Matthew Henry Kramer

A number of philosophers in recent years have maintained that H. L. A. Hart inThe Concept of Lawpropounded an expressivist account of the semantics of the legal statements that are uttered from the internal viewpoint of the people who run the institutions of legal governance in any jurisdiction. Although the primary aim of this article is to attack the attribution of that semantic doctrine to Hart, the article will begin with some metaphysical matters—the matters of reductionism and naturalism—that often lie behind the development of expressivist approaches to the semantics of normative discourse. After briefly exploring those metaphysical concerns (to which I will return later), the article will begin its main discussion by rehearsing the distinction between the semantics and the pragmatics of utterances. It will then delineate the doctrine of expressivism which the aforementioned philosophers have in mind when they ascribe that doctrine to Hart. Although I will make reference to a few such philosophers, I will focus chiefly on an article by Kevin Toh that has been the fountainhead of all the subsequent attributions of expressivism to Hart. As will be argued herein, Toh and like‐minded philosophers have gone astray in imputing to Hart a semantic version of expressivism. Notwithstanding that Hart’s theory of law can aptly be characterized as expressivist, that characterization is appropriate only when expressivism is understood as an account of the pragmatics of legal statements rather than as an account of their semantics.

In my recent book Liberalism with Excellence, I have expounded at length a conception of warranted self-respect. That conception, which draws heavily though far from uncritically on the scattered passages about self-respect in the writings of John Rawls, is central to my defense of a variety of liberalism that combines and transfigures certain aspects of Rawlsianism and perfectionism. However, it is also central to the positions taken in some earlier books of mine on capital punishment and torture. Although my understanding of warranted self-respect was presented far more briefly or obliquely in each of those earlier books than in Liberalism with Excellence, it in fact underlies both my limited defense of the death penalty and my absolutist insistence that the use of interrogational torture is never morally permissible. The present paper will recount the gist of my conception of warranted self-respect and will then explain how that conception figures pivotally in my ruminations on the diverse matters of political morality that have been mentioned here.

During the past several decades, political philosophers have frequently clashed with one another over the question whether governments are morally required to remain neutral among reasonable conceptions of excellence and human flourishing. Whereas the numerous followers of John Rawls have maintained that a requirement of neutrality is indeed incumbent on every system of governance, other philosophers -- often designated as 'perfectionists' -- have argued against the existence of such a requirement. Liberalism with Excellence enters these debates not by plighting itself unequivocally to one side or the other, but instead by reconceiving each of the sides and thus by redirecting the debates that have occurred between them. On the one hand, the book rejects the requirement of neutrality by contending that certain subsidies for the promotion of excellence in sundry areas of human endeavour can be proper and vital uses of resources by governments. Advocating such departures from the constraint of neutrality, the book presents a version of liberalism that can rightly be classified as 'perfectionist'. On the other hand, the species of perfectionism espoused in Liberalism with Excellence diverges markedly from the theories that have usually been so classified. Indeed, much of the book assails various aspects of those theories. What is more, the aspirational perfectionism elaborated in the closing chapters of the volume is reconcilable in most key respects with a suitably amplified version of Rawlsianism. Hence, by reconceiving both the perfectionist side and the neutralist side of the prevailing disputation, Liberalism with Excellence combines and transforms their respective insights.

RÉSUMÉ: Les philosophes, au cours des cinquante dernières années, se sont efforcés de démontrer qu’un professeur peut, d’une manière cohérente et exacte, annoncer à ses étudiants qu’un examen surprise aura lieu lors d’une journée non spécifiée d’une période donnée, le problème étant qu’une telle annonce peut sembler s’annuler ellemême lorsqu’elle est soumise à une induction régressive. Deux grandes approches, l’une épistémique et l’autre logique, one été développées à ce propos. Le présent article adopte une approche logique, mais repose aussi d’une manière cruciale sur une compréhension épistémique du problème, pour essayer de montrer que l’annonce du professeur peut effectivement être cohérente et exacte.

During the past few decades, Quentin Skinner has been one of the most prominent critics of the ideas about negative liberty that have developed out of the writings of Isaiah Berlin. Among Skinner's principal charges against the contemporary doctrine of negative liberty is the claim that the proponents of that doctrine have overlooked the putative fact that people can be made unfree to refrain from undertaking particular actions. In connection with this matter, Skinner contrasts the present-day theories with the prototypical liberal account of negative freedom propounded by Thomas Hobbes. The present essay challenges Skinner's position both philosophically and exegetically. Because an agent can always elect to cease his activity as an agent, the ostensible inescapability of certain actions is not the same as the outright inescapability of certain instances of inaction. Once this point is properly recognized, the way is clear for a re-evaluation of Hobbes (and of Skinner on Hobbes).

All or virtually all moral philosophers agree that moral properties supervene on natural properties; that is, two actions or situations cannot differ in their moral properties unless there are differences in their natural properties that account for the moral difference between them. Virtually all moral philosophers also believe that supervenience is a conceptual or logical feature of moral discourse and judgments. While accepting that supervenience is a fundamental feature of morality, this essay contends that it is a basic substantive moral constraint rather than a purely conceptual or logical feature

This article explores some implications of the counterfactual aspect of freedom and unfreedom. Because actions can be unprevented even if they are not undertaken, and conversely because actions can be prevented even if they are not attempted and are thus not overtly thwarted, any adequate account of negative liberty must ponder numerous counterfactual chains of events. Each person's freedom or unfreedom is affected not only by what others in fact do, but also by what they are disposed to do. Their dispositions play a key role in determining whether the abilities and inabilities of each person would continue as such if the person's conduct or situation were altered in various respects. Until one knows whether people would or would not have acted in certain ways if a given person had sought to do something, one cannot know whether that person was free to do that thing. Nor can one know whether the person was free to perform that action in combination with manifold subsequent actions. Thus, whether tacit or explicit, counterfactual scenarios are indispensable for any enquiry into a person's liberty. By relying on such scenarios, which trace how people are disposed to act vis-a-vis one another, one takes account of the central role of unmanifested dispositions in setting the bounds of people's sociopolitical freedom. Among the principal theorists whose work is critically examined in this article are Hillel Steiner, Ian Carter, and G.A. Cohen. Key Words: freedom • liberty • unfreedom • negative liberty • counterfactuals • disposition

During the past few decades, Michael Moore has written incisively on an array of matters concerning the relationships between law and morality. While reflecting on those relationships, he has plumbed the nature of morality itself in impressive depth. Among the topics which he has addressed, the problem of torture has been prominent and controversial. It is a problem, moreover, that has led to some of his most searching enquiries into the character of moral obligations. In the present essay I take issue not only with many of Moore's conclusions about torture, but also with some of his more far‐reaching claims about the domain of morality

In an array of writings stretching over the better part of two decades, Quentin Skinner has repeatedly challenged the modern conception of negative liberty developed by Isaiah Berlin and many other theorists. He has sought to draw attention to some once vibrant but now largely peripheral traditions of thought—especially the civic‐republican or neo‐Roman tradition—in order to highlight what he sees as the limitedness and inadequacies of the currently dominant ways of thinking about freedom. The present essay will endeavor to defend one important aspect of the modern understanding of negative liberty against Skinner's strictures, and will challenge Skinner's reading of Thomas Hobbes.

Inclusive Legal Positivism, as understood throughout this article, consists in the following thesis: It can be the case, though it need not be the case, that a norm’s consistency with some or all of the requirements of morality is a precondition for the norm’s status as a law in this or that jurisdiction. While such a precondition for legal validity is not inherent in the concept of law, it can be imposed as a threshold test under the Rule of Recognition in any particular legal regime. That test, which can be applied by the officials in such a regime to all of the legal norms therein or to only some subset of those norms, is one of the criteria that the officials use for ascertaining the law. Insofar as a criterion of that sort does prevail in any particular legal system, then, some degree of moral worthiness is a necessary condition for the legally authoritative force of each norm that is validated thereunder. Inclusive Legal Positivism, which readily accepts the possibility of such a state of affairs, is inclusive because it allows that moral precepts can figure among the criteria that guide officials’ ascertainment of the law. Inclusivist theorists reject the view that every criterion of law-ascertainment in every possible legal system is focused on nonnormative matters of provenance. At the same time, the Inclusivists are positivists because they also reject the view that every possible legal system includes moral tests among its law-ascertaining criteria. An Inclusive Legal Positivist insists that such tests are contingent features, rather than essential features, of the systems of law wherein they are applied.

In Legality Scott Shapiro seeks to provide the motivation for the development of his own elaborate account of law by undertaking a critique of H.L.A. Hart's jurisprudential theory. Hart maintained that every legal system is underlain by a rule of recognition through which officials of the system identify the norms that belong to the system as laws. Shapiro argues that Hart's remarks on the rule of recognition are confused and that his model of lawis consequently untenable. Shapiro contends that a new approach is vital for progress in the philosophy of law and, with his lengthy presentation of his own Planning Theory of Law, he aspires to pioneer just such an approach. Except for a very terse observation in the final main section, this article does not directly assess the strengths and shortcomings of Shapiro's piquant planning theory. Instead, I defend Hart against Shapiro's charges and thereby undermine the motivation for the development of the planning theory

John Locke's labor theory of property is one of the seminal ideas of political philosophy and served to establish its author's reputation as one of the leading social and political thinkers of all time. Through it Locke addressed many of his most pressing concerns, and earned a reputation as an outstanding spokesman for political individualism - a reputation that lingers widely despite some partial challenges that have been raised in recent years. In this major new study Matthew Kramer offers an extensive critique of the labor theory and investigates the consequences of its downfall. With incisive analyses of the merits and failings of many aspects of Locke's political thought, Kramer advances a powerful challenge to Locke's image as an individualist. Employing a rigorously philosophical methodology, but remaining aware of the insights generated by historical approaches to Locke, Kramer concludes that Locke's political vision was in fact profoundly communitarian.

This essay maintains that the question in its title is really three sets of questions: a conceptual inquiry, a moral/political inquiry, and an empirical inquiry. After devoting some attention to the relevant conceptual issues, the essay ponders in detail the moral/political issues. It suggests some answers to the germane moral/political questions, and it takes pains to distinguish those questions from other lines of inquiry with which they might be confused. Although only animals and dead people are mentioned in the title, the essay also considers whether infants, comatose people, lunatics, future generations, groups, trees, and natural phenomena such as rivers should be classified as potential holders of legal rights