AMINTAPHIL: The Philosophical Foundations of Law and Justice – serie

Just war theory is the traditional approach taken to questions of the morality of war, but war today is far from traditional. War has been deeply affected in recent years by a variety of social and technological developments in areas such as international terrorism, campaigns of genocide and ethnic cleansing, the global human rights movement, economic globalization, and military technology. This book asks whether just war theory is adequate to the challenges these developments pose. Just war theory provides rules for determining when it is justified to fight a war. But some have argued that the nature of contemporary war makes these rules obsolete. For example, genocidal and aggressive regimes may require the use of military force that is not strictly in self-defense, as just war theory requires. In addition, the theory provides rules for determining what the limits are on justified conduct in war. But the random violence of terrorism and the deliberately inflicted violence of torture seem endemic to our age, yet take us beyond the limits set by these rules of conduct in war. By carefully examining the phenomena of intervention, terrorism, and torture from a number of different perspectives, the essays in this book explore this set of issues with insight and clarity.

A signal feature of legal and political institutions is that they exercise coercive power. The essays in this volume examine institutional coercion with the aim of trying to understand its nature, justification and limits. Included are essays that take a fresh look at perennial questions – what, if anything, can legitimate state exercises of coercive force? What is coercion in politics and law? – and essays that take a first or nearly first look at newer questions – may the state coercively hold certain terrorists indefinitely? Does the state coerce those seeking to join in same-sex marriage when it refuses to extend legal recognition to same-sex marriage? Can there be a just international order without some agency possessed of the final and rightful authority to coerce states? Leading scholars from philosophy, political science and law examine these and related questions shedding new light on an apparently inescapable feature of political and legal life: Coercion.

This book offers a comprehensive investigation of privacy in the modern world. It collects 16 papers that look at this essential topic from many facets, from the personal to the technological, from the philosophical to the legal. The contributors examine such issues as the value of privacy protection, the violation of spreading personal falsehoods, the digital rights of children, an individual's right to be forgotten from internet search engines, and more.The organization of the volume helps provide a nuanced understanding of this often controversial topic. Coverage starts with key concepts before moving on to explore personal information privacy and the impact of new technologies. Next, the papers consider privacy in different contexts. These include work, sex, family, crime, and religion. This structure enables greater engagement with the difficult questions about privacy. Readers will gain deep insight into the core concepts of privacy as well as its application to everyday life. This interdisciplinary volume brings together an international team of scholars. They provide a broad combination of expertise in law, philosophy, and political science. Overall, this thought-provoking examination will appeal to interested readers in both academia and practice.

This book tackles questions related to democracy, populism and truth, with results that are sure to inform pressing academic and popular debates. It is common to describe many of today’s most energizing politicians and political movements as populist. Some are progressive advocates of greater economic democracy or individual rights, while others are recognizably authoritarian and anti-democratic, even while claiming to defend democracy. What all populist leaders share in common is a rhetorical approach: their ability to articulate, or at least profess to channel, the wishes of ‘the people’, a group that populist leaders claim a unique ability to understand and govern, especially with regard to their dissatisfaction with ruling elites. They decry corruption (although not necessarily with any sincerity), and they sometimes identify more mainstream politicians and bureaucrats as ‘enemies of the people.’ The rise of populist politics raises pressing questions about the nature of populism,but also about relationships between populism and democratic institutions. For example, is populism ever a democratic tendency, or does its invocation of a monolithic demos (‘the people’) signify a fundamentally anti-democratic worldview? Populist political rhetoric also raises concerns about the relationship between truth, democracy, and journalistic integrity. While the history of anti-democratic advocacy (famously illustrated by Plato) has often highlighted the tendency of a democratic style of politics to prioritize popularity over truth, the development of social media—and evolving norms of journalistic communication and public political discourse—raise these misgivings in new forms.

This book tackles questions related to democracy, populism and truth, with results that are sure to inform pressing academic and popular debates. It is common to describe many of today’s most energizing politicians and political movements as populist. Some are progressive advocates of greater economic democracy or individual rights, while others are recognizably authoritarian and anti-democratic, even while claiming to defend democracy. What all populist leaders share in common is a rhetorical approach: their ability to articulate, or at least profess to channel, the wishes of ‘the people’, a group that populist leaders claim a unique ability to understand and govern, especially with regard to their dissatisfaction with ruling elites. They decry corruption (although not necessarily with any sincerity), and they sometimes identify more mainstream politicians and bureaucrats as ‘enemies of the people.’ The rise of populist politics raises pressing questions about the nature of populism,but also about relationships between populism and democratic institutions. For example, is populism ever a democratic tendency, or does its invocation of a monolithic demos (‘the people’) signify a fundamentally anti-democratic worldview? Populist political rhetoric also raises concerns about the relationship between truth, democracy, and journalistic integrity. While the history of anti-democratic advocacy (famously illustrated by Plato) has often highlighted the tendency of a democratic style of politics to prioritize popularity over truth, the development of social media—and evolving norms of journalistic communication and public political discourse—raise these misgivings in new forms.

This book offers a meditation on global justice and international political and legal theory. The author assesses positions in the current debate over the moral nature and limits of sovereignty. He also evaluates the normative role sovereignty ought to play in the practical deliberations of states. The discussion moves from theory to practice. Coverage starts with a conceptual analysis and moral critique. It then goes on to consider specific issues. These include global climate change, secession and self-determination, human rights, global distributive justice, and immigration. Readers will learn how states ought to deliberate about and respond to these important topics. They will also discover potential institutional structures better suited to resolving these issues while also respecting state sovereignty. In working through each specific challenge, the author provides insight into how we ought to think about challenges facing the international community and the potential for properly constructed institutions to function as solutions. These analyses also provide a valuable critical lens to assess the actions (and omissions) of our leaders. In the end, the book argues that domestic governments and regional bodies should be responsible for implementing the chosen course of action. This would provide a basis for holding political leaders more accountable.

This book offers a meditation on global justice and international political and legal theory. The author assesses positions in the current debate over the moral nature and limits of sovereignty. He also evaluates the normative role sovereignty ought to play in the practical deliberations of states. The discussion moves from theory to practice. Coverage starts with a conceptual analysis and moral critique. It then goes on to consider specific issues. These include global climate change, secession and self-determination, human rights, global distributive justice, and immigration. Readers will learn how states ought to deliberate about and respond to these important topics. They will also discover potential institutional structures better suited to resolving these issues while also respecting state sovereignty. In working through each specific challenge, the author provides insight into how we ought to think about challenges facing the international community and the potential for properly constructed institutions to function as solutions. These analyses also provide a valuable critical lens to assess the actions (and omissions) of our leaders. In the end, the book argues that domestic governments and regional bodies should be responsible for implementing the chosen course of action. This would provide a basis for holding political leaders more accountable.

This book approaches education as a vital human good, both because it fosters the development of intellectual, moral and civic virtues, and because it promotes the development of valuable skills for work and for life. Accordingly, debates on justice, democracy, equality and inclusion often focus on questions concerning the kind of education people should receive, how scarce educational goods should be distributed, and the role of education in responding to historical and ongoing injustices. This volume collects 16 new essays that explore these pressing ethical, political and legal issues.

This book approaches education as a vital human good, both because it fosters the development of intellectual, moral and civic virtues, and because it promotes the development of valuable skills for work and for life. Accordingly, debates on justice, democracy, equality and inclusion often focus on questions concerning the kind of education people should receive, how scarce educational goods should be distributed, and the role of education in responding to historical and ongoing injustices. This volume collects 16 new essays that explore these pressing ethical, political and legal issues.

The edited volume brings together contemporary work by philosophers, legal scholars, and political theorists. This volume presents relevant understandings of the common good, democracy, liberty, and law, and situates them in the context of contemporary countervailing pressures posed by issues in education, access to medical treatment in a pandemic, and the media.  Motivated to ascertain how democracy is threatened by a variety contemporary challenges, the authors examine core aspects of law, representative democracy, and constitutionalism to shed light on worrisome contemporary phenomena such as social media-driven conspiracy theories, unequal access to education and medical treatment, among other topics.

The edited volume brings together contemporary work by philosophers, legal scholars, and political theorists. This volume presents relevant understandings of the common good, democracy, liberty, and law, and situates them in the context of contemporary countervailing pressures posed by issues in education, access to medical treatment in a pandemic, and the media.  Motivated to ascertain how democracy is threatened by a variety contemporary challenges, the authors examine core aspects of law, representative democracy, and constitutionalism to shed light on worrisome contemporary phenomena such as social media-driven conspiracy theories, unequal access to education and medical treatment, among other topics.

The book presents contemporary or emerging areas where alignment with notions of justice is not yet sufficiently established and so issues of equity and fairness need to be sorted out. It aims to clarify the issues of justice at stake, and highlight the facets of injustice at work that problematize our understandings and/or practices such as with generative AI, capital punishment, truth and reconciliation commissions, and Christian nationalism.

This work offers a timely philosophical analysis of fundamental principles of democracy and the meaning of democracy today.  It explores the influence of big money and capitalism on democracy, the role of information and the media in democratic elections, and constitutional issues that challenge democracy in the wake of increased threats to privacy since 2001 and in light of the Citizens United decision of the US Supreme Court.It juxtaposes alternate positions from experts in law and philosophy and examines the question of legitimacy, as well as questions about the access to information, the quality of information, the obligations to attain epistemic competence among the electorate, and the power of money.Drawing together different political perspectives, as well as a variety of disciplines, this collection allows readers the opportunity to compare different and opposing moral and political solutions that both defend and transform democratic theory and practice.

This work offers a timely philosophical analysis of interrelated normative questions concerning immigration and citizenship in relation to the global context of multiple nation states. In it, philosophers and scholars from the social sciences address both fundamental questions in moral and political philosophy as well as specific issues concerning policy. Topics covered in this volume include: the concept and the role of citizenship, the equal rights and representation of citizens, general moral frameworks for addressing immigration issues, the duty to obey immigration law, the use of ethnic, cultural, or linguistic criteria for selective immigration, domestic violence as grounds for political asylum, and our duty to refugees in general. The urgency of the need to discuss these matters is clear. Several humanitarian crises involving human migration across national boundaries stemming from war, economic devastations, gang violence, and violence in ethnic or religious conflictshave unfolded. Political debates concerning immigration and immigrant communities are continuing in many countries, especially during election years. While there have always been migrating human beings, they raise distinctive issues in the modern era because of the political context under which the migrations take place, namely, that of a system of sovereign nation states with rights to control their borders and determine their memberships. This collection provides readers the opportunity to parse these complex issues with the help of diverse philosophical, moral, and political perspectives.

This work offers a timely philosophical analysis of fundamental principles of democracy and the meaning of democracy today.  It explores the influence of big money and capitalism on democracy, the role of information and the media in democratic elections, and constitutional issues that challenge democracy in the wake of increased threats to privacy since 2001 and in light of the Citizens United decision of the US Supreme Court.It juxtaposes alternate positions from experts in law and philosophy and examines the question of legitimacy, as well as questions about the access to information, the quality of information, the obligations to attain epistemic competence among the electorate, and the power of money.Drawing together different political perspectives, as well as a variety of disciplines, this collection allows readers the opportunity to compare different and opposing moral and political solutions that both defend and transform democratic theory and practice.

This textbook uses cases in family law to illustrate both traditional philosophical problems in the law as well as problems that are unique to family law. In the beginning chapters family law cases are employed to introduce the reader to philosophical debates about the relationship between law and morals, about how one ought to interpret the U.S. Constitution and its amendments, about the conditions under which individual liberty is justifiably limited by law, about the justification of punishment, and about the justification of remedies and standards of care in determining negligence in tort cases. Later chapters are devoted to contemporary issues unique to family law, including justifiable limits of access to marriage, alternatives to marriage, the rights of children, child custody disputes involving surrogate births, quasi-property disputes involving custody of frozen embryos, and the justifiable limits of the right not to procreate. The book reflects current movements, contemporarydebates, and recent research on the philosophical problems in family law.

This book offers a comprehensive investigation of privacy in the modern world. It collects 16 papers that look at this essential topic from many facets, from the personal to the technological, from the philosophical to the legal. The contributors examine such issues as the value of privacy protection, the violation of spreading personal falsehoods, the digital rights of children, an individual's right to be forgotten from internet search engines, and more.The organization of the volume helps provide a nuanced understanding of this often controversial topic. Coverage starts with key concepts before moving on to explore personal information privacy and the impact of new technologies. Next, the papers consider privacy in different contexts. These include work, sex, family, crime, and religion. This structure enables greater engagement with the difficult questions about privacy. Readers will gain deep insight into the core concepts of privacy as well as its application to everyday life. This interdisciplinary volume brings together an international team of scholars. They provide a broad combination of expertise in law, philosophy, and political science. Overall, this thought-provoking examination will appeal to interested readers in both academia and practice.

This work offers a timely philosophical analysis of interrelated normative questions concerning immigration and citizenship in relation to the global context of multiple nation states. In it, philosophers and scholars from the social sciences address both fundamental questions in moral and political philosophy as well as specific issues concerning policy. Topics covered in this volume include: the concept and the role of citizenship, the equal rights and representation of citizens, general moral frameworks for addressing immigration issues, the duty to obey immigration law, the use of ethnic, cultural, or linguistic criteria for selective immigration, domestic violence as grounds for political asylum, and our duty to refugees in general. The urgency of the need to discuss these matters is clear. Several humanitarian crises involving human migration across national boundaries stemming from war, economic devastations, gang violence, and violence in ethnic or religious conflictshave unfolded. Political debates concerning immigration and immigrant communities are continuing in many countries, especially during election years. While there have always been migrating human beings, they raise distinctive issues in the modern era because of the political context under which the migrations take place, namely, that of a system of sovereign nation states with rights to control their borders and determine their memberships. This collection provides readers the opportunity to parse these complex issues with the help of diverse philosophical, moral, and political perspectives.

This textbook uses cases in family law to illustrate both traditional philosophical problems in the law as well as problems that are unique to family law. In the beginning chapters family law cases are employed to introduce the reader to philosophical debates about the relationship between law and morals, about how one ought to interpret the U.S. Constitution and its amendments, about the conditions under which individual liberty is justifiably limited by law, about the justification of punishment, and about the justification of remedies and standards of care in determining negligence in tort cases. Later chapters are devoted to contemporary issues unique to family law, including justifiable limits of access to marriage, alternatives to marriage, the rights of children, child custody disputes involving surrogate births, quasi-property disputes involving custody of frozen embryos, and the justifiable limits of the right not to procreate. The book reflects current movements, contemporarydebates, and recent research on the philosophical problems in family law.

Just war theory is the traditional approach taken to questions of the morality of war, but war today is far from traditional. War has been deeply affected in recent years by a variety of social and technological developments in areas such as international terrorism, campaigns of genocide and ethnic cleansing, the global human rights movement, economic globalization, and military technology. This book asks whether just war theory is adequate to the challenges these developments pose. Just war theory provides rules for determining when it is justified to fight a war. But some have argued that the nature of contemporary war makes these rules obsolete. For example, genocidal and aggressive regimes may require the use of military force that is not strictly in self-defense, as just war theory requires. In addition, the theory provides rules for determining what the limits are on justified conduct in war. But the random violence of terrorism and the deliberately inflicted violence of torture seem endemic to our age, yet take us beyond the limits set by these rules of conduct in war. By carefully examining the phenomena of intervention, terrorism, and torture from a number of different perspectives, the essays in this book explore this set of issues with insight and clarity.

A signal feature of legal and political institutions is that they exercise coercive power. The essays in this volume examine institutional coercion with the aim of trying to understand its nature, justification and limits. Included are essays that take a fresh look at perennial questions – what, if anything, can legitimate state exercises of coercive force? What is coercion in politics and law? – and essays that take a first or nearly first look at newer questions – may the state coercively hold certain terrorists indefinitely? Does the state coerce those seeking to join in same-sex marriage when it refuses to extend legal recognition to same-sex marriage? Can there be a just international order without some agency possessed of the final and rightful authority to coerce states? Leading scholars from philosophy, political science and law examine these and related questions shedding new light on an apparently inescapable feature of political and legal life: Coercion.

The essays in this volume consider issues at the intersection of freedom of expression and racial, cultural, and gender diversity. The claims of those whose cultures and beliefs differ from our own are no longer the exclusive province of diplomats, as the Danish newspaper that published cartoons ridiculing Mohammed quickly learned. Negotiating the claims of freedom of expression as they come into open conflict with a wide diversity of viewpoints, both domestically and internationally, has become an increasingly complex task. The present volume seeks both to provide fresh insight into the philosophical grounds for limiting government restriction of expression and to address current tensions between freedom of expression and pluralism. The suppression of ideas by government is no doubt as old as government itself. Ideas help to keep governments in power, and opposing ideas can help them to lose it. As well, through most of the history of the world, the belief that some know b- ter than others what is true, what is right, and what is valuable has been sufficiently widespread to make it seem natural for those betters to dictate for the rest what they should believe. Just as clerics did not hesitate to dictate to their congregations, Christians did not hesitate to impose their beliefs on non-Christians in order to save their souls.

The essays in this volume consider issues at the intersection of freedom of expression and racial, cultural, and gender diversity. The claims of those whose cultures and beliefs differ from our own are no longer the exclusive province of diplomats, as the Danish newspaper that published cartoons ridiculing Mohammed quickly learned. Negotiating the claims of freedom of expression as they come into open conflict with a wide diversity of viewpoints, both domestically and internationally, has become an increasingly complex task. The present volume seeks both to provide fresh insight into the philosophical grounds for limiting government restriction of expression and to address current tensions between freedom of expression and pluralism. The suppression of ideas by government is no doubt as old as government itself. Ideas help to keep governments in power, and opposing ideas can help them to lose it. As well, through most of the history of the world, the belief that some know b- ter than others what is true, what is right, and what is valuable has been sufficiently widespread to make it seem natural for those betters to dictate for the rest what they should believe. Just as clerics did not hesitate to dictate to their congregations, Christians did not hesitate to impose their beliefs on non-Christians in order to save their souls.

The economic impact of the U. S. financial market meltdown of 2008 has been devastating both in the U. S. and worldwide. One consequence of this crisis is the widening gap between rich and poor. With little end in sight to global economic woes, it has never been more urgent to examine and re-examine the values and ideals that animate policy about the market, the workplace, and formal and informal economic institutions at the level of the nation state and internationally.  Re-entering existing debates and provoking new ones about economic justice, this volume makes a timely contribution to a normative assessment of our economic values and the institutions that active those norms.  Topics covered by this volumes essays range from specific or relatively small-scale problems such as payday lending and prisoners’ access to adequate healthcare; to large-scale such as global poverty, the free market and international aid. Economic Justice will stimulate and provoke philosophers, policy makers, the engaged readers who and better outcomes from financial institutions and more effect distribution of economic goods.