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In the current globalization debate the law appears to be entangled in economic and political developments which move into a new dimension of depoliticization, de-centralization and de-individualization. For all the correct observations in detail, though, this debate is bringing about a drastic (polit)economic reduction of the role of law in the globalization process that I wish to challenge in this paper. Here one has to take on Wallerstein’s misconception of “worldwide economies” according to which the formation of the global society is seen as a basically economic process. Autonomous globalization processes in other social spheres running parallel to economic globalization need to be taken seriously. In protest against such (polit)economic reductionism several strands of the debate, among them the neo-institutionalist theory of “global culture”, post-modern concepts of global legal pluralism, systems theory studies of differentiated global society and various versions of “global civil society” have shaped a concept of a polycentric globalization. From these angles the remarkable multiplicity of the world society, in which tendencies to re-politicization, re-regionalization and re-individualization are becoming visible at the same time, becomes evident. I shall contrast two current theses on the globalization of law with two less current counter-theses: First thesis: globalization is relevant for law because the emergence of global markets undermines the control potential of national policy, and therefore also the chances of legal regulation. First counter-thesis: globalization produces a set of problems intrinsic to law itself, consisting in a change to the dominant lawmaking processes. Second thesis: globalization means that the law institutionalizes the worldwide shift in power from governmental actors to economic actors. Second counter-thesis: globalization means that the law has a chance of contributing to a dual constitution of autonomous sectors of world society.
Vor gut einem Jahr ist im Archiv für die civilistische Praxis ein Aufsatz erschienen, in welchem ich mich mit den Perspektiven des Verbrauchervertragsrechts nach der Schuldrechtsreform auseinandergesetzt habe. Der leicht provozierende Unterton der dort vorgetragenen Kritik hat nun nicht nur – wie beabsichtigt – den einen oder anderen Leser zum Lachen verführt, sondern offensichtlich auch Irritationen bezüglich der Richtung hervorgerufen, in die der Verbraucherschutzzug in Zukunft fahren soll: zurück in die Siebziger Jahre und – nach erneutem Schlagen vergangener Schlachten – ins bürgerliche Formalrecht des 19. Jahrhundert? Oder was soll mit dem Stichwort "Prozedurales Verbrauchervertragsrecht" gemeint sein? Ich möchte an dieser Stelle einen Präzisierungsversuch unternehmen.
Welches Rechtsdenken verkörpert der Spätscholastiker Francisco de Vitoria, und was ist seine Bedeutung für das Völkerrecht? Der Moraltheologe Vitoria (um 1483–1546) wird als Vater des Völkerrechts bezeichnet, sein Verdienst in der Fortentwicklung des ius gentium zu einem ius inter gentes gesehen. Im Zuge des Rechtfertigungsdiskurses der Conquista begriff Vitoria die indigenen Völker Mittel- und Südamerikas nicht als inferior, sondern als Teil einer universellen Rechtsgemeinschaft. Mit "De Iure Belli Hispanorum in Barbaros" und "De Indis recenter inventis" 1538/39 spezifizierte er die Lehre des bellum iustum und wirkt mit seinen Ideen noch über Hugo Grotius hinaus bis in die heutige völkerrechtsgeschichtliche und friedensethische Forschung. Ein Diskussionsforum zu Werk und Person bot die Konferenz Francisco de Vitoria und die Normativität des Rechts des Frankfurter Exzellenzclusters "Die Herausbildung normativer Ordnungen" in Zusammenarbeit mit dem Hamburger Institut für Theologie und Frieden.* Die Veranstaltung des Cluster-Teilprojekts "Die Schule von Salamanca" (Matthias Lutz-Bachmann) knüpfte inhaltlich und personell an die Tagung Lex and Ius in the Political Theory of the Middle Ages (Dezember 2007) an. Neben Gästen wie Merio Scattola, Juan Cruz Cruz und Norbert Brieskorn referierten auch die Mitarbeitenden am Frankfurter Lehrstuhl für Philosophie Kirstin Bunge, Anselm Spindler und Andreas Wagner über ihre Forschungen. ...
"Passau sticht in See" ist ein Gedicht von Reiner Kunze aus dem Jahr 1979 überschrieben. "Der Dom ein / kreuzmastsegel, an dem, matrosen gleich, steinmetze klettern / Der schlot des Peschlbräus zeigt rauch, die kessel stehen unter dampf / In dreier flüsse wasser zielt der bug, ein schiff das seenot kennt". ...
Vor Kurzem hat das koreanische Höchstgericht den lebensverkürzenden Behandlungsabbruch durch die Entnahme des Beatmungsgeräts als zulässig befunden. Dafür sollen zwei Voraussetzungen erfüllt sein; 1) der Eintritt des irreversiblen Todesprozesses, 2) der ernstliche mutmaßliche Wille des Patienten. Dabei sind auch die folgenden abweichenden Meinungen vertreten. Sie gehen davon aus, dass im betreffenden Fall der nahe Todesvorgang noch nicht eingetreten ist. Darüber hinaus darf die Selbstbestimmung des Patienten nur in der negativen Weise vollzogen und keinesfalls in positiver Weise, denn dies würde den Selbstmord bedeuten. Außerdem ist der mutmaßliche Wille der Patientin von ihrem hypothetischen zu unterscheiden. Allerdings könnte der Behandlungsabbruch unabhängig vom Willen des Patienten ohne Rekurs auf die Selbstbestimmung des Patienten genehmigt werden, wenn auf die immanenten Schranken des ärztlichen Auftrags abgestellt werden. In der Sterbehilfe steht die Unverfügbarkeit des Lebens im Gegensatz zu der Selbstbestimmung des Patienten. Dabei zeigt sich aber, dass der Schutz des Lebens angesichts der Tötung im Krieg oder in der Notwehrlage nur ein relativer ist. Genauso lässt sich das Recht des Patienten nicht als das auf das eigene Leben, sondern lediglich als das auf den natürlichen Tod verstehen. Im vorliegenden Fall kommt es in rechtlicher Hinsicht auf sog. Passive Sterbehilfe an. Wenn hier der in Kürze bevorstehende Todeseintritt und die mutmaßliche Einwilligung der Patienten nicht abzulehnen ist, soll der Behandlungsabbruch rechtfertigt werden. Allerdings darf der einseitige Behandlungsabbruch nicht bewilligt werden und zwar vor allem deshalb, weil das Selbstbestimmungsrecht des Patienten vernachlässigt werden kann.
Es wird eine Verbindung zwischen dem von Antiphon entwickelten infinitesimalen Berechnungsverfahren, der Theorie Verteilungsgerechtigkeit von Aristoteles, des Hebelgesetzes, der eben radialen Figuren und der Verteilung hergestellt.
Die Problemstellung stellt sich wie folgt dar: dem Kennenlernen der Gründe, die Antiphon mutmaßen ließ, die Exhaustionsmethode als ein Mittel der Bildung des Quadratur des Kreises anzusehen, Beziehungen von grundsätzlicher und historischer Art zwischen der Verteilungsgerechtigkeit und den Hebelgesetz herzustellen, ein Model der Verteilungsgerechtigkeit, basierend auf der modernen Mathematik der Verteilung, von multipler Partizipierung zu konstruieren.
Die Zielsetzungen sind:
Die These zu erstellen, dass die Exhaustionsmethode aus der Gerichtspraxis stammt; dass das Hebelgesetz und die Theorie der Proportionen von Eudoxos Modelle der Verteilungsgerechtigkeit von Aristoteles sind; weiter soll gezeigt werden, dass die ebene Verteilung der materiellen Partikel auch ein Modell der Verteilungsgerechtigkeit ist.
Das Modell der Mehrteiligkeit der Verteilung, das vorgestellt wurde, enthält zwei Arten von Freiheitsgraden, einen für den Wert der zu verteilenden Güter an jeweils einen der Beteiligten und einen zweiter Freiheitsgrad für die verschieden Ebene zwischen den Beteiligten im Falle der Ungleichheit.
Keywords: Exhaustionsmethode, Hebelgesetz, Verteilungsgerechtigkeit, Verteilung.
The aim of this contribution is to introduce and outline a third theory of rights. Concentrating on claim-rights, it proposes to approach this aim via the concept of a directed duty. This approach is justified by the widely shared presupposition that an entity has a right if and only if a duty is owed to this entity. Unlike some prominent other proposals, this contribution does not contrast directed duties with undirected ones. It contrasts two ways a duty can be related to an entity. On the one hand, a duty can be owed to an entity. In this case it is directed to this entity. On the other hand, a duty can concern an entity. There is no reason to presuppose that they exclude each other, on the contrary. Theories of rights have to reconstruct the difference between these two ways a duty can be related to an entity. After having introduced the starting point for a theory of rights in that way, the two classic theories of rights will be rejected, the will theory and the interest theory. The main focus lies on the shortcomings of the different versions of the interest theory. This criticism helps to formulate the conditions a convincing theory of rights has to meet. In the last part, the status theory of rights will be outlined.
Es ist die Aufgabe der Wissenschaft, richtige, d.h. möglichst vernünftige Entscheidungen anzuleiten. Der wissenschaftliche Geltungsanspruch umfasst immer sowohl einen Wahrheits- wie einen Wert- und einen Gerechtigkeitsanspruch.
Vernunft lässt sich nur in einem sowohl rationalen wie interrationalen Diskurs annähern:
(1) Im rationalen Diskurs wird der Anspruch erhoben, innerhalb einer bestimmten Rationalität richtige Antworten auf ausgewählte Fragen zu finden (meist innerhalb der Grenzen bestimmter institutionalisierter Schulen oder Disziplinen).
(2) Der interrationale Diskurs setzt bei der Relation zwischen verschiedenen Fragen mit unterschiedlicher Rationalität an und versucht,
(a) zwischen diesen Fragen eine wechselseitige Verständigung herzustellen (Diskurs zur Verständlichkeit), bevor er
(b) auf den Diskurs über die Richtigkeit von Antworten verschiedener Fragestellungen im Zusammenhang eintritt (materieller interrationaler Diskurs).
Der interrationale Diskurs bedarf der Verfassung:
(1) Formelle Verfassung des Diskurses
(a) Institutionelle Strukturen und Prozesse (Gleichberechtigung aller Beteiligten, Symmetrie der Strukturen, z.B. die Tagesordnung einer Ratssitzung)
(b) Methodische Argumentationsstrukturen und -abläufe (Wahrheit, Wert und Gerechtigkeit; Fragen- und Antwortdimension).
(2) Materielle Verfassung: Inhaltliches Argumentarium guter Gründe im Diskurs (bewährte Argumente aus bisherigen Diskursen).
Der religiöse Pluralismus innerhalb der multikulturellen Gesellschaft erfordert vom Staat das Bemühen, die wechselseitige Achtung nicht nur zwischen Personen mit unterschiedlichen religiösen Glaubensüberzeugungen, sondern auch zwischen Glaubenden und Nicht-Glaubenden sicherzustellen. In diesem Kontext wird es für die vom Staat übernommene Funktion entscheidend sein, rechtzeitig zu beurteilen, ob er eine aktive und positive Rolle als eine Institution spielt, welche dafür sorgt, dass die Religionsfreiheit der Einzelnen und der Gruppen geachtet wird. Im Vorliegenden werden einige Gefahren und Bedrohungen für die Religionsfreiheit in der heutigen Gesellschaft analysiert und eine kritische Betrachtung als Antwort auf diese Krisensituation vorgelegt. Konkret werden die folgenden Punkte erörtert: 1. Der Glaube, daß die Religion nicht mit den Werten einer modernen, liberalen Gesellschaft zu vereinbaren ist. 2. Die Konfessionalisierung des Staates. 3. Der Missbrauch der staatlichen Macht, um die Präferenzen der Bürger durch absichtliche Änderungen im sozialen Kontext zu beeinflussen. 4. Die unnötigen Behinderungen und Beschränkung des Rechts auf Verweigerung aus Gewissengründen, die von einem falschen Verständnisses desselben herrühren. 5. Die Verherrlichung eines falsch verstandenen, radikalen Individualismus. 6. Ein Verständnis des Grundsatzes der Nichtdiskriminierung als ,,Gleichgültigkeit gegenüber den Unterschieden“.
Die Auffassung des Rechts in Hegels Rechtsphilosophie weicht bekanntlich von dem ab, was üblicherweise unter „Recht“ verstanden wird. Schon deshalb sind Hegels Grundlinien der Philosophie des Rechts nicht einfach neben andere Werke zur Rechtstheorie zu stellen. Aber Hegels Bestimmung des Rechts ergänzt nicht nur das Recht äußerlich, sondern lässt es auf etwas gründen, das über es selbst deutlich hinausweist: auf jener Normativität, die er als Sittlichkeit bezeichnet. So ist Hegels Rechtsphilosophie nur als eine Sozialphilosophie der Sittlichkeit zu verstehen. Sie kann als die philosophische Selbstreflexion einer Gesellschaft verstanden werden, die sich selbst primär als durch das Recht bestimmt versteht, aber auf eine andere Form von Normativität bezogen ist.
Die Hauptthese dieses Papers geht von dem Konzept der normativen Verfassung der Nachkriegzeit aus und setzt sich kritisch mit dem Konzept des 19. Jahrhunderts „Verfassungswandlung“ auseinander. Das Konzept des Verfassungswandels ist mit der Verfassungsdemokratie inkompatibel. Statt von einem Verfassungswandel zu sprechen, sollte man die Entwicklung des Sinns der Normen in der Zeit als dynamische Interpretation bezeichnen.
Die brasilianische Verfassung hat ein System detaillierter materieller und prozessualer Rechte etabliert und damit die richterliche Kontrolle hoheitlicher Akte in fast allen politisch relevanten Bereichen ermöglicht. Auf dem Gebiet der ökologischen und sozialen Rechte, wo eine intensive Positivierung individueller und kollektiver Ansprüche stattgefunden hat, ist die wachsende Judizialisierung der staatlichen Programme nicht als übertriebene Einmischung der Gerichte in politische Fragen anzusehen, sondern fördert die Ausbildung des gesellschaftlichen Bewusstseins. Die Gesetzestexte enthalten kaum konkrete materielle Anforderungen oder Richtlinien zur Gewichtung von Gütern und Werten, sondern setzen lediglich Verbote fest oder regeln die föderativen Zuständigkeiten bzw. das Verwaltungsverfahren. Deswegen kann die Genehmigung umweltgefährdender Aktivitäten kaum auf der Grundlage dogmatisch abgeklärter Rechtsbegriffe erfolgen. Die fachliche Qualifikation vieler Verwaltungsbeamter und Richter entspricht noch nicht den Herausforderungen einer korrekten Gesetzesauslegung. Die akademische Diskussion konzentriert sich derweilen auf Themen wie die philosophische Hermeneutik, Semiotik oder Systemtheorie und unterschätzt dabei die Wichtigkeit des juristischen Methodenkanons, weswegen es ihr nicht gelingt, den Praktikern gangbare Direktiven zur Herstellung richtiger und gut begründeter Entscheidungen anzubieten. Nötig ist daher eine mehr pragmatisch orientierte Debatte über den angemessenen Gebrauch der traditionellen und modernen Methoden und Techniken der Rechtsfindung, um die dogmatische Basis des Umweltrechts in Brasilien zu stärken und es an das Modell eines Umweltstaats heranzuführen.
Principles can be directly expressed by law or may be found in jurisprudence, philosophy or literature. Often the principles are contradictory, as in the case of transparency and the taboo of state information disclosure. At the individual level, transparency and taboo, the sense and purpose of privacy may compliment each other. Moreover the rise of cyberspace has blurred the distinction between privacy and public. The taboo is widening. The development of the internet and of the social networks can alter the once apparently stable legal situation, bringing a new dynamic into play in both state and individual spheres. In the context of the internet it is as though the secret workings of the state are projected on its "walls and facades", reminding us of Plato's "Myth of the Cave". As Plato described, disillusionment and reflexive defensiveness can follow.
Der zweifache Urteilsspruch des Europäischen Gerichtshofs für Menschenrechte im Fall “Lautsi gegen Italien” hat sich zum Paradigma der Schwierigkeiten entwickelt, welche Europa bei der adäquaten Ansiedlung der Religion im öffentlichen Bereich erfährt. Die Lösung kann sich ändern, wenn, anstatt dem politischen Problem (wann ist die Ausübung von Macht erlaubt) einzuräumen, die Möglichkeit einer praktischen Vernunft und ihre Verträglichkeit mit dem religiösen Glauben zum Ausgangspunkt gemacht wird. Diese würde zweifelsfrei zu einer politischen Fragestellung zu einer Präsenz der Religion im öffentlichen Bereich einladen, die auf eine positive Laizität mehr Rücksicht nimmt, dabei den Laizismus ablehnt, der darauf drängt, die Rationalität zur Macht auch einen nicht kognitivistischen Code zu reduzieren.
Making use of United Nations (U.N.) materials and documents, Anja Matwijkiw and Bronik Matwijkiw argue that the organization – in 2004 – converted to a stakeholder jurisprudence for human rights. However, references to “stakeholders” may both be made in the context of narrow stakeholder theory and broad stakeholder theory. Since the U.N. does not specify its commitment by naming the theory it credits for its conversion, the authors of the article embark on a comparative analysis, so as to be able to try the two frameworks for fit. The hypothesis is that it is the philosophy and methodology of broad stakeholder theory that best matches the norms and strategies of the U.N. While this is the case, certain challenges nevertheless present themselves. As a consequence of these, the U.N. has to – as a minimum – take things under renewed consideration.
Human rights and the law: the unbreachable gap between the ethics of justice and the efficacy of law
(2012)
This paper explores the structure of justice as the condition of ethical, inter-subjective responsibility. Taking a Levinasian perspective, this is a responsibility borne by the individual subject in a pre-foundational, proto-social proximity with the other human subject, which takes precedence over the interests of the self. From this specific post-humanist perspective, human rights are not the restrictive rights of individual self-will, as expressed in our contemporary legal human rights discourse. Rights do not amount to the prioritisation of the so-called politico-legal equality of the individual citizen-subject animated by the universality of the dignity of autonomous, reasoned intentionality. Rather, rights enlivened by proximity invert this discourse and signify, first and foremost, rights for the other, with the ethical burden of responsibility towards the other.
In this article I advance an account of human rights as individual claims that can be justified within the conceptual framework of social contract theories. The contractarian approach at issue here aims, initially, at a justification of morality at large, and then at the specific domain of morality which contains human rights concepts. The contractarian approach to human rights has to deal with the problem of universality, i.e. how can human rights be ‘universal’? I deal with this problem by examining the relationship between moral dispositions and what I call ‘diffuse legal structure’.
This paper intends to discuss some contemporary issues on human rights and democracy related to the concept of justice. Is the set of individual rights that is assumed by western democracies really universal? If so, how are they supposed to be interpreted? On the other side if I take into account the “other” and pluralism in a serious way how to conciliate different concepts of justice? Taking Jacques Derrida’s approach of justice as its standpoint this paper aims to stress the difficulty to achieve a unique concept of justice as well as to think justice in the sphere of international law and the problem of ensuring human rights in the international order. Western democracies has becoming more and more multiethnic and multicultural and the set of rights that is at the center of the legal order has to be interpreted in a dialogical sense, one that assumes difference and plurality as its starting point. The plurality of conceptions of the good and the impossibility of establishing a unique concept of justice demands the re-creation of a democratic sphere where the dissent and the conflict could be experienced and, at the same time, the legal order needs to ensure individual and group rights against majority’s dictatorship. The main goal of this paper is to re-think the interpretation of law in a multicultural scenario in which it is not possible to have only one criteria of justice and difference and pluralism are envisaged are values themselves.
Technologies carry politics since they embed values. It is therefore surprising that mainstream political and legal theory have taken the issue so lightly. Compared to what has been going on over the past few decades in the other branches of practical thought, namely ethics, economics and the law, political theory lags behind. Yet the current emphasis on Internet politics that polarizes the apologists holding the web to overcome the one-to-many architecture of opinion-building in traditional representative democracy, and the critics that warn cyber-optimism entails authoritarian technocracy has acted as a wake up call. This paper sets the problem – “What is it about ICTs, as opposed to previous technical devices, that impact on politics and determine uncertainty about democratic matters?” – into the broad context of practical philosophy, by offering a conceptual map of clusters of micro-problems and concrete examples relating to “e-democracy”. The point is to highlight when and why the hyphen of e-democracy has a conjunctive or a disjunctive function, in respect to stocktaking from past experiences and settled democratic theories. My claim is that there is considerable scope to analyse how and why online politics fails or succeeds. The field needs both further empirical and theoretical work.
As is well known, the 2nd Spanish Republic (1931-1936) was toppled by a military uprising which, after a cruel Civil War, set up an autocratic regime led by General Franco which lasted until his natural death in 1975. According to the contemporary theory of the legal system, a legal order exists on the sole condition that it is efficient in general terms and this was the case for both the Republic and the Dictatorship. In turn, the validity of the legal norms of all legal orders is based on its respective rules of recognition. Thus, neither the existence of the legal order nor the validity of its respective legal norms depends on moral considerations. In this paper, we call this affirmation into question on the base of the fact that the compensatory methods adopted from the Transition to Democracy show an evident concern to repair the damage of taking away a person’s basic rights (life, health, freedom, expression, association etc) although the Spanish Constitution, with its catalogue of fundamental rights was not in force at that time. But these measures would not have much sense if, as Raz says, there was no shared content which is common to all legal systems. Like Nino, we claim that one must discriminate between a democratic legal order and an autocratic one to establish the level of validity of its respective legal norms. Thus it can be assigned a presumption of justice to democratic norms. Finally, we state that the criteria to weigh up the justice or injustice of legal norms, as that of legal orders, takes root in the level of respect they show towards human rights.
The normative position of the judiciary under the traditional conception of democracy as self-legislation by the people is too weak to protect in an effective way the rights of suspects in the global War on Terror. Drawing on arguments elaborated by Hans Kelsen and Karl Popper, we shall attempt to devise in this paper an alternative democracy conception that could serve as a much more solid foundation for the judicial branch of government in a democratic state. Through this jurisprudential strategy, we hope to be able to maintain the balance of normative power among the Trias Politica, which, in turn, may contribute to the preservation of the legal rights of every person during the struggle against terrorists.
In assessing the aftermath of the fraudulent presidential election of 2009 in Iran, one question has received less critical analysis than other complexities of this event: What can explain the remarkable non-violent character of the Green Movement in Iran? I propose that the answer, inter alia, lies with the following three learning experiences: 1) The experience of loss brought about by the Iran/Iraq war; 2) the experience of relative opening during Khatami’s presidency; and 3) the experience of modernization of faith in the work of the post-Islamist thinkers that aimed to make political Islam compatible with democracy. Together, these learning processes fostered a new mode of thinking that is civil and non-violent in character.
The revolution will be tweeted : how the internet can stimulate the public exercise of freedoms
(2012)
This article discusses how new technologies of communication, especially the Internet and, more specifically, social network services, can interfere in social interactions and in political relations. The main objective is to problematize the concept of public liberty and verify how the new technologies can promote the reoccupation of public spaces and the recovery of public life, in opposition to the tendency to valorize the private sphere, observed in the second half of the twentieth century. The theoretical benchmark adopted for the investigation is Hannah Arendt's theory about the exercise of fundamental political capacities in order to establish a public space of freedom, as presented in “On Revolution”. The “Praia da Estação” (“Station Beach”) case is chosen to test the hypothesis. In 2010 in the Brazilian city of Belo Horizonte, different individuals articulated a movement through blogs, Twitter and facebook, in order to protest against the Mayor’s act that banned the assembling of cultural events in one of the main public places of the city, the “Praça da Estação” (Station Square). By applying Arendt's concepts to the selected case, it is possible to demonstrate that the Internet can assume an important role against governmental arbitrariness and abuse of power, as it can stimulate the public exercise of fundamental freedoms, such as freedom of assembly and manifestation.
This paper aims to assess the arguments that claim representative democracy may be enhanced or replaced by an updated electronic version. Focusing on the dimension of elections and electioneering as the core mechanism of representative democracy I will discuss: (1) the proximity argument used to claim the necessity of filling the gap between decision-makers and stakeholders; (2) the transparency argument, which claims to remove obstacles to the publicity of power; (3) the bottom-up argument, which calls for a new form of legitimacy that goes beyond classical mediation of parties or unions; (4) the public sphere argument, referred to the problem of hierarchical relation between voters and their representatives; (5) the disintermediation argument, used to describe the (supposed) new form of democracy following the massive use of ICTs. The first way of conceptualizing e-democracy as different from mainstream 20th century representative democracy regimes is to imagine it as a new form direct democracy: this conception is often underlying contemporary studies of e-voting. To avoid some of the ingenuousness of this conception of e-democracy, we should take a step back and consider a broader range of issues than mere gerrymandering around the electoral moment. Therefore I shall problematize the abovementioned approach by analyzing a wider range of problems connected to election and electioneering in their relation with ICTs.
This work intends to analysis the philosophy of history and to discuss the consequences of this death to the Critical Theory. The concept of reason and the devices of democracy and human rights are discussed in a revision of the historical debate about the end of history operates the life in the interior of the modern society, especially about the intellectual condition at the information society.
E-democracy as the frame of networked public discourse : information, consensus and complexity
(2012)
The quest for democracy and the political reflection about its future are to be understood nowadays in the horizon of the networked information revolution. Hence, it seems difficult to speak of democracy without speaking of e-democracy, the key issue of which is the re-configuration of models of information production and concentration of attention, which are to be investigated both from a political and an epistemological standpoint. In this perspective, our paper aims at analyzing the multi-agent dimension of networked public discourse, by envisaging two competing models of structuring this discourse (those of dialogue and of claim) and by suggesting to endorse the epistemic idea of complementarity as a guidance principle for elaborating a form of partnership between traditional and electronic media.
Alexander’s theory of the civil sphere can be placed in the context of development of sociology of law. However, Alexander draws not so much on sociological theories but rather on the approaches of philosophy of law, particularly the ideas of Fuller, Dworkin and Habermas. The civil sphere is presented by Alexander as the embodiment of Dworkin’s principal integrity. Locating law within civil morality Alexander reveals the similarity of his viewpoint to Dworkin’s position. Drawing on Fuller’s works Alexander singles out the procedural foundations of the democratic order. At the same time for Alexander the source of morality of law is not the legal system itself but a certain level of civil solidarity. Like Habermas, Alexander emphasizes the culturally embedded character of the legal norms. Alexander shares Habermas’s understanding of law as a regulative mechanism affecting all spheres of social life. However, Habermas is more sensitive to the danger of colonization of law by the imperatives of the economic and political subsystems. Alexander’s approach can be contrasted with Luhmann’s sociological theory of law. Alexander concentrates on interrelation and mutual penetration of the civil sphere and law while Luhmann regards law as an autonomous system following its own logic. While Alexander claims that his theory is rooted both in sociology and philosophy of law in fact his approach is closer to normative philosophy.
Occasionally, in pursuing their adjudicative duties over the course of a legal hearing, judges are called upon to acquire new concepts – that is, concepts which they did not possess at the commencement of the hearing. In performing their judicial role they are required to learn new things and, as a result, conceptualise the world in a way which differs from the way they conceived of things before the hearing commenced. Some theorists have argued that either as a general matter or as a matter specific to judicial practice and the legal context, judges are, with some degree of necessity, incapacitated from acquiring certain kinds of concepts. Such concepts include those possessed by the members of culturally different minority groups. Drawing on contemporary trends in analytic and naturalistic philosophy of mind, this paper explores the extent to which a judge might be incapacitated from acquiring new concepts over the course of a legal hearing and identifies those factors which condition the success or failure of that process.
Free riders play fair
(2012)
After the demise of the social contract theory, the argument from fair play, which employs the principle of fair play, has been widely acknowledged as one of the most promising ways of justifying political obligation. First, I articulate the most promising version of the principle of fair play. Then, I show that free riders play fair, that is, that their moral fault lies not in unfairness but in the violation of a rule by appealing to the example of three-in-a-boat. Finally, I conclude that even the most promising version is false because those who have accepted benefits from a social cooperative scheme do not owe an obligation of fair play.
When judges are authorised to invalidate legal acts for being unconstitutional, the competence of the legislator is directly concerned. The question raises, if thus judges do not usurp legislative power. In the traditional doctrine of the separation of powers the parliament is the first power, based on its direct democratic legitimacy. Yet cancelling legal acts completely or partially does evoke more irritations in the public that could be expected. The people seem to have more confidence to the assumed impartiality of the judges than to the results of the parliamentary work which seems to be dominated by the struggles of the parties. The necessity of judicial review mainly is based on the consideration that individual rights even in an authentic democratic system may be violated by a legal act of the parliament. In this case constitutional courts have the very task to defend individual rights, principles of liberty and authentic equality. Therefore it is justified to speak of the “jurisdiction of liberty”, as the Italian constitutional expert Cappelletti has said. But also without such legitimacy in many countries the Courts intervene in the field of the legislator. The courts themselves discuss the limits of judicial interventions, emphasising themselves, that they have to respect the legislative decisions principally, but do not abide always by their own proclaimed principles. In Spanish recent publications it is spoken of the principle “in dubio pro legislatore”, (in case of doubt in favour the legislator), reminding of “in dubio pro reo”, in order to treat the legislative power not worse than the defendant in a criminal process..
Germany is the focus of this paper, owing to the fact that since 1938 it has had the strictest laws on compulsory schooling worldwide. As a result, homeschooling in Germany has become virtually impossible. There are interesting divergences between policy and practice in the German setting, both in the country’s educational history and present educational problems. The Länder (federal states) have the responsibility for education, and they are taking a much stricter line against homeschoolers than a decade ago, especially by depriving parents of the custody of their homeschooled children at an early stage. The laws relied upon, however, were never intended to deal with such educational matters; they were designed to punish parents who abuse or neglect their children. The present, highly questionable legal action succeeds only because of the consent of state schools, state social welfare offices, and courts. The same laws are not used against the parents of the approximately 250,000 teens who are truant. The functioning of the legal and sociological machinery in Germany is being employed aggressively to stamp out homeschooling, while at the same time it ignores the crucial issue of parents who allow their children to skip school—thus depriving them of an adequate education at home or elsewhere. At the same time, the number of specialists in law and education, as well as politicians and governmental experts who argue in favor of homeschooling is growing, and media reports on homeschooling are much more positive than they were a decade ago.
The demarcation of authority between parents and the State regarding education of children has become an increasingly complex issue over the past three decades. During the same period the number of parents around the world choosing educational alternatives such as homeschooling has grown exponentially, causing significant legislative and jurisprudential shifts in the United States as well as other Western nations. If the State is responsible for education or has a significant interest therein, then it must have broad authority by which to prescribe the method, mechanism, and acceptable outcomes of education; it must also be able to review and enforce these desired outcomes. If parents, on the other hand, are responsible, then it is the State’s duty to defer to parents absent a compelling reason to interfere. A survey of the philosophical foundations from ancient to modern times demonstrates the tension between the State and parents in the realm of education; however, modern human rights norms contained in post-1945 international human rights documents provide explicit grounds on which the State must defer to parental choice in education.
Einer der zahlreichen Vorträge von Gertrude Lübbe-Wolff beginnt folgendermaßen: "Herr Gerhardt hat mich eingeladen, etwas über die aktuelle Bedeutung von Hegels Rechtsphilosophie zu sagen. Nichts lieber als das. An der Aktualität der Hegelschen Rechtsphilosophie leide ich geradezu, und über das, woran man leidet, spricht man ja gern. Die Aktualität der Hegelschen Rechtsphilosophie zeigt sich mir darin, dass ich öfter an Hegel denken muss, als mir lieb ist. Ich muss so oft an ihn denken, weil in unserer öffentlichen Kultur das Hegelwidrige so präsent ist." ...
Judicial review reflects the level of commitment between constitutionalism and democracy in contemporary States. Yet democracy as the sovereign government of the people implies a tension with constitutionalism as the rule of law. That is, people ruling themselves or the government by the people – majority government - is limited by the law of law making, the constitution. In Brazil, the improvement of judicial review is nowadays related to increase the number of decisions given by the Brazilian Supreme Court or rather to the capability of this latter in deciding a large number of constitutional lawsuits no matter the form and content of its arguments. For, the Court is nowadays driven by numbers and to accomplish its goals in terms of numbers (of decisions) it applies to technological solutions such as the digitalization of legal proceedings. It means that as many decision as Supreme Court issues -with the help of technology- the better it is. Relating the numbers of decisions issued by the Court to the improvement of Brazilian judicial review or Brazilian constitutionalism and democracy is a great mistake and a false statement as far as it does not face the main problem of the system, which is the lack of reasons of Supreme Court’s decision. The point is that, in this case, technology is just a tool –among others- in order to render legal proceedings faster yet not a qualitative sign of Supreme Court’s decisions.
There is an increasing interest in incorporating significant citizen participation into the law-making process by developing the use of the internet in the public sphere. However, no well-accepted e-participation model has prevailed. This article points out that, to be successful, we need critical reflection of legal theory and we also need further institutional construction based on the theoretical reflection.
Contemporary dominant legal theories demonstrate too strong an internal legal point of view to empower the informal, social normative development on the internet. Regardless of whether we see the law as a body of rules or principles, the social aspect is always part of people’s background and attracts little attention. In this article, it is advocated that the procedural legal paradigm advanced by Jürgen Habermas represents an important breakthrough in this regard.
Further, Habermas’s co-originality thesis reveals a neglected internal relationship between public autonomy and private autonomy. I believe the co-originality theory provides the essential basis on which a connecting infrastructure between the legal and the social could be developed. In terms of the development of the internet to include the public sphere, co-originality can also help us direct the emphasis on the formation of public opinion away from the national legislative level towards the local level; that is, the network of governance.1
This article is divided into two sections. The focus of Part One is to reconstruct the co-originality thesis (section 2, 3). This paper uses the application of discourse in the adjudication theory of Habermas as an example. It argues that Habermas would be more coherent, in terms of his insistence on real communication in his discourse theory, if he allowed his judges to initiate improved interaction with the society. This change is essential if the internal connection between public autonomy and private autonomy in the sense of court adjudication is to be truly enabled.
In order to demonstrate such improved co-original relationships, the empowering character of the state-made law is instrumental in initiating the mobilization of legal intermediaries, both individual and institutional. A mutually enhanced relationship is thus formed; between the formal, official organization and its governance counterpart aided by its associated ‘local’ public sphere. Referring to Susan Sturm, the Harris v Forklift Systems Inc. (1930) decision of the Supreme Court of the United States in the field of sexual harassment is used as an example.
Using only one institutional example to illustrate how the co-originality thesis can be improved is not sufficient to rebuild the thesis but this is as much as can be achieved in this article.
In Part Two, the paper examines, still at the institutional level, how Sturm develops an overlooked sense of impartiality, especially in the derivation of social norms; i.e. multi-partiality instead of neutral detachment (section 4). These two ideas should be combined as the criterion for impartiality to evaluate the legitimacy of the joint decision-making processes of both the formal official organization and ‘local’ public sphere.
Sturm’s emphasis on the deployment of intermediaries, both institutional and individual, can also enlighten the discourse theory. Intermediaries are essential for connecting the disassociated social networks, especially when a breakdown of communication occurs due to a lack of data, information, knowledge, or disparity of value orientation, all of which can affect social networks. If intermediaries are used, further communication will not be blocked as a result of the lack of critical data, information, knowledge or misunderstandings due to disparity of value orientation or other causes.
The institutional impact of the newly constructed co-originality thesis is also discussed in Part Two. Landwehr’s work on institutional design and assessment for deliberative interaction is first discussed. This article concludes with an indication of how the ‘local’ public sphere, through e-rulemaking or online dispute resolution, for example, can be constructed in light of the discussion of this article.
In this paper I demonstrate the utility of a Values in Design (VID) perspective for the assessment, the design and development of e-democracy tools. In the first part, I give some background information on Values in Design and Value-Sensitive Design and their relevance in the context of e-democracy. In part 2, I analyze three different e-democracy tools from a VID-perspective. The paper ends with some conclusions concerning the merits of VID for e-democracy as well as some considerations concerning the dual tasks of philosophers in assessing and promoting value-sensitive technology design.
After the absurd terrorism and violence of the totalitarianism and bureaucratic administrative and legal systems of the 20th century it does not give any meaning to rationalize harm as meaningful evil that even though it is evil may have some importance for the development of the world towards the good. Rather, evil is incomprehensible and as radical and banal evil it challenges human rationality. This is indeed the case when we are faced with instrumental and rationalized administrative and political evil. Therefore, we must analyse the banality of evil in politics and in administration in order to understand the concept of evil. Moreover, as proposed by Hannah Arendt, we need to fight this evil with political thinking and social philosophy. The only way to deal with harm and wrongdoing is to return a concept of responsibility that is closely linked to reflective thinking. In this paper, we will on the basis of a discussion of the banality of evil explore this in relation to Hannah Arendt’s analysis of the administration of evil, as expressed by the personality of Adolf Eichmann. Finally, we will place this concept of administrative evil in Hannah Arendt’s general political philosophy.
Human rights and climate policy – toward a new concept of freedom, protection rights, and balancing
(2012)
Neither the scope of “protection obligations” which are based on fundamental rights nor the theory of constitutional balancing nor the issue of “absolute” minimum standards (fundamental rights nuclei, “Grundrechtskerne”), which have to be preserved in the balancing of fundamental rights, can be considered satisfactorily resolved–in spite of intensive, long-standing debates. On closer analysis, the common case law definitions turn out to be not always consistent. This is generally true and with respect to environmental fundamental rights at the national, European, and international level. Regarding the theory of balancing, for the purpose of a clear balance of powers the usual principle of proportionality also proves specifiable. This allows a new analysis, whether fundamental rights have absolute cores. This question is does not only apply to human dignity and the German Aviation Security Act, but even if environmental policy accepts death, e.g. regarding climate change. Overall, it turns out that an interpretation of fundamental rights which is more multipolar and considers the conditions for freedom more heavily–as well as the freedom of future generations and of people in other parts of the world–develops a greater commitment to climate protection.
Race has been a term avoided in the Swedish debates, while at the same time, protections with respect to unlawful discrimination on the basis of race or ethnic origins have not been vigilantly upheld by the courts. This paper looks at the treatment of race by the Swedish legislature, as well as the treatment by the courts, specifically the Labour Court, with respect to claims of unlawful discrimination in employment on the basis of ethnic origins, against the background of Critical Race Theory. The disparities between the intent of the legislature and the outcome of the cases brought to the Swedish courts can be in least in part explained through the lens of Critical Race Theory, particularly with respect to the liberal approach taken by the courts when applying the law.
Doctrines developed by the EFTA Court have placed considerable demands on national courts in the EFTA States. The Court now considers the EEA Agreement to form an “international treaty sui generis which contains a distinct legal order of its own.” It would thus seem that EEA law has transformed into an independent legal order, and subsequently has a claim to validity which emulates the self-legitimising presentation of the EU legal order. This, however, is not an empirically verifiable fact, but a particular understanding which arises when one adopts the viewpoint of the EFTA Court. EEA law takes place in a different realm when interpreted and applied in the national order: this realm is essentially a construction of the constitutional order. Case law shows that the Icelandic Supreme Court is far from accepting all EEA judge-made principles. This study will describe a context of legal pluralism by reference to the Icelandic legal system and its relationship with the EEA legal order. To illustrate the discussion, the most important case law relative to the interaction between Icelandic laws and EEA law will be considered in the light of legal pluralism - particularly the principles of contrapunctual law designed by Miguel Maduro. The paper argues that the Supreme Court’s internal domestic approach to the application of EEA law will inevitably become a source of fragmentation unless it takes place within an institutional framework of judicial tolerance and judicial dialogue.
In order to understand the impact of new technologies on the law through the science of law, it is essential to observe how Law researches are done. This paper pursues the following models of legal science: analytical (theory of formal rule); hermeneutics (interpretation theory) and empirical (decision theory) to appraise methodological procedures used in monograph researches in some Brazilian Law courses. This study was to detect which model of law science was used in the development of Law researches. The study was conducted, through Juris Doctors’ interviews. All of these respondents have written a monograph, which is a requirement to complete a Law course in Brazil. The main conclusions of this study were the following: 1) most of the monographs produced do not specify the methodology used for developing the work; 2) when the papers indicate the methodology used, the analytical model was prevalent. In these cases, the science of law appears as a systematization of rules for obtaining possible decisions. 3) Hermeneutic and empirical models were also used, but on a smaller scale. These researches revealed the inaccuracy of the methodological tools used to apprehend the reality. However, these strategies are significant to define the objects of study of law in the contemporary time. Answering the question about how Law researches are done in some Brazilian Law schools, this paper discusses the construction of classical models of science of law, which were taken as the theoretical framework of this work before the hypercomplex current problems.
This paper aims to present the similarities and differences between Posner's defense of Law and Economics (LAE) and Holmes' pragmatism. The investigation is centered in the arguments of economic consequences of judicial decisions. Law and Economics tend to emphasize these arguments as a determinant characterization of legal pragmatism. These arguments involve some dilemmas: Is it possible to eliminate a rule, or reinterpret it according to the effect of its application in practical life? May these economic consequences serve as argument for a replacement of traditional interpretation? To what extent can we rule out the law with arguments of consequence? Despite the influence, LAE has some important differences with respect Holmes' legal pragmatism. Posner's LAE involves the economic principle of wealth maximization and its relations with utilitarianism and economic liberalism. Consequentialism in Holmes, by contrast, is based on a teleological interpretation of existing rules. It is important that the judge does not decide based on a specific economic theory. Also, legal pragmatism does not advocate abandoning the tenets of positivism that form the basis for the rule of law. Holmes defends a judicial restraint. Accordingly, the argument of consequence must have previous limits in precedents and statutes. However, both legal pragmatism and LAE are connected by the idea that the adaptation of the law to a reasonable end can not be absent from the canons of interpretation and adjudication.
The role of experts grows in the present and that is, in part, justifiable: as complexity rises, the ones who deliberate feel the need of the help of those who have know-how in specific fields. The question that must be asked revolves around the type of expectations developed in modern societies regarding what experts can do. Though specialization is not a peculiarity of our time (the process can be observed since human beings became sedentary); it has presently gained specific characteristics. Two aspects of modern life are particularly significant on that matter: (i.) the fact that the economic system is based on excitation of new needs (and no longer on the demand for satisfaction of needs); (ii.) the growing pursuit for total administration of conflicts. These factors are constitutive of what Gadamer sees as a great threat to our civilization: the excessive emphasis given in our time to the human ability to adapt. A specific ability is demanded from individuals: the capability of making an apparatus functions properly. Less resistance and more adaptability is requested, and because of that, autonomous thought - that is, not determined by the function it has in a system – is devalued. The threat we currently face is that the abilities of a good technocrat become the only qualities demanded from those who are responsible for practical decisions (especially in politics and law). Teleological reason, that guides the activity of specialists (and requires know-how in a specific area and consists in choosing means to reach a previously established goal), should not substitute practical reason, as the former requires adaptability to experience (not to a plan that was previously established) and is grounded on solidarity. In order to discuss the limits of the activity of specialists, the paper looks back to phrónesis and the way ancient Greeks set boundaries - this exercise should help raising new questions revolving the matter.
H. L. A. Hart thought that a theory of law can be purely descriptive and called his theory a “descriptive sociology”. One of his great contributions to modern legal theory is his emphasis on the internal aspect of social rules. According to him, a theory of law can be built on the basis of the description of the participants’ view without sharing with it. This descriptivism is totally rejected by Dworkin, who propagates a theory that denies a sharp separation between a legal theory and its implications for adjudication. For Dworkin, a legal theory is only possible as a theory with “the internal, participants’ point of view”. Dworkin’s position implies a radicalization of legal theory that will transform the statement of an external point of view to that of an internal one. For Dworkin, the descriptivism bases on the sociological concept of law, which is an “imprecise criterial concept” and is “not sufficiently precise to yield philosophically interesting essential features.”Hart’s position is vulnerable because it takes an impure form of descriptivism that still draws a categorical distinction between fact and norm. This theoretical impurity results from the ambiguity of interpreting the internal aspect of rules. A strategy to rescue the Hart’s project is to radicalize his descriptivism with Luhmann's systems theory. Adapting the systems theoretical distinction between internal and external observation of law with all its implications for the explanation of the legal system and legal communications, Hart’s descriptivism finally attains its pure form, which is not only a distinctive paradigm of legal theory, but also possesses the potentialities to clarify its relationship to the legal theory based on the internal aspect of law.
This article considers the Brazilian Legal System and the requirements of an act performed by public administration. To do so, it presents six main chapters. The first one considers Brazilian Constitution as it regards State form, legal and judicial systems. The second chapter presents the public administration stated in the Constitution. The requirements of a public administration act are presented in the third chapter. The improbity law, which determines how public administration acts should be performed, is presented on the fourth chapter. How one of the main judicial courts of Brazil has understood this law is the topic of the fifth chapter. The sixth chapter presents a proposal of how could be Phronesis used to solve misunderstandings about improbity in the Brazilian Legal System.
In his works, Hans Kelsen elaborates several objections to the so-called “doctrine of natural law”, especially in his essay The Natural-Law Doctrine Before the Tribunal of Science. Kelsen argues that natural law theorists, searching for an absolute criterion for justice, try to deduce from nature the rules of human behavior. Robert P. George, in the essay Kelsen and Aquinas on the ‘Natural Law Doctrine’ examines his criticism and concludes that what Kelsen understands as the Natural-law doctrine does not include the natural law theory elaborated by Thomas Aquinas. In this paper, we will try to corroborate George’s theses and try to show how Aquinas’ natural law theory can be vindicated against Kelsens criticisms.
In reconsideration of the composition and operation of European law, it is the description of its underlying mentality that may cast best light on the query whether European law is the extension of domestic laws or a sui generis product. As to its action, European law is destructive upon the survival of traditions of legal positivism, for it recalls post modern clichés rather. Like a solar system with planets, it is two-centred from the beginning, commissioning both implementation and judicial check to member states. As part of global post modernism, a) European law stems from artificial reality construction freed from particular historical experience and, indeed, anything given hic et nunc. By its operation, b) it dynamises large structures and sets in motion that what is chaos itself. It is owing to reconstructive human intent solely that any outcome can at all be seen as fitting to some ideal of order, albeit neither operation nor daily management strives for implementing any systemicity. This is the way in which the European law becomes adequate reflection of the underlying (macro) economic basis, which it is to serve as superstructure. Accordingly, c) the entire construct is operated (as integrated into one well-working unit) within the framework of an artificially animated dynamism. With its “order out of chaos” philosophy it assures member states’ standing involvement and competition, achieving a flexibly self-adapting (and unprecedentedly high degree of) conformity.