Too many people analyse the concept of negative liberty in a way that obscures its place and significance in our lives. Here I seek to redress the balance by shining light on its structure and value. With respect to the essential structure of negative liberty and unfreedom, I push for a more intuitive, dynamic, and subjectivist agent-centred approach in place of the more mechanistic Hobbesian and austere Hayekian conceptions that have tended to predominate. Emphasising the importance of self-direction, authenticity and self-development to liberty delivers both a more coherent negative concept internally, and a notion that is more compellingly distinguished from its positive counterpart. Regarding liberty's relationship with coercion and manipulation, my explanation is that rational and emotional compulsion constrains negative liberty because it interferes with options and restricts freedom of choice. With respect to the significance of negative freedom and why we care about it, I consider its general, content-independent value to lie in its contributions to autonomy as well as to values more often associated with positive freedom such as individuality and self-realisation. Harnessing Mill's thesis, I highlight the importance of self-understanding and self-knowledge in the process of self-development, and explain from a non-utilitarian angle the nature of the negative opposition to paternalism and control.

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The main focus of this study is Benhabib' s concepts of the 'concrete other' and 'interactive' universalism, Cornell's 'ethical' feminist thought and Nedelsky's argument on 'rights as relationship'. The need for an affirmation of the feminine is emphasised. I argue that we should strive towards a 'new choreography of sexual difference' based on the ethical view that 'woman' cannot be described in the present. She is the beyond. My study explore the implications of ethical feminism for the possibility of the transformation of a legal system and society as a whole. In this regard it lays particular emphasis on Derrida's concept of 'justice as aporia' and justice as limit to a legal system. I discuss pornography as a concrete example of texts that may either frustrate transformation or contribute to it. I argue in . this regard that pornography should not be banned but that access to pornography should be subjected to restrictions. This approach will serve the ambigious nature of pornography as both a threat to and a vehicle for the exploration of the feminine in contemporary society. / Private Law / LL.M.

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by Wan Tak-sing. / Thesis (M.Phil.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 1995. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 110-111). / INTRODUCTION --- p.1 / Chapter 1 --- PROCEDURAL JUSTICE RECONSIDERED --- p.4 / Three Kinds of Procedural Justice --- p.5 / The Original Position --- p.11 / Personal Goods and Common Goods --- p.15 / The Good in the Procedure --- p.18 / Chapter 2 --- WHAT IS COMMON GOOD? --- p.22 / Popular Views of Common Good --- p.23 / "Two Senses of ""Common""" --- p.29 / Diversity of Goods --- p.33 / Evaluation of Goods --- p.44 / Two Kinds of Common Goods --- p.54 / Chapter 3 --- THE SELF AND COMMON GOODS --- p.70 / What is the Self? --- p.71 / The Unencumbered Self --- p.79 / The Situated Self --- p.84 / Common Goods and Self-Identity --- p.95 / CONCLUDING REMARKS --- p.108 / WORKS CITED --- p.110

In this thesis I outline a view of primary legislation from a systems perspective. I suggest that systems theory and, in particular, autopoietic theory, as modified by field theory, is a mechanism for understanding how society operates. The description of primary legislation that I outline differs markedly from any conventional definition in that I argue that primary legislation is not, and indeed cannot be, either a law or any of the euphemisms that are usually accorded to an enactment by a parliament. I cite two reasons for such a conclusion. The primary reason for my conclusion is that I see primary legislation as being an output of a particular subsystem of society, while the law is the output of another subsystem of society. I argue that these outputs are the discrete products of separate subsystems of society. I argue that primary legislation should be viewed as a trinity. The first state of this trinity is that, upon enactment, primary legislation is a brute fact in that it is but a thing and the only property of this thing is that of being a text. The second state of this trinity is that following the act of enactment, the thing enacted will be reproduced and this reproduction is a separate thing that will sit in some repository until used. The third state of this trinity is that, upon use, this thing that is primary legislation will be transformed into an object and the user will attribute such functions and attributes to that object as are appropriate to the context within which the object is used. The thing has therefore become an object and an institutional fact. The second reason for my conclusion that primary legislation is not a law relates to the fact that the thing that is primary legislation is a text and the only function of a text is that it is available to be read. That is to say, of itself, a text is incapable of doing anything: it is the reader who defines the status of the text and attributes functions and attributes. Upon use, primary legislation thus becomes a censored input for future action and one of these actions may be some statement by a court of law. I assert that the view of primary legislation that has been accepted within the body politic is the product of the discourse of a particular subsystem of society that I have designated ?the legal practice?, and I outline why and how this has occurred. Outlining a view about primary legislation also necessitates outlining a view as to the nature of the law. I assert that the law is a myth and I see this myth as a product of the discourse of the legal practice. I have asserted that although it is the judges that state the law, such statements flow from the discourse of those who practise the law.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Oklahoma, 1993. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 326-336).

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