IVR2018 Abstracts (Panels)

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Last

Institution

Title of Panel

Description of panel (including the titles and summaries of all presented papers)

P2

AkihikoMoritaSHOKEIGAKUIN
University

Is human rights possible in thecontemporary multiculturalsociety? - Historical andtheoretical exploration

P1

Adina

Preda

University ofLimerick

The nature and status of rights

Respect for human rights is, as Joseph Raz holds, the precondition of democracy which renders legitimacy to the rule of law.
MonikaDoes Hans Kelsen’s Kento Miyata
So, one of the fundamental questions about human rights, democracy and rule of law is whether human rights as the current form
Zalewska
Pure Theory of Law
able to meet the emerging needs in the contemporary multicultural society.
Supports Rule of Law
This panel aims at responding to this question both historically and theoretically, referring to concrete cases.
and Democracy?
The panel starts with Dr. Monika Zalewska who addresses a fundamental question about modern democracy, “Does Hans Kelsen’s
Pure Theory of Law Supports Rule of Law and Democracy?”
Then, we examine the legitimacy of human rights with Mr. Kento Miyata who presents a critical review of the justification of humanrights by Rainer Forst and Akihiko Morita who addresses a theoretical framework for addressing philosophical foundation of humanrights in the contemporary multicultural society
Based on these foundational presentations, we take up contemporary human rights issues with Kozi Asano who argues about aRawlsian Theory of Human and Animal Rights, Akiko Nozaki who talks about the Freedom to have / not to have children in Liberal
Society and Jin-Sook Yun who presents a Study on Same-Sex Marriage -Based on Analysis of the Landmark Decisions in theUnited States.
With a variety of perspectives and cases based on historical and theoretical scrutiny about human rights, the panel is meant toprovide new horizon on the theory of human rights, democracy and rule of law as three pillars of liberal democracy.
In spite of the rich literature on rights, some central questions about them remain unanswered. One obvious question is what exactly Alice Pinheiro Where do rights
Gopal
rights are and how important are they? Rights have corresponding duties although not all duties have corresponding rights; this is an Wallacome from?
Sreenivasan
assumption shared by most rights theorists and all papers in this panel. But do rights ground these duties or the other way around?
Is there more than one duty that corresponds to a right? And what distinguishes a duty that corresponds to a right from one that
does not? Most discussions of rights assume that they have a special normative force and constrain behaviour in certain ways. But it
remains unclear in what way rights are different from other important moral considerations and what their special moral force
consists in. This panel seeks to answer some of these questions.
The first paper, by Alice Pinheiro Walla, aims to clarify a perceived misconception in the contemporary rights discourse: the viewthat rights can be derived from ethical obligations. It argues that rights give rise to corresponding obligations, but that ethicalrequirements do not give rise to corresponding rights. This is not to deny that ethical obligations can be quite stringent and urgent,and that failing to discharge them may constitute a serious moral violation. This stringent feature of ethical obligations may lead us toassume that they must be attached to a corresponding right. The author offers an account of what constitutes a right proper, asopposed to other moral considerations, and argue that rights’ ability to impose a duty on another person or on all other persons iscentral for understanding the notion of a right.
The second paper, by Gopal Sreenivasan, asks an important but neglected question, namely how many duties correlate with agiven claim-right? According to Wesley Hohfeld, the answer is ‘only one.’ The duty that correlates with a given claim-right -- or, atleast, a given claim-right held by a particular right-holder -- is the duty with same content as the claim-right in question. Thus, theduty that correlates with my claim-right ‘not to be killed’ is the duty ‘not to kill (me).’
The aim of this paper is to examine one ground on which to contest Hohfeld’s answer that only one duty correlates with any given
claim-right. According to Henry Shue, three distinct duties correlate with my claim-right (against you) not to be killed. In addition toyour duty ‘not to kill’ me, there is also a ‘duty to protect’ me (against attempts to kill me) and a ‘duty to aid’ me (in case someone
has attempted to kill me). Moreover, you need not be the only person to bear these additional duties. Typically, in Shue’s view,others will bear them too.
An immediate consequence of Shue’s answer is that the distinction between ‘positive’ and ‘negative’ claim-rights becomesproblematic, since any particular right correlates with both negative duties (e.g., not to kill me) and positive duties (e.g., to protectme). A less obvious, but equally valid consequence of Shue’s answer is that the provision of some public goods will be implicated in
the scope of the duties correlative to every claim-right. This follows because (and insofar as) a minimally effective system of law andorder both counts as a public good and is also required to protect me against violations of my rights.
In this paper, Sreenivasan examines what grounds there are, if any, for taking Shue’s side of his dispute with Hohfeld. He argues, inparticular, that these grounds offer no independent basis for affirming the second consequence of Shue’s answer, which reads apublic good into every right.
The third paper, Rowan Cruft's, engages closely with one of the questions that the traditionally rival 'Interest' and 'Will' theories ofPresenter 1

Title of presentation

Presenter 2

Title of presentation

Presenter 3 Title of presentation

Presenter
4

Title of presentation

Kozi
Asano

A Rawlsian Theory of Two more
Human and Animalpresenters;
RightsAkiko Nozaki on
the Freedom tohave / not to havechildren in Liberal
Society and JinSook Yun on aStudy on SameSex Marriage Based on
Analysis of theLandmark
Decisions in theUnited States
Are conflicts of rights
possible?

a critical review of the Akihikojustification of human Morita
rights by Rainer Forsta theoreticalframework foraddressing
philosophicalfoundation of humanrights in thecontemporary
multicultural society

Hohfeld and Shue on Rowan
correlativity: Follow
Cruft
the gourd!

Rights, Demands and Adina
the First and Second Preda
PersonCommentator(s)if any