Grounds Of Justice Research Articles

Paternalism in Public Health Care

Measures in public health care (PHC) seem vulnerable to charges of paternalism: their aim is to protect, restore, or promote people's health, but the public character of these measures seems to leave insufficient room for respect for individual autonomy. This paper wants to explore three challenges to these charges: (i) Measures in PHC are aimed to protect, restore or promote ‘deep autonomy’, (ii) Measures in PHC are directed at the public and, as such, they do show respect for autonomy, and (iii) Some measures in PHC can be justified on grounds of justice and need not be defended as cases of ‘justified paternalism’. Although charges of unjustified paternalism in PHC might still be relevant, we should at least face these different challenges.

Grounds of Global Justice

This senior honors thesis, submitted to the Department of Government at Harvard University on March 13, explores the conditions that dictate when distributive justice might apply. In the first chapter, the author challenges so-called relational approaches to global justice, represented by Michael Blake, Thomas Nagel, and Andrea Sangiovanni, who each argue that justice can only apply when individuals share an institutionally-mediated relationship. The second chapter explores the possibility of a non-relational approach. This particular approach seeks to find a political basis for justice that is nevertheless not institutionalized. Physical interdependence among individual persons, the author argues, is sufficient to ground concern for global justice. The third chapter weighs in on the agents of justice, emphasizing the role of the basic global structure in parsing out associative and general duties.

Extending Compatibilism: Control, Responsibility, And Blame

In this paper, I argue that ‹moral responsibility’ refers to two concepts, not to one. In the first place, we are not ultimately morally responsible or, therefore, unqualifiedly blameworthy, due to the fact that we lack ultimate forms of control. But, second, it is legitimate to consider us to be morally responsible in another sense, and therefore qualifiedly blameworthy, once we have certain forms of control. Consequently, I argue that our normal practice of blaming is unjust, since it requires that we are ultimately morally responsible. I contend that this practice must, on grounds of justice, be tempered by adequate consideration of the fact that we are not ultimately morally responsible. My proposal in this regard is that blaming be replaced by admonishment.

Changes and Exchanges in Marginal Youth Transitions

While some groups of young people may negotiate successful transitions to work, others are unable or unlikely to do so. The concept of ‘fair exchange’ is pertinent to understanding youth transitions in their formative stages through educational experiences. Patterns of disrupted education challenge the education–work nexus not only because failure in education may limit labour market competitiveness but because the perceived false promises of educational exchange, together with the immediate and available rewards of local cultural options, may, from young people's perspectives, necessitate alternative transitions. The ascendancies of risk management constitute the emergence of binary systems of youth governance in which youth are dichotomised as potential citizen-workers or people in need of control and discipline. The hardening of youth justice and the contraction of welfare constrict the legitimate places of youth participation. Yet marginalised youth do not necessarily give up the ideal of a fair exchange, as their continued efforts in school and orientations towards work show. However, the ‘fair exchange’ within the youth justice system is fundamentally different from exchanges within other systems, warranting consideration of how failure in education together with forms of youth governance are implicated in the questionable, on social justice grounds, alternative transitions through youth justice.

Rape in Maliki Legal Doctrine and Practice (8th–15th Centuries C.E.)

AbstractThis paper draws on a series of texts written by jurists of the Maliki School of Law between the 8th and the 15th century. The variety of these sources and their examination in chronological order makes it possible to sketch different stages of elaboration and observing the relationship between doctrinal development and legal practice within the Maliki School of that period. My conclusion is that Maliki doctrine on rape was far from being monolithic, and that it changed over time as a result of a series of efforts to accommodate social demands and on the grounds of rationality, equity and justice.

Schicksalsanalyseand Religion Studies

The contemporary study of religion has benefited greatly from dialogues with depth psychology and psychiatry. In this study I consider the work of the Hungarian-born Swiss psychiatrist Leopold Szondi (1893–1986) as a major resource for the study of religion. While not well known in the English-speaking world, Szondi was an eminent medical scholar who produced, under conditions of political persecution, war, and exile, a large, magisterial body of literature known as the Analysis of Destiny (Schicksalsanalyse), which remains largely untranslated. The aim of this essay is (1) to present Szondi’s theory of religion in its biographical and historical context and (2) to discuss specific concepts in his theory, namely, those of the familial unconscious, Cain-Moses polarity, and pontifical ego. These three themes are chosen because they reflect Szondi’s pioneering pedigree studies, his clarification of the psychiatric aspects of epilepsy, and his transpersonal synthesis of depth psychology. The familial unconscious is presented in terms of his concept of genotropism and applied to the symbolic forms of tribal religion. The Cain-Moses polarity is addressed as a paroxysmal-epileptoid ground of evil and justice within the psychology of monotheism. The pontifical ego, representing religious experience at the highest level of relatedness and symbolized by the bridge, is evaluated on the bases of the Indo-Persian and Latin traditions of the sacred bridge. As a systematic psychiatry bearing a religious depth psychology, Szondi’s work has both historical significance and relevance to the contemporary study of religion. He has developed a wide-ranging approach to understanding the psychological, metaphysical, and theological aspects of religious experience.

Voluntary Codes of Conduct for Multinational Corporations: Coordinating Duties of Rescue and Justice

This paper examines the extent to which the voluntary adoption of codes of conduct by multinational corporations (MNCs) renders MNCs accountable for the performance of actions specified in a code of conduct. In particular, the paper examines the ways in which codes of conduct coordinate the expectations of relevant parties with regard to the provision of assistance by MNCs on grounds of rescue or justice. The paper argues that this coordinative role of codes of conduct renders MNCs more accountable for the performance of actions specified in a code of conduct than they would be without a code of conduct. This interpretation of the significance of codes of conduct is contrasted with the view that codes of conduct render MNCs accountable for performing actions specified in a code of conduct by grounding contractual obligations for the performance of such actions.

THE LAW OF PEOPLES, SOCIAL COOPERATION, HUMAN RIGHTS, AND DISTRIBUTIVE JUSTICE

Cosmopolitans argue that the account of human rights and distributive justice in John Rawls's The Law of Peoples is incompatible with his argument for liberal justice. Rawls should extend his account of liberal basic liberties and the guarantees of distributive justice to apply to the world at large. This essay defends Rawls's grounding of political justice in social cooperation. The Law of Peoples is drawn up to provide principles of foreign policy for liberal peoples. Human rights are among the necessary conditions for social cooperation, and so long as a decent people respect human rights, a common good, and the Law of Peoples, it is not the role of liberal peoples to impose upon well-ordered decent peoples liberal liberties they cannot endorse. Moreover, the difference principle is not an allocative or alleviatory principle, but applies to design property and other basic social institutions necessary to economic production, exchange and consumption. It presupposes political cooperation—a legislative body to actively apply it, and a legal system to apply it to. There is no feasible global state or global legal system that could serve these roles. Finally, the difference principle embodies a conception of democratic reciprocity that is only appropriate to cooperation among free and equal citizens who are socially productive and politically autonomous.

The UK House of Commons report on the influence of the pharmaceutical industry: Lessons for equitable access to medicines in Australia

This paper examines the recent UK House of Commons Health Committee report on the Influence of the Pharmaceutical Industry in relation to its findings and recommendations concerning access to medicines, and in particular the continuance of cost effectiveness or reference pricing. This mechanism of bargaining down the price of drugs on social justice grounds recently has been targeted by the US Department of Commerce as an unjustifiable non-tariff barrier to trade that should be eliminated in all OECD countries. Concerns have been raised that certain provisions in the AUSFTA may have been designed to achieve this end, in defiance of norms of democratic legitimacy, moral responsibility and the international right to health. Here we examine some implications of the UK House of Commons Report for the PBS in Australia.

Northern Ireland in Transition: The Role of Justice

All post-conflict societies switching to constitutional liberal democracies have to deal with their past through transitional justice mechanisms that offer to hear the victims, try the perpetrators of all types of abuses, introduce peace and reconciliation schemes. It is time for state and non-state organs to account for past crimes. Several countries have successfully tested such mechanisms. Northern Ireland is the ideal ground for transitional justice to operate but it dispels foreign tailor-made models. However, a number of major reforms and projects have addressed sensitive issues in the wake of the Good Friday Agreement. Two key institutions, the police and the criminal justice system, whose responsibility in the conflict was undeniable, have been reformed. Law and lawyers are concerned with these changes and the introduction of a Human Rights culture in Northern Ireland. A clear break with the past must be achieved for transitional justice mechanisms to work successfully.

Democratic Distributive Justice by Ross Zucker: Comment on PEGS symposium in Good Society, Vol. 13 No. 1 (2004)

Democratic Distributive Justice by Ross Zucker:Comment on Symposium in The Good Society, Vol.13 No.1 (2004) Kambhampati S. Sastry (bio) Having been a practitioner, I would deal with only the operational aspect of the debate on democracy and distributive justice. While supporting the principle of some measure of redistribution as being justified from the viewpoint of democracy as much as on grounds of justice, Thomas W. Simon, in his lengthy argument, makes a plea that a "public works" approach is superior to mere redistribution of incomes. Apparently, Simon has no problem if every citizen is asked to shed a percentage of his income to finance such public works. Ross Zucker did not exactly spell out in his book how much of national income should be redistributed and how to redistribute, as Gary Mongiovi has also drawn attention to. I wonder whether Zucker would actually oppose a redistribution effort through public works of the kind suggested by Simon. Simon's public works approach meets with the objection that "in principle" it might not be a good idea to give citizens something for nothing. But, experience the world over has clearly shown the inadequacies of the public works approach. There are a plethora of administrative problems in "targeting" such public works to the needy. Such a selection itself has serious sociological implications in the long run, as is well documented, in that it brands and stigmatizes those selected. Then there are enormous leakages. Finally, a public works program yields incomes. There is no guarantee that those incomes would result in socially desirable consumption – which, after all, is the object of the redistribution measure, especially in developing countries. There could be supply constraints; markets themselves may not be able to resolve them. Finally, real progress towards equality (or reduction of inequalities if one prefers to put it that way) is possible only if "capabilities" are built up through education and the like, as Amartya Sen has been saying. A more promising approach than Simon's public works approach is to determine the bundle of capabilities that every citizen must acquire and then to provide them to all citizens treating them as "public goods". The question still remains as to whether such a provision is in pursuance of a theory of justice or of a theory of democracy. While rebutting the criticism of his book in the Journal as well as elsewhere, Ross Zucker has cogently argued that the twotheories are inseparable if democracy is to be understood as being also "for the people". I do not know, however, why Zucker has not drawn any strength from the philosophy of democratic ("republican") governance advocated by Thomas Jefferson. Jefferson argued vehemently that for the citizen to participate in a democracy he needs to be educated. Jefferson said: "I have indeed two great measures at heart, without which no republic can maintain itself in strength: 1. That of general education, to enable every man to judge for himself what will secure or endanger his freedom. 2. To divide every county into hundreds, of such size that all the children of each will be within reach of a central school in it."1 In the modern day world, and especially in the Third World countries, what Jefferson argued in relation to public education applies with equal force to the provision of drinking water, access to healthcare etc. Thus, even in a "procedural" democracy, and not drawing upon on any theory of justice, a citizen needs to become "qualified" to be part of the democracy, which means providing him necessary education and a bundle of "capability building" public services, ideally financed through a proportionate levy on the incomes of all citizens, so as not to adversely affect 'economic efficiency' which is the concern of Mongiovi. I have suggested such a scheme in my book Constitution for 21st Century India. But I have also argued that what modern political scientists call "social and economic rights" are just as important for the citizens as civil and political rights and should thus be inscribed in the Constitution, as did the Universal Declaration of Human Rights adopted by the United Nations followed by a Covenant (signed by India and...

Radical Multiculturalism versus Liberal Pluralism

Radical multiculturalism claims that cultural groups, not the individual, should be the yardstick for considerations of justice, because the group offers the individual the indispensable good of being rooted in a community and since membership in a culture is not voluntary, abolition of culture would lead to uprooting of individuals. Thus, by taking this good away on grounds of justice, liberalism perpetrates another injustice. Against this, liberalism upholds the principle of normative methodological individualism, arguing that groups cannot be defined without recourse to the individual. Furthermore, the concept of cultural group is notoriously vague and not suitable to replace normative methodological individualism. Moreover, radical multiculturalism risks falling prey to self-defeating normative relativism. Since there is also a danger for the liberal to fall prey to culture-centrism, both parties agree on internal universalism. They also agree on the difference between membership in an association and membership in a cultural community. However, the liberal concludes that the state must not add its might to cultural dependence, but enable the individual to grow out of it. Furthermore, liberalism maintains that normative methodological individualism is sufficient for even group-related needs provided the group conforms to basic principles of justice. To this, radical multiculturalism objects that even if all cultural groups abide by the principles of justice of the larger society, liberalism still produces injustices for those whose language is not among the official languages of the polity. Since any democratic polity needs a medium of debate and deliberation that is universally understood, liberalism has to grant this point. Liberalism can only diminish its impact through intermediate levels of government and subsidiarity.

Genes and social justice: a Rawlsian reply to Moore.

In this article I critically examine Adam Moore's claim that the threshold for overriding intangible property rights and privacy rights is higher, in relation to genetic enhancement techniques and sensitive personal information, than is commonly suggested. I argue that Moore fails to see how important advances in genetic research are to social justice. Once this point is emphasized one sees that the issue of how formidable overriding these rights are is open to much debate. There are strong reasons, on grounds of social justice, for thinking the importance of such rights is likely to be diminished in the interests of ensuring a more just distribution of genes essential to pursuing what John Rawls calls a person's 'rational plan of life'.

Integrating Environmental Justice into EPA Permitting Authority

A recurrent issue arising out of the President?s Executive Order 12898 on Environmental Justice is the extent to which EPA possesses the authority to condition on environmental justice grounds permits that the Agency (and States with federally-approved programs) issues to regulated entities pursuant to the various federal environmental protection laws administered by EPA. A related question is the extent to which the permitting authority (state or federal) may deny a permit altogether solely on environmental justice grounds. This article questions the apparent assumption of many that no such permit conditioning or denial authority exists relating to environmental justice concerns. The article is concerned exclusively with the issue whether EPA possesses authority that it has not yet chosen to exercise. The article does not comprehensively address the distinct question whether EPA is required under existing statutory provisions to impose such conditions or deny such permits. The article concludes that EPA clearly has considerable authority to promote environmental justice through permit conditions and denials (and registration conditions and denials) that the Agency has yet to enlist effectively. More particularly, the article explores EPA's authority to restrict and deny the operation of environmentally risky facilities based on the factor that the community to be exposed is already disparately subject to such risks from other sources as well as the Agency?s authority to condition permits in a manner that requires the regulated entity itself to help the exposed community to build the community enforcement capacity necessary for the community to oversee and ensure the facility's compliance with applicable environmental laws.

Ethical arguments for providing palliative care to non-cancer patients.

Palliative care professionals have begun to address the issues surrounding the provision of palliative care to non-cancer patients. Yet the situation remains inconsistent and morally unjustifiable. The duty to provide care, non-maleficence, beneficence, protecting the patient's best interests and respecting patient autonomy are key responsibilities which palliative care professionals have for all their patients, regardless of their diagnosis. On the grounds of justice as fairness, equality and equity, the current inconsistencies in the provision of palliative care to non-cancer patients are unfair unequal and inequitable. Professionals can no longer ignore their moral responsibility to address these issues and change their practice to include the provision of care for dying patients regardless of their diagnoses.

10.1023/A:1015552412506

It is a central tenet of most contemporarytheories of justice that the badly-off have aright to some of the resources of the well-off.In this paper, I take as my starting point twoprinciples of justice, to wit, the principle ofsufficiency, whereby individuals have a rightto the material resources they need in order tolead a decent life, and the principle ofautonomy, whereby once everybody has such alife, individuals should be allowed to pursuetheir conception of the good, and to enjoy thefruits of their labour in pursuit of suchconception. I also endorse the value offairness, whereby the right person orinstitution makes the decision as to whether tobring about justice. I show that justice and fairness can besatisfied only if we all enjoy a combination ofprivate and collective rights over the world.In making that case, I shall argue that the setof ownership rights I advocate differs fromreadily available conceptions of restrictedprivate ownership in two important respects.First, it is such that in some circumstances,two individuals or more can have control rightsover the same property at the same time, not,as is standardly the case in legal systems, bycontracting with one another (through gifts andjoint purchase), but simply on grounds ofjustice. Second, it allows that, if necessary,property-owners be expropriated from theirproperty without compensation.

The time frame problem: the law, social construction, and the sciences

Among our official noblest virtues are truth and justice. In the sciences, officially, truth overrides every other virtue. In the law, officially, justice likewise overrides. That is neither to deny that justice should be tempered by mercy, nor that truth should be qualified by wisdom. Any discussion of law and the sciences is potentially high philosophy, the meeting ground of truth and justice. But there are also more practical concerns. How should scientific information and advice be used in the law courts? There is now a rather staid but thoroughly solid assessment of the current state of play in the United States Federal Court systems, Foster and Huber’s(1997) Judging Science: Scientific Knowledge and the Federal Courts. Far more challenging to the philosopher, the scientist and the student of jurisprudence is Sheila Jasanoff’s(1995) Science at the Bar because she enters current debates as a professed social constructionist, with a distinguished career of investigating science and public policy (Jasanoff, 1986, Jasanoff, 1990).

Integrating Environmental Justice into EPA Permitting Authority

A recurrent issue arising out of the President?s Executive Order 12898 on Environmental Justice is the extent to which EPA possesses the authority to condition on environmental justice grounds permits that the Agency (and States with federally-approved programs) issues to regulated entities pursuant to the various federal environmental protection laws administered by EPA. A related question is the extent to which the permitting authority (state or federal) may deny a permit altogether solely on environmental justice grounds. This article questions the apparent assumption of many that no such permit conditioning or denial authority exists relating to environmental justice concerns. The article is concerned exclusively with the issue whether EPA possesses authority that it has not yet chosen to exercise. The article does not comprehensively address the distinct question whether EPA is required under existing statutory provisions to impose such conditions or deny such permits. The article concludes that EPA clearly has considerable authority to promote environmental justice through permit conditions and denials (and registration conditions and denials) that the Agency has yet to enlist effectively. More particularly, the article explores EPA's authority to restrict and deny the operation of environmentally risky facilities based on the factor that the community to be exposed is already disparately subject to such risks from other sources as well as the Agency?s authority to condition permits in a manner that requires the regulated entity itself to help the exposed community to build the community enforcement capacity necessary for the community to oversee and ensure the facility's compliance with applicable environmental laws.

The state, national identity and distributive justice

Abstract This article explores the issue of whether socialists and left‐liberals commit themselves to valuing a shared national identity by defending redistributive policies. It begins by criticising Michael Sandel's argument that Rawls and other ‘deontological liberals’ cannot defend principles of justice which require redistribution unless they view the self as partially constituted by its attachment to the community over which redistribution is to occur. It then focuses upon David Miller's claim that redistribution will receive widespread support on grounds of social justice only if citizens see themselves as fellow nationals. It argues that Miller's claim has some plausibility, but does not provide sufficiently strong grounds for aiming to foster a substantive shared national identity in societies such as Britain which contain a high degree of cultural pluralism.

Recognizing Good Decisionmaking for Incapacitated Patients

Coventional medical ethics champions formal advance directives as a means of determining morally appropriate medical care for decisionally incapacitated individuals, and recent legislation such as the Patient Self determination Act implies plies that advance directives are politically acceptable. These observation suggest that advance directives might count as a good method of decision making for decisionally in capacitated patients. But how can we know this To address research priorities relevant to improving decisionmaking for decisionally incapacitated patients, we need at least to begin to answer this question. After all, if we don,t have a set of criteria with which to evaluate formal approaches to decisionmaking, it will be difficult to ask meaningful research questions. In proposing such criteria, I assume that knowing whether an approach is good hinges on knowing whether it is both theoretically plausible and clinically applicable - a good approach will be satisfactory in both domains. Here, then, are five criteria for assessing decisionmaking for decisionally incapacitated patients. 1. The underlying theoretical model must be logical and clear. 2. The approach should be consistent with deeply held societal values such as self-determination, well-being, and justice, at a level where agreement about procedures is possible. 3. Decisions emanating from the approach ought to be empirically reliable and valid.[1] 4. The approach should work in actual clinical settings, that is, the formal model must yield acceptable practical methods for enhancing the care of decisionally incapacitated patients. 5. The processes and outcomes of care should be improved by using an approach consistent with the model. Developing Research Priorities Applying these criteria to the prevailing approach to decisionmaking for decisionally incapacitated patients suggests some areas for potential research. Exemplified in the work of Dan Brock, the prevailing approach is predicated on the assumption that preferences for life-sustaining therapy made in advance of illness validly extend patients, self-determination through situations of decisional incapacity.[2] The theoretical model establishes a clear hierarchy of standards to guide decisionmaking: first priority is given to the patient,s wishes as expressed in an advance directive, second priority goes to substituted judgment and best interests serves as the fallback standard. To begin with the first of the five criteria, at the theoretical level, the model underlying the prevailing approach meets the criterion of logic and clarity. Brock has, for example, offered strategies for surmounting the apparent difficulty of accommodating persons who make advance directives and go on to develop a dementing disorder (such as Alzheimer disease), where a different self emerges that may bear little resemblance to the self that established the directive.[3] Apropos of the second criterion, advance directives in general, and Brock,s lexical model in particular, honor broad societal commitments to self-determination. But while ordering autonomy over well-being and justice may be consistent with the primacy typically afforded to self-determination many procedural matters such as contracts, wills, and in formed consent, putting autonomy ahead of other moral considerations makes it difficult to justify overriding advance directives ton grounds of well-being), or to honor the interests of others (on grounds of justice). While the possibility of justified overriding, alone seems to under mine the conventional approach on formal grounds, empirical data derived from situations in which trumping of advance directives actually occurs might inform theoretical work. In addition, the rate of trumping may be important. That is, if formal advance directives are often over ridden, they would be ineffectual on practical grounds. Similarly, both theoretical and empirical attention should address the extent to which the interests of others ought to influence decisionmaking for patients with and without decisional capacity. …