Legitimacy

By Beetham, David

Legitimacy refers to the rightfulness of a powerholder or system of rule. The term originated in controversies over property and succession, and was used to differentiate children born ...

Human rights

By Jones, Peter

Human rights are rights ascribed to human beings simply as human beings. While people may possess some rights only if they occupy a special position or role, such ...

Alterity and identity, postmodern theories of

By Fenves, Peter

Theories of alterity and identity can be said to be ‘postmodern’ if they challenge at least two key features of modern philosophy: (1) the Cartesian attempt to secure ...

Violence

By Coady, C.A.J.

Violence is a central concept for much discussion of moral and political life, but lots of debate employing the concept is confused by the lack of clarity about ...

Territorial rights

By Catala, Amandine

Inherent in the notion of territorial rights is the idea of exercising control over a geographically bounded area of land. The question of territorial rights as a philosophical, ...

Humanitarian intervention

By Wheeler, Nicholas J.

The legality, legitimacy and morality of humanitarian intervention are matters of great controversy. Disagreements abound over what weight should be placed on the humanitarian motives of intervening states ...

Hell

By Adams, Marilyn McCord

The ancient idea that the dead go to a dark subterranean place gradually evolved into the notion of divinely instituted separate postmortem destinies for the wicked and the ...

Brunner, Emil (1889–1966)

By Seban, Jean-Loup

Emil Brunner was one of the most influential Protestant theologians of the twentieth century. He was a minister of the Swiss Reformed Church, a professor at the University ...

Conscientious objection in healthcare

By Clarke, Steve

When healthcare professionals ask for a conscientious objection to be accommodated, they are requesting an exemption from a work role they object to, on moral or religious grounds. ...

Inference to the best explanation

By Vogel, Jonathan

Inference to the best explanation is the procedure of choosing the hypothesis or theory that best explains the available data. The factors that make one explanation better than ...

Obligation, political

The problem of political obligation has been one of the central concerns of political philosophy throughout the history of the subject. Political obligations are the moral obligations of ...

Paternalism

By Arneson, Richard

Restriction of people’s liberty of action is paternalistic when it is imposed for the good of those whose liberty is restricted and against their will. The argument in ...

Power

By Green, Leslie

The general notion of power involves the capacity to produce or prevent change. In social and political philosophy, narrower conceptions of power specify the nature of these changes. ...

Soloveitchik, Joseph B. (1903–93)

By Hartman, D.

Joseph B. Soloveitchik was a Jewish philosopher in the fullest sense. For such thinkers, the task of building intellectual and spiritual bridges between their particular traditions and other ...

State, the

By Nicholson, Peter P.

States are inescapable, powerful and fundamentally important in the modern world. They spend a substantial portion of their members’ wealth; they tax, confiscate or compulsorily purchase private property; ...

General will

By Nicholson, Peter P.

The fundamental claim for general will is that the members of a political community, as members, share a public or general interest or good which is for the ...

Linguistic discrimination

By Scheman, Naomi

‘Linguistic discrimination’ is a redundancy. Discriminating is at the heart of what languages do. The question, of course, is when they can be said to do it invidiously, ...

Population and ethics

By Heyd, David

Ethical concern with population policies and with the issue of optimal population size is, generally speaking, a modern phenomenon. Although the first divine injunction of the Bible is ...

Teleology

By Woodfield, Andrew

Teleology is the study of purposes, goals, ends and functions. Intrinsic or immanent teleology is concerned with cases of aiming or striving towards goals; extrinsic teleology covers cases ...

Contractarianism

By Freeman, Samuel

The idea that political relations originate in contract or agreement has been applied in several ways. In Plato’s Republic Glaucon suggests that justice is but a pact among ...

Conventionalism

By Horwich, Paul

How is it known that every number has a successor, that straight lines can intersect each other no more than once, that causes precede their events, and that ...

Political philosophy, history of

By Hampsher-Monk, Iain

The history of political philosophy attempts to yield a connected account of past speculation on the character of human association at its most inclusive level. ‘History’ or ‘philosophy’ ...

Vitoria, Francisco de (c.1486–1546)

By Pagden, Anthony

Francisco de Vitoria, who spent most of his working life as Prime Professor of Theology at Salamanca, Spain, was one of the most influential political theorists in sixteenth-century ...

International law, philosophy of

By Buchanan, Allen

The philosophy of international law has a long history, reaching back on some accounts beyond the Medieval period to late Hellenistic philosophy. In the twentieth century work in ...

Life and death

By Harris, John

Problems concerning life and death are among the most dramatic and intractable in philosophy and they feature in all fundamental areas of philosophical inquiry, especially ethics. Most basic ...