Thomas Gutmann

Der interdisziplinar angelegte Band analysiert sowohl in theoretischer Absicht als auch an konkreten Beispielen aus verschiedenen historischen Epochen die Struktur von Normkrisen und normativen Transformationsprozessen (insbesondere auf dem religiosen und dem politischen Feld). Warum zerbrechen normative Gewissheiten und wie gelingt es Akteuren, neue `letzte Wahrheiten', Grundwerte und Paradigmata normativer Diskurse zu etablieren und sich dabei selbst als Norminstanzen zu legitimieren? Welcher Zusammenhang besteht zwischen normativer Kritik und Krise? Wann und wie andern, verschieben oder stabilisieren sich Rechtfertigungsnarrative und welche Dynamik resultiert hieraus? Wie entstehen in der Dialektik von Kontinuitat und Diskontinuitat neue Losungen? Wie sehen die Prozesse aus, in denen dies geschieht? Gibt es idealtypische Strukturen der Verflussigung und Verfestigung von Normen und normativen Diskursen, und was ist der geeignete theoretische Zugriff auf solche Prozesse? Mit Beitragen von:Martin Bunte, Johannes Friederich, Doris Fuchs, Christel Gartner, Thomas Gutmann, Oliver Hidalgo, Matthias Hoesch, Nils Jansen, Hermut Lohr, Walter Mesch, Thomas Meyer, Amir Mohseni, Joachim Renn und Ulrich Willems.

_English summary:_ The conviction that the general validity of moral and legal norms could be proved independently from their historical origin or cultural genesis is as widespread as it is contested in moral-philosophical and legal debates. In light of these discussions, this volume undertakes constructive reconciliation attempts. The contributions trace how moral and legal norms are formed in the course of historical experiences and cultural learning processes and question how far the reference to specific experience of injustice delivers a methodological contribution to the creation of general norms._ German description:_ Die Uberzeugung, dass die allgemeine "Geltung" moralischer und rechtlicher Normen unabhangig von deren historischer Entstehung oder kulturellen "Genese" erwiesen werden konne, ist in moralphilosophischen und rechtswissenschaftlichen Debatten so verbreitet wie umstritten. Angesichts dieser Diskussion werden in diesem Band konstruktive Vermittlungsversuche unternommen. Die Beitrage gehen der Frage nach, wie in historischen Erfahrungsprozessen und kulturellen Lerngeschichten konkrete Normen entstehen, die fur Gegenwart und Zukunft durchaus allgemeine Geltung besitzen konnen. Inwiefern also liefert der Verweis auf spezifische Unrechtserfahrungen einen methodischen Beitrag zur Begrundung universeller Normen? Mit Beitragen von: Myriam Bienenstock, Micha Brumlik, Wolfgang van den Daele, Stefan Gosepath, Thomas Gutmann, Rahel Jaeggi, Bernhard Jakl, Hans Joas, Sebastian Laukotter, Gertrud Nummer-Winkler, Arnd Pollmann, Peter Schaber, Lothar Schilling, Ludwig Siep, Rolf Zimmermann.

Der vorliegende Band hat sich zum Ziel gesetzt, die Formen der Erzeugung von Normativität und ihre Funktionen in Recht und Literatur zu vergleichen. Freilich hat nur einer dieser beiden Bereiche, das Recht, das Normative zum eigentlichen Gegenstand. Das Recht ist eine normative Ordnung und Praxis, seine Reflexionsform, die Rechtswissenschaft, ist eine normenverwaltende und -erzeugende Wissenschaft. Deshalb bietet es sich an, den Gegenstand ‚Normativität‘ vom Recht und der Praktischen Philosophie her zu konstruieren und von hier aus Fragen an die Literatur und die Literaturwissenschaft zu richten. So lässt sich ein systematisches Forschungsprogramm skizzieren, das der Eigenlogik des Normativen in der Literatur nachgeht.

Die Normativität des Rechts wird niemand bestreiten - inwiefern das Literatursystem normativ ist, ist dagegen offen, obgleich die Poetik,Gesetze' kennt, die Gattungstheorie normativ argumentiert und die Literaturkritik nach bestimmten Kriterien urteilt. Dieser Band vergleicht Normativitäten von Recht und Literatur, fragt nach Spiegelungen, Gemeinsamkeiten und Unterschieden. Neben systematischen Differenzierungen im Feld normativer Begriffe werden Quellen von Normativität sowie Formen von Autorisierung diskutiert und nicht zuletzt die Möglichkeiten der Durchsetzung von Normen sowie Ressourcen, die Einzelne der Kraft der Normierung entgegenzusetzen vermögen.

This chapter demonstrates that counter-arguments against such a right from analytic legal theory, among them Steiner’s, do not succeed. Although there are no rights on the part of post-mortem persons, a right to bequeath can be explained by and built around posthumous interests of the testator that might be adversely affected after his or her demise. This perspective, however, would have to be based upon an interest theory of rights. For proponents of a will theory of rights such as Steiner, the Hohfeldian approach offers a different and more adequate way to reconstruct a right to bequeath, not as a claim-right, but as a legal power to create a persisting legal relation. The existence and validity of such a legal relation is independent of whether the person who created it can still be ascribed or is able to express any subjective interest in it or any direction of will. If this legal relation is not honoured, if the legal duties created and defined by it are not fulfilled, the testator’s right to bequeath is infringed upon. As there are no limits to the right to bequeath based on conceptions of individual rights or the technicalities of legal theory, the chapter will point to more promising paths for a normative critique of the right to bequeath.

In every Western democracy today, inheritances have a very profound influence on people’s lives. This motivates renewed scholarship on inheritance law by philosophy and the legal sciences. The present volume aims to contribute to some ongoing areas of inquiry while also filling some gaps in research. It is organized in a highly interdisciplinary way. In the thirteen chapters of the book, written by outstanding philosophers and legal scholars, the following questions, among others, are discussed: What is the nature of the right to bequeath? What are the social functions of bequest and inheritance? What arguments concerning justice have philosophers and legal scholars advanced in favour or against practices of bequest and inheritance? How should we think about taxing the wealth transfers that occur in bequest and inheritance? In discussing these questions, the authors break new ground and offer much needed insight into several related domains, such as the philosophy of law; legal theory; general and applied ethics; social and political philosophy; theories of justice; and the history of legal, political, and economic thought. This book will be of great interest to scholars in these areas as well as policy-makers.

Especially during the last three decades, there has been a fine-grained debate on the notion of personal autonomy. This article will suggest taking one important distinction within this debate more seriously: the differentiation between “personal autonomy” designating a family of ideal, gradual, and hence at least moderately perfectionist conceptions about what an autonomous person is and what is called “autonomy as right”. These are not different dimensions of one concept, but independent concepts with disparate, even conflicting normative functions and should be kept clearly separate from each other. Treating these two concepts merely as different aspects of one and the same notion of personal autonomy, as done by most authors, is severely misleading. For clarity, we will ultimately need different words for divergent concepts. It will be suggested that “autonomy as right” should no longer be called “autonomy”, but forthrightly the “right to self-determination” or, in accordance with Thomas Hobbes, “authority”.

Die Wissenschaftsfreiheit garantiert die Freiheit individueller Forschung und Lehre und die Institution der freien Wissenschaft. Nicht alles, was der deutsche Professor tut und sagt und nicht alles, was sich unter dem Dach einer deutschen Universität ereignet, fällt in ihren Schutzbereich. Zum scientific ethos, der sozialen Rollenerwartung an Wissenschaftler/innen, gehört eine individuelle Verantwortung für die Wissenschaftsfreiheit. Sie impliziert nicht zuletzt, sich nicht mit Kräften gemein zu machen, die die Idee einer wissenschaftlich aufgeklärten Deliberation systematisch untergraben.

The double thesis sketched in broad strokes in this essay will be that modus vivendi conceptions do not qualify as viable alternatives to political liberalism. In order to be normatively plausible, modus vivendi conceptions depend on a liberal framework and on the normative reasoning justifying it. Within such a liberal framework, however, modus vivendi theory and modus vivendi institutions are necessary. Modus vivendi theory is analysed to be a normatively inconsistent approach that cannot be successful in its attempt to undermine liberalism’s aspiration to occupy a privileged normative position vis-à-vis other kinds of regimes. Pluralist theories of the modus vivendi kind, dissociating themselves from normative individualism which takes individuals as the core elements of the political and legal processes, are in danger of destroying the very base of a sound political idea of pluralism. The essay especially questions how much realism is found in the “realist turn” in recent political theory, of which the modus vivendi approach is part, given systematic underestimation of the legal system in modus vivendi theorizing.

Definition of the problem. Voluntary active euthanasia is, in certain circumstances, morally permissible and should be permitted by law. Autonomous persons may have a fundamental interest in experiencing ”death in dignity” in accordance with their own preferences. This interest is protected by the concept of human dignity assumed by German law. Some prerequisites being met, the moral and legal autonomy right to determine the time and manner of one’s own death includes a right to secure active euthanasia from a willing physician, and a physician’s acceding to the patient’s request be may morally the right thing to do. Arguments and conclusion: Most arguments against the justifiability of voluntary active euthanasia unveil their weakness when scrutinized. However, insofar as legalized voluntary active euthanasia would be subject to intolerable abuse, our policy options are dilemmatic, and the concept of human dignity as it has been taken for granted in German legal discourse, is questioned. There is no option other than seeking safety in legal procedures for every single case

During the last two decades a broad and intensive discussion has taken place in the field of medical ethics. Especially in the English-speaking countries, “Biomedical Ethics” have developed as a part of secular, philosophical moral theory. Two ethical problems in organ transplantation – living organ donation and organ allocation – illustrate that this transition reflects both the complex ethical questions raised by rapid changes in the biological sciences and in health care, and the fact that traditional Hippocratic ethics have proven to be inadequate in several respects

Legal restrictions of the right to self-determination increasingly pretend to be compatible with the liberal concept of autonomy: they act upon a ‘soft’ or autonomy-orientated paternalistic rationale. Conventional liberal critique of paternalism turns out to be insensitive to the intricate normative problems following from ‘soft’ or ‘libertarian’ paternalism. In fact, these autonomy-oriented forms of paternalism could actually be even more problematic and may infringe liberty rights even more intensely than hard paternalistic regulation. This paper contributes to the systematic differentiation of soft and hard paternalism by discussing the (legal) concept of autonomy and elaborates the moral and legal limits of autonomy-orientated paternalism