Judged by the Law of Freedom explores a paradox central to orthodox Christianity—the assertion that human beings are responsible for their own salvation yet inescapably dependent upon God for their deliverance. Christianity's attempt to maintain both these truths simultaneously has been a focal point of serious and recurrent tension throughout the Church's two thousand year history. Judged by the Law of Freedom proposes a resolution for this paradox founded upon the metaphysical apparatus offered by St. Thomas Aquinas.

While there has been a resurgence of interest in Kant's moral philosophy, most philosophic discussion centers about the Grunlegung and the Kritik der praktischen Vernunft. Consequently there has been a great deal of sterility concerning discussions of the application of the categorical imperative. In her careful commentary, Gregor has attempted to show us the role of Metaphysik der Sitten in Kant's moral philosophy as well as to illuminate Kant's discussion of perfect and imperfect duties. The study helps to correct the (...) lopsided image of Kant's moral philosophy as excessively formalistic and legalistic and shows us the importance of a teleological perspective for understanding the import of the categorical imperative.—R. J. B. (shrink)

This chapter develops a theory of categorical normativity, of those principles that have authority over us regardless of our ends and interests. It argues that there is an intimate connection between these norms and the conditions of agency. In this respect, it offers a version of constitutivism. But the version of constitutivism defended is unique in a few respects. First, it is naturalistic: agency is an emergent property, like the properties of biology and economics. Second, it is social: agency is (...) something constructed by the complex interaction of agents. And third, it supports the normativity of a particular contractualist procedure: adhering to Kant’s Formula of the Realm of Ends is a condition on agency, and so a categorical requirement. (shrink)

This paper is the expository and evaluative introduction to my new edition of Emerson's Society and Solitude, Twelve Chapters.

The April 1991 Law of Ukraine "On Freedom of Conscience and Religious Organizations" fell on the hard part, which its creators did not guess, to be the regulator of relations in the religious sphere during the period of radical socio-political, economic and spiritual changes in the Ukrainian society, the permanent religious- church differentiation of churches and religious organizations, separation of previously almost unipolar composition of hierarchs, clergy, believers according to the criteria of national orientation, canonicality.

‘The one who peers into the perfect law of freedom and perseveres, and is not a hearer who forgets but a doer who acts, such a one shall be blessed in what he does’ (James 1:25). Freedom, in one sense of the word or another, is a central theme of the bible, the Old Testament as well as the New. During the Middle Ages, Christian theologians developed this theme into a doctrine of the natural right of freedom (...) of the individual or natural person and made it into a moral and intellectual bulwark against the encroachments of the modern state. The classical liberal or libertarian tradition in Western political thought, from John Locke to the American Founding Fathers to Friedrich Hayek and Murray Rothbard, owes an immense debt to the likes of Thomas Aquinas, Jean Gerson, Francisco de Vitoria, Juan de Mariana and Batholomé de las Casas. Not coincidentally Christianity and classical liberalism together went into rapid decline towards the end of the nineteenth century and especially in the globalisation of European wars in the twentieth century. At that time, mass democracy and national expediency became the pretexts of choice to subvert constitutional limitations on the use of political power. The decline was not halted —was perhaps even accelerated—when Christians and liberals alike began to adopt ‘social doctrines’ and the advocacy of social policies that only confirmed the impression that there is no salvation outside the state. However, I do not intend to describe the historical linkages between classical liberalism and Christianity. Instead I shall try to explicate their relevant common concept of personal freedom and trace its role in some of the central stories of the bible, those that purport to be direct reports of the actions and words of God or Jesus Christ. I am not concerned here with the stories about the Jews or with the reports of what prophets and apostles said about the meaning and relevance of the divine words and actions. Important as they are for understanding the Jewish and the Christian traditions, they already are historical expressions and applications of religious beliefs rather than expositions of the story to which those beliefs refer.. (shrink)

Although the need of freedom is definite, the concept of individual freedom, while being interpreted with legal terms, causes not only theoretical, but also practical problems. The observed two extremes of freedom are defined as any human self-expression as well as the license, where the state power is generally attributed to disregard personal freedom. In this article the freedom of expression and state enforcement jurisdiction dichotomy are addressed by discussing positive and negative conceptions of (...) class='Hi'>freedom and the relationship between the interpretations of political liberalism and Kant and Hegel‘s philosophies. This paper aims to prove that the positive liberty is the assumption of the negative liberty. The paper based on Hegel‘s philosophy shows that freedom is the characteristic of human nature to seek identity. It is also argued that human identity can take many forms and, therefore, a person has a number of inherent rights and liberties. It is human psycho-physical identity that provides the right to life and health care; human creative identity, providing the right to privacy and freedom of occupation; human moral identity, which provides the right of dignity, and the moral autonomy of person’s social and political identity, providing the political and social rights and freedoms. This article concludes that while a person uses the given rights with integrity and the state is limiting people’s arbitrariness, there is no conflict between the freedom and state violation. (shrink)

Laws, Mind, and Free Will is a highly valuable book for anyone interested in philosophy of science, philosophy of mind, or in the problem of free will and moral responsibility. The book has three distinct but related parts. The first presents an anti-empiricist position on the laws of nature, according to which the point of the laws is not primarily to predict kinematic outcomes, but rather to characterize dynamics. One upshot of the account is that the (...) class='Hi'>laws have an attenuated role in determining and prediction of actual motion, and this has an important consequence for the relevance of the laws to the prospects for libertarian free will. This consequence is developed in detail in the second part of the book. A further feature of the account is that proposed laws and the theories in which they are embedded are models in a sense that reflects our interests and involves idealization. In Horst’s view, this is true for theories and laws across the sciences—from physics to psychology. The l .. (shrink)

In this essay I argue that Down by Law (Jarmusch, 1986) is about how the encounter with otherness renews freedom and American identity. I first develop the idea of renewal through otherness by way of a discussion of Levinas' philosophy of freedom and Arendt's notion natality, contrasting it with the idea of negative liberty, which I explicate through a discussion of Hobbes, Locke, Hegel, and Tocqueville. Next, I show how negative liberty is engrained in the idea of America (...) through a discussion of the formative American motifs of the road and the prison, which play structuring roles in Down by Law . I then try to show how the immigrant character of Bob (Roberto Benigni) is an other who liberates the American characters of Jack (John Lurie) and Zack (Tom Waits), who are existentially 'imprisoned' by their negative liberty. (shrink)

This article examines the regulation of religious policy and state-confessional relations in Kazakhstan. Religion is an integral part of the spiritual life in secular Kazakhstan, and religious values are embedded within the value paradigm of Kazakhstani identity. In this context, there is a need to model secularism based on the rule of law, human rights, and personal freedoms. The purpose of this article is to conceptualize "Kazakhstani secularism" and "Kazakhstani religiosity," identifying their differences and the universality of their value meanings. (...) this study employed a mixed methodology using both qualitative and quantitative strategies to examine the regulation of religion within Kazakhstan's secular framework, aiming to uncover underlying principles, assess current practices, and suggest improvements that align with international standards. The concept of secularism in Kazakhstan has evolved due to historical chronotopes, challenges of modernity, and ideological discourses, yet the legal provision of religious freedoms remains a constant principle. The authors argue that it is necessary to enhance the policy of interconfessional and state-confessional relations, transitioning to a policy of dialogue aimed at consolidating Kazakhstani society, alleviating social tensions, and fostering unity. (shrink)

Fihteova teorija drzave, koja cini integralni deo njegove prakticke filozofije, izgradjena je na kljucnim postavkama njegove metafizike. Stoga, osvetljavanje ovog problema u Fihteovoj poznoj filozofiji treba da podseti s jedne strane na jedan reprezentativan metafizicki projekat drzave velike spekulativne snage, a s druge strane na jedan nacin misljenja o drzavi koji se danas smatra anahronim, nenaucnim, prevazidjenim, te stoga vrednim da bude pominjan kao "negativan primer". Iako pomenute kvalifikacije ne treba sasvim odbaciti ili ih pak, unapred dovesti u pitanje, ipak (...) vracanje Fihteovoj poznoj metafizici drzave ne moze ni u nasem vremenu biti filozofski neproduktivno. Ono danas moze biti od sustinske pomoci svakome ko jos nije pregazen pohodom scjentisticke politologije, svakome ciji je saznajni interes jos uvek dovoljno otvoren za izrazito filozofsko razmatranje drzave, svakome ko zeli da filozofski obogati ili izostri pogled na drzavu. Iako je Fihteova teorija drzave jedinstvena i koherentna, ona je, narocito u svojoj poslednjoj fazi dozivela znacajan preobrazaj. Taj preobrazaj je bio toliko vidljiv da se drzava i u terminoloskom smislu pomera u pozadinu. U Fihteovoj poznoj filozofiji kljucna rec nije vise drzava, vec "carstvo slobode". O drzavi se sada govori, takoreci, intencionalno, svagda s pogledom na to carstvo, na mogucnost i izglede njegovog uspostavljanja. Bez obzira sto je ovaj terminoloski i saznajni primat carstva slobode potisnuo drzavu u drugi plan, on joj, ipak, nije porekao svaki znacaj. Naprotiv. Na putu ka carstvu slobode drzava za Fihtea predstavlja vaznu tacku razvoja preko koje se mora proci. Bas u toj njenoj prolaznosti lezi njena nezaobilaznost. (shrink)

The article analyses Egyptian jurisprudence on the issue of apostasy, with a focus on conversion from Islam to Christianity. It argues that the Egyptian judiciary has failed to develop a harmonious relationship between Islamic law and the principle of freedom of religion. It looks at how the majority of cases examined before the Egyptian judiciary reveal a continued tension between freedom of religion as defined in international human rights law and its judges’ interpretation of Islamic law as a (...) constitutive element of public order. Recently, the Supreme Administrative Court tried to break through traditional barriers regarding the right of converts of Christian origin to record their re-affiliation to Christianity in their documents of identification, and pragmatically justified this precedent in light of the requirements of modern states, whereby identity cards should reflect the correct information of each citizen. Yet it argues that the court was not conscious of freedom of religion as a fundamental individual right, and moreover, that this precedent has not been followed with respect to converts of Islamic origin. Finally, the paper argues that, for a sustainable solution to the legal tensions concerning apostasy in Egyptian courts, a new perspective is required on the relationship between Islamic law and religious freedom whereby the universal understanding of freedom of religion can be legitimized from within Islamic legal traditions. The article also proposes a set of constitutional and legal measures to enhance freedom of religion in Egypt. (shrink)

This article defends the classical liberal view of human interactions that gives strong protection to associational freedom except in cases that involve the use of force or fraud or the exercise of monopoly power. That conception is at war with the modern antidiscrimination or human rights laws that operate in competitive markets in such vital areas as employment and housing, with respect to matters of race, sex, age, and increasingly, disability. The article further argues that using the “human (...) rights” label to boost the moral case for antidiscrimination laws gets matters exactly backwards, given that any program of forced association on one side of a status relationship (employer, not employee; landlord, not tenant) is inconsistent with any universal norm governing all individuals regardless of role in all associative arrangements. The articled also discusses the tensions that arise under current Supreme Court law, which protects associational freedom arising out of expressive activities (as in cases involving the NAACP or the Boy Scouts), but refuses to extend that protection to other forms of association, such as those involving persons with disabilities. The great vice of all these arrangements is that they cannot guarantee the stability of mandated win/lose relationships. The article further argues that a strong social consensus against discrimination is insufficient reason to coerce dissenters, given that holders of the dominant position can run their operations as they see fit even if others do otherwise. It closes with a short model human rights statute drafted in the classical liberal tradition that avoids the awkward line drawing and balancing that give rise to modern bureaucracies to enforce modern antidiscrimination laws. (shrink)

Abstract: Laws of computer science are prescriptive in nature but can have descriptive analogs in the physical sciences. Here, we describe a law of conservation of information in network programming, and various laws of computational motion (invariants) for programming in general, along with their pedagogical utility. Invariants specify constraints on objects in abstract computational worlds, so we describe language and data abstraction employed by software developers and compare them to Floridi's concept of levels of abstraction. We also consider (...) Floridi's structural account of reality and its fit for describing abstract computational worlds. Being abstract, such worlds are products of programmers' creative imaginations, so any "laws" in these worlds are easily broken. The worlds of computational objects need laws in the form of self-prescribed invariants, but the suspension of these laws might be creative acts. Bending the rules of abstract reality facilitates algorithm design, as we demonstrate through the example of search trees. (shrink)

What is the relationship between fear, danger, and the law? Cass Sunstein attacks the increasingly influential Precautionary Principle - the idea that regulators should take steps to protect against potential harms, even if causal chains are uncertain and even if we do not know that harms are likely to come to fruition. Focusing on such problems as global warming, terrorism, DDT, and genetic engineering, Professor Sunstein argues that the Precautionary Principle is incoherent. Risks exist on all sides of social situations, (...) and precautionary steps create dangers of their own. Diverse cultures focus on very different risks, often because social influences and peer pressures accentuate some fears and reduce others. Instead of adopting the Precautionary Principle, Professor Sunstein argues for three steps: a narrow Anti-Catastrophe Principle, designed for the most serious risks; close attention to costs and benefits; and an approach called 'libertarian paternalism', designed to respect freedom of choice while also moving people in directions that will make their lives go better. He also shows how free societies can protect liberty amidst fears about terrorism and national security. Laws of Fear represents a major statement from one of the most influential political and legal theorists writing today. (shrink)

The two standard interpretations of Kant’s view of the relationship between external freedom and public law make one of the terms a means for the production of the other: either public law is justified as a means to external freedom, or external freedom is justified as a means for producing a system of public law. This article defends an alternative, constitutive interpretation: public law is justified because it is partly constitutive of external freedom. The constitutive view (...) requires conceiving of external freedom in a novel, second-personal way, that is, as an irreducibly relational norm. (shrink)

The aim of this research was to analyse Chinese legal terminology related to limits of freedom of contract in juxtaposition with other European and Asian legal systems. The study was limited to state, law and publicity. The purpose of the comparison was to add a broader perspective to the research on Chinese legal terminology. The research material included civil codes and contract laws of selected European and Asian countries. Among the European codes the great ones were obviously included (...) – French, Austrian and German, as well as those of less importance, but still relevant in Europe, such as Italian, Spanish codes or Swiss Law of Obligation, and also codes of Slavic and simultaneously post-socialist countries, like Poland, Czech Republic and Russia. In the case of Asia, the codes of China, Japan, South Korea and Vietnam were analysed. The question asked was whether the terminology used in Chinese law is unique or repeated and if so, how common it is in comparison with other legal systems. The research methods included the parametric approach to legal terminology comparison and techniques of legal construction (interpretation). (shrink)

There is an old but powerful argument for the claim that exhaustive divine foreknowledge is incompatible with the freedom to do otherwise. A crucial ingredient in this argument is the principle of the “Fixity of the Past”. A seemingly new response to this argument has emerged, the so-called “dependence response,” which involves, among other things, abandoning FP for an alternative principle, the principle of the “Fixity of the Independent”. This paper presents three arguments for the claim that FI ought (...) to be preferred to FP. (shrink)

The Principle of the Fixity of the Past (FP) holds that the past is ‘fixed’ in evaluating what we are free to do, and it is frequently invoked by incompatibilists when arguing that freedom and determinism are incompatible. However, several authors have argued that incompatibilists ought to abandon FP for a different principle, sometimes called the Principle of the Fixity of the Independent (FI). According to this principle, it is not the past in its entirety that is fixed, but (...) only those parts of the past that are independent of our current choices. But a question remains: What about authors who are not friendly to incompatibilism in the first place? Is there any reason to think that compatibilists should also abandon their preferred interpretation of FP for something along the lines of FI? I examine perhaps the most influential version of (classical or leeway) compatibilism, David Lewis's ‘local-miracle compatibilism’. I argue that although Lewis's version of local-miracle compatibilism avoids being committed to anything like FI, his version faces a number of objections. Once we revise Lewis's version to avoid these objections, we arrive at a version of local-miracle compatibilism that is committed to FI, or at least something very close. (shrink)

This article argues that the freedom of voluntary action can be grounded in the contingency of the laws of nature. That is, the possibility of doing otherwise is equivalent to the possibility of the laws being otherwise. This equivalence can be understood in terms of an agent drawing a boundary between self and not-self in the domains of both matter and laws, defining the extent of the body and of voluntary behaviour. In particular, the article proposes (...) that we can think of `will' as naming the component of the laws of nature delimited by this boundary. (shrink)

The law of desire has been proposed in several forms, but its essential claim is that agents always act on their strongest proximal action motivation. This law has threatening consequences for human freedom, insofar as it greatly limits agents’ ability to do otherwise given their motivational state. It has proven difficult to formulate a version that escapes counterexamples and some categorically deny its truth. Noticeable by its absence in the literature is any attempt to provide an argument for the (...) law of desire – I propose such an argument here. It is noted that Sripada's “divided mind” theory of willpower provides a counterexample to the version of the law of desire my argument defends, but I note that a reformulated version of the law of desire survives this critique. I conclude that there is a serious case for the law of desire, and note the broader implications of this. (shrink)