My project examines the justifiability of the State of Israel’s discriminatory treatment of Arab Palestinians and Israelis, which constitutes the ‘Crime of Apartheid’ under international law, in light of the conventional justification that such measures are necessary in order to maintain the freedom and security of Israel’s Jewish population. After outlining the mechanisms of Israeli apartheid, I will demonstrate that, whilst they are unjust from the perspective of both Kantian ethics and Millian liberalism, traditional utilitarianism considers them morally permissible, and thus, as some later liberals, such as John Rawls, recognized, does not provide a suitable foundation for a liberal political philosophy. I will argue that, whilst Israeli apartheid is undoubtedly unjust, and whilst many of the mechanisms of which it is constituted have no conceivable security function, putting an end to all aspects of Israeli apartheid ultimately requires a solution to the larger Arab-Israeli conflict. Finally, I will briefly explain why I consider a two-state solution to be the only viable means of resolving this conflict, and outline two conditions, from Kant’s Perpetual Peace, that could facilitate the actualization of such a solution.
Tag: law
My objective in this essay is to produce a detailed account on the history of Marijuana within the United States and to distinguish whether or not constant law reform is a result of postmodernity and the concentration of power within a society.
Firstly, I will examine Cannabis throughout the history of The United States and by doing this it will allow me to depict how the ebb and flow of acceptance has come about. Then I will address law reform and correlate it with the workings of Postmodernity in order to show how a concentration of power is able to alter the perception and experience of a social phenomenon. Lastly I will underline how the strategic, critical and rhetorical practices performed by those in power creates a clouded perception of reality.
This project aims to explore issues of fairness and proportionality in U.S. law through an examination of the outcome of the HSBC money laundering scandal. Federal investigators found that the bank had been laundering money for years.
U.S. Senator Carl Levin : “Due to poor AML (Anti-Money Laundering) controls, HBUS exposed the United States to Mexican drug money, suspicious traveller’s cheques, bearer share corporations, and rogue jurisdictions.”
Justice?
The bank admitted to having laundered hundreds of millions of dollars for drugs traffickers and having circumvented procedure to permit transactions with sanctioned countries including Syria, Iran and North Korea.
Yet the Department of Justice did not criminally indict the bank for fear of the failure of this key financial institution and potential detriment to the global economy. Instead it was given a $1.9bn fine; the equivalent of four weeks’ earnings for HSBC.
Rawls – A Theory of Justice
Rawls’s Theory of Justice will be used to analyse whether the Department of Justice have upheld their moral duty as a legal institution in deciding to grant the bank amnesty for its crimes on the condition of it paying a fine. His concept of justice as fairness is invaluable in my own assessment that in the light of this case, all citizens are apparently not treated as equals before the law.
Aims
– To outline the key philosophical, social and legal theories which are integral to the debate about the legalisation of drugs.
– To consider some of the most salient and persuasive cases for the legalisation of drugs, including:
o Medicinal cannabis use
o Spiritual or religious drug use
– To make recommendations for changes to the extant legal and social policies with regard to certain types of illegal drug use.
“In our societies, the systems of punishment are to be situated in a certain ‘political economy’ of the body […] it is always the body that is at issue – the body and its forces, their utility and docility, their distribution and their submission.” (Foucault)
The War on Drugs
Key Thinkers
– John Stuart Mill, On Liberty
– Michel Foucault, Discipline and Punish
Philosophy
• Kant’s theory of punishment is based on desert and not about consequences. It insists on retribution. (Kant, Groundwork)
• Utilitarianism appeals to consequences, hence reparation programmes and deterrence. Yet if a severe crime creates greater consequences then it should be carried out regardless of desert. (Mill, Utilitarianism)
Territory
• America demonstrates a penal system of harsh retributive punishment and also harsh utilitarian forms of punishment. (Death penalty, 3 strikes)
• Scandinavia utilitarian in its aims of reparation and prevention
• UK show like America a combination yet is more focussed on probation programmes than America.
Project Aims
– To outline the differences in penal systems in Scandinavia, UK and America
– To demonstrate the effectiveness of various forms of punishment.
– To demonstrate how these countries’ penal systems reflect Kantian retribution and utilitarianism
– To critically compare these approaches
My project is an investigation into responsibility. In modern times more and more people are getting reduced prison sentences due to diminished responsibility. This inspired me to look into the autonomy of the Subject. This investigation charts its way through the history of the subject, starting with the wholly autonomous subject as proposed in John Rawls theory of justice, justice as fairness. This theory relies on respect for others, freedom and equality and most importantly an autonomous self. The first person to challenge this idea concerning the self was Sigmund Freud when he proposes that the mind was in fact split in three parts, the id, ego and the super‐ego, which all have different effects on our actions and choices. With this theory in mind I look into scientific evidence to back up Freud and show how illness such as schizophrenia and narcissistic personality disorder affect the mind and the Subject. Finally I look at the theories of Keith Ansell Pearson in his book Viroid Life in which he questions the autonomy of the Subject altogether. He produces a theory of the cyborg and the hybrid self and proposes that the rapid rise in technology has created a more deterministic reality and halted the autonomy of man.
Why do we seemingly have unjust laws in our society? Alcohol and Tobacco have been proven to be extremely harmful and so why are they not illegal as well as other banned drugs? If it is due to the revenue generated by the sale of these products then surely we are being treated as means to an end, and this is morally wrong. Could Utilitarianism or Paternalism be the key to this answer? Are the laws consistent? No, in fact the laws are hypocritical and must be revised.
Territory: I chose to look at the Government’s recent health policies particularly the July 2007 Smoking ban in public places. This has led me to consider the term “Nanny State” commonly associated with the government today and conceptions of the role of government in general. Concepts: The concepts chose to look at are the role of both the government and individual in a society and fundamentally the concept of liberty in the context of society. Aims: My objective was to evaluate how the role of the government has changed, culminating in recent government plans to introduce a contractual scheme regulating access to the National Health Service. By considering the views of groups such as “Forest” and individuals fighting for the liberties which are seemingly under threat, I was able to evaluate whether the government is justified in its action or whether it is indeed encroaching upon our individual liberties. This led me to look at the contrasting political views of Hobbes and Mill, thereby evaluating different conceptions of the government and its relationship with the individual. With Hobbes I considered his presentation of the social contract and the issues of freedom that ensue with such a strict, systematic view of human nature, such as the risk of totalitarian government and the repression of human rights. To contrast this view, I contemplated Mill’s more liberal attitude to the role of government, which favours individual responsibility, whilst not forgetting the societal problems associated with laissez-faire governments. To conclude I evaluated the role of an ideal government and the effect this has on our perception of our own government, leading me to argue that the government is ultimately a manifestation of the actions of the individual.
Objectives: • To what extent has this notion of rights evolved over time, from the ancient Greeks to the present day? • To what extent do non-human animals possess legal and/or moral rights? • Depending on whether animals do or do not possess legal and/or moral rights I will determine why it is that they do, or do not possess these rights and what has changed. Structure: 1st Chapter: I will trace the notion of ‘Rights’ through the Western Philosophical Tradition from Aristotle to Darwin. I will determine whether or not they believed animals to possess intrinsic value and moral standing; did animals possess rights and if they did not, did they believe that they should. 2nd Chapter: I will look at the 1970’s onwards, what has been referred to as ‘the Greening of Philosophy.’ To what extent has the notion of moral consideration for animals changed? Do animals possess rights, if so, do they possess significantly more rights? 3rd Chapter: I will determine whether animals do, or do not possess legal rights and/or moral rights? Why is it that they do, or do not possess these rights and to what extent has this notion of ‘Rights’ changed? Change: I will look at the 1970’s as the key change as there was an emergence of interest in environmental philosophy and the belief in both moral consideration and moral standing for animals. I will examine to what extent there has been a change in both legal rights and moral rights for animals. Did they and/or do they possess such rights? If there has been a change, Why? Sources: Law Relating to Animals, Brooman and Legge. The Rights of Nature, Nash. Rights, Jones. Animal Rights and Human Obligations, Regan and Singer. Respect for Nature A Theory of Environmental Ethics, Taylor. Animal Rights – a Symposium, Ryder. Environmental Ethics, What Really Matters, What Really Works, Schmidtz and Willot.