This volume brings together a wide-ranging collection of the papers written by Jeremy Waldron, one of the most internationally respected political theorists writing today. The main focus of the collection is on substantive issues in modern political philosophy. The first six chapters deal with freedom, toleration and neutrality and argue for a robust conception of liberty. Waldron defends the idea that people have a right to act in ways others disapprove of, and that the state should be neutral (...) vis-á-vis religious and ethical systems. The chapters that follow are concerned with socio-economic rights. Waldron argues that poverty and homelessness are not to be understood apart from the value of freedom. On the contrary our moral response to them should be based on the same values that underlie traditional liberal philosophy. (shrink)

Do property entitlements define the moral environment in which rights to well-being are defined, or do rights to well-being define the moral environment in which property entitlements are defined? Robert Nozick argued for the former alternative and he denied that any serious attempt had been made to state the latter alternative (what he called “the ‘reverse’ theory”). I actually think John Locke's approach to property can be seen as an instance of the “reverse” theory. And Nozick's can too, inasmuch as (...) it shares a number of features with the Lockean approach. But my paper is not intended as a criticism of Nozick; on the contrary, it acknowledges the integrity and the importance of his insistence that welfare, property, and justice be integrated into a single theory with clearly established priorities. (shrink)

Can the right to private property be claimed as one of the `rights of mankind'? This is the central question of this comprehensive and critical examination of the subject of private property. Jeremy Waldron contrasts two types of arguments about rights: those based on historical entitlement, and those based on the importance of property to freedom. He provides a detailed discussion of the theories of property found in Locke's Second Treatise and Hegel's Philosophy of Right to illustrate this contrast. (...) The book contains original analyses of the concept of ownership, the ideas of rights, and the relation between property and equality. The author's overriding determination throughout is to follow through the arguments and values used to justify private ownership. He finds that the traditional arguments about property yield some surprisingly radical conclusions. (shrink)

In _Nonsense upon Stilts¸_ first published in 1987, Waldron includes and discusses extracts from three classic critiques of the idea of natural rights embodied in the 1789 Declaration of the Rights of Man and the Citizen. Each text is prefaced by an historical introduction and an analysis of its main themes. The collection as a whole in introduced with an essay tracing the philosophical background to the three critiques as well as the eighteenth-century idea of natural rights which they (...) attacked. But the point of reproducing these works is not merely historical. Modern attacks on ‘rights-based’ political philosophy mirror the concerns of Bentham, Burke and Marx. Jeremy Waldron has therefore added an extensive concluding essay which relates these classic texts to the modern discussion of rights and re-examines the idea of rights in the light of contemporary critiques. This text provides an invaluable teaching tool for courses in politics and philosophy. (shrink)

Jeremy Waldron argues that Michael Walzer's theory of justice mischaracterizes money's influence on social meanings. Waldron argues that the correct conception of money reveals that Walzer is mistaken in categorizing various social goods primarily in terms of their exchangeability or non‐exchangeability for money. Waldron offers an alternative explanation of why some monetary transactions are wrong. He argues that meanings of goods should be questioned and re‐examined.

Sexual violence experienced by women during interstate and internal conflict has long escaped legal regulation. This article explores tile extent of that lacuna by analyzing and reflecting upon experiences of sexual violation during the Holocaust. While it is inappropriate to describe the Holocaust experience as a facet of war per se, its horrors did occur in the context of war and thus ex post facto legal accountability for the perpetration of those dreadful events fall under the legal rubric of international (...) humanitarian law. The article explores the extent to which humanitarian law has limited definitional capacity to address the unique ways in which violence is directed towards and experienced by women. The article also demonstrates that sexual harms combine direct sexual harm to women with broader objectives of eliminating the cultural, social, and physical integrity of the community to which the women belong. The article claims that both victims and perpetrators of sexual harms understand the compounded function of sexual violence, but that international law fails to name or adequately sanction either aspect sexual harms. The article goes on to assert that in establishing dual conceptions of harm, there may be multiple bearers of rights when questions of remedy arise. Traditional notions of individualized entitlement to rights are inadequate to fully account for the communities of harm resulting from gendered violence that takes place in the context of war. (shrink)

In the fall of 1984 my wife, Georgia, and I, moved to Paterson and founded Holistic Ministries International. Our purpose was twofold: to develop a set of ministries that would manifest, in word and deed, the good news of the Kingdom of God; and to develop a context in which prospective missionaries, from Paterson and elsewhere, might receive training relevant to 21st century mission. How this has worked out is the subject of this article.

Proponents of the rule of law argue about whether that ideal should be conceived formalistically or in terms of substantive values. Formalistically, the rule of law is associated with principles like generality, clarity, prospectivity, consistency, etc. Substantively, it is associated with market values, with constitutional rights, and with freedom and human dignity. In this paper, I argue for a third layer of complexity: the procedural aspect of the rule of law; the aspects of rule-of-law requirements that have to do with (...) "natural Justice" or "procedural due process." These I believe have been neglected in the jurisprudential literature devoted specifically to the idea of the rule of law and they deserve much greater emphasis. Moreover procedural values go beyond elementary principles like the guarantee of an unbiased tribunal or the opportunity to present and confront evidence. They include the right to argue in a court about what the law is and what its bearing should be on one's situation. The provision that law makes for argument is necessarily unsettling, and so this emphasis on the procedural aspect highlights the point predictability should not be regarded as the be-all and end-all of the rule of law. (shrink)

This is a concise and profound book from one of the world's leading political and legal philosophers about a major theme, equality, and the proposition that humans are all one another's equals. Jeremy Waldron explores the implications of this fundamental tenet for law, politics, society and economy in the company of John Locke, whose work Waldron regards 'as well-worked-out a theory of basic equality as we have in the canon of political philosophy'. Throughout the text, which is based (...) on the Carlyle Lectures given in Oxford in 1999, Jeremy Waldron discusses contemporary approaches to equality and rival interpretations of Locke, and this dual agenda gives the whole an unusual degree of accessibility and intellectual excitement, of interest to philosophers, political theorists, lawyers and theologians around the world. (shrink)

0n a lucid, concise volume, Jeremy Waldron defends the role of legislation, presenting it as an important mode of governance. Aristotle, Locke and Kant emerge as proponents of the dignity of legislation. Waldron's arguments are of obvious importance and topicality, especially in countries that are considering the introduction of a Bill of Rights. The Dignity of Legislation is original in conception, trenchantly argued and very clearly presented, and will be of interest to a wide range of scholars and (...) thinkers. (shrink)

Author Jeremy Waldron has thoroughly revised thirteen of his most recent essays in order to offer a comprehensive critique of the idea of the judicial review of legislation. He argues that a belief in rights is not the same as a commitment to a Bill of Rights. This book presents legislation by a representative assembly as a form of law making which is especially apt for a society whose members disagree with one another about fundamental issues of principle.

This volume collects Jeremy Waldron's challenging and influential work on the moral, political and legal issues surrounding the response to terrorism since 9/11. The volume will be essential reading for all those engaged with contemporary politics and security law, and the continuing struggle for an ethical response to terrorism.

ABSTRACT Welfare states are often urged to secure a social minimum for citizens—a level of material well‐being beneath which no‐one should be permitted to fall. This paper examines the justification for such a claim. It begins by criticising John Rawls's rejection of the social minimum approach to justice in A Theory of Justice: the argument Rawls uses to justify the Difference Principle, based on what he calls ‘the strains of commitment’ in the ‘original position’, actually provides a better justification for (...) a social minimum principle. The paper then examines the substance of that argument outside the context of Rawls's contractarianism, showing that there is a general case for seeing to it that desperate need does not go unmet in a liberal society. (shrink)

An enduring theme of Western philosophy is that we are all one another’s equals. Yet the principle of basic equality is woefully under-explored in modern moral and political philosophy. What does it mean to say we are all one another’s equals? Jeremy Waldron confronts this question fully and unflinchingly in a major new multifaceted account.

Jeremy Waldron’s essay centres around Martha Nussbaum’s ideas on cosmopolitan education: Nussbaum argues that we should make ‘world citizenship, rather than democratic or national citizenship, the focus for civic education’. The essay provides just a few examples to illustrate the concrete particularity of the world community for which we are urged by Nussbaum to take responsibility, with the aim of refuting the view of those who condemn cosmopolitanism as an abstraction. The arguments for and against Nussbaum’s idea are presented, (...) and one of the opposing views highlighted: that cosmopolitan moral education is not just an education in moral ideas; it is an education in the particular ways in which people have inhabited the world. The different sections of the chapter look at how a society becomes multicultural, the infrastructure of cultural interaction, the identification of citizenship, the language of citizenship, and its concrete reality and its cosmopolitan dimensions. (shrink)

When property rights and environmental legislation clash, what side should the Rule of Law weigh in on? It is from this point that Jeremy Waldron explores the Rule of Law both from an historical perspective - considering the property theory of John Locke - and from the perspective of modern legal controversies. This critical and direct account of the relation between the Rule of Law and the protection of private property criticizes the view - associated with the 'World Bank (...) model' of investor expectations - that a society which fails to protect property rights against legislative restriction is failing to support the Rule of Law. In this book, developed from the 2011 Hamlyn Lectures, Waldron rejects the idea that the Rule of Law privileges property rights over other forms of law and argues instead that the Rule of Law should endorse and applaud the use of legislation to achieve valid social objectives. (shrink)

That individuals have rights and that these rights mark important limits on what may be done to them by the state, or in the name of other moral conceptions – this is now a familiar position in modern political philosophy.

This volume collects two lectures by Jeremy Waldron that were originally given as Berkeley Tanner Lectures along with responses to the lectures from Wai Chee Dimock, Don Herzog, and Michael Rosen; a reply to the responses by Waldron; and an introduction by Meir Dan-Cohen.

In earlier articles, the author developed what is known as the "Supersession Thesis," asserting that historic injustice may be overtaken by changes in circumstances so that a situation that was unjust when it was brought about may coincide with what justice requires at a later time. The Supersession Thesis was developed initially as a tool for considering historic injustice suffered by indigenous peoples in the European settlement of countries like Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and the United States. In this paper, (...) the author explores the application of the Supersession Thesis to issues about the Palestinian right of return and also to Israeli settlements in the Occupied Territories. The paper argues that, while it is not unthinkable that the Supersession Thesis might eventually legitimize the settlements and undermine the Palestinian right of return, there is no guarantee that this will happen. The application of the Supersession Thesis does not depend on the passage of time, but on changes in circumstances that a theory of justice makes relevant. Many of the circumstances that make the Supersession Thesis relevant to the post-colonial situations described do not apply in the Israeli situation. Nevertheless, it is worth considering the possibility of applying the Supersession Thesis in this case, because it enables us to assess the merits of the Thesis more sharply in relation to injustice that is taking place now, as opposed to injustice that took place in the nineteenth century. (shrink)

This latest addition to the Oxford Readings in Philosophy series covers a topic which is one of the focal points of much of the current work in moral and politicaltheory.

Lindquist et al. assess the neural evidence for locationist versus psychological construction accounts of human emotion. A wealth of experimental and clinical investigations show that individual differences in emotion and personality influence emotion processing. These factors may also influence the brain's response to emotional stimuli. A synthesis of the relevant neuroimaging data must therefore take these factors into consideration.