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Michael Zeleny
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Look up supererogation, sunshine. Between that and Aquinas' "lex injusta non est lex" and "virtutem obligandi non habet", there is no end of room to distinguish between moral and legal obligations.
Your Moral Obligation Is Your Legal Obligation
I came across a very curious article on the Fox News website the other day. It was about a Texas father who now stands accused of murdering a drunk driver who ran over and killed his two sons. Prosecutors say the father went into a fit of rage and shot the driver in the head immediately after th...
Whether or not I had lent you any money makes no difference to the illegality of my appropriation of found money that belongs to you, pursuant to the law of trover. In this scenario it would help me to think of myself as one of many possible creditors that that have a legitimate claim to your money. Hence the institution of bankruptcy courts that mediate our recovery in an orderly lawful fashion. The fact that my right to your repayment nowise translates to my entitlement to a full compensation, implies a conceptual incongruity between moral rights and legal remedies.
Retributive Ethics
Begin with the principle: It is impermissible to harm others (other things being equal). I intend 'harm' in a very broad sense. Certainly you harm someone if you physically injure them , but also if, without injuring them, you prevent them from doing something they would have preferred to d...
Terry, although I believe that there are duties in the state of nature, the scope of correlative natural rights is nowhere near as extensive as that of the privileges and immunities available in human relations under a social contract. For example, it makes sense to speak of fundamental natural rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, but the right to a speedy trial by jury makes sense only in the social context that sustains the relevant peer-to-peer relationships and judicial institutions. Even in a setting of this sort, it is well established and clearly understood at common law, that necessity abrogates due process in the case of self-defense against aggression that the victim did not bring about through recklessness or negligence. Incidentally, Kant endorses an unqualified right of self-defense (ius inculpatae tutelae) that applies in domestic and foreign relations in equal measure, to the point of approving of warfare against a menacing increase in another state’s power, e.g. by its acquisition of territory, q.v. Die Metaphysik der Sitten 235 and 346.
Self Defense
If we have any rights, we surely have the right to self-defense. And yet self-defense has proven very puzzling to Rights theorists. To see why, take a simple case: VILLAINOUS AGGRESSOR There are two agents, AGGRESSOR and VICTIM: AGGRESSOR resents VICTIM for his sauve good looks and skill on the...
Thanks for reading. See the ongoing collection here: http://larvatus.livejournal.com/tag/p210. Email me at zeleny@post.harvard.edu to receive periodic updates.
Very comprehensive Article on the SIG P210
Looking for information on the SIG P210 pistol? Read Michael Zeleny's article first. The P210 has become my favorite semi-automatic pistol recently. The more I shoot it the more I appreciate the SIG. (Together with my Swiss Parabellum 1900/06 I should say, but that one has become a bit of a safe...
Rights are relational properties that only make sense within a society, as your Hohfeldian approach implies. Thus contractarian constructivism yields a predicate for self-defense, that aggression against oneself that the victim did not bring about through recklessness or negligence, temporarily reverts the parties to the confrontation to the state of nature. Your puzzles then resolve as a matter of determining the scope of bringing about.
Self Defense
If we have any rights, we surely have the right to self-defense. And yet self-defense has proven very puzzling to Rights theorists. To see why, take a simple case: VILLAINOUS AGGRESSOR There are two agents, AGGRESSOR and VICTIM: AGGRESSOR resents VICTIM for his sauve good looks and skill on the...
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Mar 24, 2011
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