Biography: Joel Feinberg

2013 ◽  
pp. 81-83
Author(s):  
Richard T. Hull
Keyword(s):  
Joel Feinberg

Rights and Demands

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Margaret Gilbert
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Immanuel Kant ◽  
Moral Argument ◽  
Joint Commitment ◽  
Social Phenomena ◽  
Joel Feinberg ◽  
Joseph Raz ◽  
The Right ◽  
Judith Thomson ◽  
Stephen Darwall

This book is the first extended treatment of demand-rights, a class of rights apt to be considered rights par excellence. Centrally, to have a demand-right is to have the standing or authority to demand a particular action from another person, who has a correlative obligation to the right-holder. How are demand-rights possible? Linking its response to central themes and positions within rights theory, Rights and Demands argues for two main theses. First, joint commitment, in a sense that is explained, is a ground of demand-rights. Second, it may well be their only ground. The first thesis is developed with special reference to agreements and promises, generally understood to ground demand-rights. It argues that both of these phenomena are constituted by joint commitments, and that this is true of many other central social phenomena also. In relation to the second thesis it considers the possibility of demand-rights whose existence can be demonstrated by moral argument without appeal to any joint commitment, and the possibility of accruing demand-rights through the existence of a given legal system or other institution construed without any such appeal. The relevance of the book’s conclusions to our understanding of human rights is then explained. Classic and contemporary rights theorists whose work is discussed include Wesley Hohfeld, H. L. A. Hart, Joel Feinberg, Immanuel Kant, Thomas Scanlon, Judith Thomson, Joseph Raz, and Stephen Darwall.

PLASTIC TREES AND GLADIATORS: LIBERALISM AND AESTHETIC REGULATION

Legal Theory ◽  
2010 ◽  
Vol 16 (2) ◽  
pp. 77-90 ◽  
Author(s):  
Larry Alexander
Keyword(s):  
Harm Principle ◽  
Legal Moralism ◽  
Joel Feinberg ◽  
The Harm Principle

The hallmark of modern liberalism is its embrace of the Millian harm principle and its antipathy to legal moralism. In this article I consider whether aesthetic regulations can be justified under the harm principle as that principle has been elaborated by Joel Feinberg. I conclude that aesthetic and other regulations that most liberals regard as unproblematic are actually instances of legal moralism.

HARM AND THE VOLENTI PRINCIPLE

2011 ◽  
Vol 29 (1) ◽  
pp. 309-321 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gerald Dworkin
Keyword(s):  
Criminal Law ◽  
The State ◽  
The Other ◽  
Legal Moralism ◽  
Great Work ◽  
Joel Feinberg ◽  
Offense Principle ◽  
Moral Limits

AbstractThis is an essay on the limits of the Criminal Law. In particular, it is about what principles, if any, determine whether it is legitimate for the state to criminalize certain conduct. Joel Feinberg in his great work on the moral limits of the criminal law argues that we need only two principles. One is a principle regulating harm to other people and the other is an offense principle regulating certain kinds of offensive conduct. I explore various aspects of his argument. In particular I concentrate on his use of the Volenti Principle: He who consents cannot be wrongfully harmed by conduct to which he has fully consented. Feinberg uses the principle to argue that certain kinds of consensual conduct cannot be forbidden unless we adopt some kind of legal moralism, i.e., conduct can be forbidden on the grounds that it is immoral even though the conduct harms no other person. I explore the possibility of avoiding legal moralism by limiting the use of the Volenti Principle.

Feinberg's Theory of “Preposthumous” Harm

Dialogue ◽  
1986 ◽  
Vol 25 (4) ◽  
pp. 727-734 ◽  
Author(s):  
W. J. Waluchow
Keyword(s):  
The Other ◽  
Strong Tendency ◽  
Recent Book ◽  
Alternative Theory ◽  
Logical Possibility ◽  
Joel Feinberg ◽  
Other Hand ◽  
Harm To Others ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Dead Man

In his recent book, Harm to Others, Joel Feinberg addresses the question whether a person can be harmed after his or her own death, that is, whether posthumous harm is a logical possibility. There is a very strong tendency to suppose that harm to the dead is simply inconceivable. After all, there cannot be harm without a subject to be harmed, but when death occurs it appears to obliterate the subject thus excluding the possibility of harm. On the other hand, there is an inclination to believe that harmful events can indeed occur posthumously. As Aristotle observed, “a dead man is popularly believed to be capable of having both good and ill fortune—honour and dishonour and prosperity and the loss of it among his children and descendants generally—in exactly the same way as if he were alive but unaware or unobservant of what was happening”. Feinberg sides with Aristotle on this issue and develops an intriguing theory purporting to show how posthumous harms are possible. My intention in this paper is to argue that Feinberg's account meets with such serious difficulties that we must either develop an alternative theory or agree with those who claim that death logically excludes the possibility of harm. I shall begin in §2 with a brief sketch of Feinberg's provocative theory. This will be followed in §3 by my comments and criticisms. Section 4 will close with suggestions about where Feinberg's account goes wrong and how it might be repaired.

scholarly journals Paternalismo Jurídico-Penal, Autonomia e Vulnerabilidade: Critérios de Legitimação de Intervenções Paternalistas sobre a Autonomia Individual em Matéria Penal

2015 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 112
Author(s):  
Heráclito Mota Barreto Neto
Keyword(s):  
Joel Feinberg ◽  
Gerald Dworkin

O trabalho que se apresenta tem como objetivo questionar a legitimidade das intervenções paternalistas estatais sobre a autonomia individual por meio de mecanismos penalísticos institucionais. Neste sentido, o trabalho buscará compreender em que casos está o Estado autorizado a exercer ingerência na vida particular dos indivíduos sob a justificativa de promover-lhes um bem ou evitar-lhes um mal e, da mesma forma, em quais hipóteses tal ingerência é abusiva da liberdade individual de autodeterminação. Para tanto, serão estudados os conceitos correntes de paternalismo, a classificação doutrinária das intervenções paternalistas que têm a utilidade de demonstrar espécies admissíveis e inadmissíveis de paternalismo e as doutrinas antipaternalistas de Joel Feinberg e Gerald Dworkin. Em seguida, o tema será analisado em cotejo com a consideração dos bens jurídico-penais envolvidos nos conflitos entre autonomia, vulnerabilidades humanas e paternalismo, especialmente quanto à (in)disponibilidade desses bens. Ao final, pretende-se traçar critérios para a legitimação dos atos paternalistas esculpidos em leis penais que se sobrepõem ao exercício da autonomia individual, tendo-se em mira a harmonização entre os valores constitucionais de respeito à autonomia, proteção de sujeitos vulneráveis e a função do Direito Penal de exclusiva proteção de bens jurídicos.

Selling Oneself into Slavery: Mill and Paternalism

1987 ◽  
Vol 35 (2) ◽  
pp. 211-223 ◽  
Author(s):  
Samuel V. La Selva
Keyword(s):  
Joel Feinberg ◽  
The Individual

‘Voluntarily acceding to slavery’, Joel Feinberg has written, ‘is too much for Mill to stomach’, and so Mill espouses strong paternalism and contradicts his famous principle of individual sovereignty. Mill's critics have found incoherence where none exists, largely because they have failed to take seriously his own claim that the nonenforcement of slavery contracts is required by the principle of liberty. The refusal to enforce such contracts arises not from Mill's espousal of paternalism, but from the paradox of sovereignty. Reconstruction of Mill's solution to this paradox not only dispels the charge that he abandoned the sovereignty of the individual, but also contributes to the reinterpretation of his defence of freedom, as a result of which his entire doctrine of antipaternalism emerges as a coherent and defensible position.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document