Impartiality In Context

In this book, Shane O'Neill argues that the theory of justice must take seriously two dimensions of pluralism in the modern world. While it must acknowledge the plurality of individual conceptions of the good that is characteristic of every modern society, it must also reckon with the plurality of historically unique, culturally specific, political societies. O'Neill offers a distinctive perspective on an extremely significant current debate about universalism and particularism in political philosophy. Justice, he maintains, must be understood both in terms of an impartial point of view that respects differing conceptions of the good and in relation to the particular contexts in which disputes about norms and principles arise. Liberals, most notably John Rawls, have tended to privilege the former aspect of justice, while communitarians, especially Michael Walzer, have stressed the latter. O'Neill shows how Habermas's discourse ethics can overcome the limitations of these alternatives by providing theoretical tools that allow us to ground impartiality in particular contexts. This position is developed through an exploration of the complementary roles of moral and ethical discourses and an application of the theory to the political conflict in Northern Ireland. This careful and detailed philosophical argument offers a valuable critical introduction to a range of important topics, including the communitarian critique of liberalism, feminist perspectives on justice, the interpretive turn in political philosophy, the theory of communicative action, the dynamics of a discursive democracy, and the politics of recognition.

Assesses critically the work of Rawls, Walzer, and Habermas and presents a theory of justice that responds to two senses of pluralism.

This volume exposes the contested history of a virtue so central to modern disciplines and public discourse that it can seem universal. The essays gathered here, however, demonstrate the emergence of impartiality. From the early seventeenth century, the new epithet ‘impartial’ appears prominently in a wide range of publications. Contributors trace impartiality in various fields: from news publications and polemical pamphlets to moral philosophy and historical dictionaries, from poetry and drama to natural history, in a broad European context and against the backdrop of religious and civil conflicts. Cumulatively, the volume suggests that the emergence of impartiality is implicated in the period’s epochal shifts in epistemology and science, religious and political discourse, print culture, and scholarship. Contributors include: Jörg Jochen Berns, Tamás Demeter, Derek Dunne, Anne Eusterschulte, Christine Gerrard, Rainer Godel, N.J.S. Hardy, Rhodri Lewis, Hanns-Peter Neumann, Joad Raymond, Bernd Roling, Bastian Ronge, Richard Scholar, Nathaniel Stogdill, Anita Traninger, and Anja Zimmermann.

Omer Shapira proposes and justifies a theory of mediators' ethics which guides mediators' conduct and applies to mediators at large.

How much are we morally required to do to help people who are much worse off than us? On any credible moral outlook, other people's pressing need for assistance can ground moral requirements on us to help them—-requirements of beneficence. How far do those requirements extend? One way to think about this is by means of a simple analogy: an analogy between joining in efforts to help people at a distance and rescuing a needy person yourself, directly. Part I of Garrett Cullity's book examines this analogy. In some ways, the analogy is not only simple, but politically and metaphysically simplistic. However, it contains an important truth: we are morally required to help other people, indirectly as well as directly. But the number of needy people in the world is enormous, and their need is very great. Once we start to recognize requirements to help them, when is it morally acceptable to stop? Cullity answers this question in Part II. Examining the nature of beneficence, he argues that its requirements only make sense on the assumption that many of the interests we share in common-rich and poor alike-are interests it is not wrong to pursue.

A distinguished and experienced appellate court judge, Richard A. Posner offers in this new book a unique and, to orthodox legal thinkers, a startling perspective on how judges and justices decide cases. When conventional legal materials enable judges to ascertain the true facts of a case and apply clear pre-existing legal rules to them, Posner argues, they do so straightforwardly; that is the domain of legalist reasoning. However, in non-routine cases, the conventional materials run out and judges are on their own, navigating uncharted seas with equipment consisting of experience, emotions, and often unconscious beliefs. In doing so, they take on a legislative role, though one that is confined by internal and external constraints, such as professional ethics, opinions of respected colleagues, and limitations imposed by other branches of government on freewheeling judicial discretion. Occasional legislators, judges are motivated by political considerations in a broad and sometimes a narrow sense of that term. In that open area, most American judges are legal pragmatists. Legal pragmatism is forward-looking and policy-based. It focuses on the consequences of a decision in both the short and the long term, rather than on its antecedent logic. Legal pragmatism so understood is really just a form of ordinary practical reasoning, rather than some special kind of legal reasoning. Supreme Court justices are uniquely free from the constraints on ordinary judges and uniquely tempted to engage in legislative forms of adjudication. More than any other court, the Supreme Court is best understood as a political court.

Contents: Arend Soeteman: Introduction - Edmund Abegg: Justice and the Intrinsic Value of Humans - Caridad Velarde: Universalism in Contemporary Human Rights Theory - Marijan Pavcnik: Gleichheit als rechtlicher Kern der Gerechtigkeit, Gerechtigkeitsma�st�be und Recht - Jos� Rubio-Carracedo: Differentiated Universalization of Human Rights - Ashok Gaur: Human Rights: Dimensions and Challenges - Martin Borowski: Religious Freedom as a Fundamental Legal Right, A Rawlsian Perspective - J�rg Paul Mueller: Is freedom of conscience still a topic? - Burton M. Leiser: The Right to Immigrate and the Right to Exclude Immigrants - J.W. Harris: Rights and Resources - Libertarians and the Right to Life - Hans-Rudolf Horn: The Scope of Human and Social Rights in the Global Economic System - Isabel Trujillo P�rez: Partiality and Distributive Justice - Haig Khatchadourian: Merit as a Canon of Distributive Justice - Francesco Biondo: Conception of the person and currency of distributive justice in Van Parijs and Sen - Carlos Kohn Wacher: Hannah Arendt's Concept of Solidarity as a Criticism to Liberalism - Mikko Wennberg: Contract Law as a Response to Contract Failures: When Contracting Fails? - Hendrik Kaptein: Just Criminal Lawyers? Professional ethics and problems of punitive justice: restorative perspectives - Joan McGregor: The Law's Treatment of Rape as Expressing the Inequality of Women - David A. Reidy: The Justification of Hate Crimes Laws: The Argument from Group-Based Oppression - Alexandra George: The Problem of Property in Human Body Parts - Laura Palazzani: Person and Human Being in Bioethics and Biolaw - Jan Swanepoel: The Equality Jurisprudence Developed by South Africa's Constitutional Court since 1994 - Nikolas Roos: Fundamental Rights, European Identity and Law as a Way to Survive.

The legitimacy of investor-State arbitration is a much-debated topic, with arbitrators’ independence and impartiality being one of the core concerns. In The Independence and Impartiality of ICSID Arbitrators, Maria Nicole Cleis explores how unbiased decision-making is ensured under the ICSID Convention. Juxtaposing existing disqualification decisions in the ICSID system against corresponding requirements in related dispute settlement systems, the book convincingly argues that the current approach to disqualification requests against ICSID arbitrators is too exacting in light of the high stakes of investor-State disputes. The author’s nuanced analysis of the status quo is followed by novel suggestions for reforms (including a proposal for ICSID-specific guidelines on conflict of interest), making the book a valuable source of ideas on constructive paths forward.