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Displaying: 1-10 of 10 documents


1. Social Theory and Practice: Volume > 36 > Issue: 1
Helga Varden Lockean Freedom and the Proviso’s Appeal to Scientific Knowledge
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I argue in this paper that Locke and contemporary Lockeans underestimate the problems involved in their frequent, implicit assumption that when we apply the proviso we use the latest scientific knowledge of natural resources, technology, and the economy’s operations. Problematic for these theories is that much of the pertinent knowledge used is obtained through particular persons’ labor. If the knowledge obtained through individuals’ labor must be made available to everyone and if particular persons’ new knowledge affects the proviso’s proper application, then some end up without freedom to pursue their own ends and some find their freedom subject to others’ arbitrary will.
2. Social Theory and Practice: Volume > 36 > Issue: 1
Steve Daskal Libertarianism Left and Right, the Lockean Proviso, and the Reformed Welfare State
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This paper explores the implications of libertarianism for welfare policy. There are two central arguments. First, the paper argues that if one adopts a libertarian framework, it makes most sense to be a Lockean right-libertarian. Second, the paper argues that this form of libertarianism leads to the endorsement of a fairly extensive set of redistributive welfare programs. Specifically, the paper argues that Lockean right-libertarians are committed to endorsing welfare programs under which the receipt of benefits is conditional on meeting a work requirement, and also endorsing some form of publicly funded jobs of last resort for potential welfare recipients.
3. Social Theory and Practice: Volume > 36 > Issue: 1
Yvonne Chiu Uniform Exceptions and Rights Violations
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Non-uniformed combat morally infringes on civilians’ fundamental right to immunity and exacts an impermissible form of unofficial conscription that is morally prohibited even if the civilians knowingly consent to it. It is often argued that revolutionary groups burdened by resource disparities relative to the state or who claim alternative sources of political legitimacy (such as national self-determination or the constitution of a political collective) are justified in using unconventional tactics such as non-uniformed combat. Neither those reasons nor the provision of public goods, however, are sufficient to justify such rights violations and this form of conscription, and it calls into question the suitability of current international legal protections for the non-uniformed.
4. Social Theory and Practice: Volume > 36 > Issue: 1
Jules Holroyd Punishment and Justice
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Should the state punish its disadvantaged citizens who have committed crimes? Duff has recently argued that where disadvantage persists the state loses its authority to hold individuals to account and to punish for criminal wrongdoings. I here scrutinize Duff’s argument for the claim that social justice is a precondition for the legitimacy of state punishment. I sharpen an objection to Duff’s argument: with his framework, we seem unable to block the implausible conclusion that where disadvantage persists the state lacks the authority to punish any citizen for any crime. I then set out an alternative line of argument in support of the claim that social deprivation can threaten the states legitimate punitive authority. I argue that a penal system must incorporate certain proportionality principles, and that these principles cannot both be met where citizens suffer from deprivation.
5. Social Theory and Practice: Volume > 36 > Issue: 1
Joseph Millum How Do We Acquire Parental Rights?
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In this paper I develop an account of how parental rights are acquired. According to this investment theory, parental rights are generated by the performance of parental work. Thus, those who successfully parent a child have the right to continue to do so, and to exclude others from so doing. The account derives from a more general principle of desert that applies outside the domain of parenthood. It also has some interesting implications for the attribution of moral parenthood. In particular, it implies that genetic relationships per se are irrelevant to parental rights and that it is possible to have more than two moral parents.
6. Social Theory and Practice: Volume > 36 > Issue: 1
Erik Malmqvist, Kristin Zeiler Cultural Norms, the Phenomenology of Incorporation, and the Experience of Having a Child Born with Ambiguous Sex
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The influence of pervasive cultural norms on people’s actions constitutes a longstanding problem for autonomy theory. On the one hand, such norms often seem to elude the kind of reflection that autonomous agency requires. On the other hand, they are hardly entirely beyond the pale of autonomy: people do sometimes reflect critically on them and resist them. This paper draws on phenomenological accounts of embodiment in order to reconcile these observations. We suggest that pervasive cultural norms exert a strong and elusive, but occasionally resistible, influence because they are incorporated – they operate on the largely pre-reflective bodily level of human existence. As an illustration we discuss parental decisions about surgery for children born with unclear sex, decisions permeated by deeply entrenched norms about sexual difference and genital appearance.
book reviews
7. Social Theory and Practice: Volume > 36 > Issue: 1
Paul Bloomfield The Normative Web: An Argument for Moral Realism
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8. Social Theory and Practice: Volume > 36 > Issue: 1
James W. Boettcher The Autonomy of Morality
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9. Social Theory and Practice: Volume > 36 > Issue: 1
Ruth Sample Illusion of Consent: Engaging with Carole Pateman
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10. Social Theory and Practice: Volume > 36 > Issue: 1
Thanks to Reviewers
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