Moral theories of torts: Their scope and limits: Part II

One approach to legal theory is to provide some sort of rational reconstruction of all or of a large body of the common law. For philosophers of law this has usually meant trying to rationalize a body of law under one or another principle of justice. This paper explores the efforts of the leading tort theorists to provide a moral basis - in the sense of rational reconstruction based on alleged moral principles - for the law of torts. The paper is divided into two parts. In the first part I consider and reject the view that tort law is best understood as falling either within the ambit of the principle of retributive justice, a comprehensive theory of moral responsibility, or an ideal of fairness inherent in the idea that one should impose on others only those risks others impose on one. The second part of the paper distinguishes among various conceptions of corrective or compensatory justice and considers arguments — including previous ones by the author himself — to the effect that tort law is best understood as rooted in principles of corrective justice. This paper argues that although the principles of justice may render defensible many (but by no means all) of the claims to repair and to liability recognized in torts, it cannot explain why we have adopted a tort system as the approach to vindicating those claims. Some other principle — probably not one of justice — is needed to explain why it is that the victim's claim to repair is satisfied by having his losses shifted to his injurer — rather than through some other means of doing so. The paper concludes that the law of torts cannot be understood — in the sense of being given a rational reconstruction — under any one principle of morality.     

Agricultural Biotechnology and Regime Formation: A Constructivist Assessment of the Prospects

Controversies surrounding the appropriate use and diffusion of agricultural biotechnologies are giving rise to questions about governance at the international level. This article investigates the likelihood that a single, international regime or multiple regimes governing this technology will form by way of negotiation. We show that four normative–institutional arrangements, organized around distinct general principles, have a potential governance role: world food security and safety, liberalized trade, protection of intellectual property, and conservation and sustainable use of biodiversity. We argue that an adequate amount of compatibility between the principles and norms of these arrangements is required to support the type of communicative action or truth–seeking needed to develop the intersubjective understanding for a regime. Using a framework for assessing normative compatibility, we find not one, but two nascent understandings rooted in the trade and biodiversity areas competing to form the foundation for governance. Further analysis of levels of institutional density between the two developing regimes reveals they are presently too low to support a negotiated resolution of normative conflict. Finally, we demonstrate that recent framing attempts at the international level to decrease areas of tension and incompatibility in principles/norms between the regimes have neglected to create the crucial normative background conditions needed to avert a scenario of increased political conflict in the near future.     

A vision for sociology

His most recent books are Foundations of Social Theory,and Equality and Achievement in Education.He is also the author of Power and The Structure of Society,and The Asymetric Societyamong many other books.     

REMARRIAGE AND STEPFAMILIES

Stepfamilies are becoming a common family structure all over the world. Those working with divorcing couples, particularly mediators, need to recognize not only the problems associated with stepfamily relationships but the strengths and the potential for positive growth. Drawing on research, this article invites us to understand the pitfalls in stepfamilies in order to help children and parents enjoy their new families and to beware of blaming stepfamily relationships for all the difficulties associated with day-to-day living.     

Strategies used by Health Scrutiny Committees to Influence Decision-makers

The scrutiny function, designed to enhance and provide a counterbalance to executive decision-making, is a key element in the modernisation of public service delivery in England. Early research expressed concerns about the effectiveness of scrutiny however, with lack of responsiveness by local decision-makers being suggested as one of the main difficulties. This paper applies a model of political influence strategies drawn from the business sector to analyse the strategies which health scrutiny committees in eight local authorities adopted in order to influence decision-makers. The relevance of the model to health scrutiny is assessed, and possible implications for enhancing health scrutiny in the future are discussed.     

Vulnerability as a Regulatory Category in Human Subject Research

This article examines and critiques the use of the term "vulnerability" in U.S. and international regulations and guidelines on research ethics. After concluding that the term is currently used in multiple, often inconsistent, senses, it calls on regulators to differentiate between three distinct types of vulnerability: "consent-based vulnerability,""risk-based vulnerability," and "justice-based vulnerability."     

Inventive Feminist Theory: Representation,Materiality and Intensive Time

Abstract

This article examines key arguments on the relations between bodies and images developed in the context of the discursive turn to consider what light a feminist materialist approach might shed on them. Rather than set the discursive and materialist ‘turns’ in opposition to each other, the author tries to draw connections between different theories of the relations between bodies and images, and unpack how certain feminist concerns are approached from different angles in different historical and intellectual contexts. To do this, the author focuses on the prevalence of images of transformation in contemporary visual culture and analyses them in terms of how both ‘new materialist’ and feminist theories grapple with the worlds they engage with, where change and transformation are seen as key. The author takes up three specific and related points that are currently being debated in feminist materialisms: (1) the concept of representation and, more widely, representational thinking; (2) the concept of causation and an understanding of time as non-linear, intensive and inventive; and (3) the understanding of theory as immanent and inventive. Drawing on insights developed in both the discursive and materialist ‘turns’, the author focuses on how bodies and images are entangled together as material assemblages and, in Barad's terms, how theories are performative of the phenomena they seek to understand. The article concludes by suggesting that such an understanding of theory as inventive might be a way of continuing to ensure the animation of feminism's transformative nature.