The Ăbermensch Guard â PRE-GHR XIV. v2.3 (2026-08-09): post-publish review fixes (v2.2 shipped, then corrected). Changes vs v2.2: (1) §2.2 pairing frame compressed to one sentence â "The pairing is structural, not ideological; the extent of their disagreement is addressed in §2.3" â eliminating duplication with §2.3's non-composition paragraph (same contrast, same conclusion, near-identical wording); the full contrast now lives once, at §2.3. (2) Changelog cleaned: the v2.2 entry's Chinese parenthetical removed; review-count wording aligned with agent_note (four independent AI stress-test reviews). v2.2 (2026-08-09): four independent AI stress-test reviews; the author retained final judgment, accepting two must-fix items and rejecting the rest. Changes vs v2.1: (1) abstract opens with "This paper is not an AGI alignment solution"; PRE-GHR downgraded from "scientific scaffolding" to "one possible engineering interpretation â an instantiation candidate, not its foundation" across abstract, §5, §8. (2) §2.3 corrected: the two limits emerge between, not intersect at â the earlier "intersection" wording contradicted the same section's "refuse to merge"; between/space language adopted. (3) Two Demons qualified as philosophical boundary conditions, not claims of physical unification (abstract, §2). (4) §2.2 framed the NietzscheâKorchagin pairing as structural, not ideological â the weld is declared, not reconciled. (5) §1 early declaration: the paper is not an attempt to align AGI with Nietzsche's ethics â it guards the question against being answered badly. (6) §2.3 new paragraph: the ledger's bills are not distributed symmetrically; constraint is the non-externalization clause â the boundary right of the weak and the constraint on the strong are the same clause, read from opposite sides (series interface with the Sender Axiom line, drawn in this paper's own terms). (7) Compression: §3, §4, §6, §8 tightened (~13 lines cut); measured net body length +5.2% â review-requested strengthenings outweigh the cuts; no cuts to passages reviews themselves praised (Korchagin framing, §9 posture). v2.1 (2026-08-08): stress-test review fixes (§2.1 physics corrected â quantum fails the demon at the level of knowing, chaos at the level of computing; §2.3 Two Demons' non-composition declared explicitly; §1 dual failure mode: power without wisdom OR the last man's weakness dressed as virtue). v2L (2026-08-08): manifestationâtest reframe; entity/direction correction; eternal-recurrence mapping withdrawn; Nazi-reception history made honest; Two-Demons framing added (Laplace/Nietzsche cognitive limit; Maxwell/Korchagin action limit; Landauer shared ledger). Series: PRE-GHR XIV. License CC-BY-4.0.
Scholarship on Kantâs religious writings commonly diverges on two related issues: the theological weight and meaning of his endorsement of religious faith, and the apparent inconsistency between his earlier and later, seemingly less secular, treatments of the subject. The questions raised by these disputes are not only theoretical; for at stake is whether in Kantâs considered view a just political community is ultimately sustainable without affirmative theological commitments of some kind.Kantâs brief essay âOn the Failure of All Philosophic Efforts at Theodicyâ opens a promising window on such questions. It is thematically continuous with the Critique of Judgment, published one year earlier, that itself ends with an implicit proof of the impossibility of theodicy understood as a theoretical justification of Godâs moral wisdom based on what experience of the world teaches. [8:255] At the same time, Kantâs essay also differs from the Critique of Judgment in in a number of crucial ways that partly reflect Kantâs darkening assessment of his political circumstances as ones requiring new means of public enlightenment on the crucial question of the true basis of religious faith, as reflected in subsequent religious writings beginning with Religion within the Boundaries of Bare Reason. One striking feature of that change is the replacement of sincerity, or honesty before the bar of conscience, with conscientiousness, or striving to be honest, as the highest goal of moral aspiration, and of indulgence of the inclinations through self-deception as the ultimate source of human evil. Another is conceptual room for something like grace in the religious sense.
This paper argues that optimization is not a law of the universe, and that morality and the manner of being of intimate relation are not, in their structure, optimization problems. It proceeds in two movements that it is careful to keep apart. The first is a formal proof, carrying no value judgment, that intimate relation furnishes no well-defined optimization problem: the value at stake is in part non-structurable, since the drive, which any complete objective must include, resists representation as a term; it is relational, generated within the relation and existing only there, so that no external standpoint could fix the objective; it is incommensurable, so that to price certain goods is to betray rather than mismeasure them; and the subject is constituted within the relation rather than given before it, so that the optimizer the model presupposes is a product of the process it is meant to stand outside of. Each failure strikes a distinct precondition, and any one leaves the operation of maximization undefined. The second movement takes that result as given and criticizes the imposition of the frame regardless. To optimize where no optimization problem exists converts a value that should circulate into one that can be settled and drawn off, in the manner the theory of generative justice names as extractive computation; it is a symptom of the crisis of the symbolic and of a life-world habituated to the logic of capital, under which a local, historical operation is projected onto the cosmos as its law; and it mistakes the kind of thing morality is, since an optimizing practice, even a successful one, may fail as an ethics, the optimal and the good being orthogonal. The paper then recovers a rationality that responds rather than maximizes, described through response, attunement, and the sustaining of generation, and it closes in polyphony, refusing to name a new master objective, since to do so would reinstate the frame. That refusal is the paper's positive claim, enacted in its form.
Michael Della Rocca's project in his bold and iconoclastic book1 is to reject all distinction and multiplicity: there is only being. He calls this view strict monism.2 And, as the title of his book indicates, he sees his project as Parmenidean. There are accordingly references to Parmenides throughout the book, as well as a more focused discussion of Parmenides' views in Chapter 1. This is in line with something on which Della Rocca insists in Chapter 7, in keeping with such monism, namely that we should reject any distinction between doing philosophy and doing its history. I share Della Rocca's mistrust of that distinction. But I do not share it for the same reasons nor to the same extent. There seems to me a clear sense in which his project is more fundamentally philosophical than historical. Partly I have in mind the fact that his primary aim is simply to defend strict monism. And I think that the philosophical challenges that he thereby presents us with are more significant than any lessons that he has to teach us about where any given philosopher stands in relation to the view.3 My own focus in what follows will therefore likewise be on the issues themselves, though I too will engage with the work of other philosophers to the extent that I think it is relevant to do so. A preliminary before I proceed. Even the two short paragraphs that I have written so far contain material that is question-begging in this context. An obvious case in point is the very reference to âother philosophersâ. That is illegitimate in strict monist terms. So too, come to that, are the references to âChapter 1â and âChapter 7â. My excuse for begging questions in this way is something to which Della Rocca's book itself bears ample witness: anyone who wants to engage seriously with his views has no alternative. One of the issues that we shall need to confront is what this means as far as Della Rocca's own text is concerned. But there is no equivalent issue as far as my text is concerned. True, I would prefer not to beg questions. But, since I am not a strict monist, I feel no other compunction about writing in the way that I have; and I am reassured that I am at least not begging questions against myself. Della Rocca's starting point is the Principle of Sufficient Reason, or the PSR to use his own abbreviation. This is âthe principle according to which each fact or each thing has an explanationâ (p. xiv). That this is his starting point straightway illustrates what I said in the previous section. For Della Rocca takes the PSR to serve as a basic principle for Parmenides too. As it happens, here already I have exegetical qualms: passages which, on Della Rocca's interpretation, show Parmenides to be rejecting distinctions that, if real, would involve things that could not be explained seem to me to show Parmenides to be rejecting distinctions that, if real, would involve things that could not so much as be.4 But I will not dwell on that. My focus, as I have already indicated, is on the issues themselves. Della Rocca has much to say about the kind of philosophical work that the PSR can do. But the principal work that he wants it to do is to yield strict monism. This is clearest in Chapters 2 to 6 of the book, which he describes as â[i]n many ways⌠[its] heartâ (p. xv). It is Bradley, rather than Parmenides, who plays the rĂ´le of chief mentor in these chapters: Della Rocca uses the PSR to argue, in a broadly Bradleyan way,5 for the unreality of all relations, and thereby for the unreality of all distinctions. The argument assumes different forms in different contexts, but there is a core argument to the effect that any relation must be grounded in its relata, and thereby in the relation of grounding between itself and its relata, and thereby in the relation of grounding between the relation of grounding and itself and its relata, and so on ad infinitum, in a way that the PSR precludes. Objections to the project fall under three main heads. First, there are objections to the PSR. Second, there are objections to the contention that the PSR yields strict monism. Third, there are objections to strict monism. I shall devote a subsection to each, focusing in the third case on to strict it is to a kind of which will me to what we should the PSR on it is The that I in the previous much it not of The the the more to the PSR This is significant Della Rocca's are very in Chapter which is on Della Rocca that there is between the for an of what is and a to that we have kind of of (p. The is that a of what something is must itself we have of that and in that on of that will involve a or an or a it be said to be This seems to me to of have a kind of of But we have an of what a is a a point of which is a given This not of but it There are for the that the PSR is if it is in such a way that of this is to as an There be things of this that should not be to as say what is at is what of given But that is not to the Della Rocca's of the PSR to involve a of if it is to do the work that he wants it to do. it is that, Della Rocca describes the that he is us on as to (p. it throughout a much than that. It is not only of philosophy that a to distinction and So do of the PSR is to all of that if the PSR is to any of that it not do so on it that it be to is what it will do if it on it that are so that its to is more of a to reject than to reject the fact that the in a can be to reject a is itself a to reject the PSR in that A more of the PSR And the well to the all But all the more to reject can be to reject the to which we shall in be Della Rocca has an to the of we should the in the and that he which is the very point that I have namely that a more of the PSR This in Chapter where Della Rocca that any of the PSR yields his fact he that any of the PSR already yields strict monism. My about this argument will in the But, as the fact that his argument in Chapter is an argument for that of the PSR is a to reject Della Rocca will of he will that we say what is with his he in a my argument or sense me that where my argument but should what and I (p. in But it is not a of what anyone True, we do need to say what is with his But before we are in a to do that, we can the basic principle that no argument any given to any given is in itself an argument for that as to an argument against to which of the two it is be a very But there is no more for Della Rocca to way it that we his than there is for us to his the other way it that he his that the material in Chapter is all that Della Rocca has to in of his of the PSR all my references to âthe will be to this Chapter where his focus is on he his to the of a to (p. a very is the PSR. Della Rocca not be This seems to me to be a of any (p. a that all and only things that are and are as a way of his use of There is a in which the has this for a the to his use of But in the relevant that is in the sense that is relevant to the PSR and that the of his he has the all and only things that are and are it be said to be its own But that would with Della Rocca's against of this kind seem something of a and But us not much of what in to terms. I have the means to in this is not this no can be its own its own on which it is and to this there is no It is It is not but a of the my is but and it not I will not to the of this on that a a of or a of or in a is it for a But this can be in the same way as the point about it is not the for a in the relevant so far as it means something as it not involve any for is it not involve that there is any such The fact that it the with the use to which Della Rocca under that at any not to to a for no a to what of for has no for to the what of it is to if we to the of is to what of can be in the same The fact that what of it is to need in the relevant as a for to the so far as to the means to something as any that doing so be it have no on the of is is not to that it can be the that is is The with the use to which Della Rocca under that Della Rocca his to about reasons in terms. He takes it that, there can be reasons for and against any given these reasons are in which case is at and or has to where the of reasons (p. This is all of his to that are reasons but But this is to us about the of reasons that are that is to say reasons that are nor in or the anyone who is the least to the that a is a to the extent that it is in an is to think that the reasons that a for or against any given are very us to Della Rocca's of this It very much an to on Della Rocca's But it It is the of Chapter of his book that is no to since is what the in Della Rocca's is the PSR. the is to an to it is to an to that the PSR And this a more is on Della Rocca's to the PSR This must of have an if the PSR is as must the of what there is to that is said in to And I do not there can be an that not to or involve or an that not the PSR in As for Della Rocca's of any to that us to Even if he to he to if his are his way of for is This is a significant of the of his And his to issues that are not to that an to would have though much Della Rocca is that there be any and it follows as a of that there be distinction or should there not distinction and is on Della Rocca's to I do not that there is to The issue is there is that is with Della Rocca's strict monism, there is not any such thing as a relation of any such thing as a of that can be in the of that I have point to in this of an different what has It a much discussion than I can but it is the PSR is of the things that has an is the of it in this more than any that the of the to the PSR to But to seriously the that the of has an is already to a of a with an as well as a It is to seriously the of something that will under a kind of and it more As far as own is there is no we should at in such terms. But as far as the of is there is or no that any that can be for the of will have any on the it say that is an it is a what has to think in such terms. There seem to are though I can think of and a of about And if Della Rocca this point that any is that of that will the that there is not only a at the of his but a there too. that in or more of its a relation on its One can this of as a of the a relation would be a as must be (p. It is a point this is an to Della Rocca's argument that the PSR yields strict monism, or it rather as a relation that be explained and therefore to the previous subsection as a to the PSR It is that if the is the there are of the of to say that is to its is not at all to that it can be any case all that at this is the on is which the given is that which the given is given as in is not that is said in a and same but that it is in a and same of all its The of is to these do not have the same and do not the of as the same There are not two as Parmenides' but a of which all its the the the is said in a and same sense of of which it is but that of which it is said it is said of I have already objections to strict monism. this subsection I shall namely that it is to a kind of all the objections that I am to Della Rocca's this seems to me the for to But it issues which I will on to in that is seems in something of the way in which, as the view that is an is that if there is no the that there is is say that is is to say that we between as are not at But what of these as is the at which if the is of it The to the is who that is an and who thereby the of the is not itself and who that is an and who thereby the of the is not itself Della Rocca not that distinction and are an He not that is an there is only being. This is as far as it As I have it Della Rocca not that distinction and are an what he have in a the of to distinction and he for on he to the and for what Della Rocca that he is at to on as he before the that has to and (p. and he will this in to that But it to what to to such given that too, on Della Rocca's are not so much as not have to be all that to think that if he is as he he must be with the same as or not have of that this its if Della Rocca is not as he but only as of a use of that what he would have as and I though it is to be that of the of Chapter which of a is to such a in his use of But his book very of the that we in Chapter For the the in it to philosophical and have the effect that and that seem to be to on of that. it is of Della Rocca's project that these should be as he confront the same in the he the of his book, that anyone who must what he has written as The is that, many many passages which, simply do not and Della Rocca be in a of many passages which, do As these and as has in any case obvious since the of this of the issues Della Rocca's book is what its are for its own That is the issue that I shall in the section. One is that we can any of the or in the book, since if we we would be what illegitimate in strict monist terms. There are two things of which this is each of which is as a for what Della Rocca is The is ad the of such a at least on a are which an that is to be as and which are to be as A is the that there is no to which with the that there is such a and a The thing of which the is is the thing that I the of the previous of what he has written in the as which, in the same he to a the of these the and the the are Even there are between that as though be what is in each case serve its what extent is it in each we are on what to be in though are not to the that are For if we say that, in the of the that there is no to we show that the of the is or if we say that to be have we said something in each is what it to and to be what it to be for the to It is not clear that the to all such questions will be the same in And this in means that there seems to be a significant issue about which of these if is the for what Della Rocca is the of much is what it to given Chapter of Della Rocca's book, which no main and given the rĂ´le that this to in the book and that Della Rocca not us to any of the of the book as what it to that he is not in the book in and that, he and only what he he could in he would have written at But I think this would be For Chapter is not as as it It has a in the book, a and a the a that what he has in the is that must in to if only of that reference to As it Chapter is more an in an the in an But much more there seems to be on Della Rocca's with that there is only to of this that he that all is or that all is True, of these a of which It is not that this as far as the strict monist of what is is It is that, at the very of Chapter his strict monist view that all is Della Rocca that more to And we that we say as such and (p. It seems to that Della Rocca would be to a of what he in the and that all the is material that is to us this I am and if we the that he would be to the and all the the the issue of the or the is the for what he is doing is an issue about the of the It of that Della Rocca's view the issue in strict monist there be any distinction between the and the the material that is to the for Della Rocca describes the that he has on as use a And much on this in with Parmenides, he that as but and as so too Parmenides but and as Della Rocca has the in he in the or for that that it is the for what he is One thing that to show that he has the in mind is his to it is that this is not the for between the and the that it to There is a with its in the a of is itself a of this the of the that there is no that is to is that is a that is to is not anyone who a view of will on a as not And there is for about the or of at in these views is the same as that in the as of there is about these views are in the this that the between and is not in this context. it is not to the of the is the for what Della Rocca is is and what that it is not the for what he is the no in this something to which I shall in the namely the fact that Della not only all of his own he all of what has written or do not the things we and for things could be we the (p. But am I not Della Rocca that the book is a kind of or a kind of in on to to his am I not his the of the to not what he is but what we are is what I am I am to sense of this so far as there is any on Della Rocca's that it has to do with that to And if the book have to do with it is but a philosophical or a philosophical I am to say that I it and There is a in which philosophy that is or Della Rocca is at in to us to I do not he can the of of or I in the previous a between what Della Rocca is doing in this book and what is doing in the Della Rocca is all that has written or is a he which, the we are no to (p. This is in to who the of as are in which we have to is not a of the but the itself in its are not but the that there Della Rocca thereby a that is to not in the philosophical but in the or at the or in the we have the the that I in the previous the that I in mind I of the that Della Rocca's book is a kind of or and are no to in a relation to the we and to to (p. That be all very well where philosophical work is concerned. But Della Rocca think this he the or he his It seems to me that these questions are an for Della But is this simply if he is to us and what to what I have he is about what it takes to he has no to a book of the kind he has and the do not come do these questions of if Della Rocca is can there be any such thing as writing a book, or any such thing as Della And can anyone be to given strict that is but that it in any relation to any and that there be anyone with any to be But us these questions and us to extent we that Della Rocca is to us and that he is about what it takes to should we the previous I of a of passages Della Rocca's book in which he of things But us not be the of the that the thereby Even if what he is us can be as things should we is the to us of things is the to us of I am far that there is no to the what the to us of The the issue that I in with in is there is a that is with Della Rocca's strict monism. has to this all are But this not work to Della Rocca's only are all this is I have what I to be a of questions that Della But if strict is I have not any questions at all and there is no to is if strict is I have not any questions that are not and there is no to that is not and am in much as I have doing throughout this But if what I have doing throughout this is in in is something that I am to have it is what I do I say not I am to strict monism. It is what I do I am in the my It is what the a this me the so be it Della Rocca have any way of the of to us in to this as he must on a strict monist and as he throughout his own in his own I a he to the that is of to us things is of to he will be in a that against the PSR or he will us an of things is of to he that things is of to us it to serve he will have it that much to the of what he is mind that what to serve is not in fact that, but rather things in with the of and he the of things to as he at the of Chapter he will have a significant to the of what he is his own to do that, which have in this way as or no the he follows with he will as he at the of Chapter have to as all there and we shall where we with an issue about what the to us of in my own can my own of which can be in the or the and to I can is that it to serve And I can that that is to be an to such as Della Rocca's book, is thereby to be And, I am at I can it no what I say on a strict monist with the that this is only my of to as thereby in with Della Rocca about what is to the that what I am is and to on the that what I am And I am to on as I and the things that I and and to the philosophical views about these things to which I it can be that strict monism, its are with to a point and there the of we and with The previous subsection in an to the if Della Rocca is about what it takes to And the in that we shall not only but and sense of what to us will us and we shall where we But this be as Della Rocca is about what it takes to he is in about there be any The me that my such and but Della Rocca he is has us with a argument that my And if the where we the there there to with of this the of The where we to be a of and we there must us this to strict thereby a I think this of my can be The very point of that that there is on a strict monist view to us to serve are to be to with but not to the extent that we have to we have to the said in a can any I would any a This seem it is of the in which a his that his he it and the But the of the could against it in a where are no to in a relation to the but are to to And to extent the of a is likewise the same in such a is is with the in the is not that it is but that it not serve the my me something that serve my in if my on the of that my such and and if this is Della Rocca's I do at least I am in the to to what the me and to Della Rocca's if his argument is And I do not what there strict monism, to there is a very the of Della Rocca's book in which he to he in in do things in to a that (p. be this on Della Rocca's is more Even it as though it is an on his to a And this in means that it as it who to and the doing of should it Della Rocca if we do And in any case we can the we can Della Rocca to not what we are but what he is the previous with what follows if Della Rocca is about what it takes to I for reasons given in that he is not about that. I for reasons given in the previous that, if he this that things more to us than The of the point of are a more significant than the of But so could It would be with the to that could not be in which we in the way in the previous section. on this would be to a on the very of since only philosophy is of that we are in that It would have as a that the the For it would that as we something as it to we need to to the such a thing be a which is to questions it is an to what it is and to the what it is is not only but
Abstract The nature of Kantâs criticism of his pre-Critical âpossibility proofâ for the existence of God, implicit in the account of the Transcendental Ideal in the Critique of Pure Reason , is still under dispute. Two issues are at stake: the error in the proof and diagnosis of the reason for committing it. I offer a new way to connect these issues. In contrast with accounts that locate the motivation for the error in reasonâs interest in an unconditioned causal ground of all contingent existence, I argue that it lies in reasonâs interest in another kind of unconditioned ground, collective unity. Unlike the conception of the former, that of the latter directly explains the problematic ontological assumption of the possibility proof, the existence of intelligible objects as the ground of possibility. I argue that such Platonic entities are assumed because they are amenable to the kind of unity prescribed by reason. However, since the interest in collective unity has a legitimate regulative use when applied to the systematic unity of nature, the conception of God entailed by the possibility proof is retained as a regulative idea of reason.
In this troubling and wise book on the European Union (EU), Alexander Somek puts forward a provocative reconstruction and assessment of the jurisprudence of the European Court of Justice (ECJ) and of the policy advocated by the European Commission. The core claim of Individualism is that magistrates and Eurocrats are slowly but steadily driving European polities away from the basic tenets of the democratic Rechtsstaat and into forms of inverted authoritarianism. Through a handful of leading cases and through a myriad of âsoft law initiatives,â the idea of a government of laws and the normative dignity of a constitution authored by the people is being subverted. Indeed, the democratic constitution is in the process of being replaced by a congeries of norms aimed at the pragmatic realization of the ideal of a free market inhabited by apolitical individuals. This is the peculiar European road to Tocquevillian individualism through the mirage of absolute freedom, through liberty unencumbered by political ties and loyalties toward a particular national community. At some points, the reader senses that this is a detail in what the author conceives of as the larger fresco of the history of modernity (or to be more precise, of how modernity has gone awry). Indeed, the logical conclusion of the book (even if not physically at the text's end) is the extremely somber passage in which Somek claims that â[t]he ideas of the French Revolution finally seem to be lost in Europe. The age of modern constitutional law is coming to its conclusionâ (p. 243).1 Striking a very dissonant note, the author thus claims that the usual Kantian optimism about the emergence of a ânewâ and âcosmopolitanâ European order is, at best, delusionary. There is a very dark side to European integration besides the rough and tumble of referenda. This grand argument is rendered powerful by the gusto with which the author moves across disciplinary borders. Indeed, the book is at least three things at the same time, namely: (1) a politico-theoretical assessment of the basis of legitimacy of European constitutional law, as it stands; (2) a constitutional and normative assessment of European policy making, with a special focus and emphasis on the Commission; (3) a critical and original legal-dogmatic reconstruction of some of the leading constitutional cases of the European Court of Justice. The core of the disheartening thesis of Individualism is that the judges sitting in Luxembourg and the Eurocrats mingling in the Bruxellois buildings of the Commission would transform not only the concrete substance of supranational and national fundamental laws (as the standard narrative goes) but also the very structure of social integration in the old Continent. While the Court's rulings and the Commission's enactments have retained the form and appearance of a legal-constitutional discourse,2 the leading judgments of the men in robes and the myriad policy initiatives by the fonctionnaires have mutated the fundamental law of the Union into a dubious body of âdissonantâ law,3 no longer informed by the normativity of the self-government proper to democratic constitutional law but by that of (neoliberal) âapproximation.â The latter would sever the connection between law and critical practical reason by dissolving the very idea of the legal system as a normatively coherent whole and replacing it with the âpragmaticâ reduction of law to a casuistic logic of appropriateness. It would also make political power vanish by negating the political condition and pretending to bring about a full decentralization of sovereignty, which Somek describes with poignant irony in chapter 11. On the one hand, Somek places considerable emphasis on the regulatory inventiveness of the Commission. In chapters 5 and 12, for example, he peers behind the jargon used by the Commission in explaining itself, providing a crucial diagnosis of how individualism is tied to a peculiar form of âcradle to grave,â inexpensive, and paternalistic welfare state (a kind of welfare state on the cheap). Instead of classical and expensive redistributive measures involving personal taxes and personal benefits, the inexpensive European welfare state would seem to be about the zero-cost policing of personal habits. Thus, the obsession with initiatives aimed at rectifying the smoking, drinking, eating, and exercising habits of the population. Add to this the further twist of grounding such initiatives on the need to realize the internal market, and you must agree with the author's sarcasm: âApparently, regulatory difference causes melancholiaâ (p. 250) and justifies the exercise of a liberal priesthood on the side of European institutions (p. 255). But the most intriguing part of the argument is Somek's discordant interpretation of the case law of the European Court of Justice. By a skilled dissection of the leading cases concerning, on the one hand, the division of competences among the Union and the member states and, on the other, citizenship in the Unionâor, to be more precise, the free movement of workers relabeled as the free movement of citizens by the Court itselfâSomek reveals the extent to which the Court has radically altered the relationship between economics, society, and law on the old Continent. Rulings concerning the powers of the Union and, very significantly, the key Tobacco Advertising decision,4 have, he claims, consecrated a radical shift in the understanding of what the âinternal marketâ is about. While seeming to ârein inâ the power of the Union, the Court, in truth, has abandoned any attempt at limiting the societal sphere of the single market and the radiating normative force of economic freedoms. In particular, the Court has reversed its old limiting jurisprudence according to which the Union's competence was to be determined by the âcenter of gravityâ approach or, what is the same thing, by pinpointing the regulatory interest of a measure and determining whether it was about creation of the internal market or achievement of a socioeconomic objective (the latter being reserved to member states). From Tobacco Advertising onward, the âinternal marketâ has trumped other interestsâthat is, any measure that removes a sufficiently serious obstacle to an economic freedom is held by the Court to fall within the competence of the Union, even if its regulatory center of gravity lies in an area of national competence, such as protection of health, promotion of education, or combating tax fraud. As a result, the ECJ has abandoned the so-called liberal market paradigmâwhich regarded economic integration as a way to achieve wider political goalsâand replaced it with a supposedly holistic market understanding that looks upon the four economic freedoms5 as the ultimate objective to which the organization of all of society must be subordinated. Thus, all socioeconomic norms are consequently viewed with suspicion as potential obstacles to economic freedoms.6 Once envisaged as a means of realizing openly political goals, economic freedoms have become the core of the material constitution of the Union. They are now at the heart of the conception of politics and society as enshrined in positive European constitutional law, a conception that, while well known in European constitutional history, is somewhat at odds with the one endorsed by postwar national constitutions. Meanwhile, the line of cases led by MartĂnez Sala7 and Baumbast8 threatens to redefine the very understanding of European citizenship. On the face of it, these cases might seem to have replaced the âmarketâ denizen of Community law with a âpoliticalâ European citizen by extending the number of holders of the Community right to free movement beyond the rank and file of workers to the general class of nationals of a member states and, perhaps, even more widely to permanent residents of a member state. However, such rulings have far less benevolent implications, because the practical effect of this kind of rights discourse is to expand the possibilities for the ECJ to review any national law on the ground that it violates economic freedoms. The upshot of the Commission's regulatory activities and the courtsâ deregulatory activities is a full recalibration of Community law, which is softened, regarding the strong parties in socioeconomic relations even as it is hardened into abrasive forms of âliberal paternalismâ that ânudgeâ9 us for our own good and purported freedom. The overall political result is the decadence of citizenship, which becomes a hollow category, inadvertently supersededâby what, we cannot be sure. The weak pulse of European constitutional and ordinary politics only amplifies the consequences of these developments. The complex blend of intergovernmentalism and supranationalism that lies behind the institutional structure of the Union is, indeed, an impediment to the interconnection of national political debates. Consequently, both the Court and the Commission lack democratic reference points by which to orientate their decisions. As a result, the active citizen is being superseded by the oxymoronic âindividualisticâ citizen (chapters 10 and 12), who is persuaded that it is in her own interest to become a docile subject delegating all power to rulers. It is because politics has vanished from the picture that political strife can be presented as a distraction or a threat, from which the really free individual has to be liberated by proper men in the know, or, put differently, by the selected few capable of handling and, above all, managing the restless many. All these major transformations would account forâamong other thingsâthe infatuation with a range of new and fanciful political idioms: no longer government, but âgovernance.â No longer capitalists, but âstakeholders.â No longer democratic confrontation, but arcadic âpartnerships.â Somek takes considerable pains to show that, while the terms may be new, this is not uncharted territory but, rather, a political involution toward a mixed constitution of sorts, guided by the neoliberal mirage of absolute individualistic freedom. The form of law is kept but put to the service of a rather Lenin-inspired regulatory politics, limited to the administration of things (chapters 10 and 13). Both the legal-dogmatic reconstruction of the ECJ's case law and the normative assessment of the EU's legitimacy seem more than âdisturbingly plausible,â to quote a blurb printed on the book's cover. However, what seems to be absent from the train of reasoning of Individualism, unfortunately, is a proper consideration of the temporal dimension of European integration. A question that might be raised is whether the âpost-constitutionalâ and âindividualisticâ drives that Somek describes are intrinsic to European integration, or whether they result from a mutation caused by political and judicial decisions. The point is not only of historical interest but is extremely salient in pragmatic terms. Indeed, the reader is left pondering whether European Union and Community law are doomedâis European law, indeed, postconstitutional in character?âor whether they can be redeemed and their normative promise realized. And if they can be, what is to be done to extricate the Union from its present fix? In that regard, the author seems to point in conflicting directions (in the affirmative, on pages 31, 241, or 267, and, in the negative, on pages 121 and 123). One can only guess that somebody who devotes time and effort to write a brilliant book about European integration is likely to find some promise in a federal Continental union. Be that as it may, it seems to me that Somek's thesis needs to be tested by going further back in time. It was in the early and mid-â80s when a major turn in the perception of the relationship between politics, economics, and law took place both at the national and at the supranational level.10 This event consisted in the massive albeit slow transformation of the understanding of both national and constitutional law. At the European level, the rulings in Cassis de Dijon11 (certainly following the opening in Dassonville);12 the policy decisions reflected in the White Paper on the Completion of the Internal Market of June 1985;13 and the constitutional option for the Single European Act14 were conducive to the rise of what Somek labels âmarket holismâ and âhollowâ European citizenship. This turn of events is also reflected in the substantive shifts from the common to the single market15 and from the understanding of economic freedoms as a way of operationalizing the principle of nondiscrimination (and thus reconcilable with autonomous national socioeconomic policies) to their characterization as realizations of European citizenship. Individually, each of these shifts may be supported by reasonable arguments; however, as a whole, they provided cover for âprivatizingâ our understanding of freedom, and for the recharacterization of national welfare and tax norms as obstacles to economic freedoms. If this is correct, we could claim that it was these decisions that changed the structural and substantive genetic code of the Union and of its law. These decisions, and not some intrinsic features of Community law, are to blame for the progressive erosion of the socioeconomic preconditions for meaningful national socioeconomic policies. Thus, if there is nothing intrinsically rotten in the state of Europe and in its legal order, Individualism perhaps should be read less as a diagnosis of the unavoidable fate of the Union, of its institutions and its laws, than as a dystopic projection of what can go wrong if we keep on treading our present path. Furthermore, it seems to me that Individualism merely suggests, without fully developing, the links between integration through postconstitutional law and the emergence of the so-called governance paradigm. Indeed, the Panglossian description of radically innovative procedures of collective will-formation through governance, such as the Open Method of Coordination,16 which, with little critical research underpinning it, nonetheless attracted wide comment, or the more esoteric mechanism of coordination of economic policies in Euroland through the Eurogroup seem to point in the same directionâthat of overriding constitutional law. To use words that were very popular in policy circles in the â90s, European governance should become the new grammar of European law. In more pedestrian English, this means replacing supposedly quaint or obsolete constitutional law, tainted by its relationship with the nation-state, with a new array of procedures and institutional formations; it will be through that the collective will may be formed. That sounds very similar, indeed, to the âdissonant lawâ that Somek reads into the jurisprudence of the European Court of Justice and the policy initiatives of the Commission. Still, it is ultimately uncalled-for to criticize an author for what was not done in a book that is as rich and suggestive as Somek's Individualism.
The twentieth century saw a vigorous debate over the nature of rights. Will theorists argued that the function of rights is to allocate domains of freedom. Interest theorists portrayed rights as defenders of well-being. Each side declared its conceptual analysis to be closer to an ordinary understanding of what rights there are, and to an ordinary understanding of what rights do for rightholders. Neither side could win a decisive victory, and the debate ended in a standoff.1 This article offers a new analysis of rights. The first half of the article sets out an analytical framework adequate for explicating all assertions of rights. This framework is an elaboration of Hohfeldâs, designed around a template for displaying the often complex internal structures of rights. Those unfamiliar with Hohfeld's work should find that the exposition here presumes no prior knowledge of it. Those who know Hohfeld will find innovations in how the system is defined and presented. Any theorist wishing to specify precisely what is at stake within a controversy over some particular right may find this framework useful. The analytical framework is then deployed in the second half of the article to resolve the dispute between the will and interest theories. Despite the appeal of freedom and well-being as organizing ideas, each of these theories is clearly too narrow. We accept rights, which do not (as the will theory holds) define domains of freedom; and we affirm rights whose aim is not (as the interest theory claims) to further the interests of the rightholder. A third theory, introduced here, is superior in describing the functions of rights as they are commonly understood. Will theorists and interest theorists have erred in adopting analyses framed to favor their commitments in normative theory. This has turned the debate between them into a proxy for the debate between Kantianism and welfarism. Yet that normative dispute cannot be resolved through a conceptual analysis of rights. The third theory presented here is not fashioned to fortify any normative position. Rather, it is offered as a vernacular standard against which to measure the interpretations of rights that various normative theories press us to accept. The ambitions of the article are thus principally descriptive. The first half of the article shows what kinds of things rights are (i.e., all rights are Hohfeldian incidents). The second half shows what rights do for rightholders (i.e., which Hohfeldian incidents are rights). The two halves together complete an analysis of the concept of a right. The analysis here is general. It holds for all rights of conduct: moral rights, legal rights, customary rights, and so on.2 The analysis aims to reveal the logical structure underlying our assertions of rights, while remaining faithful to an ordinary understanding of what rights there are, and of the significance rights have for those who hold them. The first half of the article sets out a modified Hohfeldian framework for explicating the meanings of rights assertions. The thesis of this section is that all assertions of rights can be understood in terms of four basic elements, known as the Hohfeldian incidents.3 There are two fundamental forms of rights assertions: âA has a right to phiâ and âA has a right that B phi,â where âphiâ is an active verb. We begin by connecting these two fundamental forms of assertion to the four Hohfeldian incidents: the privilege, the claim, the power, and the immunity. In the process it will emerge that each of the two fundamental forms of assertion can also indicate complex âmolecularâ rights, whose structure will be resolvable into combinations of the four âatomicâ incidents. Finally, at the end of this section we show how rights assertions that lack active verbs can be translated into active-verb form. We will then have covered all forms of rights assertions, and will have shown that all rights assertions can be understood in terms of the Hohfeldian incidents. We begin with those rights assertions of the form âA has a right to phiâ that indicate the privilege, the first of the four Hohfeldian incidents. A sheriff in hot pursuit of a suspect has the legal right to break down the door that the suspect has locked behind him. The sheriff's having a legal right to break down the door implies that he has no legal duty not to break down the door. For rights like the sheriffâs: âA has a Y right to phiâ implies âA has no Y duty not to phi.â (where âYâ is âlegal,ââmoral,â or âcustomary,â and âphiâ is an active verb)4 The type of right here is what Hohfeld called a âprivilege,â which is also called a âlibertyâ or a âlicense.â5 The sheriff's right is a single privilege. A right that is a single privilege confers an exemption from a general duty. While ordinary citizens have a duty not to break down doors, police officers have a privilege-right [no duty not] to break down doors. When President Nixon asserted that he had a legal right not to turn over the Watergate tapes, he was asserting âexecutive privilege.â Ordinary citizens have a legal duty to turn over evidence when subpoenaed. Yet Nixon alleged that because he was President he had a legal right [no duty not] not to turn over his evidence. James Bond's license to kill is also an exemption from a general duty. Bond's (alleged) right exempts him from a duty not to do what civilians emphatically have a duty not to do, viz., to kill. Similarly, your driver's license gives you the right to drive. This right exempts you from a duty not to do what you would otherwise have a strong duty not to doâto operate dangerous machinery at high speeds. We can represent a right that is a single privilege, such as your right to drive, in graphic terms as seen in Figure 1. . The Right to Drive as a Single Privilege In Figure 1 your right to drive a car is displayed as a single privilege. This single privilege is classified according to its function (a single privilege is a right of exemption), and according to the form of its assertion (a single privilege is asserted by expressions of the form âA has a right to phiâ). Some assertions of the form âA has a right to phiâ indicate not a single privilege, but a paired privilege. A paired privilege is composed of two privileges. The holder of a paired privilege has a privilege [no duty not] to phi, and also has a privilege [no duty not] not to phi. That is, for a right that is a paired privilege: âA has a Y right to phiâ implies both âA has no Y duty not to phiâ and âA has no Y duty to phi.â (where âYâ is âlegal,ââmoral,â or âcustomary,â and âphiâ is an active verb) A person vested with a paired privilege is entitled to perform some action, or not to perform that action, as he pleases. For instance, a chess player has the right to capture his opponent's pawn en passant. This right is a paired privilege: the player has a right [no duty not] to take en passant, and a right [no duty not] not to take en passant. The player may take his opponent's pawn, or not, as he thinks best. The function of a right that is a paired privilege is to endow its bearer with discretion, or choice, concerning some action. The chess player's right gives the player discretion over whether to take his opponent's pawn, or to leave that pawn on the board. Paired privileges can be enormously important. For instance, each person has extensive (if not unlimited) paired privilege-rights to move her body, and to use her property. In a liberal society each citizen also has extensive (if not unlimited) paired privilege-rights regarding her speech, association, and religious practice. These paired privilege-rights all entitle the rightholder to choose how to act within some domain: that is, they all specify what the rightholder has no duty (not) to do. It may be noticed that while a paired privilege is composed of two privileges, the function of a right that is a paired privilege is not related to the function of a right that is a single privilege. The function of a single privilege-right is to confer an exemption from a general duty. Yet neither of the privileges that make up a paired privilege need confer an exemption from a general duty. Rather, the function of the two privileges in a paired privilege-right is together to endow the rightholder with discretion concerning some action. The function of the single privilege-right (exemption) and the function of the paired privilege-right (discretion) are entirely independent.6 We can represent the chess player's right in the same space as we represented your right to drive, so long as we indicate that the rights which occupy this space may have either of two distinct functions (Fig. 2). . A Chess Player's Right as a Paired Privilege In Figure 2, âPrivileges (not) to capture a pawn en passant,â indicates the paired privilege to capture and not to capture a pawn. This paired privilege-right is classified according to its function (a paired privilege-right is, unlike a single privilege-right, a right of discretion), and according to the form of its assertion (a paired privilege-right is, like a single privilege-right, asserted by expressions of the form âA has a right to phiâ). We assert not only that âA has a right to phi,â but that âA has a right that B phi.â This second fundamental form of rights-assertion often implies not a lack of a duty in the rightholder A, but the presence of a duty in a second party B. In such cases: âA has a Y right that B phiâ implies âB has a Y duty to A to phi.â (where âYâ is âlegal,ââmoral,â or âcustomary,â and âphiâ is an active verb) Ignoring the domain restriction âY,â let us examine the simple assertion âA has a right that B phiâ when this implies âB has a duty to A to phi.â The Hohfeldian incident here indicated is the claim. For every claim in A there is some B who has a duty to A. Your right that I not strike you correlates to my duty not to strike you. Your right that I help you correlates to my duty to help you. Your right that I do what I promised correlates to my duty to do what I promised.7 As these examples suggest, rights that are claims can have three different functions. A claim-right can entitle its bearer to protection against harm or paternalism, or to provision in case of need, or to specific performance of some agreed-upon, compensatory, or legally or conventionally specified action. Claims, like privileges, can be of signal importance. Your right against assault, and a child's right to a decent education, and an employee's right to his pay are all examples of rights that are claims. Some rights are privileges, and some rights are claims. Many familiar rights are combinations of both of these Hohfeldian incidents. For example, in the United States arrestees have the right to remain silent. This is a âmolecularâ right made up of a privilege and a claim. The arrestee's privilege is a single privilege [no duty not] not to speak, which exempts the arrestee from the general duty to obey police instructions. The arrestee's claim correlates to the police officersâ duties not force him to speak, which protects the arrestee from the police (Fig. 3). . The Right to Remain Silent as a Privilege and a Claim Figure 3 displays an arrestee's molecular right to remain silent. On the left is the single privilege: a right of exemption of the form âA has a right to phi.â On the right is the claim: a right of protection of the form âA has a right that B phi.â The privilege and the claim together make up the arrestee's right to remain silent. âA has a right to phiâ often implies a privilege, and âA has a right that B phiâ often implies a claim. These implications hold oftenânot alwaysâbecause each of these forms of rights-assertion can also indicate a different, âhigher-orderâ Hohfeldian incident. We have not only privileges and claims, but rights to alter our privileges and claims, and rights that our privileges and claims not be altered.8 The higher-order incident indicated by âA has a right to phiâ is the power. To have a power is to have the ability within a set of rules to alter the normative situation of oneself or another. Specifically, to have a power is to have the ability within a set of rules to create, waive, or annul some lower-order incident(s). I have a right to promise to give you my fortune. Before I exercise this right I have no duty to give you my fortune, and you have no claim that I do. In exercising my power by making the promise, I create in you a claim to my fortune and thereby create in myself the duty to give it to you. Similarly, a judge has the legal right (power) to sentence a criminal to prison, meaning that a judge has the ability to annul the criminal's privileges of free movement. Or again: in a restaurant you have the customary right (power) to waive your claim to be served a sample of the wine before the bottle is poured, thereby annulling the waiter's customary duty to serve you this sample. The power, like the privilege, is indicated by propositions of the form âA has a right to phi.â All rights that are powers confer authority. Rights that are single powers confer nondiscretionary authority. For example, a judge's right to sentence a convicted criminal under mandatory sentencing laws is a single power. The judge's right authorizes her to annul the criminal's right to free movement. Yet this is a single power because the judge has no discretion under the sentencing laws: she must use her authority to sentence the criminal to a specified term of years. A right that is a paired power confers discretionary authority. For example, you have the power to waive, and the power not to waive, the waiter's duty to serve you a sample of wine. Rights that are paired powers, like rights that are paired privileges, endow their bearers with discretion concerning some action. Rights that are paired powers are thus both authorizing and discretionary.9 The rights that are indicated by the form âA has a right to phiâ have, in sum, three possible functions: single privileges mark an exemption from a general duty; both paired privileges and paired powers mark discretion within a certain domain; and both single powers and paired powers mark authority to alter the normative situation in some way. Powers can range over the rights of others. Clearly such powers must not be unlimited. The fourth and final Hohfeldian incident is the immunity. One person has an immunity whenever another person lacks the ability within a set of rules to change her normative situation in a particular respect. The immunity, like the claim, is signaled by the form âA has a right that B phiâ (or, more commonly, â. . . that B not phiâ). Rights that are immunities, like many rights that are claims, entitle their holders to protection against harm or paternalism. A professor has the right to teach and research at her university. A tenured professor has the right that her university not annul her rights to teach and research. The right of tenure is an immunity. The tenured professor's right corresponds to the university's lack of a right (power) to fire her. Similarly, an American's right that Congress not restrict her privilege of free speech protects her against the general power of Congress to impose duties upon her. A witness granted a right against prosecution gains an immunity against being indicted for certain crimes. A defendant who desires to be punished may invoke a right against being required to present evidence that might lead to his acquittal. All of these rights are immunities, and all protect the rightholder from harm or paternalism.10 Figure 4 displays all four Hohfeldian incidents working together within a complex right that you have over your body. This complex right comprises both first-order incidents (a paired privilege and a claim) and second-order incidents (a paired power and an immunity). On the first order, the paired privilege endows you with the discretion to move your body, or not to move your body, as you see fit. The claim on the first order affords you protection; it correlates to a duty in each other person not to touch your body. On the second order are your rights regarding the alteration of these first-order rights. Here we see the paired power that gives you the discretionary authority to waive your claim against others touching your body: your right, that is, to authorize others to touch your body. Also on the second order is your protective immunity against other people waiving your claim not to be touched: your right, that is, against anyone else authorizing others to touch your body. . A Complex Molecular Right As Figure 4 shows, the four incidents are positioned in the diagram according to their attributes. Rights over objects such as one's body are first-order privileges and claims. Rights over rights are second-order powers and immunities. As for the two columns, A's âactiveâ rights on the left are privileges and powers, while A's âpassiveâ rights on the right are claims and immunities. Privileges and powers are exercised, while claims and immunities are not exercised; they are merely enjoyed.11 Moreover, there is an overlap in function between privileges (exemption, discretion) and powers (discretion, authorization) on the left; and an overlap in function between claims (protection, provision, performance) and immunities (protection) on the right. Most rights are complex molecular rights like the one in Figure 4: rights made up of multiple Hohfeldian incidents.12 Molecular rights indicated by the form âA has a right to phiâ (where phi is an active verb) will always contain an incident from the left side of the diagramâa privilege or powerâalthough they may contain incidents from the right side as well. Thus the right to move freely is a molecular right that contains privileges (not) to travel about the country; and the right to lead a meeting is a molecular right that contains the power to close a debate.13 Molecular rights indicated by the form âA has the right that B phiâ will always contain an incident from the right side of the diagramâa claim or immunityâalthough they may contain incidents from the left side as well. Thus the right that others respect one's privacy is a molecular right containing a claim against unwanted surveillance; and the right that the government not take one's property without due process is a molecular right containing an immunity against sudden expropriation.14 We have shown how the two fundamental forms of rights assertions can be understood in terms of the Hohfeldian incidents. In both of these fundamental forms of rights-assertion âphiâ is an active verb. Assertions of rights in which âphiâ is not an active verb but a noun (âWorkers have the right to a decent wageâ) or in which âphiâ is a passive verb (âChildren have a right to be educated at state expenseâ) are easily transposed into active verb forms. Workers have a right that their employers pay them a decent wage, and children have a right that the state pay for their education.15 Explications of assertions of rights containing nouns and passive verbs merge in this way into the explication of the two fundamental forms of rights-assertion. Finally, assertions of broad or indeterminate rightsâsuch as the âright to free expressionââcan be specified in several different ways into complexes of Hohfeldian incidents. The different specifications will correspond to different understandings of the right at stake. Indeed one of the virtues of the Hohfeldian framework is its capacity to display in exact terms various interpretations of what people might mean when they assert a broad or indeterminate right like the right to free expression. For example, should a controversial author assert that his right to free has by a to his a Hohfeldian explication will show that the author is not asserting the privilege-rights to by protective claims and immunities. is asserting a claim-right that others the of his expression. This Hohfeldian explication will be in the of the assertion that his right to free has The framework for explicating rights assertions into assertions about Hohfeldian incidents is Any assertion of a right can be translated into an assertion about a single Hohfeldian or into an assertion about a complex of or into a set of assertions about such incidents. All rights are Hohfeldian incidents. The of this thesis is In sample rights, we have Each right can be with one or more of the Hohfeldian and Each right has one or more of the specific functions (exemption, discretion, provision, The is to All rights are like All rights can be into Hohfeldian in this will as we more and more rights with the Hohfeldian and as we to find The may to or that in this is and may to the framework with more sample rights. The a of rights from a which may be for the of that the ordinary of rights is or Yet there is with ordinary The in ordinary is merely like many other such as Assertions of rights can to various Hohfeldian incidents. these incidents have different logical may into they do not the implications of their assertions. For example, it is not for a to assert a right that can only be a privilege, and then on to from this assertion that him a duty. Yet this of is not the of a in ordinary It is a in the understanding of the various meanings of the Ordinary can be entirely and that how assertions of rights the Hohfeldian incidents. The Hohfeldian framework shows that the of rights is not a simple it is the of composed of the of the and the concept of and range over and the concept of and range over lower-order incidents. and are exercised, and overlap in their functions. and are and their functions also All of the rights that we know are from these elements, in ways by the of the All rights are Hohfeldian incidents. all Hohfeldian incidents That is, would any of the four Hohfeldian or any of as A's right it to We might the theory that this the theory of rights. of the theories of the functions of will theory and the interest this theory. to the will theory and the interest theory, some Hohfeldian incidents do not as rights because they do not perform the function that all rights The will theory that only those combinations of incidents that give their holders certain kinds of are as rights. The interest theory the term to those incidents that further their well-being. The will and interest theories are each theories of rights. to these theories all rights have some single the two theories as to what that function theories would the explication of rights assertions in the first of this in which rights have distinct The long and between these two theories through interest and (a will into the In the twentieth century the between of the two theories ended in I as is often the case with this situation is by each side a of a Here I will the to each theory in order to show how each is too as an of the functions of rights, and to indicate how the of each theory is the of the A I is what might be called the several functions theory of rights. The several functions theory what is in the will and interest because it not that all rights have some single function it the of The of a theory of the functions of rights is how it our ordinary understanding of what rights there are and what significance rights have for rightholders. The several functions theory is, I will to both the will theory and the interest theory on these The will theory of rights that the single function of a right is to give the rightholder discretion over the duty of another. A has a right, for instance, because he has the power to waive or not to waive the duties that others have not to his A has a right because she has the power to performance of the or to waive as she As the thesis of the will theory, who has the right is a to the duty is The of the will theory is that it for rights the of over of action. Many rights do endow rightholders with this of discretion, and so serve the freedom of those who hold them. The between rights and so in is for will theorists a of the will on a certain of freedom what he as a right. The will theorist as a right only those Hohfeldian incidents that confer on their bearers the discretion to alter the duties of others. Thus the will theorist as rights only those molecular structures that a paired power (not) to create, waive or annul a claim that one person has against This of the function of rights also a restriction on the of rightholders. The will theorist as rightholders only those that have certain the to exercise powers to alter the duties of others. These the will theory narrow. This is in the range of rights that the theory Many rights, such as the complex right in Figure do a paired power to alter a claim. many do For example, you have no legal power to waive or annul your claim against being or your claim against being to The will theory not that you have a legal right against being or against being to Yet would these claims as rights, as the more rights that Will theorists have to this of in two The first is to restrict the of the theory to a this that the will theory is at the of the with the working of the and is not adequate to rights at the of The second is to to the incidents in as rights by who have discretion with to such as a government who has discretion over whether to a Yet this for always the would with an ordinary understanding of rights. For here the will theory is to that you have no right against being Rather, the right that you not be would be the right, the is the person with the The of the will theory are also in its to for the rights of and of The will theory can rights only in those to exercise powers, which and children are and children cannot on this have This is a at with ordinary would that it is for example, for children to have a right against The will theory in many rights that there Yet where the will theory the interest theory The interest theory holds that the single function of rights is to further their rights are those incidents whose is to the well-being of the As
B. Balamurugan, T. Poongodi, M. R. Manu, S. Karthikeyan ¡ 5 authors
The moving image archive of the US Agency for International Development (USAID) includes a copy of the film The Double Day (1975), cataloged in the series Moving Images Relating to International Development Programs and Activities, 1979â1991, a collection of more than eight hundred titles âcreated to provide information on assistance programs supported by the Agency for International Development (AID).â1 Yet, The Double Day does not, in fact, directly depict or engage with any specific development or aid initiative. Instead, the filmâdirected by US-based Brazilian filmmaker Helena Solberg as part of the International Womenâs Film Project collective and described as âthe first Latin American feminist documentaryââexamines the gendered dynamics of paid and unpaid labor through the testimonies of women from Argentina, Bolivia, Venezuela, and Mexico.2 Its presence in the USAID archive is likely a consequence of its funding history, having received support from the Inter-American Foundation, a USAID-affiliated entity; the development agencies of Denmark, Norway, and Sweden; the United Nations Development Program; and US philanthropist Calvin Cafritz.3These transnational funding structures not only enabled the filmâs production but also determined its archival destination, which renders legible its place within the history of international development.4 The Double Dayâs institutional trajectory reflects the shifting configurations of aid, gender, and media during a historic moment when women were being repositioned at the center of what Arturo Escobar has described as developmentâs âregimes of visuality.â5 Especially relevant to The Double Dayâs production and exhibition was the international institutional framework of Women in Development (WID). Emerging in the early 1970s and culminating in United Nationsâ proclamation of 1975 as International Womenâs Year, WID emphasized womenâs participation in the global economy as both an index and mechanism of development. Indeed, The Double Day premiered at the World Conference of the International Womenâs Year, held in Mexico City.6 Within this context, the film forms part of a broader trajectory of media use by international organizations that intensified during the 1970sâas best exemplified by Media Habitat, a collection of 236 documentary films commissioned by the United Nations to represent urban and rural development initiatives for the 1976 Habitat Conference on Human Settlements in Vancouver. As a policy-shaping initiative, Media Habitat primarily featured films from the Global South intended not only to illustrate but also to help codify standardized audiovisual markers of âunderdevelopmentâ that determined access to the emerging global economic order and to international aid.7Framed in relation to these international institutions and their operations, The Double Day could similarly be considered âdevelopment mediaââexemplifying the type of nonfiction media produced and distributed outside of the commercial film circuits whose aspects and subcategories have been variously described in scholarship as nontheatrical, useful, sponsored, institutional, industrial, educational, or nonprofessional/amateur.8 Scholars working in this area have emphasized the institutional contexts of such mediaâs production and exhibition infrastructures as shaping its instrumentalized effects. From a feminist perspective, such an approach is crucial to grappling with the broader question of how âgender impacts [these worksâ] shape, content, and trajectories.â9 Yet we also argue that, taken in isolation, the institutional and infrastructural contexts are insufficient to account for the complex relationship between media and development, potentially not only limiting our understanding of the reach and impact of development but also distorting our interpretive conclusions. For example, to categorize The Double Day as âdevelopment mediaâ is to overlook the filmâs place within Solbergâs directorial oeuvre, as well as within the histories of both transnational womenâs filmmaking and radical Latin American documentary cinema to which it simultaneously belongs. Such exclusive framing is especially limiting given that women globally were disproportionately engaged in nonfiction production throughout the twentieth centuryâsometimes by political choice but more often due to structural exclusions from fiction filmmaking. Even in nonfiction historiography, however, institutional media has remained particularly marginal, reinforcing hierarchies that separate such works from the aesthetic and authorial frameworks through which film history has been constructed.10 This marginalization not only tends to erase womenâs contributions but also presumes a âweakâ or derivative authorship, rendering these films unworthy of the interpretive attention needed to apprehend their aesthetic and political complexity.11 The same dynamic is likely to structure assumptions about âdevelopment mediaâ as well.Categorizing The Double Day exclusively within this category would further prompt us to assume top-down institutional analyses that have been characteristic of both institutional media methodologies and the scholarship on development at large. This, in turn, would risk obscuring this filmâs radical Marxist approach to womenâs labor as well as its concrete contribution to activism and its attendant grassroot structures. In Mexico City, The Double Day became a catalyst for feminist solidarity in practice when one of the filmâs protagonists, Bolivian activist and trade unionist Domitila Barrios de Chungara, was invited to participate in the Tribune of Non-Governmental Organizations held alongside the official UN conference.12 There, Barrios de Chungara challenged Western feminist priorities by reframing the debate around labor, class, and imperialism, helping to articulate a shared Third World feminist agenda that significantly departed from the developmentalist vision of the United Nations and USAID.13 Seen through the lens of activist media, The Double Day helped forge transnational solidarity networks by enabling information exchange across the diverse voices that shaped its makingâfrom the women featured in the film to the activists who circulated itârevealing a considerably more dynamic interplay between institutional and grassroots or contingent media practices.Moreover, the filmâs Latin American contextâreflected in Solbergâs formation in Brazil as the only woman in Cinema Novo, its focus on women from across the region, and its premiere and key reception in Mexico Cityârequires grappling with the regional specificities of the very notion of development in its multiple iterations.14 Far from being an epistemological and political framework imposed solely by the Global North, both the practices of development and the theoretical foundations of developmentalism (understood as a broad and polysemic set of discourses) were shaped through the active participation of Latin American economists.15 Within this iteration, underdevelopment, as a constitutive notion of developmentalism, became central to a distinctly critical strand, which by the late 1960s became known as the dependency theory.16 This same approach is reflected in some of the best-known Latin American radical film manifestos of the time, arising precisely from the same milieus to which Solberg belonged.17These various considerations of the filmâs history illustrate the methodological challenges confronting feminist scholars seeking to assess the impact of development on media projects, theories, and practices. To disregard the developmentalist context of such works by emphasizing their political aesthetics and affects risks reproducing a romanticized narrative of heroic resistance (albeit from a feminist perspective). Yet to engage exclusively with their institutional and material infrastructures risks naturalizing developmentalismâs political and epistemological foundations at the expense of the goals and beliefs of the many women who participated in these projects. The contradictions and ambivalences that animate such histories call for feminist frameworks capable of holding both institutional complicity and radical possibility in view.This challenge resonates with ongoing debates about the politics of the archive and what Allyson Field has termed âthe practice of informed speculation.â18 As she reminds us, feminist, queer, and decolonial methodologies have long taught us to âpress at the limitsâ of the archive to âinoculate our scholarship against our evidenceâs afflictions.â19 The concern that the evidence we draw on in our analysis reproduces the very structures and blind spots of the dominant ideology and therefore shapes and delimits our interpretation becomes particularly urgent when engaging the developmentalist media corpus. Informed speculation offers an alternative by inviting the experimental, creative, and speculative rewriting of history, mobilizing the archive âin a project that runs counter to the original purpose, or the imperative to preserve, or the conditions that led to erasure.â20 Yet, as Field cautions, such speculative gestures must remain grounded in a deep and âintimate familiarity with the archiveâ that we are working with and against. Building on this imperative, we suggest that the developmentalist archive, in particular, demands expansion and critical reconsideration in ways that unsettle the very disciplinary frameworks through which it has been studied as well as the larger institutional contexts for such knowledge production.Our focus on The Double Day in the opening of this introduction thus foregrounds the entanglements of institutional and grassroots forces, local and international contexts, structural and interpersonal relations, and creative and economic factors that have shaped not only this film but the broader ecosystem of development media projectsâand their preservationâover time. Addressing such a constellation involves transgressing methodologically entrenched divisions between political economy and aesthetics, between material infrastructures and affective regimes; reckoning with divergent periodizations across film history and world economics; and situating these within the local specificities of womenâs movements and international institutional programs. It also demands attentiveness to the coexistence of multiple, and sometimes competing, understandings of developmentâeach historically, geographically, and ideologically situated.We imagine this special issue as an opening toward a critical dialogue, not only about how such an approach might be enacted in practice but also about the far-reaching ways development paradigms have shaped both our objects of study and the contours of the field itself. The decision to center institutionally sponsored films across all the essays in this issue is deliberate and enables us to highlight institutional critique as a vital methodological imperative within our analytical framework. Created within the frameworks of international organizations, state agencies, or NGOs, these filmsâ histories make legible the institutional logics that underwrite their production. Yet our critique does not stop at these specific entities. Rather, we argue for a broader interrogation of the political conditions and institutional infrastructures that shape media and knowledge production more generally. This includes contemporary corporations embedded in the digital platform economy, from streaming services to the rapid expansion of AI. Equally critical is a reflexive examination of academia itself, where departments of economics, political science, and centers for development have played a formative role in producing and legitimizing developmentalist theories and policy frameworks. While the humanities and arts have at times offered critical alternatives, they have also frequently mirrored and reinforced many of the same developmentalist assumptions. A feminist analysis of the nexus between development and media must therefore unsettle not only dominant archives but also the institutional and disciplinary foundations of our own scholarly practices.As scholars, we share the complex position of navigating the same tensions between institutional complicity and emancipatory aspiration as many of the media-makers whose work we study. Mirroring our subjects is also the transnational, collective mode of this special issueâs own production as it emerges from an ongoing informal working group we have sustained over several years. While relying on institutional and disciplinary affordancesâsuch as university funding for conferences or access to academic publishing platformsâwe have been working toward creating a community that exceeds, and often resists, the prevailing logics of our academic institutions. Our aim has been to create a space for shared inquiry and mutual support that pushes back against disciplinary siloing and technocratic neoliberal assessment modes of both labor and knowledge productionâand this certainly extends to our experience collaborating with the journal editors throughout the publication process. Our goal has been to examine both the persistence and variability of developmentalism, understood as what Gustavo Esteva calls a âpowerful but fragile semantic constellation,â as a conceptual formation that has historically inspired, legitimized, and mobilized media projects across Asia, Africa, and Latin America.21 And gendered biopolitics, from population control to gender mainstreaming, have remained integral to development policies and media practices, recurring across formats from institutional newsreels to film festivals.We share the conviction that, far beyond the history of nonfiction institutional media, development (as both a broad ideological project and a network of material and institutional practices) and developmentalism (as a set of discourses and theoretical models associated with development) have exerted a far-reaching influence on film and media cultures at large. As such, they must be treated as a major force in shaping global film and media systems and also the many ongoing assumptions behind their critical discourses. The discipline of communication studies was founded on modernization theory governed by Cold War goals of dissemination of Western liberal democracy around the world, while âan area studies framework allowed compartmentalizing Western and non-Western outcomes of technologies that were always claimed to be universal.â22 Despite critique from postcolonial and critical race studies, many of these frameworks have remained foundational for media theory.23 In historical scholarship, as we increasingly move beyond âmodernityâ as a dominant conceptual anchor, engaging with practices and discourses of development opens more precise analytical pathways. These film and mediaâs entanglements with the logics of and economic and the associated with as well as their conceptual underdevelopment, and impact in as diverse as and of media aesthetic and paradigms in film and film and funding are developmentalist assumptions to the they to underwrite the narrative and logics of and global media from the structure of the film to the cultures of argue that a examination of the historical entanglements between film and developmentalist aesthetics, modes of as well as infrastructures and critical the and that our contemporary media is a of the historical contours of development as a field of inquiry embedded within a of some of the methodologies by the featured in this special a of this complex history, to the larger at in media, development, and gender all its development a it as an of be with practices as divergent as and in In as we work on this the of the of the USAID the ideological that have the history of international the and of this on the global its a from development as a global practice and as an institutional and which over the has as a with its own media Yet or does not erase the historical impact of these the contradictions they have reflected and over the as the of development several crucial to the economic theories of development initiatives to and through the of the development an international policy framework at from the Global to the of the Global the by the political role of and the of the International the on was challenged by dependency theory and at development as global structural the neoliberal of the the Programs by the and World imposed and as conditions for and forms of assistance became known as the major markers for international development development has moving beyond economic to such as the Human Development and the Development and from international organizations such as the United Nations to a broader network of These frameworks increasingly of and liberal of and with what in many ways to various while the of the to developmentâs epistemological more scholarship has toward a of its and material the field has to a of and critical by and scholars, which development as a dynamic of conceptual and political to these the studies in this special issue call for sustained analysis in place of In we draw from a of and that in of of gender and to this special issue engage that and from Mexico to contemporary specific local historical of global distinctly feminist methodologies as well as attention to studies that this issue a in the global history of development on and documentary work in Mexico how early women infrastructures as of while US films an early of state and transnational on a outside the Global as the of developmentalist both the and markers of development media, its to the and Latin central grounded in archival also womenâs in transnational and the methodological of archives on study of the series to a a digital media not by but by women not as but as subjects and within circuits of neoliberal and the aesthetics and of how developmentâs has models of to contemporary neoliberal paradigms of and analysis how digital and gender and practices, discourses on and their of these essays the of some of the historical of developmentalist as the question of the role of the state within such on a notion of economic as a and the dominant of development that the state as the for and through infrastructural projects. This understanding of development was shared across both of the as well as in the Third The United and the increasingly mobilized international in the of the modes of international at the postcolonial of policy and ideological These programs were at the expansion of their and of while with the and decolonial of The conceptual between modernization and development that the Cold in of and hierarchies of that long and As an of postcolonial their role as of international aid concern about the of Western development projects. In alternative across the Global South that to structural between and through policies of and In many they were further the global structures. In Latin for example, this approach was through organizations such as the United Nations for Latin and the both developmentalist projects and their have taken many forms historically, and they have and they have been to a of projects, and postcolonial and development has been and in ways and with frequently political While many of these alternative frameworks the embedded in dominant Western they often technocratic and assumptions. gender and gender as for the of to be shaped by This becomes particularly in the media that of development where women frequently a crucial associated with and women were as both the subjects and of their participation in the and labor often as the index of In this study of from the 1970s how women were as of this as these about womenâs urban and recurring and of a within the own of and critique that official examination of archives and enables a feminist interrogation of their mobilizing a of the in the of contribution to this issue similarly the of a dynamic within as well as across ideological the of womenâs and the media of the and as active in labor and as integral to the technocratic women became of as their labor remained a of and analysis and archival with attention to the specific of and It also transnational that as a and affective a nexus of and practices through which gender, media, and developmentalism one film not as a but as part of the of alongside and work a broader concern of this special media as a of developmentalist projects. The debates the World and which international such as the United Nations and a critical historical for such primarily by postcolonial and of the for the of media and communication infrastructures in as to counter Western The a between and economic how systems of media and reinforced global hierarchies of and in an agenda that supported and alternative media infrastructures across postcolonial contexts, the framework gender as an analytical This âgender in the 1970s by of the Women in Development in relation to The Double its political critique of with its broader to center women in development policy through and This was also in of media, which was shaped by its international reach and audiovisual production and and and Yet, as WID institutional it also to the and of the womenâs development programs often by in These were by a of studies, and on and the to of womenâs presence and through the of their economic and In this on the filmmaker this history directly by the and of for women by the WID framework during the with and agencies the of and against Women in at the of the neoliberal turn, when institutional media often the only to access and support to projects. The an by this dynamic as of the from the Global South are to engage with the developmentalist assumptions funding models that their similarly the as a in developmentalist media history by the of and centers on the Film a between of and the attention toward the and labor by and work was foundational the of and the of audiovisual aid, as both a of development projects and a critical for their the in this issue argue for a with media, gender, and developmentalism as an field of that is and shaped by feminist and methodologies and that challenge the entanglements between academic knowledge production and and technocratic development And while methodological these dynamics at the structural the of feminist in media and cinema by this the very a
of Paul's chapters two definitions of the Christian ideal blend-' For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, these are sons of God'; John makes Jesus stake the future on the ' other Paraclete.'These texts represent all schools of New Testament thought.Indeed, the New Testament is just 'the book of the Spirit.'It is not necessary to repeat the old proofs that in it the ' Spirit of God' and the 'Spirit of Christ' are one, nor to argue that he who has another's spirit and none other is sure to grow really like him.He who receives God's Spirit becomes Christ-like and God-like.This third notion of true manhood is synonymous with the other two.' 1 C. Ryder Smith,