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 Love and the Ethical

Lenn E. Goodman

in Love Thy Neighbour As Thyself

This chapter aims to put some flesh on the bones of the biblical commandment Love thy neighbor as thyself. Goodman situates the Mosaic ethics of love and its commands in behalf of existential desert ... More

This chapter aims to put some flesh on the bones of the biblical commandment Love thy neighbor as thyself. Goodman situates the Mosaic ethics of love and its commands in behalf of existential desert and the dignity of personhood. Biblical and rabbinic thinking here and in particular in the work of the philosopher Bahya ibn Paquda stands out vividly alongside the ideas of Hobbes, Hume, Adam Smith, and John Rawls. It is not utility or the sheer positivity of the Law that motivates love of one's neighbor, or anything so abstract as Kantian duty, but the very claim the neighbor makes on us. In this light, the commandment becomes more robust and concrete, its expectations clarified and enlarged.Less

Postmaterialist forces and political triggers

David Erdos

in Delegating Rights Protection: The Rise of Bills of Rights in the Westminster World

This conclusionary chapter explores the implications of the Postmaterialist Trigger Thesis (PTT) of bill of rights institutionalization beyond the four Westminster democracies from whose experience ... More

This conclusionary chapter explores the implications of the Postmaterialist Trigger Thesis (PTT) of bill of rights institutionalization beyond the four Westminster democracies from whose experience it was developed. The first half of the chapter examines the wider direct applicability of the PTT, arguing that it should fit other instances of deliberate bill of rights institutionalization in internally stable, advanced democracies. The genesis of the Israeli Basic Laws on human rights (1992) is explored as an exemplar case. The second part considers the broader relevance of the PTT. It argues that the PTT's focus on the importance of political triggers in stable, advanced democratic settings importantly mirrors the emphasis on political transition within less‐stable settings. Finally, the book explores the postmaterialist conceptions of rights and bills of rights arguing that, in contrast to classic liberalism, these conceptions are not based on a presumption of State non‐interference. In fact, such conceptions have encouraged a reorientation of human rights so as to accommodate and, on occasion, even require State action. At the extreme, and despite their very different long‐term historical origins, postmaterialist bills of rights may become co‐opted into the State‐directed audit and risk management explosion which has become a hallmark of advanced industrialized democracy.Less

The Three Stages of Transition and Dignity

Monika Renz, Mark Kyburz, and John Peck

in Dying: A Transition

Dying as a transition consists of three distinctive stages: pre-transition, transition itself, post-transition. These stages and the particular experiences of dignity in each are explained and ... More

Dying as a transition consists of three distinctive stages: pre-transition, transition itself, post-transition. These stages and the particular experiences of dignity in each are explained and illustrated by case vignettes.Less

Physician-assisted Suicide in Oregon

Guenter Lewy

in Assisted Death in Europe and America: Four Regimes and Their Lessons

Oregon's Death with Dignity Act was a citizen's initiative passed by the voters in November 1994. After surviving a series of legal challenges, the law allowing physician-assisted suicide became ... More

Oregon's Death with Dignity Act was a citizen's initiative passed by the voters in November 1994. After surviving a series of legal challenges, the law allowing physician-assisted suicide became effective on October 27, 1997. Adult residents of Oregon who are terminally ill can make a request to a physician for a lethal medication for the purpose of ending their lives “in a humane and dignified manner.” The physician must determine that the patient has an incurable illness and is competent. The Oregon Department of Human Services collects information regarding compliance with the provisions of the law. This chapter presents demographic data on the 341 patients who have died under the law between 1998 and 2007. Contrary to fears expressed by opponents of the legislation, those who chose assisted death were not the poor or uneducated but the better educated and those with higher incomes. Inadequate pain control was cited only by about one third of those who made use of the law. Instead of concern about good end-of-life care, the fear of losing control and dignity was one of the primary reasons for choosing assisted death. As a result of rapid expansion of palliative care, by 2007 a full 88% of those who chose assisted death were being cared for by a hospice. Despite some remaining problems such as the difficulty of recognizing psychiatric disorders, experience with the law has on the whole been positive and safeguards against abuse appear to be working.Less

Sport and Successful Aging

Jay Schulkin

in Sport: A Biological, Philosophical, and Cultural Perspective

What is clear is the richness of biology, culture, and deep relationships; sport reveals what makes us human in our biological evolution and in its modification and expansion into cultural evolution. ... More

What is clear is the richness of biology, culture, and deep relationships; sport reveals what makes us human in our biological evolution and in its modification and expansion into cultural evolution. An evolutionary perspective is one route to understanding sport; blended with our biology, culture fuels our capabilities. The evolution of the brain and other organ systems were vital steps in how we became able to do sport and how other hominoids did not. And research has now entered the arena of genetics and epigenetics in understanding sports capability.Less

Making sense of human dignity

Deryck Beyleveld

in From reason to practice in bioethics: An anthology dedicated to the works of John Harris

Discussions of human dignity have burgeoned in bioethics. John Harris, amongst others, has been highly critical of the vague, and often unreasoned appeals that this involves. Whilst agreeing with ... More

Discussions of human dignity have burgeoned in bioethics. John Harris, amongst others, has been highly critical of the vague, and often unreasoned appeals that this involves. Whilst agreeing with much of his stance, it is argued that the concept of human dignity is not merely important but essential for bioethics. Various ways in which dignity has been appealed to in order to constrain autonomous action for self-harm or action that effects only non-autonomous beings (“dignity as constraint”) are criticised, some of which appeal to Kant’s idea of human dignity. However, as applied to non-autonomous beings, this is a misuse of Kant, and anyway Kant’s use of the idea manifests a tension between using dignity as a constraint on autonomy and seeing it as reflecting the fundamental value of autonomy. A conception of “dignity as empowerment” founded on the moral philosophy of Alan Gewirth is outlined and defended.Less

Human dignity and the classification of welfare states

Chak Kwan and Graham Bowpitt

in Human dignity and welfare systems

This chapter considers the two issues that have emerged from studying the dignity of unemployed persons in Sweden, China, the UK, and Hong Kong. The first issue is the application of human dignity to ... More

This chapter considers the two issues that have emerged from studying the dignity of unemployed persons in Sweden, China, the UK, and Hong Kong. The first issue is the application of human dignity to the classification of welfare systems. The second issue is the impact of the welfare-to-work strategies on human dignity. The chapter also introduces the Dignity Suppressive State, the Human Instrumental State, the Social-deficit State, the Autonomy-limited State, and the Dignity Enhancement State.Less

Dignity, Choice, and Circumstances

Denise Réaume

in Understanding Human Dignity

Dignity is at least in part about choice, choices about the character and direction of one’s life. However, many do not enjoy autonomy-fostering circumstances and yet must still make choices. Such ... More

Dignity is at least in part about choice, choices about the character and direction of one’s life. However, many do not enjoy autonomy-fostering circumstances and yet must still make choices. Such choices and the circumstances shaping them are often the context of social and economic rights contests in a wide array of concrete legal contexts. All too often, state actors, including judges, take the easy way out in resolving such contests—ratifying the choices made by desperate people as though they were autonomous and free. In doing so, they sometimes claim to be respecting the dignity of those whose choices they validate. This chapter offers a critique of simple invocations of choice in the name of dignity and argues for the need for a more complex understanding of the autonomy dimension of human dignity.Less

Dignity and Sanctity

Scott Cutler Shershow

in Deconstructing Dignity: A Critique of the Right-to-Die Debate

This chapter considers the semantic structure of two abstractions, dignity and sanctity, both individually and in terms of their relation and potential opposition. In the contemporary debate about a ... More

This chapter considers the semantic structure of two abstractions, dignity and sanctity, both individually and in terms of their relation and potential opposition. In the contemporary debate about a right to die, one side claims to uphold an ideal of “death with dignity,” the other an ideal of “the sanctity of life.” Yet it proves to be impossible either to distinguish rigorously between dignity and sanctity or to force them into simple identity. Dignity appears in contemporary parlance to convey a triangle of meanings that are related but potentially distinct: worth or value, status or rank, and bearing or comportment. The idea of “the sanctity of life” similarly contains inherent contradictions and inconsistencies, not least because such a concept remains obviously at the command of a sovereign “right to death.” Partisans on both sides of the debate about a right to die are thus constantly forced to reclaim and redefine one or the other (or both) of these principles.Less

6 The Pioneering PAD States: Oregon and Washington

Howard Ball

in At Liberty to Die: The Battle for Death with Dignity in America

This chapter examines the factors that accounted for successful efforts to legitimatize physician-assisted death (PAD) in Oregon and Washington State. In 1994 and in 1997, Oregon passed the nation's ... More

This chapter examines the factors that accounted for successful efforts to legitimatize physician-assisted death (PAD) in Oregon and Washington State. In 1994 and in 1997, Oregon passed the nation's first end-of-life PAD legislation, the Oregon Death with Dignity Act (ODWDA). In 2008, the Washington Death with Dignity Act (WDWDA) was enacted. This chapter considers the hardball politics that surrounded passage of both PAD bills and why opposition to PAD did not prevail. It first provides an overview of ODWDA and the legal challenges it faced between 1995 and 2005, including those from President George W. Bush and the Republicans in Congress. It then turns to WDWDA and the Montana Supreme Court's decision in Baxter v Wyoming (2009) allowing doctor assistance in dying. Less

The Pioneering PAD States: Oregon and Washington

Howard Ball

in At Liberty to Die: The Battle for Death with Dignity in America

This chapter examines the factors that accounted for successful efforts to legitimatize physician-assisted death (PAD) in Oregon and Washington State. In 1994 and in 1997, Oregon passed the nation's ... More

This chapter examines the factors that accounted for successful efforts to legitimatize physician-assisted death (PAD) in Oregon and Washington State. In 1994 and in 1997, Oregon passed the nation's first end-of-life PAD legislation, the Oregon Death with Dignity Act (ODWDA). In 2008, the Washington Death with Dignity Act (WDWDA) was enacted. This chapter considers the hardball politics that surrounded passage of both PAD bills and why opposition to PAD did not prevail. It first provides an overview of ODWDA and the legal challenges it faced between 1995 and 2005, including those from President George W. Bush and the Republicans in Congress. It then turns to WDWDA and the Montana Supreme Court's decision in Baxter v Wyoming (2009) allowing doctor assistance in dying.Less

Psychotherapeutic Treatment of Psychiatric Disorders

Jocelyn Soffer and Mary Ann Cohen

in Handbook of AIDS Psychiatry

Persons living with HIV and AIDS face a complex array of stresses and challenges, as discussed throughout this book, which may overwhelm psychological functioning. ... More

Persons living with HIV and AIDS face a complex array of stresses and challenges, as discussed throughout this book, which may overwhelm psychological functioning. This leads to considerable distress and suffering (Cohen et al., 2002), manifests in a multitude of psychiatric symptoms, and increases nonadherence to risk reduction and medical care. The aim of psychotherapeutic care for persons with HIV is to mitigate such distress through a combination of psychosocial interventions. Goals of such therapies may include enhancing adaptive coping strategies, facilitating adjustment to living with HIV, increasing social supports, and improving a patient’s sense of purpose, self-esteem, and overall well-being. Goals may also include improving adherence to risk reduction and medical care, as well as preventing HIV transmission. Psychological distress in persons with HIV infection is associated with decreased quality of life, disease progression, and mortality (Leserman, 2008). Considering the biopsychosocial model, emotional distress in HIV can be viewed as resulting from a combination of medical, psychological, and social factors related to the illness (see Table 8.1). In some studies, improved social support and active coping styles in response to illness and stress have correlated with improved immunological parameters. Studies have also linked depressed mood and stressful life events to worsened immunological status, including decreased CD4 cell counts. Nonetheless, randomized controlled data demonstrating the ability of behavioral and social interventions to improve immune status remain conflicted; further evidence-based research is needed. While improving immunological status is a potential benefit of psychosocial treatment for people with HIV infection, it is relieving the suffering inherent to psychiatric illness and improving patients’ quality of life that remain the primary goals. A variety of psychosocial interventions are available to persons with HIV, from individual to group-based formats. Such treatments span a spectrum of psychotherapeutic approaches, including supportive, psychodynamic, interpersonal, and cognitive-behavioral. This chapter will consider the benefits of such psychosocial interventions by summarizing the current state of research and findings for each of these treatment approaches, addressing both individual and group settings. Less

The State and the Ongoing Struggle Over Coca in Bolivia: Legitimacy, Hegemony, and the Exercise of Power

Harry Sanabria

in Dangerous Harvest: Drug Plants and the Transformation of Indigenous Landscapes

Dangerous Harvest, the title of this volume, is an especially appropriate metaphor with which to begin to discuss and understand the ongoing, protracted, ... More

Dangerous Harvest, the title of this volume, is an especially appropriate metaphor with which to begin to discuss and understand the ongoing, protracted, and increasingly violent struggle over coca in Bolivia—the third most-important coca leaf–producing country in the world (BINM 1998: 65). Such a metaphor—which suggests the reaping of a product that is potentially precarious, menacing, ominous, and even deadly—points to the fact not only that coca is an inherently conflict-ridden arena or social space but also that the most enduring and significant upshot of the current drive against coca, what is being “harvested” by recent counternarcotics efforts, is the potential for long-term structural instability and conflict in Bolivian society. In this chapter I pay special attention to this struggle over coca in Bolivia, particularly from the late 1980s to the early part of 2000. I will argue that the contest over coca in Bolivia reflects and embodies numerous and inherently conflictive claims and counterclaims (social, political, economic, and ideological) by different segments of Bolivian society, many of which entail fundamental questions about legitimacy, hegemony, and challenges to the exercise of power by elites and state elites. That is, to view the coca conflict as essentially one between “evil” or “criminal” coca growers and traffickers, on the one hand, and enlightened, law-abiding authorities and citizens, on the other—precisely the criminal justice perspective that ideologically informs, guides, and justifies current anticoca policy by U.S. and U.S.-funded counternarcotics agencies and programs—is not only not enlightening but also fundamentally counterproductive in that it fails to provide the necessary insights with which to grapple with and arrive at a just solution to some of the most important roots of the current coca strife in Bolivia. I will also try to understand and explain the seemingly successful coca eradication efforts in the late 1990s and first half of the year 2000, as well as how and why resistance to these efforts by coca cultivators in the Chapare appear to have been particularly ineffective in recent years. Less

Introduction to the Israeli Legal System

Eran Liss and Dan Adin

in Intellectual Property Law and Practice in Israel

This chapter introduces the reader to the basic features of Israel's legal system, with particular emphasis on those aspects that influence the country's intellectual property laws. It considers ... More

This chapter introduces the reader to the basic features of Israel's legal system, with particular emphasis on those aspects that influence the country's intellectual property laws. It considers Israeli case law interpretation and codification based on principles taken from a wide range of sources, including traditional Jewish laws (“Hallacha”), international law, U.S. laws, and business and ethical customs. It also cites Israel's “Basic Laws,” which include the Freedom of Profession Basic Law and the Human Dignity and Freedom Basic Law. Finally, it takes note of Israeli contracts law and the interpretation of contracts.Less

Democracy, Charter 08, and China's Long Struggle for Dignity

Man Yee Karen Lee

in Liu Xiaobo, Charter 08 and the Challenges of Political Reform in China

This chapter considers Charter 08 as a manifestation of China's long fight for dignity by generations of dissidents. Indeed, despite the different views between Wei Jingsheng and Liu Xiaobo on ... More

This chapter considers Charter 08 as a manifestation of China's long fight for dignity by generations of dissidents. Indeed, despite the different views between Wei Jingsheng and Liu Xiaobo on Charter 08, they are both part of a common intellectual history and political movement. Speaking one's mind against the government when called for and fighting for a political system that one believes in is, in essence, what a self-respecting person would do in keeping his or her dignity. After all, only human beings are capable of transcending basic animal instincts for the pursuit of higher values. It is that pursuit of higher values that has been motivating dissidents and activists in a hostile environment.Less

The Way Forward: The Socio-political Race Approach

Tanya Katerí Hernández

in Multiracials and Civil Rights: Mixed-Race Stories of Discrimination

This chapter will first summarize how the book’s review of multiracial discrimination cases reveals the enduring power of white privilege and the continued societal problem with non-whiteness in any ... More

This chapter will first summarize how the book’s review of multiracial discrimination cases reveals the enduring power of white privilege and the continued societal problem with non-whiteness in any form. Specifically, the cases illustrate the perspective that non-whiteness taints rather than the concern that racial mixture itself is worrisome. Yet this insight is lost in the midst of the multiracial-identity scholars’ singular focus on promoting mixed-race identity. Multiracial victims of discrimination will be better served by legal analyses that seek to elucidate the continued operation of white supremacy. Such a focus will also better serve all Equality Law and public policies. But this can only be done by shifting away from a focus on personal individual identity recognition to a focus on group based racial realities. The chapter concludes with a proposal for an explicit “socio-political race” lens for analyzing matters of discrimination rather than the Personal Identity Equality perspective that misapprehends the social significance of race in the assessment of equality problems. The book’s emphasis on a socio-political race perspective meaningfully preserves an individual’s ability to assert a varied personal identity, while providing a more effective tool for addressing racism and pursuing equality.Less

Dignity and Equality in Pufendorf’s Natural Law Theory

Simone Zurbuchen

in Philosophy, Rights and Natural Law: Essays in Honour of Knud Haakonssen

The chapter explores the ambiguity of the notion of dignity in Pufendorf’s natural law theory. On the one hand, dignity (dignatio) denotes the moral status of human beings in virtue of which they ... More

The chapter explores the ambiguity of the notion of dignity in Pufendorf’s natural law theory. On the one hand, dignity (dignatio) denotes the moral status of human beings in virtue of which they have to treat each other as equals. On the other hand, Pufendorf holds dignity and natural equality to be compatible with social inequality, notably with servitude and slavery. Moreover, when he deals with the comparative value and reputation (existimatio) of human beings, he admits that their moral status is conditioned by their readiness to behave as social beings. Human beings can thus lose their basic moral standing and are then considered as common enemies of all.Less

The Racial Achievement Gap

Derrick Darby and John L. Rury

in The Color of Mind: Why the Origins of the Achievement Gap Matter for Justice

This chapter documents racial achievement gap trends, and reviews the important yet limited contributions that social scientists have made to our understanding of the racial achievement gap.