Liberal Democratic Societies Research Articles

How the EU Can Achieve Legally Trustworthy AI: A Response to the European Commission’s Proposal for an Artificial Intelligence Act

This document contains the response to the European Commission’s Proposal for an Artificial Intelligence Act from members of the Legal, Ethical & Accountable Digital Society (LEADS) Lab at the University of Birmingham. The Proposal seeks to give expression to the concept of ‘Lawful AI.’ This concept was mentioned, but not developed in the Commission’s High-Level Expert Group on AI’s Ethics Guidelines for Trustworthy AI (2019), which instead confined its discussion to the concepts of ‘Ethical’ and ‘Robust’ AI. After a brief introduction (Chapter 1), we set out the many aspects of the Proposal which we welcome, and stress our wholehearted support for its aim to protect fundamental rights (Chapter 2). Subsequently, we develop the concept of ‘Legally Trustworthy AI,’ arguing that it should be grounded in respect for three pillars on which contemporary liberal democratic societies are founded, namely: fundamental rights, the rule of law, and democracy (Chapter 3). Drawing on this conceptual framework, we first argue that the Proposal fails to reflect fundamental rights as claims with enhanced moral and legal status, which subjects any rights interventions to a demanding regime of scrutiny and must satisfy tests of necessity and proportionality. Moreover, the Proposal does not always accurately recognise the wrongs and harms associated with different kinds of AI systems and appropriately allocates responsibility for them. Second, the Proposal does not provide an effective framework for the enforcement of legal rights and duties, and does not ensure legal certainty and consistency, which are essential for the rule of law. Third, the Proposal neglects to ensure meaningful transparency, accountability, and rights of public participation, thereby failing to reflect adequate protection for democracy (Chapter 4). Based on these shortcomings in respecting and promoting the three pillars of Legally Trustworthy AI, we provide detailed recommendations for the Proposal’s revision (Chapter 5).

Философское осмысление веры и религии в условиях постсекулярного мира: от «странничества» И.В. Гёте – к «религиозному консьюмеризму»

The article is devoted to the philosophical understanding of faith in the post-secu­lar world in the context of the phenomenon of interfaith pilgrimage: from the hu­manism of the Renaissance and Enlightenment (Goethe) to the religion of the laity and religious consumerism in the philosophy of postmodernism. Goethe’s model of individual religiosity in the face of challenges to traditional faiths (migration crisis) and the spread of post-secular, poor theology on a global scale as the world­view of a liberal democratic society (exotic churches, evangelics, charismatics, etc.), and also the process of psychologization, even the mythologization of tradi­tional religions, the movement towards a “religion without grace” can be the sought-after alternative, which is a balance between tradition and innovation; and the reli­gious and philosophical worldview of Goethe, conceptually meaningful, is the new horizon of philosophizing after the post-philosophy.

Social Development and Police Reform: Some Reflections on the Concept and Purpose of Policing and the Implications for Reform in the UK and USA

AbstractThe increase in calls for police reform following the death of George Floyd has led to renewed debate about social inequality and the role of policing in society. Modern bureaucratic police systems emerged from locally administered structures and Anglo-American policing models continue to be aligned, to varying degrees, with the political, socio-cultural, legal, and ideological aspects of contemporary liberal democratic society with its emphasis on democratic localism and decentralised accountability. However, at a time when society is reimagining itself and technology, government, and nations are radically re-shaping themselves, a critical question is whether there is a sufficiently common philosophical and conceptual understanding of policing to support its development rather than just a common understanding of police functions. This is profoundly important when considering the current calls for reform of policing in the USA and other western democratic states. The article argues that there is an urgent need to reconsider how we conceptualize policing and its relationship with social development.

The Rule of Law and its Social Reception as Determinants of Economic Development. A Comparative Analysis of Poland and Germany

The Rule of Law and its Social Reception as Determinants of Economic Development. A Comparative Analysis of Poland and Germany

Medical assistance in dying: A gendered issue in Canada?

Medical assistance in dying (MAiD) remains a controversial topic in Canada despite its legalization in 2015. Opponents of MAiD legislation often cite ‘pro-life’ or ‘pro-choice’ arguments which emphasize the value of human life. While all eligible adults are currently able to request MAiD, scholars, citizens, and religious organizations have expressed concerns that women, as a marginalized group, are at risk to request assisted dying due to gendered circumstances rather than personal choice. My research investigates the claim that women’s lives are threatened by MAiD legislation and analyzes the ways in which MAiD is a gendered issue. Drawing from seventeen academic, government, and grey literature sources, I identify and challenge three key discursive categories used to present women as vulnerable under MAiD legislation. I argue that opponents of MAiD legislation co-opt feminist discourses to make normative claims which resonate with the values of individualism in Canadian liberal democratic society. In doing so, opponents of MAiD reproduce the same gender issues they claim to oppose and risk endangering women’s access to MAiD in Canada. I conclude with recommendations relevant to the next stage of MAiD legislation in Canada, which will debate whether other populations considered to be vulnerable, including mature minors and people with mental illness, will have access to MAiD.

Security and democratic equality

After a recent spate of terrorist attacks in European and American cities, liberal democracies are reintroducing emergency securitarian measures (ESMs) that curtail rights and/or expand police powers. Political theorists who study ESMs are familiar with how such measures become instruments of discrimination and abuse, but the fundamental conflict ESMs pose for not just civil liberty but also democratic equality still remains insufficiently explored. Such phenomena are usually explained as a function of public panic or fear-mongering in times of crisis, but I show that the tension between security and equality is in fact much deeper and more general. It follows a different logic than the more familiar tension between security and liberty, and it concerns not just the rule of law in protecting liberty but also the role of law in integrating new or previously subjected groups into a democratic community. As liberal-democratic societies become increasingly diverse and multicultural in the present era of mass immigration and global interconnectedness, this tension between security and equality is likely to become more pronounced.

Eugenic Nostalgia: Self-Narration and Internalized Ableism in Kazuo Ishiguro’s Never Let Me Go

Rosemarie Garland-Thomson has recently argued that Ishiguro’s novel Never Let Me Go deconstructs ableism’s binary structure by postulating the existence of clone characters who occupy an abject position in a eugenic dystopia precisely because their genetically engineered, idealized able bodies exist to be used to “cure” the disabilities of others. The article builds on Garland-Thomson’s work, discussing the role of science fiction in Ishiguro’s book as a means to explore how ableist narratives contribute to cultural norms that enable an overt disciplining of disabled bodies that still occurs, despite it no longer being socially acceptable, and posits protagonist Kathy H.’s story as a narrative of disability identity that exposes the contradictory nature of a belief in the able body and its opposition to disability. Putatively able-bodied, Kathy narrates her experience of the world from a subject position that undermines a stable construction of the body within an ableist framework, ultimately showing these distinctions to be untenable. By discussing the role of first-person perspective in Ishiguro’s novel as a means to interrogate internalized cultural narratives that perpetuate ableist practices, the article examines how cultural notions of ability and disability function as terms that define through exclusion the citizen-subject in liberal democratic societies.

Political Authority, Personal Autonomy and Higher Education

Does the liberal state have a role in helping mature citizens make worthwhile educational choices? The question has clear relevance for the aims of higher education in a liberal democratic society. As systems of higher education internationalize, it has become difficult for liberal states to steer high education policy in directions that serve civic interests. This is, in part, because political liberalism imposes restrictions on what one might call directive educational authority: the power to direct citizens toward specific kinds of knowledge, understanding and skills in the interests of making their lives better. This restriction follows from the view that citizens have the capacity to make thier own decisions about how best to live, including decisions about the kind of education they need. My aim in this paper is to make the case for a more direct role for the state in promoting a good life through higher education. In particular, I argue that the liberal state’s obligation to promote autonomy across its citizenry confers legitimate educational authority over post-compulsory, as well as compulsory, education. This argument affirms the State’s educational obligations to citizens beyond a basic or compulsory education. Getting in the way of this affirmation, however, is an overly restrictive account of educational authority that occludes these obligations under the guise of respect for autonomy. Accordingly, in making my case I propose an autonomy-based account educational authority derived from Joseph Raz’s Service Conception, defending this account against the charge that such authority is illegitimately paternalistic.

A critical examination of leisure in modernity: Rejecting instrumentalism and embracing flourishing

We provide a critical approach to current colloquial and scholarly understandings of leisure focusing on instrumental understandings of leisure in modern, liberal-democratic society since these instrumental understandings (e.g., diversion, distinction, consumerism, and restoration for work) create confusion about the meaning of leisure. We identify that (a) emphasis on instrumental thinking prevailing in modern society moves people away from embracing leisure as an end with its inherent experiences of meaning and flourishing, and (b) to bring these elements back into leisure, we draw on post-modern, neo-Aristotelian philosophical approaches. We reject the notion of leisure as time or activity and adopt a normative approach identifying leisure as an ethical state of being characterized by authenticity, meaning, and liquidity involving learning as it intertwines with positivity. We provide an account of leisure that builds upon the idea that the good life exists through flourishing, and identify how leisure experiences promote flourishing.

Pathways to the criminalisation of emotional distress: An offence- and harm-based typology

The article examines the criminalisation of causing negative emotional states in others and pursues a principled response to the question under which conditions, in a liberal democratic society, it is legitimate to criminalise human conduct that leads to emotional distress in others. Its main aim is to develop an exploratory typology of different types of legally-relevant emotional distress, based on existing offences and informed by the criteria drawn from criminal law philosophy. Following the conceptual distinction between ‘harm’ and ‘offence’, a typology of legally relevant emotional distress ranging from simpler cases of distress through more in-depth offendedness and offence-plus-harm to states of emotional harm is presented. The article then discusses some ‘hard cases’, such as special vulnerabilities and the question of changing sensibilities through time. The repercussions of these changes for an effective and legitimate criminal justice as well as policy implications are addressed in the concluding section.

Bourgeois Knowledge: The Incomplete Closure of the Epistemological Break in the Work of Deirdre McCloskey

One of the defining features of modern social science and economics in particular is the hard break it posits between everyday and scientific knowledge. French philosophers have called this characteristic the epistemological break. One of the key consequences of this break is that scientists have access to superior knowledge and are in a position to inform and steer the behavior of individuals. We believe that a large epistemological break is incompatible with science in a liberal democratic society. In this paper we analyze the extent to which the writings of Deirdre McCloskey contributed to bridging the epistemological break given that her early work, and the work of some members of younger Chicago School of economics more generally, was strongly influenced by the epistemological break. In the first decade after The Rhetoric of Economics McCloskey did much to strip scientific knowledge of its special elevated status. In her later work on the bourgeoisie there is also a renewed appreciation for everyday knowledge of economic actors. Yet important tensions remain, the appreciation for bourgeois knowledge has not been generalized to an appreciation for all everyday economic knowledge. And the tension between the economist as teacher, and the economist as student of society, which is already present in the Chicago tradition, is still visible.

Mobility of Human Beings in Europe: An Unpredictable Phenomenon

The global refugee crisis has reignited long-standing debates about how to successfully integrate religious minorities into liberal democratic societies. In the United States, security fears, particularly connected with terrorism, are preponderant. In Western Europe cultural fears seem to dominate, with many misunderstanding Islam as a direct threat to the norms and values that bind their societies together.

New Nationalisms and Identity Politics: Minorities, Majorities and Universal Emancipation

A defining feature of new nationalisms, with their right-wing populist rhetoric, is the way they exploit the regime of truth prevalent in liberal democratic societies. Their use of the language of democracy, human rights and identity is sometimes hard to differentiate from the mainstream convention. Despite being majoritarian in the way it seeks democratic legitimacy, new nationalist discourse consistently advances demands framed in terms of minority protection. This is done by presenting the existence of ‘our’ nation as threatened by overwhelming forces of neo-liberal globalisation (embodied in the EU, the West or even in ‘the Washington establishment’). By using the Pussy Riot case as an empirical example, this article argues that there is no way of preventing the language of minority protection from being hijacked by ‘predatory identities’ unless one foregrounds the universal dimension of equality and emancipation, as opposed to rights and entitlements associated with particular identities. The key political question today, as always, is how to navigate between the totalitarian disregard of the local and the parochialist concentration on the particular.

Rejecting “Controversial” Issues in Education: A Case Study of Ultra-Orthodox Jewish Schools in Belgium

In liberal democracies, fundamental rights and freedoms can conflict, and if they do, it is not always clear which right the state should prioritize. Should the right of parents to choose education in line with their own convictions prevail, or should the right of children to be prepared for a future life in a liberal democratic society be given more moral weight? While the former might lead to establishing and subsidizing orthodox religious schools, the latter implies “liberal”, “autonomy-facilitating” education. In order to make this tension concrete, we focus on a case study of an ultra-orthodox Jewish (Haredi) school in Flanders (Belgium), where “controversial issues” are excluded from the curriculum and where education is not fully in line with the core principles of “liberal education”. Subsequently, we explore the legal educational context in liberal democracies, with a particular focus on the freedom of religion and education. Then, we scrutinize several arguments for or against ultra-orthodox faith-based schools. We conclude that there are no convincing arguments for state support for these kinds of schools and that the recent Flemish policy of homeschooling might be a reasonable alternative, wherein a balance is found between children’s rights and parental rights.

Making Enemies: the Mainstream Media Spectacle and US Foreign Policy

Abstract As Herbert Schiller long ago observed, the mainstream (corporate) media (MSM) in the US have long been instruments of state power. However, since the nineteenth century, the reading public has relied on the news media as a pillar, albeit flawed, of a liberal democratic society. While the public still regards a “free press” as essential to democracy, it no longer has confidence that the mainstream media deserve that status. Trust levels in the MSM have plummeted since the 1970s, reflecting a larger pattern of distrust of public and private institutions in general, including the US Congress. Even many media professionals themselves do not see the US as defending the freedom of investigative journalism. Moreover, the quality of corporate media, more owner-concentrated than ever, has declined, often to the level of tabloid spectacle, as profit-oriented news departments try to compete with a wide array of 24/7 news platforms, including those coming from social media. The era of neoliberalism has all but eliminated the public service ideology behind news and public affairs reporting, and concurrently there has emerged a crisis of state legitimacy that threatens the foundations of the liberal democratic order.

Testing pragmatic genealogy in political theory: The curious case of John Rawls

Starting from the ‘Dewey Lectures’, Rawls presents his conception of justice within a contextualist framework, as an elaboration of the basic ideas embedded in the political culture of liberal-democratic societies. But how are these basic ideas to be justified? In this article, I reconstruct and criticize Rawls’s strategy to answer this question. I explore an alternative strategy, consisting of a genealogical argument of a pragmatic kind – the kind of argument provided by authors like Bernard Williams, Edward Craig and Miranda Fricker. I outline this genealogical argument drawing on Rawls’s reconstruction of the origins of liberalism. Then, I clarify the conditions under which this kind of argument maintains vindicatory power. I claim that the argument satisfies these conditions and that pragmatic genealogy can thus partially vindicate the basic ideas of liberal-democratic societies.

Human Rights Movies Through the Prism of Movie Advisory Boards

Human rights is a topic of high importance in Western societies, and discrimination has been noted as a determining force in their violations. Films depicting human rights issues have been discussed as instrumental in bringing these matters to the attention of the general public and students. Their exposure is dependent largely on their age-classifications by movie advisory boards which determine who can watch them. Two studies were conducted to assess how films depicting human rights issues and held exemplary by the Political Film Society (PFS) are evaluated by movie advisory boards, providing justifications for their age-classifications. Study 1 found that the boards in the US and the UK identify these movies as suitable mainly for adults, while in Australia, in most cases, moviegoers are to decide their appropriateness. Each board stresses different contents as their main concerns, yet none mention discrimination. Study 2, assessing Netherland's NICAM evaluations, revealed that these movies are considered suitable mainly for adults, primarily because they are heavy with violence and fear arousing contents, with only some noted to include discriminatory contents. Thus, in these liberal-democratic societies, human rights movies considered of high value, in most cases are removed from the educational arena.

Xenophobia, Political Society and the Mechanism of the Imitation of Affects

In recent times, in almost all European countries, we have witnessed the rapid spread of growing xenophobic and racist sentiments, antisemitism, discrimination and violence against migrants, black people and Muslims. These sentiments have profound implications for the stability of our liberal democratic societies. Spinoza’s theory of the imitation of affects can help us to understand the ease with which negative feelings spread in even the most civilized and democratic societies. Furthermore, this theory also sheds light on the dangers these negative feelings pose to the stability of the political body.

HIGHER EDUCATION FOR HAREDIM IN ISRAEL

AbstractOver the past two decades a number of Israeli institutions of higher education have opened gender-segregated programs for the ultra-Orthodox, or haredim. The growth of these programs has generated an intense debate in Israel, reflected throughout Israeli media and in several appeals to Israel's Supreme Court. The issues raised concerning gender-segregated higher education reflect an overarching inquiry that is of great interest to multicultural theoreticians: the relationship of liberal democracies to their illiberal minorities. Multicultural theoreticians agree that healthy democracies must tolerate some illiberal practices while acknowledging that not every illiberal practice can be tolerated. In the case at hand, the essay addresses the question: can a liberal democracy tolerate gender-segregated higher education? Using work by Charles Taylor, Michael Walzer, Kwame Anthony Appiah, John Inazu, and others, the essay reviews the arguments for and against gender segregation in higher education for Israeli haredim. The essay explores the limits of toleration of illiberal cultures within liberal democratic societies and finds crucial the right to exit such a culture—a right whose viability is dependent upon adequate education. The essay concludes by discussing the multiculturalism organization development model and what has been termed the manyness and messiness of multiculturalism.

Ordinary life and the tragedy of solidarity

In his texts, Jozef Tischner (1930–2000) referred to significant problems characteristic of the end of the communist regime and the first years of the liberal-democratic system in Poland. He tried to understand, among other things, the sources of Polish society’s disappointment with their regained political and economic freedom. This article discusses the late period of Tischner’s life and work, when his philosophy was heavily influenced by the ideas of Charles Taylor. On the one hand, the author analyzes Tischner’s attitude toward the concept of ordinary life, while on the other, Tischner’s understanding of solidarity combined with the concept of the spirit of capitalism. The article shows numerous similarities and significant differences between the way of thinking of both philosophers. The former concern above all the consentaneous assessment of the disappearance of heroism in liberal-democratic societies, while the latter concern the discrepancies in the assessment of the possibility of fully implementing the idea of solidarity in these societies.