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This study investigates the interaction between freedom and limitation as applied to political expression and hate speech. The need for the limitation of hate speech, with its inherent risk of escalation into other serious crimes such as genocide, is established. The view of the South African courts is identified as pro-limitation but generally respectful of the right to freedom of expression. A lacuna in current constitutional law, common law and legislative remedies is evident and the various ways in which limitation can be effected are explored; the researcher finds for criminalisation as an effective measure to address this lacuna in hate speech regulation. The importance of complying with the international call for the criminalisation of hate speech is analysed. Insight is gained regarding what would be an effective model for criminalisation. Here lessons are taken from foreign comparatives that have successfully criminalised hate speech in the context of their cultural identity, history and social needs. Ultimately, a framework for effective hate speech criminalisation in South Africa is formulated. / Constitutional, International and Indigenous Law / LL.M

This work deals with the different concepts of justice that are presented by works of John Rawls and Robert Nozick. Seeing that they are liberal authors, the first chapter is devoted to liberalism and its forms. Rawls is presented as a supporter of modern liberalism and Nozick is presented as a representative of classical liberalism, concretely libertarianism. The second chapter discusses how both authors describe natural state. The third chapter is devoted to it how Rawls and Nozick talk about conception of liberty. The following chapter describes and compares their theories of justice: justice as fairness and justice as entitlement. The fifth chapter deals with the final reflection on the theories of both authors. There are presented various reactions and interpretations of the mentioned theories. At the same time, there is shown considerable asset of Rawls?s Theory of Justice and Nozick?s Anarchy, State and Utopia which both influenced political-philosophical discussion.

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L’avènement des théories et des politiques publiques dites néolibérales marque à première vue le déclin de la notion de souveraineté, à la fois comme principe légitimant et comme motif mobilisateur. Les thèses néolibérales, dans leur diversité, se sont construites comme des contre-points à la souveraineté. Contre la puissance absolue de commander du monarque, les régimes libéraux ne doivent leur vertu qu’à la croissance des libertés individuelles ; contre la souveraineté populaire, la démocratie ne trouve son effectivité que dans des techniques de gouvernement. Cette opposition théorique paraît d’autant plus ferme que les évolutions géopolitiques d’après-guerre portent massivement atteinte aux attributs classiques de la puissance souveraine. La mondialisation de l’économie bouleverse le découpage territorial de l’espace en faisant commercer des régions plus que des États souverains. La globalisation des échanges fait émerger des instances économiques privées dont la puissance rivalise avec les États institués. L’avènement d’internet complexifie les transactions rendant vaine toute prétention à maîtriser la vie publique. Enfin, le développement du droit international et l’aventure communautaire européenne portent atteinte à la puissance législative et décisionnaire des gouvernements représentatifs. Cependant, contre le récit annonçant le retrait de l’idée de souveraineté, contre l’idée d’une incompatibilité de la souveraineté et du néolibéralisme, cette thèse cherche à se rendre attentive aux traitements qui sont réservés à la notion de puissance souveraine, aussi bien dans les œuvres théoriques que dans les politiques publiques européennes contemporaines. / The advent of so-called neoliberal theories and public policies seems to mean the decline of the notion of sovereignty, both as a legitimizing principle and as a mobilizing motive. Neoliberal theses, in their diversity, have been constructed as counterpoints to sovereignty. Against the absolute power of command of the monarch, liberal regimes owe their virtue only to the growth of individual liberties; against popular sovereignty, democracy finds its effectiveness only in the techniques of government. This theoretical opposition seems even stronger because the post-war geopolitical developments massively undermine the classic attributes of sovereign power. The globalization of the economy disrupts the territorial division of space. The globalization of trade brings out private economic powers which compete with the instituted States. The invention of the Internet makes transactions more complex, which prevent any possibility of controlling public life. Finally, the development of international law and the European community adventure undermine the power of representative governments. However, against the narrative announcing the withdrawal of the idea of sovereignty, against the idea of an incompatibility of sovereignty and neoliberalism, this thesis seeks to pay attention to the treatments that are reserved for the notion of sovereign power, in theoretical works as well as in contemporary European public policies.

My master thesis explores classical liberal attitudes towards the Welfare State. It deals especially with concepts developed by the so-called new classical liberals (also called neoclassical liberals) represented by scholars of the Arizona School. I use their ideas to reconstruct free-market liberal theory of social justice, which is then applied to pension reforms in Chile and Sweden. The thesis also recollects critiques of public pension systems by public choice theory scholars, which are then used to explore a nature of the aforementioned pension reforms. In cases of both reforms, these theoretical frameworks are used to evaluate data obtained by a desk research. Relevant documents and also data of international organizations and national statistical offices were used. In its last part, the thesis evaluates primary data obtained by semi-standardized interviews with seven Czech classical liberals and explores their attitudes towards both the free market liberal theory of social justice and pension reforms in Chile and in Sweden. Abstrakt Diplomová práce zkoumá vztah klasického liberalismu k sociálnímu státu. Zabývá se zejména koncepty vyvinutými takzvanými novými klasickými liberály reprezentovanými především badateli arizonské školy. Jejich ideje využívám k rekonstrukci tržně liberální teorie...

The thesis analyzes selected issues in the U.S. criminal justice system, and the solutions proposed by American libertarians. First, it introduces libertarianism as a whole, based on both contemporary and historical sources. The thesis then examines the real influence of libertarians on U.S. politics, and the possibility that libertarian proposals might be adopted. It analyzes the successes of the U.S. Libertarian Party and introduces movement and factions in the two major parties, Republican and Democratic, and today's influential politicians who at least partially promote libertarian proposals. In the final, pivotal chapter, the thesis uses the theoretical base provided in the first chapter to analyze the shortcomings of the U.S. criminal justice system, and the solutions and changes that libertarians propose. The structure of this analysis follows the generally accepted structure of the system itself, dealing with criminal law and its enforcement through policing, courts and corrections. On each of these levels, the thesis introduces both the libertarian critique of today's system and examples of specific issues and proposed solutions. The thesis identifies the so-called "War on Drugs" as one of the key points of the libertarian critique, and uses is as a case study which illustrates the impact of...

In this paper, I make use of the game-theoretical concepts of cartel theory and coordination theory via salience and Schelling points in order to assess the viability of prefigurative politics when used by group actors to address the particular case of the climate crisis. I show that prefigurative politics as a strategy faces significant systematic disadvantages when used by social movements attempting to address climate change as compared to when it is used by social movements focused on other causes. These disadvantages are based on two factors: lack of motivation and a difficulty of coordination. In order to illustrate this point, I compare the situation for contemporary climate movements to a case example of the Montgomery bus boycott of 1957, showing how cartel theory worked in the favour of the civil rights movement, and how salience was crucial for the fast mobilisation of the African American community of Montgomery.

One of the central questions in political theory deals with the nature of rights. What sorts of rights do people possess? How are these rights justified? How ought these rights be reflected and related when seen in political, economic, and social institutions? Following the publication of John Rawls' A Theory of Justice (1971) and Robert Nozick's Anarchy, State, and Utopia (1974), rights have once again returned to dominate much of contemporary political theory. However, natural law, which was the historical basis of the early Enlightenment theories of rights, is no longer the primary system appealed to when discussing rights. In fact, classical natural law has been all but discarded in most of political theory today. There has also been renewed debate over the nature of public neutrality, and what the relationship ought to be between the public and private sphere. The mainstream view of how our liberties relate to our rights, as well as what kinds of rights we have over our private affairs, has come under fire from a newly emerging political philosophy known as communitarianism. This thesis will present a robust theory of rights that provides a new understanding of the relationship between positive and negative rights through a defense of classical natural law as an ethical foundation for political theory. It will side with the communitarian critics of public neutrality, and offer a practical method of determining when the state is justified in limiting private liberties due to public interest.

<p>I argue in my dissertation that the Marxist ethical claim against capitalism could be bolstered through: 1) a recognition of the inaccurate human ontology that capitalist theories of entitlement presuppose, 2) a reconceptualization and replacement of that old paradigm of human ontology with a concept that I call “organicism” and 3) a normative argument for why this new paradigm of human ontology necessitates a new political economy and a new way of structuring society. I use the debate between Robert Nozick and G.A. Cohen as a launching point for my case.</p> <p><br></p> <p>In his book, <i>Self-Ownership, Freedom, and Equality</i>, G.A. Cohen argues that Robert Nozick’s “entitlement theory” is unable to produce the robust sense of freedom that libertarians and capitalist proponents aggrandize. According to Cohen, the reason for this is due to the limitations and consistency errors produced by the libertarian adherence to the “self-ownership principle.” (the moral/natural right that a person is the sole proprietor of their own body and life). Namely, that the pale freedom that the proletariat enjoys within capitalism is inconsistent with the Libertarian’s own standard for freedom. So, Cohen argues for the elimination of the self-ownership principle. My project picks up where Cohen’s leaves off, claiming that the consistency errors don’t lie in entitlement theory’s use of the self-ownership principle (it is important that we don’t throw out the baby with the bathwater). Rather, the errors lie in the principle’s metaphysics - specifically in the ontology of the human being. The self-ownership principle is only faulty because it presupposes an impossible self. I show that entitlement theory heedlessly presupposes the self (or a human ontology) as a “rational, autonomous, individual.” I then deconstruct each of these three features (rationality, autonomy, and individuality) to show that this picture of the human being is not necessarily incorrect, but it is incomplete.</p> <p><br></p> <p>Although we are indeed rational, autonomous, individual creatures, these are only emergent characteristics that merely arise after the organic and socially interconnected aspects of our selves are nurtured. I encompass these latter features of our selves under the heading: “organicism”. So, my contribution is to provide a different ontological foundation of the human being – “organicism” – to replace the Enlightenment grown: “rational, autonomous, individual”. I draw heavily from Karl Marx’s philosophical anthropology, and G.W.F. Hegel’s theory of the unfolding of Geist/Spirit, with a little inspiration from Aristotle and ecological theory to construct “organicism” – a pancorporealist, naturalistic materialism. It is the theory that the human being is, in essence, an organic creature, inseparable from nature, but <i>through </i>the nurturing of these material, organic, symbiotic relationships (with other humans and with the ecosystem) that these “super”-natural capacities of rationality and autonomy arise along with and because of a <i>full</i> self-consciousness.</p> <p><br></p> <p>Finally, I infer the normative implications of this ontology of subjectivity. This organicist conception of the self has transformational effects on our notions of property and the way we structure society. So, I contend that organicist ontology then serves as the foundation for a normative theory of political economy that sees the flourishing or health (broadly speaking) of the organicist human as the primary ethical goal. I speculate on an alternative political economy that can provide the robust sense of freedom that Nozick’s entitlement theory (capitalism) was lacking because it actually produces the <i>conditions</i> necessary for rationality, autonomy and individual freedom.</p>