Legal coercion, respect & reason-responsive agency

Legal coercion seems morally problematic because it is susceptible to the Hegelian objection that it fails to respect individuals in a way that is ‘due to them as men’. But in what sense does legal coercion fail to do so? And what are the grounds for this requirement to respect? This paper is an attempt to answer these questions. It argues that (a) legal coercion fails to respect individuals as reason-responsive agents; and (b) individuals ought to be respected as such in virtue of the fact that they are human beings. Thus it is in this sense that legal coercion fails to treat individuals with the kind of respect ‘due to them as men’.The Leverhulme Trust (ECF-2012-032); AHRC (AH/H015655/1

Research led by participants: a new social contract for a new kind of research

In recent years, there have been prominent calls for a new social contract that accords a more central role to citizens in health research. Typically, this has been understood as citizens and patients having a greater voice and role within the standard research enterprise. Beyond this, however, it is important that the renegotiated contract specifically addresses the oversight of a new, path-breaking approach to health research: participant-led research. In light of the momentum behind participant-led research and its potential to advance health knowledge by challenging and complementing traditional research, it is vital for all stakeholders to work together in securing the conditions that will enable it to flourish

Research led by participants: a new social contract for a new kind of research

In recent years, there have been prominent calls for a new social contract that accords a more central role to citizens in health research. Typically, this has been understood as citizens and patients having a greater voice and role within the standard research enterprise. Beyond this, however, it is important that the renegotiated contract specifically addresses the oversight of a new, path-breaking approach to health research: participant-led research. In light of the momentum behind participant-led research and its potential to advance health knowledge by challenging and complementing traditional research, it is vital for all stakeholders to work together in securing the conditions that will enable it to flourish

Between history and values: A study on the nature of interpretation in international law

My thesis discusses the place of evaluative judgements in the interpretation of general international law. It concentrates on two questions. First, whether it is possible to interpret international legal practices without making an evaluative judgement about the point or value that provides the best justification of these practices. Second, whether the use of evaluative judgements in international legal interpretation threatens to undermine the objectivity of international law, the neutrality of international lawyers or the consensual and voluntary basis of the international legal system. I answer both questions in the negative. As regards the first, I argue that international legal practice has an interpretive structure, which combines appeals to the history of international practice with appeals to the principles and values that these practices are best understood as promoting. This interpretive structure is apparent not only in the claims of international lawyers about particular rules of international law (here I use the rule of estoppel as an example) but also in the most basic intuitions of international theorists about the theory and sources of general international law. I then argue that some popular concerns to the effect that the exercise of evaluation in the interpretation of international law will undermine the coherence or the usefulness of the discipline are generally unwarranted. The fact that international legal practice has an interpretive structure does not entail that propositions of international law are only subjectively true, that the interpreter enjoys license to manipulate their meaning for self-serving purposes, or that international law will collapse under the weight of irresolvable disagreements, divisions and conflicts about its proper interpretation

Morality and community A critique of ethical relativism

SIGLEAvailable from British Library Document Supply Centre-DSC:D194753 / BLDSC - British Library Document Supply CentreGBUnited Kingdo