Win-chiat Lee

In this paper, I offer a general defense of what I call “ethical vigilantism” and argue that it provides the basis for universal jurisdiction and the legitimacy of international criminal law. Following David Luban, I argue that any entity exercising “vigilante jurisdiction” would have to bootstrap itself into legitimacy by delivering high-quality natural justice. International criminal law will have to be vigilantism, in my view, as long as we find it undesirable to enter the world-state to achieve the requisite political authorization for its enforcement.

In this chapter, I develop the idea of obeying the law with what Dworkin calls the protestant attitude. Given the protestant attitude, I argue, obeying the law might require citizens paradoxically to disobey it, i.e., the prevailing authoritative account of it, and subject their own interpretation to the test by the courts. I discuss the implication of this approach for democracy. As the protestant attitude has the potential of seeing settled law as unsettled, the paper ends with a brief discussion of the protestant attitude in relation to Dobbs and the development of the right to abortion and its future in American law.

I argue in this chapter that it may not be reasonable for a person committing a criminal act to expect privacy in relation to the act. This is not because the person’s reasonable expectation of privacy or right to privacy in this case is defeated by some other considerations. My point is that she does not have legitimate interests to be served by having control of access to information in relation to the crime. Nor is there such a thing as a zone of privacy in a fundamental sense that covers her claim to privacy in relation to the criminal act simply because it takes place in that zone. However, I argue that a criminal does have reasonable expectation of privacy in a derivative way because of our concerns about unfettered discretion to be exercised by the government. My skeptical argument echoes some feminist critiques of the right to privacy but does not disparage such a right entirely. I argue that there is nevertheless a gender disparity in the social costs of privacy rights.

Recent events in the world urgently impress upon us the need for discussion of the questions addressed in this volume. Even as we put together this volume, a number of humanitarian crises involving human migration across national boundaries were unfolding, stemming from war, economic devastations, gang violence, and violence in ethnic or religious conflicts. Immediate actions and policies in response to these crises are called for, mostly in the form of providing opportunities for resettlement for those who are displaced, either permanently or temporarily, on the part of those nations who are in a position to help alleviate the dire conditions of these displaced people or “refugees,” as they are often called.

Do people who are not members of a certain country have the duty to obey that country’s immigration law as law? The answer is no if we take seriously John Simmons’ particularity requirement, under which only members of a state have the general duty to obey its law. I argue in this chapter that the particularity requirement for political obligation should be rejected for a number of reasons. While this opens up the possibility of nonmembers having the duty to obey the law of the countries of which they are not members, it also means that an account of the duty to obey the law will have to account for such duty on the part of both members and nonmembers, and the exclusion by membership will have to be justified to those who are excluded as members. I suggest that the natural duty of justice will do the job. The implication of this natural duty account of political obligations for exclusion by membership and immigration law is explored.

This work offers a timely philosophical analysis of interrelated normative questions concerning immigration and citizenship in relation to the global context of multiple nation states. In it, philosophers and scholars from the social sciences address both fundamental questions in moral and political philosophy as well as specific issues concerning policy. Topics covered in this volume include: the concept and the role of citizenship, the equal rights and representation of citizens, general moral frameworks for addressing immigration issues, the duty to obey immigration law, the use of ethnic, cultural, or linguistic criteria for selective immigration, domestic violence as grounds for political asylum, and our duty to refugees in general. The urgency of the need to discuss these matters is clear. Several humanitarian crises involving human migration across national boundaries stemming from war, economic devastations, gang violence, and violence in ethnic or religious conflicts have unfolded. Political debates concerning immigration and immigrant communities are continuing in many countries, especially during election years. While there have always been migrating human beings, they raise distinctive issues in the modern era because of the political context under which the migrations take place, namely, that of a system of sovereign nation states with rights to control their borders and determine their memberships. This collection provides readers the opportunity to parse these complex issues with the help of diverse philosophical, moral, and political perspectives.

In this dissertation I examine the use of the idea of the separateness of persons in recent moral and political philosophy. I take the idea of the separateness of persons to mean the ontological claim that we are numerically different persons and subjects. I argue that it is our belief that we are different persons which explains our concern for morality and justice. Though the idea of the separateness of persons is fundamental to moral philosophy, it is not very important in moral theory to find out the metaphysical nature of this separateness. This is why it is not important in moral and political philosophy to discuss metaphysical issues such as the ontological status of social entities and the nature of personal identity, which presumably have important effects on our view regarding the metaphysical nature of the separateness of persons. ;The idea of the separateness of persons, though fundamental to moral philosophy, is not useful in helping us choose the correct moral theory. It is not powerful enough to undermine utilitarian considerations or to support deontological requirements or moral rights in questions about distributive justice and moral responsibility. This dissertation provides an account of how the idea of the separateness of persons has been misused by many writers on the subject--writers such as Parfit, Nozick, and Taurek

Gillian Brock attempts to reconcile cosmopolitanism with nationalism in Global Justice: A Cosmopolitan Account . She claims that her cosmopolitanism leaves room for legitimate nationalism. I argue that her cosmopolitanism is not only a theory of global justice, but also a general theory of justice, according to which what justice may demand of us is fundamentally global in nature. As such, Brock's cosmopolitanism cannot accommodate nationalism in the overall structure of what justice may demand of us, but has to relegate it to the discretionary space left open after what justice may demand of us globally has been met. This does not amount to much of a reconciliation or a particularly moderate cosmopolitanism, contrary to Brock's claim. More important, I argue, Brock's cosmopolitan theory of justice need not follow from the more fundamental view of moral cosmopolitanism

This article gives an account of what Ronald Dworkin calls ‘the protestant attitude’ towards law. Dworkin’s protestantist claim that the interpretive attitude towards law is to be taken not only by judges, but also by ordinary citizens is explained and defended. The account of Dworkin’s protestantism about law in this article is not based on his more general protestantist view about the interpretation of social practices, but, rather, on the nature of authoritative statements of the law in Dworkin’s theory of law as integrity. Protestantism is thus shown to be an integral part of the theory of law as integrity. It is also argued in this article that protestantism about law can accommodate the idea that legal deliberation is an authoritative and public process while leaving room for a significant role for citizens in the development of law. Indeed, any plausible theory of law should incorporate protestantism.

In this paper I examine the counterfactual test for legislative intention as used in Riggs v. Palmer. The distinction between the speaker's meaning approach and the constructive interpretation approach to statutory interpretation, as made by Dworkin in Law's Empire, is explained. I argue that Dworkin underestimates the potential of the counterfactual test in making the speaker's meaning approach more plausible. I also argue that Dworkin's reasons for rejecting the counterfactual test, as proposed in Law's Empire, are either too weak or unsound. A deeper reason for rejecting the counterfactual test as a method for the speaker's meaning approach is proposed in this paper. The difference between the counterfactual test and other tests for legislative intention which seem also to make use of counterfactual conditions in explained