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This paper is aimed to re-elaborate questions and discuss them rather than presenting answers. It starts with the dialog concerning specific contributions of philosophy of language to Law, followed by the re-elaboration of some yet unanswered problems, as well as the discussion of possible paths for this issue.
Since de advent of what is known as new constitucionalism, jurists have faced a difficult task in order to overcome some failures of normative positivism. In this context, the judiciary has played a renewed role, which can be justified on grounds of legal theory and on institutional reasons. However, this new role has led legal philosophers to several concerns, such as the relationship between law and ethics. On one hand, Critical Legal Studies points out that the judge always acts informed by his own convictions. On the other hand, according to R. Forst (within another context, but also relevant here), this is not really a problem, because a rule can be provided with ethics, but not ethically justified. This openness of law to moral makes it difficult for the interpretative judicial discourse to be taken as claimed by K. Günther: as a discourse of application only, and not of justification. All these controversies, however, lead to a common statement: the constitutional adjudication has been exercising a different activity. Some legal systems allows such activity legitimacy in some extent, like Brazilian’s, for example, which i) states a very broad adjudication, ii) provides an extensive catalog of basic rights, and iii) contains several procedural mechanisms for their protection. This empowers the adjudication to exercise what can be called a political activity. Therefore, a series of moral issues which were once exclusive to the political arena have been brought to the judiciary, such as: gay marriage, abortion, affirmative action, religious freedom, federation, separation of powers, distribution of scarce resources. In a democracy, these moral questions ought to be mainly decided through deliberation outside the judiciary, but not always this is what happens. The paper discusses these issues, showing also how the Brazilian Supreme Court has dealt - technically, or not - with this relationship between law and justice in a complex and pluralist society.
Are Kantian philosophy and its principle of respect for persons inadequate to the protection of environmental values? This paper answers this question by elucidating how Kantian ethics can take environmental values seriously. In the period that starts with the Critique of Judgment in 1790 and ends with the Metaphysics of Morals in 1797, the subject would have been approached by Kant in a different manner; although the respect that we may owe to non-human nature is still grounded in our duties to mankind, the basis for such respect stems from nature’s aesthetic properties, and the duty to preserve nature lies in our duties to ourselves. Compared to the “market paradigm”, as it is called by Gillroy (the reference is to a conception of a public policy based on a criterion of economic efficiency or utility), Kantian philosophy can offer a better explanation of the relationship between environmental policy and the theory of justice. Kantian justice defines the “just state” as the one that protects the moral capacities of its “active” citizens, as presented in the first Part of the Metaphysics of Morals. In the Kantian paradigm, the environmental risk becomes a “public” concern. That means it is not subsumed under an individual decision, based on a calculus.
The increase in the volume of litigation verified since the 1990’s, having the Brazilian society as context, made the judiciary open itself to new technologies which facilitate the access to justice, as well as to a faster resolution of the demands. However, the intense insertion of technical rationalization in the process and decision operations by the judiciary, during the last years, led to a legalization supported by presuppositions of technical-instrumental regulation. According to the goal policy established by the CNJ, the annoyance of the instrumental rationality is present “with respect to purposes”, which demands, more and more, a mere fulfillment of previously instituted goals from the law operators. The matter is to know if the implementation of new technologies to solve the growing litigation coming from the complexity of societies is enough to adjust the Law to a post-conventional platform. If the social complexity implies resources coming from new technologies, it’s not certain that such technologies, on their own, satisfactorily answer a judicial model which, seen under the eyes of the post- conventional legitimacy and regulation, is adequate to complex societies. This illustrates that a judicial model, able to deal with the social plurality, must take into account not only the rules of instrumental rationality, but also the fundamental issues of communicative rationality. This current work intends to evaluate if the applicability of the instrumental rationality in the judiciary equally allows the law to extent the useful conditions of the communicative rationality to the consensual formation of will and opinion in the Democratic State of Law.
Civil Society became an important theme in the recent discussion of political or social theory. Civil Society is playing a substantial role for the legislation process. We can find it especially in the activities of international NGO. It gives a new aspect of the relationship between state and society, and legal philosophically speaking, of validity of law. Activities of Civil Society are socially recognized and their support systems are gradually institutionalized also domestic in Japan. But Japanese NPO has its own weak point, which arises from the political structure of our society.
Scientific and technical achievements can cause deep changes in spheres of morals and law. I am going to discuss some philosophical conclusions which follow from two significant ideas of contemporary civilization. First of them is a thesis about indistinguishability of natural from artificial, and the second one is an opportunity of creation of artificial human.
The first thesis is a consequence of the principle of relativity of physical reality to conditions and a way of observation, on which both interpretations of quantum theory and Einstein’s theories of relativity are based. I show that the given principle deprives us of objective criteria to distinguish natural from artificial, freedom from necessity, freedom from violence.
Today power of technique is directed not only on the external world, but also on a person. Due to information technology, and biotechnology an opportunity of creation of artificial and controlled individual increases. So human loses many features of a person and transforms to a part of a collective super individual subject. In modern time a search of the transcendental basis of law and power leads to impersonal human and recognition of super individuality.
Traditional belief about natural rights will disappear. There is necessity of revision of such concept as right of freedom. Liberal belief about freedom as a condition of human existence is changing. Prospects of technical development make justified R. Dworkin's reflections about superiority of right of equality in comparison with right of freedom.
The Brazilian Constitution of 1988 declares Brazil as a Democratic State of Law. This formally democratic legal status has been facing difficulties when it comes to its material implementation. Brazilian legal procedures are still greatly influenced by the catholic heritage from Portugal in the times of colonization, translated in the present times into a strong moral set of dogmas that still reflects upon the legal production and interpretation in the country. Recently in Brazil, a debate brought to the Supremo Tribunal Federal, the Brazilian Federal Supreme Court, has evidenced the struggle between Ethics and Morality in the country’s legal scenario. The focus of the discussion was the possibility of abortion of anencephalic fetuses (in Brazil, abortion in considered a crime against life). In order to properly ground its decision, the Court invited scientists, doctors, members of feminist movements and representatives of certain religions to a public dialogue, in which both scientific-technical and purely moral-religious arguments were presented. Although these procedures encouraged and promoted a democratic and pluralistic legal debate, it seems like the crucial point of the discussion were not taken into account: the scientific character of Law. This is the object of the present manuscript: in order to ensure an intersubjective construction and application of Law, this must be perceived as an Applied Social Science and judges, lawyers, legislators and all other legal actors must proceed in a scientific way. To illustrate the theme, the specific case of abortion of anencephalic fetuses will be mentioned through the text.
The very idea of the European Convention on Human Rights is to bring the laws of contracting states into line with fundamental human rights principles. Where the Convention is not explicit, the Court should never rule restrictively so as to reduce the scope of a general right. In the case of homeschooling, the Convention sets forth the general principle that “the state shall respect the right of parents to ensure such education and teaching in conformity with their own religious and philosophical convictions.” It must not, therefore, allow a contracting state to eliminate a means of achieving this desired by parents—unless the state can show that the means in question is ineffective.
I will discuss issues which can be seen as taken strictly from the science fiction literature. Nonetheless, I would like to demonstrate that those issues not so far from now will have a big influence on the ethical discourse and also the law and social philosophy. The first part aims at clarifying concept of “cyborg” and “cyborgization”. I will consider only meanings coined for scientific or philosophical purposes. I will also indicate two experiments, which bring to life “the first cyborg” – term in which the head-scientist of these experiments used to describe his effects. In the second part I will show ideas of transhumanists in the context of technological achievements mentioned earlier. I will concentrate on the human enhancement idea, underling majority of transhumanist’s branches. I will try to demonstrate that it is realistic concept. In the third part I will shift my attention to some of consequences which flow from “cyborgisation” and human enhancements mentioned in prior parts. I will present two rights seen by transhumanist’s philosophers as able to become human rights in the near future. In these frames I will consider the “morphological freedom” and the “cognitive liberty”. At the end, in the fourth part I will summarize my considerations about the influence of semi-fictitious technologies. I will try to bring on an unambiguous conclusion that aforesaid issues could in the nearest future become very substantial for every area of the theory and policy of law.
In his new book, R. Dworkin advocates the unity of values thesis. He wants to circumscribe morality as a proper epistemological domain which is methodologically different from scientific inquiry. The epistemological independence of morality is supposed to be a consequence of the irreducible fact/value dichotomy. This paper sustains that unity of values thesis is methodologically correct; all moral reasoning must be a constructive interpretation of its meaning. However, that author fails to recognize that not every axiological interpretation implies moral consequences. From H. Putnam’s pragmatic realism, this paper intends to demonstrate that much of scientific inquiry relies on values interpretation, and that this kind of reasoning is morally neutral. Finally, it should be clear that epistemological choices in legal positivism – e.g. the decision on which aspects of social interaction are theoretically relevant – should not disturb the soundness of its argument nor should it be read as if it had moral implications. This paper concludes that positivist theories cannot be ruled out. Since the choice between descriptive and interpretative models requires a circular justification, legal theory is itself an activity governed by epistemic values interpretation. Likewise natural sciences, it can only be understood from an internal perspective. Accordingly, inclusive positivism holds the advantage of being more consilient than interpretivism, which is arguably parochial.
A discussion regarding the complex relationship that exists between the concepts of efficiency and justice goes a long way back and raises several relevant arguments. One of them, and it must be rejected in advance, is that justice is in the realm of public law, while efficiency in that of private law. Is it unacceptable that the balance between public and private law leads to the belief of a divided legal system; one system, one set of laws, one legal system. Legislators and judges are responsible for determining a balance and no theory can postulate that the balance will always be found with a simple cut between public and private law to distinguish when the criterion should be justice or when it should be efficiency. It is reductionist to confine the discussion to single goals of efficiency and justice, when human dignity and human rights should also be considered when one is discussing law. Moreover, a discussion limited to only the concepts of justice and efficiency, relies on a belief that the terms are mutually exclusive. Posner has said that the economic analysis of law has limits and philosophy of law plays an extremely important role in this discourse, which must be interdisciplinary. There can be no goal other than the realization of human rights and there can be no justice if not shared by all of mankind.
The author will deal with the relationship between law and technology from the viewpoint of technology security standard. One of the relationships can be found in that law has been providing a security level of technology. They have been saying that law would often follow technology. Law is too slow to adapt the changing technology through the advancement of technology. Above all, information technology has an electronic rapidity and a legislation technology has a paper one. There might be a big estrangement between law and technology. However, law must provide a security standard of technology. The standard must be based on a relative security level. The relative level would premise on the ordinary, lawful and ethical use of technology. Most technology has been opened to the public without any technology impact assessment. Technology would have some defect, which the producers have overlooked. As a result, the users might often meet with the accidents caused on the defects.
Then law should provide a technology security standard to exclude the defects from the users’ viewpoint as secure as possible. The security standard must be reflected on the architecture standard of technology. The architecture standard may be a yardstick whether the creators can evade the responsibility for the accidents.
The standard would also premise on the ordinary, lawful and ethical use of technology. The ordinary use means that the users should use normally technology within the extent of the architecture standard. The ethical use means that the users should use technology being conscious of the defects in order to avoid accidents.
The relative security level may be the sum of the architecture standard and the ethical use of technology.
In information society, legal norm communications have been never established in certain fields for a long time. That is, a few legal norms have never obeyed in the fields. Above all, legal norms which relate to data protection, information contents and information security, would often infringed. Most violation would be conducted by using information technologies. Information technologies would often be used in these infringing incidents. It can be said that these infringing incidents would have never been conducted without information technology. These infringing incidents include hacking actions, personal data abuse, personal information disclosure, unauthorized access, infringing copyrights, infringing privacy rights, and so on. A way of preventing those infringements is to raise the level of punishment against the violators. But, it will prove to be disappointing. Furthermore, it would be an ex post facto measure to the last. It would be needed to invent an ex ante measure, if it is possible. As the ex ante measure, the author proposes a fusion of law and information technology. An information technology will lead people to a lawful deed when they conduct actions in using computers and networks. They say that information technology cures information technology. After all, the fusion will aim at realizing laws, and it will contribute to recover a social justice.
The use of most if not all technologies is accompanied by negative side effects, While we may profit from today’s technologies, it is most often future generations who bear most risks. Risk analysis therefore becomes a delicate issue, because future risks often cannot be assigned a meaningful occurance probability. This paper argues that technology assessement most often deal with uncertainty and ignorance rather than risk when we include future generations into our ethical, political or juridal thinking. This has serious implications as probabilistic decision approaches are not applicable anymore. I contend that a virtue ethical approach in which dianoetic virtues play a central role may supplement a welfare based ethics in order to overcome the difficulties in dealing with uncertainty and ignorance in technology assessement.
Technocracy is usually opposed to democracy. Here, another perspective is taken: technocracy is countered with the rule of law. In trying to understand the contemporary dynamics of the rule of law, two main types of legal systems (in a broad sense) have to be distinguished: firstly, the legal norm, studied by the science of law; secondly, the scientific laws (which includes the legalities of the different sciences and communities). They both contain normative prescriptions. But their differ in their subjects‘ source: while legal norms are the will’s expression of the normative authority, technical prescriptions can be derived from scientific laws, which are grounded over the commonly supposed objectivity of the scientific knowledge about reality. They both impose sanctions too, but in the legal norm they refer to what is established by the norm itself, while in the scientific legality they consist in the reward or the punishment derived from the efficacy or inefficacy to reach the end pursued by the action. The way of legitimation also differs: while legal norms have to have followed the formal procedures and must not have contravened any fundamental right, technical norms‘ validity depend on its theoretical foundations or on its efficacy. Nowadays, scientific knowledge has become and important feature in policy-making. Contradictions can arise between these legal systems. These conflicts are specially grave when the recognition or exercise of fundamental rights is instrumentally used, or when they are violated in order to increase the policies‘ efficacy. A political system is technocratic, when, in case of contradiction, the scientific law finally prevails.
"Community and law approach" provides an illuminating insight into alternative legal orderings within a social unit. The comprehensiveness of legal systems within a community or a social unit, provides a suitable basis for a structural framework of alternative legal systems or Legal Pluralism, which is missing in the discourse on Legal Pluralism. "Identifying the locus of law within a community", provides us with an indication on how autopoetic a legal system can be within a social unit, taking into account the social rootedness of legal norms.
Legal practitioners and legal scientists need to have knowledge of the general rules that apply in the legal system. This involves both knowledge of the legislation and knowledge of the decisions by judges that function as general rules of law. Law students preparing themselves for the legal profession need to acquire these kinds of knowledge. A student has to have knowledge about where to look for decisions, understand the structure of decisions and learn to determine what makes a decision relevant to the body of applicable rules in the legal system. Legal education primarily aims at acquiring insight in the legal sources, their history and background. This basic knowledge is of great importance; legal problem solving is hardly possible without an understanding of the legal knowledge. To illustrate the use of this knowledge in practice, teachers work through decisions as examples. However, it is difficult, if not impossible, to learn by explanation or by imitation alone. A more effective way to obtain expertise is by actually performing the task, i.e. students should do the exercises, while the teacher provides feedback on their solutions. For effective learning, also the solution process should be monitored and provided with feedback. Furthermore it is desirable for students to be able to ask for help at any time during the process. They should also be able to practice over and over again. An ideal situation would have a teacher available for every student, monitoring the student while practicing and providing support where and whenever necessary. However, this being not practically feasible, the second best option is to offer the student electronic support.
CASE (Case Analysis and Structuring Environment) is an environment where a law student can practice with finding decisions, with structuring its text and with analysing the decision in order to be able to determine in what way it adds to the body of applicable rules in the legal system.
CASE is developed using a principled and structured design approach. A short description of this approach is followed by an analysis of the learning task, the difficulties law students experience and the remedies proposed on the basis of both the task analysis and the stated difficulties. This is followed by a description of architecture, functionality, platform and implementation of CASE and a description of a session with CASE and future work.
In this article the author, in the context of the fiftieth anniversary of H.L.A. Hart’s “The Concept of Law”, reconsiders the moderate indeterminacy of law thesis, which derives from the open texture of language. For that purpose, he intends: first, to analyze Hart’s moderate indeterminacy thesis, i.e. determinacy in “easy cases” and indeterminacy in “hard cases”, which resembles Aristotle’s "doctrine of the mean"; second, to criticize his moderate indeterminacy thesis as failing to embody the virtues of a center in between the vices of the extremes, by insisting that the exercise of discretion required constitutes an “interstitial” legislation; and, third, to reorganize an argument for a truly “mean” position, which requires a form of weak interpretative discretion, instead of a strong legislative discretion.
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.
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.
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.
The problem of this paper is prompted by the claim of Zagreb University students residing in government subsidized dormitories that their duty to act for free as dorm night porters amounts to forced labour. After a preliminary note on the nature and types of legal scholarship, the paper restates jurisprudential arguments against student rights and analyses limitations inherent in legal scholarship in action, or jurisprudence, that make it unresponsive to student rights: a limited normative framework and a limited subject-matter, most notably a limited focus of inquiry when it comes to force or coercion. A glimpse at an analysis of force in international law indicates that the naked force typical of elementary criminal law has dissolved long ago into phenomena remotely related to naked force, such as economic pressure and ideological propaganda. Two legal and social contexts of force are of primary interest to understanding student rights. The first is legal recognition of the vulnerability of children to naked force. The second is the blind eye of jurisprudence for the vulnerability of workers to economic need. The belief in economic necessity and subjugation of the state to capital has resulted in a bizarre reversal of the roles of corporations and students. Jurisprudence cannot change the world but can interpret it more sensibly. What is required is a re-examination of maturity and emancipation within the emerging world law.
Some advances in legal practical reason: for a progressive dialogue with contemporary hermeneutics
(2012)
This paper intends to critically discuss some points of the contemporary thesis concerning constitutional hermeneutics and methodology of law. Once identified some authors and the lines of argumentation affiliated grosso modo to the linguistic turn and rhetoric, as well as the core of the transcendental powers of communication (v.g. N. MacCormick, R. Alexy, K. Günther), the objective is to identify some dialogue with economics and political science, enlightened by recent researches about Hegel-Marx interpretations of social life. Of course the discussion inevitably passes through methodological questions, opposing analytics vs. dialectics, idealistic vs. realists standpoints. In a effort to foment the inclusive dialogue between points of view concerning the concept of law that may create (not necessarily) radical opponents, the lines of conclusion intents to revisit some foundations of Hegelian "method" (so to speak) and intends to give a modest contribution to a more profound analysis of the relations between sein and sollen categories, in order to enrich the discussions about technology and social life, specially the life of the law nowadays.
The doubt about certainty like an absolute value in law and as an ideal full in legal system (argument about impossibility) is a controversial fact in contemporary legal theory. In this text I examine some contemporary doctrines about the classic understanding (in critical sense) of this ideal. I have selected the most representative doctrines: doctrine about "open texture of Law" (H.L.A. Hart), starting point in this discussion; doctrine about "Il Diritto mite" (G. Zagrebelsky), from the continental European legal tradition at present; and doctrine about "vagueness in Law" (T.A.O. Endicott), this doctrine is the most recent, from the Anglo-Saxon legal tradition. Finally, in Conclusions, I analyze if this doubt (argument about impossibility) contaminates (in some sense) to the concept of law or to the characteristics that describe law in the contemporary Constitutional State.
It is a fact that mediation and other alternative dispute resolution means are becoming increasingly popular. Actually, governments are encouraging people to use them instead of going to Court, as they are quicker, cheaper and more informal than trials, and can be implemented using internet. The author focus on the analysis of the structure and purposes of mediation, in particular. The paper aims to discuss and understand what kind of justice, if any, is offered by alternative dispute resolution.
The relation between law, moral, society and science is shifting in Brazil as it is changing in democratic contemporary societies. This paper proposes to reflect about this change in the Brazilian legal and social context. Jurisprudence and legal practice have been transformed intensively after the Brazilian redemocratization that began in 1985 and Federal Constitution of 1988. In the field of Jurisprudence (Legal Theory), a new legal theory called post-positivism progressively has been overcoming legal critical studies and legal positivism. In recent years, ideas as any moral values can be improved by law (positivism) or law is one of many oppressive institutions in capitalist society (legal critical studies – Marxism) have been losing place in legal theory. Nowadays, when Brazilian Constitution implements just society and legal system, different from the authoritarian military regime (1964 – 1985), it is difficult to work with a complete relativistic idea of law (positivism) or difficult to accept that law is necessarily oppressive in capitalistic societies. Otherwise the idea of science in law at post-positivistic point of view try to overcome in a dialectic way a pure science methodology (normativistic positivism) and the complete political and economic studies of law (critical legal studies – Marxism). After that, the text will show that Brazilian legal practice have changed intensively after post positivistic methodology of law and will reflect about same dilemmas of post-positivism in Brazil in the legal theory and practice.
The paper is concerned with the Hartian idea that the justification of law’s normativity can be traced back to the exquisite social fact, viz. special kind of social convention. After discussing the view that the rule of recognition is a coordinative convention A. Marmor’s idea of constitutive convention is introduced. Relying on J. Dickson’s brilliant enquiry I finally argue that this latter idea is deprieved of any explanatory power, which was pressuposed by H.L.A. Hart when he himself reffered to the conventional rule of recognition as social fact having full normative significance.
In this paper, an analysis of Robert Frost’s poem Mending Wall is presented as a hermeneutical key to investigate and criticize two examples of the oblivion of the reasonable distinction and the reasonable relationship between ethics and law proposed by a new Brazilian private law movement called Escola do Direito Civil-Constitucional (The Private-Constitutional School of Thought). Those examples of unreasonable relationship between ethics and law are: 1) the right to be loved and 2) the right to get a private education without paying for it.
Based on Walter Benjamin’s reflections on history and social struggles, this paper drafts an analysis of the relations of the subject with some problems of constitutional theory, in a first effort to bring the field nearer to social philosophy. After tracing a short narrative on modern constitutionalism and its new relationship with the historical time, we argument that Constitution shall be seen as a cultural document of memory of the social struggles of the past and at the same an object of the struggles of the present. Some inconclusive reflections on the possibility of human emancipation through law are presented as conclusion.
To become self-reflexive, Jurisprudence must to establish a dialogue: the human sciences should lose their exotic character in the eyes of Legal Science. It is in the middle between the "order" and the thinking about it, where the "naked experience" happens, that culture and therefore Law builds itself e it is constructed. This paper demonstrates the need to use other human sciences, with emphasis on anthropology, as "methodological strategies" for Jurisprudence self-reflection to become more faithful to the reality of the researched object. Anthropology has the power to show what is "anti-modern". It questions the intellectual space of modernity where the hard definition of antagonisms detached from reality occurs - West/East, “I”/other, civilized/barbarian. Jurisprudence consolidates antagonisms: the diversity and plurality of human societies are rarely seen as a fact but as an aberration, always demanding a justification. It is necessary to create a methodology using what is most extraordinary and human in the analysis of fact: "Anthopological Blues". Anthropology is capable of breaking with the classical conception of scientific methodology that is based on stiffness to produce absolute truths and also support the fulfillment of legal concepts with content and meaning, providing a reinterpretation of science as a human instrument of intervention on reality.
The debates about the interrelations between reason and law have undergone a change after the eighteenth century. References to the recta ratio of jusnaturalistic tradition have not disappeared, but other comprehensions of legal reason have developed. The European debate over legal positivist science has contributed to this in a manifestation of the rationality of law. This transformation may be considered the basis for the development of true “legal technologies” throughout the twentieth century. On the other hand, in the context of theories of positive law which have taken the relation between ethics and legal reason as a problem, the formation of discourses on coercion (Austin and Holmes), on validity (Kelsen and Hart) and on justification (Alexy and Dworkin) has also contributed to the emergence of new models of legal rationality. In this paper, it is highlighted that the construction of these models is linked to the “points of view” which theories have proposed as legitimate for the interpretation of legal phenomenon. And it is suggested that the discussion over points of view (defined as “focuses”, term which is close to the notion of “attitude”, “stance” or “place of speech”) may aid in the debate on the normativity of law.
New technologies generate risks, for the evaluation of which various mechanisms have been developed; the most frequent of these mechanisms consists of advice from committees of experts to the bodies whose role is to decide whether a new technology should be implemented or not. Such committees try to measure the magnitude of the threats that accompany the introduction of a new technology in order that the policy-makers may take their decisions in the light of the reports of the experts. The legitimacy of such reports is not only found in the technical capacity of its authors, but also in the impartiality of their recommendations. On numerous occasions, nevertheless, the effective presence of this evaluation finds itself today under suspicion. There are various methods that can be employed to try to resolve this problem. Firstly by reinforcing the mechanisms on which the technocratic evaluation of the risk are based; for example, through transparency in the selection of the experts. Secondly, by means of the incorporation of democratic mechanisms in the scientific-technological policy. The exposure of the internal conditions to the dynamics of the technological change that make possible the institutionalised involvement of society in the control of risk, as well as of the mechanisms to realise it are the principal subjects of this work.
Akrasia, or weak-will, is a term denoting a phenomenon when one acts freely and intentionally contrary to his or her better judgment. Discussion of akrasia originates in the Plato's Protagoras where he states that “No one who either knows or believes that there is another possible course of action, better than the one he is following, will ever continue on his present course”. However, in his influential article from 1970, Donald Davidson argued that akrasia is theoretically possible yet irrational. Some other critics of Plato's stance point out that phenomenon of akrasia is common in our everyday experience, therefore it must be possible.
These two arguments in favor of akrasia existence – theoretical and empirical – will be discussed from both – philosophical and psychological points of view. Especially, George Ainslie's argument that akrasia results from hyperbolic discounting will be taken into consideration to show how it affects traditional thinking about weak-willed actions.
Finally, the paper will discuss how the contemporary notion of akrasia may affect the idea of responsibility and free will. Implications for the philosophy of law will be shown, i.a. whether it is possible to claim that a given example of a weak-willed action was indeed free and intentional and one should be held responsible for its results.
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.
The main purpose of my article is to discuss what GMOs are, the controversies about this specific issue and the related regulations that are put forward by the authorities. GMOs are genetically altered organisms which have been widely produced and breeded in certain parts of the world. According to some experts, this special practice of agriculture emerged in order to put an end to famine and prevent food scarcity. As growing GMOs seems to be more convenient than the traditional farming, it is more eligible to produce food in large scale which will be a fine solution for food scarcity. However, there are some oppositions to the GMOs. It is strongly believed that the real causes of famine is not related to production, it is a problem of distribution of food. Moreover, patenting the seeds leads to an unstoppable control and dominance over food by the private enterprises. Therefore, the opponents state that the aims of these companies are solely financial gain and monopolisation in food production. Patenting the seeds is another arguable issue. It poses a great threat for the organic farmers since GMO seeds can contaminate the others through natural ways. This is not the only danger that organic farmers face with; thay can also be sued by the GMO producers for this unintended exposure to GMO seeds. Not only the diminishing of the variety of species but also the possible adverse effects of GMOs on human health create a debate between the two groups. These are not the only topics that are open to discussion. In addition to these, labelling the products creates a huge problem among the poorly educated consumers as they have not been clearly regulated in some countries. Hence, this subject having such a close connection to human health cannot be ignored by the law. In fact, a number of countries have enacted legislation in order to regulate this sensitive field. Turkey, having been dependent on the import of the agricultural goods for a period of time, has to join these countries with a recent legislation. All these contemporary issues for Turkey will be highlighted in my 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.
The aim of this paper is to explore the case of the Spanish ‘indignants’ movement of May 2011 as an example of the structural changes occurring in the public sphere after the emergence of a new type of social movement characterized by the widespread use of the ICTs. First I focus on the ideological dimension of discourse of the ‘indignants’ movement, so as to reconstruct the protesters’ self-image. They thought that ICTs were playing a prominent role in a wider trend towards a regeneration of democracy, but they were rather misguided because they lack an accurate description of what really happened. In the second part of this paper I will challenge some features of my case study, emphasizing three basic elements of a democratic public sphere. I aim to call into question the idea that a ‘truly’ democratic public may be hosted by the emergent communicative environment.
In the debate on how the new information and communication technologies impact on democratic politics the role played by the digital architecture seems to be surprisingly underrated. In particular, while a lot of attention has been paid to the possibilities that new technologies open up to democratic theory, few works have attempted to look at how democracy may help in shaping technologies. By adopting as a starting point the approach known as ‘code as law’, the paper aims at two objectives: to re-affirm the importance of discussing normative principles to guide the process of code writing in order to reinvigorate the debate; to claim the importance of input reasons when deciding which principles should be chosen. After having remarked that code is relevant for establishing democratic norms, the paper briefly tackles with the main attempts by European scholars to deal with this issue. Then, a couple of practical examples of how code impacts on democratic rights are sketched out. In the last section of the paper a shift from an output-based approach to the legitimacy of code to an input-based is openly advocated: an inquiry into the legitimacy of code should focus on its production.
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.
Until three years ago, ICT Technologies represented a main “subordinate clause” within the “grammar” of Participatory Budgeting (PB), the tool made famous by the experience of Porto Alegre and today expanded to more than 1400 cities across the planet. In fact, PB – born to enhance deliberation and exchanges among citizens and local institutions – has long looked at ICTS as a sort of “pollution factor” which could be useful to foster transparency and to support the spreading of information but could also lead to a lowering in quality of public discussion, turning its “instantaneity” into “immediatism,” and its “time-saving accessibility” into “reductionism” and laziness in facing the complexity of public decision-making through citizens’ participation. At the same time, ICTs often regarded Participatory Budgeting as a tool that was too-complex and too-charged with ideology to cooperate with. But in the last three years, the barriers which prevented ICTs and Participatory Budgeting to establish a constructive dialogue started to shrink thanks to several experiences which demonstrated that technologies can help overcome some “cognitive injustices” if not just used as a means to “make simpler” the organization of participatory processes and to bring “larger numbers” of intervenients to the process. In fact, ICTs could be valorized as a space adding “diversity” to the processes and increasing outreach capacity. Paradoxically, the experiences helping to overcome the mutual skepticism between ICTs and PB did not come from the centre of the Global North, but were implemented in peripheral or semiperipheral countries (Democratic Republic of Congo, Brazil, Dominican Republic and Portugal in Europe), sometimes in cities where the “digital divide” is still high (at least in terms of Internet connections) and a significant part of the population lives in informal settlements and/or areas with low indicators of “connection.” Somehow, these experiences were able to demystify the “scary monolithicism” of ICTs, showing that some instruments (like mobile phones, and especially the use of SMS text messaging) could grant a higher degree of connectivity, diffusion and accountability, while other dimensions (which could risk jeopardizing social inclusion) could be minimized through creativity. The paper tries to depict a possible panorama of collaboration for the near future, starting from descriptions of some of the above mentioned “turning-point” experiences – both in the Global North as well as in the Global South.
In this article, I examine how open borders can serve the idea of global distributive justice by asking how or how not the existing practices of immigration to rich countries may contribute to global economic redistribution. There are two observations. First, migration is not the redistributive option that anyone has an equal access. In order to make use of migration as a means of global redistribution, rich countries need to provide a chance to migrate to those who cannot afford movement by themselves. Second, as long as brain-drain problems happen, what the perspective of global distributive justice requires is the compensation for some educational cost of raising professionals or some control of their movement. Immigration admissions largely focusing on getting highly skilled professionals may not serve the idea of global redistribution.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.