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"This book argues that citizens have a moral right to decide by which criteria they grant migrants citizenship, as well as to control access to their territory in the first place. In developing and defending this argument, it critically engages numerous objections, thus providing the reader with a thorough overview of the current debate on the ethics of immigration and exclusion. The author's argument is based on a straightforwardly individualist and liberal starting point. One of the rights granted by liberalism is freedom of association, which also comprises the right not to associate with people with whom one does not want to associate. While this is an individual right, it can be exercised collectively like many other individual rights. Thus, people can decide to collectively organize into an association pursuing certain goals; and subject to certain provisos, this gives rise to legitimate claims to space and territory in which they pursue these goals. The author shows that this right is far-reaching and robust, which entails an equally far-reaching and robust right to exclude. Moreover, he demonstrates that large-scale immigration from illiberal cultures tends to severely compromise the way of life, the values, and the institutions of liberal democracies in ways routinely ignored by apologists of multiculturalism. Freedom, Culture, and the Right to Exclude will be of interest to scholars and advanced students working in applied ethics, political philosophy, political theory, and law"--

This book argues that citizens have a moral right to decide by which criteria they grant migrants citizenship, as well as to control access to their territory in the first place. In developing and defending this argument, it critically engages numerous objections, thus providing the reader with a thorough overview of the current debate on the ethics of immigration and exclusion. The author's argument is based on a straightforwardly individualist and liberal starting point. One of the rights granted by liberalism is freedom of association, which also comprises the right not to associate with people with whom one does not want to associate. While this is an individual right, it can be exercised collectively like many other individual rights. Thus, people can decide to collectively organize into an association pursuing certain goals; and subject to certain provisos, this gives rise to legitimate claims to space and territory in which they pursue these goals. The author shows that this right is far-reaching and robust, which entails an equally far-reaching and robust right to exclude. Moreover, he demonstrates that large-scale immigration from illiberal cultures tends to severely compromise the way of life, the values, and the institutions of liberal democracies in ways routinely ignored by apologists of multiculturalism. Freedom, Culture, and the Right to Exclude will be of interest to scholars and advanced students working in applied ethics, political philosophy, political theory, and law. (Verlagstext)

This book provides a thorough critical overview of the current debate on the ethics of war, as well as a modern just war theory that can give practical action-guidance by recognizing and explaining the moral force of widely accepted law. Traditionalist, Walzerian, and "revisionist" approaches have dominated contemporary debates about the classical jus ad bellum and jus in bello requirements in just war theory. In this book, Uwe Steinhoff corrects widely spread misinterpretations of these competing views and spells out the implications for the ethics of war. His approach is unique in that it complements the usual analysis in terms of self-defense with an emphasis on the importance of other justifications that are often lumped together under the heading of "lesser evil." It also draws on criminal law and legal scholarship, which has been largely ignored by just war theorists. Ultimately, Steinhoff rejects arguments in favor of "moral fundamentalism"-- the view that the laws and customs of war must simply follow an immutable morality. In contrast, he argues that widely accepted laws and conventions of war are partly constitutive of the moral rules that apply in a conflict. The Ethics of War and the Force of Law will be of interest to scholars and advanced students working in just war theory, applied ethics, political philosophy, political theory, philosophy of law, and criminal and military law.

"This book offers a philosophical analysis of the moral and legal justifications for the use of force. While the book focuses on the ethics self-defense, it also explores its relation to lesser evil justifications, public authority, the justification of punishment, and the ethics of war. Steinhoff's account of the moral use of force covers a wide range of topics, including the nature of justification in general, the precise elements of different justifications, the logic of claim- and liberty-rights and of rights forfeiture, the value of human life and its limits, and the princples of reciprocity and precaution. While the author's analysis is primarily philosophical, it is informed by a metaethical stance that also places heavy emphasis on existing law and legal scholarship. In doing so, the book appeals to widely shared moral intuitions, precepts, and concepts grounded in criminal law. Self-Defense, Necessity, and Punishment offers the most comprehensive and systematic account of the ethics of self-defense. It will be of interest to scholars and graduate students working in applied ethics and moral philosophy, philosophy of law, and political philosophy."--

The idea that all persons are in some way moral equals or owe each other equal respect and concern has become dogma, and thinkers who question it are often reviled as 'Nazis' or 'racists'. The authors in this volume, however, take a more reflective and critical attitude and try to clarify concepts, showing that the argument is far from obvious.

Intro -- On the Ethics of Torture -- Contents -- Preface -- Acknowledgments -- Introduction -- Chapter 1: What Is Torture? -- Chapter 2: The Moral Justification of Torture -- 2.1 The Argument from Self-defense -- 2.1.1 What Is Self-defense? -- 2.1.2 Proportionality, or: Many Forms of Torture Are Not as Bad as Killing -- 2.2 The Argument from the Culpability for Creating a Forced-Choice Situation -- 2.3 The Argument from Necessity -- 2.4 Reminder: The Justification of Torture Is Compatible with Rights Absolutism -- 2.5 The Utilitarian Argument -- Chapter 3: Defusing the Ticking-Social-Bomb Argument: Against Consequentialist Attempts to Undermine the Right to Self-defensive Torture -- Chapter 4: Against the Institutionalization of Torture -- Chapter 5: Legalizing Torture? -- Chapter 6: Objections -- 6.1 Attempts to Quickly Dismiss the Argument from Self-defense and Other Rights-based Arguments -- 6.2 The Defenselessness Argument -- 6.3 But Is It Really Self-defense? Whitley Kaufman and Daniel Hill -- 6.4 David Sussman's Complicity Argument -- 6.5 Kant's Categorical Imperative: The Three Kantian Formulas -- 6.6 "Breaking the Will" (and "Dignity," "Subject Status," and "Self-legislative Rulership") -- 6.7 Torture and the Doctrine of Double Effect -- 6.8 Is the Ticking-Bomb Example Unrealistic? -- 6.9 "Torture Knows No Limits" -- Chapter 7: Is Justifying Torture Bad Even If Torture Is Sometimes Justified? -- Conclusions -- Notes -- References -- Index.

A comprehensive and detailed analysis and sustained critique of Habermas' philosophical system since his pragmatist turn in the 70s. The study clearly and precisely depicts his long chain of arguments leading from analysis of speech acts to a discourse theory of law and the democratic constitutional state.

Steinhoff deals with topical and urgent questions: When is a war just, and when not?, describing and explaining the basic tenets of just war theory and giving a succinct, precise and highly critical account of the present status of the theory and of the most important and controversial current debates surrounding it.

AbstractThe "right intention" requirement, in the form of a requirement that the agent must have a justified true belief that the mind-independent conditions of the justification to use force are fulfilled, is not anadditionalcriterion, but one thatconstrainsthe interpretation of the other criteria. Without it, the only possible interpretation of the mind-independent criteria is purely objectivist, that is, purely fact-relative. Pure objectivism condemns self-defense and just war theory to irrelevance since it cannot provide proper action guidance: it is impractically demanding. This means that "revisionist" just war theories which base their doctrine of the moralinequality of combatants on the idea that objective justification defeats liability are irrelevant for the real world, where objective justification is virtually inaccessible. Moreover, only the right intention requirement in the form of a knowledge requirement, as opposed to requiring "good intentions" or "acceptable motivations," can solve this problem.