Gauthier's "morals by agreement" is criticised as failing to provide a basis for any moral duties to helpless children and others who pose no threat and have no bargaining chips. Incoherences are found in his account of basic rights.

Illustrates the various applications of the egalitarianism principle. Focus of John Kekes' argument; Versions of egalitarianism; Comparison from John Rawls' arguments on egalitarianism.

Increasingly in today's world we are experiencing intensifying antagonisms around religious and ethno-cultural differences. The confrontation between political Islam and the so-called 'West' has replaced the rhetoric of the Cold War against communism. This new constellation has not only challenged the hypothesis that 'secularization' inevitably accompanied modernity but has also placed on the agenda political theology as a potent force in many societies. This article analyzes the contemporary revival of political theology by focusing on the headscarf debate in comparative constitutional perspective. It compares the well-known decision of the French Parliament banning the wearing of the headscarf in public schools (2004) with the decision of the German Constitutional Court concerning whether Fereshta Ludin, an Afghani-German teacher wearing the hijab, could teach in German schools (2003) and with the more recent judgment of the Turkish Constitutional Court (summer 2008) upholding the ban on the wearing of the scarf or the turban in institutions of higher learning. At stake in these debates is not only the meaning of fundamental human rights but also why women and their bodies become the object of disciplinary conflicts in culture, law and religion.

Hannah Arendt (1906-1975) and Raphael (Ralph) Lemkin (1900-1959) were witnesses to the European catastrophes of the twentieth century. By juxtaposing her concept of 'plurality' to Lemkin's concept of 'the group', the essay analyzes the ontology of human groups which underlies Lemkin's view of genocide. Lemkin is heir to a Herderian tradition of viewing groups in culturalist terms, while Arendt is an "associationist." What implications does the ontology of groups have for conceptualizing genocide in juridical as well as ethical terms? In conclusion I address the problem of "universal jurisdiction" in prosecuting the crime of genocide.

An essay is presented on practical definitions of human rights. The author analyzes the differences in defining human rights between philosophers such as John Rawls and the United Nations (UN) in its Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR). Other topics include moral, cultural and legal cosmopolitanism, substantive and justificatory minimalism, democratic iterations, and legal rights.

This essay examines recent debates concerning the emergence of cosmopolitan norms such as those pertaining to universal human rights, crimes against humanity as well as refugee, immigrant and asylum status. What some see as the spread of a new human rights regime and a new world order others denounce as the “spread of empire” or characterize as “law without a state”. In contrast, by focusing on the relationship of global capitalism to deterritorialized law this essay distinguishes between the spread of human rights norms and deterritorialized legal regimes. Although both cosmopolitan norms and deterritorialized law challenge the nation-state and threaten to escape control by democratic legislatures, it argues that cosmopolitan norms enhance popular sovereignty while many other forms of global law undermine it. It concludes by pleading for a vision of “republican federalism” and “democratic iterations”, which would enhance popular sovereignty by establishing interconnections across the local, the national and the global.

The author comments on the justification for the bondedness of democracies, human rights concepts within a proceduralist discourse ethics and economic citizenship and cosmopolitanism. The author explains that the struggles for democratization and the rise of multicultural and ethnocultural movements suggest conflicts over gender identities. She concludes that conflict among some world organizations leads to global governance.

The aim of 'The Claims of Culture' is to reconcile the many discontents of late modern culture with a continuing commitment to liberal democracy. It does so in face of the separation of the value-spheres of ethics and aesthetics, theology and law, brought about by nature and cognitive rationalism. This led Max Weber to warn that a consequent search for the old gods, allied to the longing for their transcendent power, would lead to a retreat from democracy in the form of a charismatic politics of leadership. Following Max Weber, I emphasize the intrinsic fluidity and heterogeneity of cultural narratives. Responding to the comments of María Herrera Lima, James Bohman and Eduardo Mendieta, this article addresses the common theme of cosmopolitanism and global citizenship.

It has been claimed that most of the world’s preventable suffering and death are caused not by terrorism but by poverty. That claim, if true, could be hard to substantiate. For most terrorism is not publicly recognized as such, and it is far commoner than paradigms of the usual suspects suggest. Everyday lives under oppressive regimes, in racist environments, and of women, children, and elders everywhere who suffer violence in their homes offer instances of terrorisms that seldom capture public attention. Or so this essay argues, through exploring two models of terrorism and the points of view highlighted by each.

Although the exclusion of LGBTs from the rites and rights of marriage is arbitrary and unjust, the legal institution of marriage is itself so riddled with injustice that it would be better to create alternative forms of durable intimate partnership that do not invoke the power of the state. Card's essay develops a case for this position, taking up an injustice sufficiently serious to constitute an evil: the sheltering of domestic violence.

Social death, central to the evil of genocide (whether the genocide is homicidal or primarily cultural), distinguishes genocide from other mass murders. Loss of social vitality is loss of identity and thereby of meaning for one's existence. Seeing social death at the center of genocide takes our focus off body counts and loss of individual talents, directing us instead to mourn losses of relationships that create community and give meaning to the development of talents.

The concept of a war on terrorism creates havoc with attempts to apply rules of war. For "terrorism" is not an agent. Nor is it clear what relationship to terrorism agents must have in order to be legitimate targets. Nor is it clear what kinds of terrorism count. Would a war on terrorism in the home be a justifiable response to domestic battering? If not, do similar objections apply to a war on public terrorism?

Gray zones, which develop wherever oppression is severe and lasting, are inhabited by victims of evil who become complicit in perpetrating on others the evils that threaten to engulf themselves. Women, who have inhabited many gray zones, present challenges for feminist theorists, who have long struggled with how resistance is possible under coercive institutions. Building on Primo Levi's reflections on the gray zone in Nazi death camps and ghettos, this essay argues that resistance is sometimes possible, although outsiders are rarely, if ever, in a position to judge when. It also raises questions about the adequacy of ordinary moral concepts to mark the distinctions that would be helpful for thinking about how to respond in a gray zone.

In this paper I defend the view that opposition to inequalities is less essential to feminism than opposition to evils, and that it is not fruitful to try to recast the concern to address evils as a concern with fundamental equality. My position is not that inequalities are unimportant, but that when it comes to prioritizing, evils are more important.

This essay examines how rape of women and girls by male soldiers works as a martial weapon. Continuities with other torture and terrorism and with civilian rape are suggested. The inadequacy of past philosophical treatments of the enslavement of war captives is briefly discussed. Social strategies are suggested for responding and a concluding fantasy offered, not entirely social, of a strategy to change the meanings of rape to undermine its use as a martial weapon.

The present state of philosophical consciousness of histories of racism, sexism, and class oppression indicate a need to remove veils of ignorance rather than to don them. Two trends reflecting sensitivity to this need are 'holism' and 'particularism' in recent philosophy by women and others who do not necessarily trace their intellectual heritages to men of ancient Greece. These trends and their interrelationships are examined and defended.

Revelatory insights into the early life and thought of the preeminent French feminist philosopher Dating from her years as a philosophy student at the Sorbonne, this is the 1926-27 diary of the teenager who would become the famous French philosopher, author, and feminist, Simone de Beauvoir. Written years before her first meeting with Jean-Paul Sartre, these diaries reveal previously unknown details about her life and offer critical insights into her early philosophy and literary works. Presented here for the first time in translation and fully annotated, the diary is completed by essays from Barbara Klaw and Margaret A. Simons that address its philosophical, historical and literary significance. The volume represents an invaluable resource for tracing the development of Beauvoir's independent thinking and influence on the world.

Presents quotations from selected women that embody the essence of feminism.

The classic manifesto of the liberated woman, this book explores every facet of a woman's life.

Theorists analyzing the concepts of race and gender disagree over whether the terms refer to natural kinds, social kinds, or nothing at all. The question arises: what do we mean by the terms? It is usually assumed that ordinary intuitions of native speakers are definitive. However, I argue that contemporary semantic externalism can usefully combine with insights from Foucauldian genealogy to challenge mainstream methods of analysis and lend credibility to social constructionist projects.

Can groups using violence we judge to be terrorism ever legitimately represent oppressed people? If terrorism can never be justified, those groups who use or condone it can perhaps never become the legitimate authorities of the people they claim to represent. But if struggles to attain independence can sometimes be otherwise justifiable, and if terrorism is sometimes used in those that are, can this use justifiable and its users the legitimate representatives of their groups?

There are different kinds of terrorism as there are of war. It is unpersuasive to make the deliberate targeting of civilians a defining feature of terrorism, and states as well as non-state groups can engage in terrorism. In a democracy, voters responsible for a government’s unjustifiable policies are not necessarily innocent, while conscripts are legitimate targets. Rather than being uniquely atrocious, terrorism most resembles small war. It is not always or necessarily more morally unjustifiable than war. All war should be avoided, but some war is more unjustifiable than other war. Comparable judgments should be made about terrorism. It is appropriate to compare civilians killed by those seeking political change and those using violence to prevent such change. Sometimes the debate should focus on the justifiability or lack of it of the aims sought. While violence should always be used as little as possible, those in power are responsible for making other means than violence effective in achieving justifiable political change. When considering the likely causes of violence, one that has received inadequate attention is humiliation. Humiliation is not the same as shame. Causing humiliation can and should be avoided.

The meanings of violence, political violence, and terrorism are briefly discussed. I then consider the responsibilities of the media, especially television, with respect to political violence, including such questions as how violence should be described, and whether the media should cover terrorism. I argue that the media should contribute to decreasing political violence through better coverage of arguments for and against political dissidents'' views, and especially through more and better treatment of nonviolent means of influencing political processes. Since commercial pressures routinely conflict with media responsibility, I argue that society should liberate substantial amounts of culture from such pressures.

Theories of justice, argues Virginia Held, are usually designed for a perfect, hypothetical world. They do not give us guidelines for living in an imperfect world in which the choices and decisions that we must make are seldom clear-cut. Seeking a morality based on actual experience, Held offers a method of inquiry with which to deal with the specific moral problems encountered in daily life. She argues that the division between public and private morality is misleading and shows convincingly that moral judgment should be contextual. She maps out different approaches and positions for various types of issues, including membership in a state, legal decisions, political activities, economic transactions, interpersonal relations, diplomacy, journalism, and determining our obligation to future generations. Issues such as these provide the true test of moral theory, since its success is seen in the willingness of conscientious persons to commit themselves to it by acting on it in their daily lives.

The article presents the author's reflections on the human development approach to social work, the creation of the Human Development and Capability Association, and its central concepts regarding human dignity and empowerment. Discussion is given noting the challenges of implementing a new theoretical framework within the logistics of international charity and economic development efforts. The progress and accomplishments of the association are also mentioned.

People with cognitive disabilities are equal citizens, and law ought to show respect for them as full equals. To do so, law must provide such people with equal entitlements to medical care, housing, and other economic needs. But law must also go further, providing people with disabilities truly equal access to education, even when that is costly and involves considerable change in current methods of instruction. The central theme of this essay is what is required in order to give such people political and civil rights on a basis of genuine equality.

An essay is presented exploring the possibilities for a cosmopolitan patriotism. The author argues that a nation-state needs moral sentiments attached to its institutions, and these sentiments must be focused on the nation as a whole. Other topics include U.S. slavery and the rhetoric of freedom, the U.S. Pledge of Allegiance, the founding of India, and the dangers of exclusionary patriotism.

The Gujarat pogrom of 2002 is evidence of a profound crisis in India's democracy. Samuel P. Huntington's influential thesis of the 'clash of civilizations,' according to which the world is torn between democratic western values and threatening Islamic values, gives no help in explaining the situation, since the threatening values of the Hindu Right derive largely from European origins and are being used to threaten innocent Muslim civilians. I argue that the real 'clash of civilization' is the clash within every modern society between those who are prepared to live with people who differ, on terms of equal respect, and those who seek the comfort of a single 'pure' ethno-religious ideology. At a deeper level, the 'clash' is internal to each human being, as fear and aggression contend against compassion and respect. Policy-makers eager to promote the victory of respect over violence can learn from the case of India, where a wise institutional structure and a genuinely free press are major assets in resisting the call to hate. On the other hand, India's current lack of emphasis on critical thinking in the schools, and its lack after Gandhi's death of a public culture of compassion to counter the Hindu Right's culture of humiliated, warlike masculinity, sound warning notes for the future.

All modem liberal democracies have strong reasons to support an idea of toleration, understood as involving respect, not only grudging acceptance, and to extend it to all religious and secular doctrines, limiting only conduct that violates the rights of other citizens. There is no modern democracy, however, in which toleration of this sort is a stable achievement. Why is toleration, attractive in principle, so difficult to achieve? The normative case for toleration was well articulated by John Locke in his influential A Letter Concerning Toleration, although his attractive proposal thus rests on a fragile foundation. Kant did much more, combining a Lockean account of the state with a profound diagnosis of 'radical evil', the tendencies in all human beings to militate against stable toleration and respect. But Kant proposed no mechanism through which the state might mitigate the harmful influence of 'radical evil', thus rendering toleration stable, One solution to this problem was proposed by Rousseau, but it has deep problems. How, then, can a respectful pluralistic society shore up the fragile human basis of toleration, especially in a world in which we need to cultivate toleration not only within each state, but also among peoples and states, in this interlocking world?

The author elaborates the development and refinement of a more human centered approach that she has considered to root out global inequality. Critically analyzing the dominant economic-growth approach taken by many developing countries, the author defends her model of ten central capabilities of a person and analyzes them in terms of political goals. The author also responds individually to several papers including a papers by Des Gasper, Jan Nederveen Pieterse, and others.

Theories of social justice are necessarily abstract, reaching beyond the particular and the immediate to the general and the timeless. Yet such theories, addressing the world and its problems, must respond to the real and changing dilemmas of the day. A brilliant work of practical philosophy, Frontiers of Justice is dedicated to this proposition. Taking up three urgent problems of social justice neglected by current theories and thus harder to tackle in practical terms and everyday life, Martha Nussbaum seeks a theory of social justice that can guide us to a richer, more responsive approach to social cooperation.
The idea of the social contract--especially as developed in the work of John Rawls--is one of the most powerful approaches to social justice in the Western tradition. But as Nussbaum demonstrates, even Rawls's theory, suggesting a contract for mutual advantage among approximate equals, cannot address questions of social justice posed by unequal parties. How, for instance, can we extend the equal rights of citizenship--education, health care, political rights and liberties--to those with physical and mental disabilities? How can we extend justice and dignified life conditions to all citizens of the world? And how, finally, can we bring our treatment of nonhuman animals into our notions of social justice? Exploring the limitations of the social contract in these three areas, Nussbaum devises an alternative theory based on the idea of "capabilities." She helps us to think more clearly about the purposes of political cooperation and the nature of political principles--and to look to a future of greater justice for all.
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The dominant theory of justice in the western tradition of political philosophy is the social contract theory, which sees principles of justice as the outcome of a contract people make, for mutual advantage, to leave the state of nature and govern themselves by law. Such theories have recently been influential in thinking about global justice. I examine that tradition, focusing on Rawls, its greatest modern exponent; I shall find it wanting. Despite their great strengths in thinking about justice, contractarian theories have some structural defects that make them yield very imperfect results when we apply them to the world stage. More promising results are given by a version of the capabilities approach, which suggests a set of basic human entitlements, similar to human rights, as a minimum of what justice requires for all.

In the aftermath of September 11, 2001, Americans have all experienced strong emotions for their country: fear, outrage, grief; astonishment. The U.S. media portray the disaster, as a tragedy that has happened to the nation, and that is how Americans very naturally see it. So too the ensuing war: It is called "America's New War," and most news reports focus on the meaning of events for Americans and their nation. Americans think these events are important because they concern not just human lives, but American lives. People find themselves feeling sympathy for many people who did not even cross their minds before. Seeing how vulnerable the great country U.S. is, Americans can learn something about the vulnerability that all human beings share, about what it is like for distant others to lose those they love to a disaster not of their own making, whether it is hunger or flood or war.

Discusses the four paradigms of philosophical politics. Philosophy as an art everyone can practice; Role of expert philosophical teacher or writer; Contribution of philosophy to politics; Options of philosophers in a political climate where they are not allowed to fulfill their desired role.

Discusses philosophy as it relates to what it has to offer to humanity on a community basis. Perception that practical guidance is offered; Information on humanity on a community basis; Reference to a case study which deals with philosophy and humanity.

Human beings are both needy and dignified. How should we think about the relationship between our neediness and our worth? Card argues well that our vulnerability to luck is intertwined in the very conditions of moral agency. We can see the merit of her approach even more clearly by turning to some difficulties the Stoics have in preserving dignity while removing vulnerability. Stoicism does, however, help us to sort through the difficulties involved as we try to combine love of particular people with respect for all human life. Richardson is correct to suggest that love itself can animate the concern for all humanity; I also agree with him that institutions must play a major role in any solution to problems of inequality between nations. Although the "capabilities approach" offers an attractive account of one part of the goal of just political institutions, combining, as Moody-Adams suggests, respect for difference with a commitment to universal norms, I now believe that the capabilities account should be combined with a form of Rawlsian political liberalism that protects spaces within which citizens may pursue the good as they understand it.

Nietzsche claimed to be a political thinker in 'Ecce Homo' and elsewhere. He constantly compared his thought with other political theorists, chiefly Rousseau, Kant and Mill and he claimed to offer an alternative to the bankruptcy of Enlightenment liberalism. It is worthwhile re-examining Nietzsche's claim to offer serious criticisms of liberal political philosophy. I shall proceed by setting out seven criteria for serious political thought: understanding of material need; procedural justification; liberty and its worth; racial, ethnic and religious difference; gender and family; justice between nations; and moral psychology. I shall argue polemically that on the first six issues Nietzsche has nothing to offer, but that on the seventh, moral psychology, he makes a profound contribution. Serious political theory, however, needs to forget about Nietzsche and turn to those thinkers he found so boring--the liberal Enlightenment thinkers.

For Love of Country is a rare forum: a real conversation among some of our most prominent intellectuals about an issue of urgent public importance. At the center of this lively and utterly readable debate book is Martha Nussbaumís passionate argument against patriotism. At a time when our connections and obligations to the rest of the world grow only stronger, we should reject patriotism as a parochial ideal, she says, and instead see ourselves first of all as "citizens of the world."

Fifteen writers and thinkers respond to Nussbaum's piece in short, hard-hitting, often brilliant essays, acknowledging the power of her argument, but often defending patriotisms and other local commitments with an eloquence equal to Nussbaum's. We hear from an astonishing range of writers from Robert Pinsky to Cornel West to Gertrude Himmelfarb to Sissela Bok.

This is contemporary American philosophy at its most relevant and readable. At a time when debates about crises in Bosnia or Somalia are dominated by politicians and military leaders, here are the voices of philosophers and poets, literary scholars and historians. A book of surprising insights and diversity, For Love of Country is especially written for a wide audience and is sure to spark debate.
(book overview)

Sexual objectification is a familiar concept. Once a relatively technical term in feminist theory, associated in particular with the work of Catharine MacKinnon and Andrea Dworkin, the word “objectification” has by now passed into many people’s daily lives. It is common to hear it used to criticize advertisements, films, and other representations, and also to express skepticism about the attitudes and intentions of one person to another, or of oneself to someone else. Generally it is used as a pejorative term, connoting a way of speaking, thinking, and acting that the speaker finds morally or socially objectionable, usually, though not always, in the sexual realm, Thu8s, Catharine MacKinnon writes of pornography, “Admiration of natural physical beauty becomes objectification. Harmlessness becomes harm.” The portrayal of women “dehumanized as sexual objects, things, or commodities” is, in fact, the first category of pornographic material made actionable under MacKinnon and Dworkin’s proposed Minneapolis ordinance. The same sort of pejorative use is very common in ordinary social discussions of people and events.
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This article reviews two recent works on the family, Michael W. Austin's 'Conceptions of Parenthood: Ethics and the Family', and Brenda Almond's 'The Fragmenting Family'. The first examines several alternative conceptions of parenthood, ultimately arguing for an umbrella notion of "stewardship," where genetic connections are neither necessary nor sufficient for parenthood. Almond instead argues for the importance of genetic relationships, decrying contemporary institutions and practices that she sees as undermining or weakening them. These include contraception, working mothers, daycare, divorce, and gay parenting. Her ideal is the 50s family with working husbands, with women at home caring for their genetic children. Yet, the social conditions that led to such families have disappeared, for better and for worse.

The Religious Right is using every means to impose its restrictive view of sexual and reproductive rights on everyone under the umbrella of a so-called culture of life (CL). The CL prohibits the direct killing of innocents (but not, apparently, letting them die), and requires that all sexual activity be open to procreation, thus restricting access to abortion and contraception. All this is alleged to be based on God's will and to constitute the only objective morality. But there is no epistemological basis for this claim, the strictures are inconsistent, and the rules create unnecessary misery. Those most at risk from the sexual strictures are women, children, and gay men. The risks are greatly magnified in third world countries because of poverty and lack of access to even the most basic health care. Yet, the Bush administration is doing everything in its power to impose the CL on such countries by means of its foreign policy and aid programs.

Attempts to achieve or even define equality of opportunity typically encounter a familiar slide which seems to show, paradoxically, that nothing short of equality of outcome can be true equality of opportunity. But this is an illusion: at each stage of the apparently smooth descent there is a major change of subject. The slide itself generates the appearance of a single issue and turns most discussions of equal opportunity into extended fallacies of equivocation. As long as the term is allowed to do any moral work, several substantive moral issues will remain in a state of confusion.

In a number of his writings Freud states that women have a less highly developed superego than men. In the Lecture on “Femininity” he says that women’s superego “cannot attain the strength and independence which gives it its cultural significance”, and in “The Psychical Consequences of the Anatomical Distinction Between the Sexes” that “for women the level of what is ethically normal is different from what it is for men. Their super-ego is never so impersonal, so inexorable, so independent of its emotional origin as we require it to be for men.”
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The paper has to do with Peter Singer's statement 'A German Attack on Applied Ethics', and particularly with the claim that those who protested against his speaking at conferences in Europe in 1989 failed to recognise his right to freedom of expression.
I argue that the right to free expression does not mean that we may say anything at all, to anyone at all, anywhere at all. Visitors to foreign countries, for example, have some obligation to be sensitive to local concerns.
I also argue that there is an important difference between free expression, which is a basic right, and regular access to public platforms, which is a special right or privilege. This special right or privilege goes with certain jobs and professions, and could not be made universal. The German and Austrian protests against Singer temporarily deprived him of the privilege of access to a platform but were not attacks on the basic right of free speech as such. In fact the protests themselves could be regarded as a legitimate exercise of the right of free expression.

Disagreement about terrorism due to fact that the word is used polemically. "Ordinary usage" definitions should be rejected. Terrorism originally meant government terror. Later it meant tyrannicide. Now it means violent rebellion involving acts like hostage-taking, attacks on neutrals. Terrorism best defined as a spectrum of three overlapping classes: state terrorism (reigns of terror); assassination of rulers or their agents; and "modern" terrorism, a species of nationalistic rebellion involving atrocities. Justification of acts of terror depends where in the spectrum they fall. Tyrannicide sometimes justified, atrocities never. No reason to suppose atrocity a specially effective method of warfare.

This book is a philosophical and historical examination of two theories of the moral status of war. It is argued that philosophers standardly misdefine pacifism; that the better-known current anti-pacifist arguments are invalid; that the classical theory of the just war contains inconsistencies; and that while neither theory is ultimately satisfactory, the arguments in favor of pacifism are considerably stronger than philosophers (ancient and modern) have ever allowed.

Certain unwise, careless, or as we say, ‘self-destructive’ actions often bring in their train consequences unpleasant to the agent according to natural law. If an agent through folly or otherwise acts in a way which shows that he has ignored or forgotten predictable or possible consequences people will say ‘it serves him right’, meaning ‘he ought to have foreseen that’. Sometimes they will even say ‘he got what he deserved’. For these reasons such consequences can be called punishment, or a kind of punishment.