Climate Justice and Historical Responsibility

Many agree that developed states must bear greater burdens in tacking climate change than developing states for two reasons: their greater historical responsibility for global warming and their greater wealth. People disagree, however, about the relative importance of these two reasons. This article develops an "institutional view" to address this issue, which consists of two claims. First, many past emissions of greenhouse gases that took place prior to the establishment of legitimate institutions of global climate governance do not give rise to climate related duties. Secondly, the absence of legitimate institutional global governance, more generally, undermines full rights to wealth on the part of developed states and thus removes an objection to their having to contribute more to tackling the challenges of climate change. The upshot is that, at present, climate duties should be allocated between states mainly on the basis of wealth rather than history

Ageing and equality under the law

El envejecimiento de la población genera presiones para la reforma social. Dado que las personas mayores de 60 años constituyen una proporción cada vez mayor de la población, surgen nuevos desafíos y oportunidades, por ejemplo, en el lugar de trabajo y en el ámbito de la atención, por nombrar solo dos contextos para la reforma social. Este artículo examina cómo la ley debería regular la reforma social en una sociedad que envejece. Más específicamente, examina cómo debe interpretarse desde un punto de vista normativo la prohibición legal de discriminación por edad presente en varias jurisdicciones. El artículo ante todo reivindica que deberíamos respaldar una interpretación estricta de la discriminación por edad. De acuerdo con esta interpretación, la discriminación por edad prohíbe solo las políticas y prácticas que muestran falta de respeto a las personas debido a su edad. Una interpretación más amplia de la discriminación por edad que prohíbe también las políticas y prácticas que tienen un impacto diferencial en los intereses de las personas debido a su edad es injustificada. Después de elaborar el caso contra la amplia interpretación de la discriminación por edad, el artículo explica la interpretación estrecha con más detalle al profundizar en el sentido relevante en el que las políticas y prácticas pueden no mostrar «falta de respeto » a las personas debido a su edad. A continuación, ilustra la relevancia práctica de la interpretación estricta de la prohibición de la discriminación por edad en el contexto de la jurisprudencia del Tribunal de Justicia de las Comunidades EuropeasThe ageing of a population creates pressure for social reform. As persons aged above 60 make up an increasing proportion of the population, new challenges and opportunities arise for example in the workplace and in the sphere of care, to name just two contexts for social reform. This article examines how the law should regulate social reform in an ageing society. More specifically, it examines how the legal prohibition on age-discrimination present in a number of jurisdictions should be interpreted from a normative point of view. The main claim of the article is that we should endorse a narrow construal the legal prohibition of age-discrimination. According to this construal the prohibition of age-discrimination prohibits only policies and practices that show disrespect for persons due to their age. A wider construal that prohibits also policies and practices that have a differential impact on the interests of persons because of their age is unjustified. After elaborating the case against the wide construal of age-discrimination, the article explains the narrow construal in more detail by elaborating on the relevant sense in which policies and practices may not show «disrespect» for persons due to their age. It then illustrates the practical relevance of the narrow construal of the prohibition against age-discrimination in the context of the jurisprudence of the European Court of Justic

Children or Migrants as Public Goods?

Why, and to what extent, must taxpayers share the costs of raising children with parents? The most influential argument over this question has been the public goods argument: taxpayers must share costs with parents because and to the extent that child-rearing contributes towards public goods by helping to develop valuable human capital. However, political theorists have not examined the public goods argument in a context in which replacement migration is available: if replacement migration can provide valuable human capital more efficiently than child- rearing, can the public goods argument still justify a taxpayer obligation to share the costs of child-rearing? This article argues that there are importantly different versions of the public goods argument, and that on a plausible version of that argument, it can withstand the replacement migration challenge under most circumstances

Locke, natural law and civil peace: Reply to Tate

In this comment, I reply to two objections John Tate raises against my discussion of the trajectory of Locke's ideas on toleration (in an earlier article published in EJPT, ‘Locke’s Tracts and the Anarchy of the Religious Conscience’) Tate maintains that I misunderstand the role of natural law and civil peace in Locke's thought. I defend my interpretation of the role of natural law and show that Tate is mistaken in his claim that Locke's concern to preserve civil peace conflicted with his separate concern to protect individual rights

Beyond the conflict: religion in the public sphere and deliberative democracy

Traditionally, liberals have confined religion to the sphere of the ‘private’ or ‘non-political’. However, recent debates over the use of religious symbols in public spaces, state financing of faith schools, and tax relief for religious organisations suggest that this distinction is not particularly useful in easing the tension between liberal ideas of equality among citizens and freedom of religion. This article deals with one aspect of this debate, which concerns whether members of religious communities should receive exemptions from regulations that place a distinctively heavy burden on them. For supporters of exemptions, protection for diverse practices and religious beliefs justifies such a special treatment. For others, this is a form of positive discrimination incompatible with equal citizenship. Drawing on Habermas’ understanding of churches as ‘communities of interpretation’ this article explores possible alternative solutions to both the ‘rule-andexemption’ approach and the ‘neutralist’ approach. Our proposal rests on the idea of mutual learning between secular and religious perspectives. On this interpretation, what is required is, firstly, generation and maintenance of public spaces in which there could be discussion and dialogue about particular cases, and, secondly, evaluation of whether the basic conditions of moral discourse are present in these spaces. Thus deliberation becomes a touchstone for the building of a shared democratic etho

Different Pattern of Immunoglobulin Gene Usage by HIV-1 Compared to Non-HIV-1 Antibodies Derived from the Same Infected Subject

A biased usage of immunoglobulin (Ig) genes is observed in human anti-HIV-1 monoclonal antibodies (mAbs) resulting probably from compensation to reduced usage of the VH3 family genes, while the other alternative suggests that this bias usage is due to antigen requirements. If the antigen structure is responsible for the preferential usage of particular Ig genes, it may have certain implications for HIV vaccine development by the targeting of particular Ig gene-encoded B cell receptors to induce neutralizing anti-HIV-1 antibodies. To address this issue, we have produced HIV-1 specific and non-HIV-1 mAbs from an infected individual and analyzed the Ig gene usage. Green-fluorescence labeled virus-like particles (VLP) expressing HIV-1 envelope (Env) proteins of JRFL and BaL and control VLPs (without Env) were used to select single B cells for the production of 68 recombinant mAbs. Ten of these mAbs were HIV-1 Env specific with neutralizing activity against V3 and the CD4 binding site, as well as non-neutralizing mAbs to gp41. The remaining 58 mAbs were non-HIV-1 Env mAbs with undefined specificities. Analysis revealed that biased usage of Ig genes was restricted only to anti-HIV-1 but not to non-HIV-1 mAbs. The VH1 family genes were dominantly used, followed by VH3, VH4, and VH5 among anti-HIV-1 mAbs, while non-HIV-1 specific mAbs preferentially used VH3 family genes, followed by VH4, VH1 and VH5 families in a pattern identical to Abs derived from healthy individuals. This observation suggests that the biased usage of Ig genes by anti-HIV-1 mAbs is driven by structural requirements of the virus antigens rather than by compensation to any depletion of VH3 B cells due to autoreactive mechanisms, according to the gp120 superantigen hypothesis

Gaus on Coercion and Welfare-State Capitalism: A Critique

This article examines a novel line of argument in support of welfare-state capitalism proposed by Gerald Gaus. The novelty of Gaus’ argument lies in its contention that welfare-state capitalism can be justified on the basis of the contractualist mode of justification made famous by Rawls. Gaus argues that economic regimes, such as propertyowning democracy, are more coercive than welfare-state capitalism insofar as they require a greater degree of tax-imposed redistribution among citizens. Given the degree of coercion needed by these regimes, he contends that parties to a contract would not agree to them, whereas they would agree to welfare-state capitalism by virtue of the lesser degree of coercion it needs. It is argued in this article that Gaus fails to show that welfare-state capitalism is less coercive than property-owning democracy. Indeed, once one directs one’s attention towards those with the smallest range of valuable opportunities for action, there is reason to worry more about the coercion imposed by welfare-state capitalism than by property-owning democracy

Perceptions of the appropriate response to norm violation in 57 societies

An Author Correction to this article: DOI: 10.1038/s41467-021-22955-x.Norm enforcement may be important for resolving conflicts and promoting cooperation. However, little is known about how preferred responses to norm violations vary across cultures and across domains. In a preregistered study of 57 countries (using convenience samples of 22,863 students and non-students), we measured perceptions of the appropriateness of various responses to a violation of a cooperative norm and to atypical social behaviors. Our findings highlight both cultural universals and cultural variation. We find a universal negative relation between appropriateness ratings of norm violations and appropriateness ratings of responses in the form of confrontation, social ostracism and gossip. Moreover, we find the country variation in the appropriateness of sanctions to be consistent across different norm violations but not across different sanctions. Specifically, in those countries where use of physical confrontation and social ostracism is rated as less appropriate, gossip is rated as more appropriate.Peer reviewe