theory of contract must locate the normative foundations of ‘contract’ in individual rights, and, in addition, is at odds with Rawls’s project in ‘Political Liberalism’ and its concept of public justification.

Is digitalization a problem solver or a fire accelerator? Situating digital technologies in sustainability discourses

Starting from the framework of the ‘futures of sustainability’ this article asks whether or not digital technologies are discursively framed in such a way that they can offer a solution to socio-ecological problems. The initial observation is that the mediation and interactions of digitalization and sustainability have recently been the subject of political debates. Using the mapping procedure of situational analysis, the discourses around digital technologies as they emerge in the ideal-typical paths of sustainability – modernization, transformation and control – are identified and presented. The results show that similar technologies provoke varying discourses in the three possibility spaces of future sustainability, which can also be attributed to different normative foundations.

Prosecutors and Trials

This chapter captures the role of the prosecutor or an equivalent authority during the trial phase. The object of the analysis—the trial phase—is generally divided into the following stages: opening stage, presentation of evidence, closing stage, and judgment/sentence. In exceptional cases, the stage of jury selection is added. The perspective of the analysis is twofold: in the first half of the chapter, the prosecutor’s role at these stages is described from a normative perspective. Here, the stages mentioned are broken down into selected prosecutorial measures and procedural facets in various legal systems and procedural models. The legal systems and procedural models analyzed have been chosen to represent either the common law tradition (the United States, England, and Wales) or civil law tradition (Germany and France). In the second part of the chapter, the prosecutor’s role is analyzed from an ethical perspective. It displays both the features and normative foundations of prosecutorial ethics and describes certain types of prosecutorial misconduct that may occur in the previously mentioned stages of a trial. The findings and observations of the chapter are combined in a conclusion at the end of the chapter. Upon identifying the multiple roles of the prosecutor at trial, the chapter proves that prosecutorial work at trial is influenced by two role-related factors: role duality and role ambiguity.

Rationality, preference satisfaction and anomalous intentions: why rational choice theory is not self-defeating

The critics of rational choice theory (henceforth, RCT) frequently claim that RCT is self-defeating in the sense that agents who abide by RCT’s prescriptions are less successful in satisfying their preferences than they would be if they abided by some normative theory of choice other than RCT. In this paper, I combine insights from philosophy of action, philosophy of mind and the normative foundations of RCT to rebut this often-made criticism. I then explicate the implications of my thesis for the wider philosophical debate concerning the normativity of RCT for both ideal agents who can form and revise their intentions instantly without cognitive costs and real-life agents who have limited control over the formation and the dynamics of their own intentions.

Responsibility to Protect in International Criminal Law

This chapter considers the worst contemporary state-led prosecution of a minority group, which amounts to genocide, namely the Rohingya. It examines the atrocity crimes committed against them under international criminal law (ICL) and the application of Responsibility to Protect (R2P) thereupon. It suggests that such atrocities are constitutive of violations of jus cogens which warrants obligatio erga omnes. Accordingly, the perpetrators can be brought to justice under inter/national and universal jurisdictions, which, nonetheless, has not yet occurred. Given the failure of ICL mechanisms, the normative foundations of the R2P can provide valuable tools for intercepting mass atrocity crimes. The Rohingya—who face direct and structural violence at the hands of the Myanmar state—need protection from these crimes. The chapter explains how insular national politics can undo the gains made by the international community in upholding the distinctiveness of humanitarian claims through the application of the R2P.

Middle-power internationalism in-between European ‘paradise’ and American ‘power’? Canada’s political role in an age of Trumpism and Brexit

Hyper forms of globalization have contributed to the diffusion and de-institutionalization of state power (Chin and Mittelman, 1997) and to growing populism, nationalism, and authoritarianism in Europe thathave questioned the liberal international order’s effectiveness, legitimacy and authority. What has come under threat is not only the order itself, but the economic prosperity, security, peace, and normative foundations that has nurtured it. In this context of a emerging world order we examine what function so-called middle powers on both sides of the Atlantic could play?While often overseen in recent years, middle powers are important units of analysis to study because during the times of the ‘old’ order in the aftermath of WWII they had benefitted most of the stable liberal international order, and as a result they have the most to lose today in case that order changes dramatically or even disappears. In looking back at middle power’s presence at creation of the liberal international world order in the aftermath of WWII, we suggest, helps us to comprehend what function middle powers could play in this current wave of changing transatlantic orders. Especially their intraalliance bridgebuilding function is important in this regard that in the past helped to balance the interests of the major powers. Canada is discussed as a case study.

A Research Agenda for the Future of Ecological Economics by Emerging Scholars

As a discipline, ecological economics is at a turning point and there is a need to develop a new research agenda for ecological economics that will contribute to the creation and adoption of new economic institutions. There are still considerable environmental issues and a new generation of scholars ready to tackle them. In this paper and Special Issue, we highlight the voices of emerging scholars in ecological economics who put social justice squarely at the center of ecological economic research. The papers in this issue remain true to the central focus of economic downscaling while calling for greater emphasis on culture and society. We acknowledge that methodological and intellectual pluralism inherently entail tensions but strive to find shared normative foundations to collectively work toward socio-ecological transformations. In this editorial, we emphasize the need for further attention to social aspects of ecological economics and evolutionary approaches to further strengthen cooperation.