Ett nytt politikområde håller på att ta form, nämligen genteknik- och bioteknikpolitiken. Hur vi väljer att reglera detta nya kunskapsområde avslöjar bland annat hur vi ser på individens rätt kontra samhällets nytta. Bakom vår lagstiftning gällande genteknik ligger således etiska och moralfilosofiska idéer. Syftet med uppsatsen är att kartlägga i vilken utsträckning den svenska synen på genteknik, vid tidpunkterna 1984, 2000 och 2008, präglas av utilitaristiska och/eller libertarianska idéer. Metoden som används för att fullgöra syftet är en innehållslig idéanalys, där idealtyper konstrueras som analysverktyg. Idealtyperna kommer sedan att ställas mot det empiriska materialet, som utgörs av tre SOU rapporter från 1984, 2000 och 2008. Resultaten visar tendenser till att individens rättigheter ses som primära framför samhällets nytta. Det finns dock, inom varierande aspekter, olika grader av både utilitaristiska och libertarianska idéer i den svenska synen på genteknik.

Thomas Pogge proposes the Health Impact Fund (HIF) as a realistic, feasible reform to the pharmaceutical patent regime that would incentivize pharmaceutical research and reward innovation for medicines based on their impact on the global burden of disease. Pogge advances a human rights-based argument to show that the HIF is a morally required addition to the current pharmaceutical patent regime. One objection to his human rights argument comes from a libertarian appeal to property rights. Pogge’s response to the libertarian leads to the counterintuitive conclusion that libertarianism is incompatible with any system of intellectual property rights. This paper will show how Pogge fails to distinguish between what I call status quo and revisionist libertarian positions on intellectual property. Making this distinction, I maintain, would strengthen the human rights argument and allow Pogge to avoid the counterintuitive conclusion of his response to the libertarian.

abstract: Libertarians affirm the right to liberty, i.e., the right to do what one wants free from interference. Libertarians also affirm the right to private property. One objection to libertarianism is that private property relations restrict liberty. This objection appears to have the consequence that libertarianism is an incoherent position. I examine Jan Narveson's version of the libertarian view and his defense of its coherence. Narveson understands the right to liberty as a prohibition on the initiation of force. I argue that if that is what the right to liberty is, then the enforcement of property rights violates it. I also examine Narveson's attempt to support private property with his distinction between interference with and mere prevention of activity and argue that this distinction does not do the work that he needs it to do. My conclusion is that libertarianism is, in a sense, impossible because conceptually unsound. / Dissertation/Thesis / M.A. Philosophy 2011

This paper examines a series of emerging utopian discourses that call for the creation of autonomous libertarian enclaves on land ceded by or claimed against existing states. These discourses have emerged in the aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis and can be seen as a response to the crisis on the part of freemarket advocates who critique previous waves of neoliberal reform for failing to radically transform the existing structures of the state. Enclave libertarianism seeks to overcome neoliberal capitalism's contradictory relationship to the liberal democratic state by rethinking the state as a "private government service provider" and rethinking citizens as mobile consumers of government services. Citizens are thus called to "vote with their feet" by opting-in to the jurisdiction that best fits their needs and beliefs. The paper argues that these utopian imaginaries are key to understanding specific new manifestations of post-crisis neoliberalism, and calls for more research into the diversity of discourses and imaginaries that circulate through networks of neoliberal actors beyond specific policy initiatives.

This thesis rejects the position, dominant in political philosophy since Plato that the authority of states may be explained by means of a moral theory of legitimacy. It denies that it is possible even in principle to determine a principle that can endow a state with the moral entitlement to rule and create for its citizens a moral obligation of obedience which thereby authorises it to coerce them. The thesis argues that a Lockean understanding of the state leads more naturally to the position that the state is properly understood as a necessary evil granted qualified justification to coerce in order to protect people from each other. It locates this ambiguity in the moral psychology of the individuals from which a Lockean state must derive its powers and through whom it acts. It further claims that, Government officials being no different in character than the individuals over whom they rule, further coercion may be justified to raise funds by taxation to set up political institutions such as a separation of powers, and to ensure that citizens may equip themselves with the skills needed to avoid being financially dependent on the state. This justification is nonetheless provisional, and the responsibility to weigh the necessity of public coercion against the evil that it involves falls upon individual voters as much as parliamentarians and prime ministers.

It is commonly contended by the political right that freedom and equality are mutually incompatible values. This ‘incompatibility argument’ can be characterized as positing a trade-off between freedom and equality, such that the more a society realizes of one, the less it is able to realize of the other. Talk of trade-offs between values implies the possibility that they can be subjected to quantitative analysis, and in order to make sense of the trade-off interpretation of the incompatibility argument I identify quantifiable conceptions of freedom and equality. The incompatibility argument invokes negative freedom and equality of outcome. Consequently it is often resisted by endorsement of alternative conceptions of these values like positive freedom or equality of opportunity. Refraining from this strategy, I aim to show that for those committed to both negative freedom and equality of outcome the outlook is not as bleak as the incompatibility argument would seem to suggest. This is because the traditional picture ignores the context in which the trade-off between freedom and equality takes place, namely, the widespread privatization of resources. I argue that in addition to the advertised trade-off between freedom and equality, each of these values also trades off against the extent to which private property rights are enshrined. As above, for trade-offs to take place between private property and other social goals it must be possible to quantify private property, and I seek to show that such quantification can be achieved. If my analysis is successful we will then be faced with three trade-offs: freedom vs. equality, freedom vs. private property, and equality vs. private property. By integrating these three trade-offs into a single three-dimensional model I aim to present a more informative account of the relationships between the three goals. The extent to which freedom and equality trade-off against one another is itself determined in part by the extent to which a society realizes private property. As a result, by curbing or abolishing private property rights more freedom can be secured alongside greater equality.

No description available.

In this paper, I have examined the political philosophy of a left-libertarian, Michael Otsuka from his book Libertarianism Without Inequality, and a libertarian socialist, Nicholas Vrousalis from his article Libertarian Socialism: A Better Reconciliation between Equality and Self-Ownership. The goal of this examination is partially to explore and present a variety of positions on distributive justice within libertarian theory as well as defend libertarian socialism as a plausible form of libertarianism. The main question motivating this defense is “Can libertarian socialism be truly libertarian in its conception of self-ownership and autonomy?”. In this examination of both left-libertarianism and libertarian socialism I compared both theories to the works of prominent right-libertarian philosophers, primarily John Locke and Robert Nozick, to determine if the theories meet the standards set by traditional libertarianism in promoting individual autonomy as well as to determine if these standards can be reconciled with substantial material equality, either in terms of opportunity or welfare. The results of this examination showed that not only are left-libertarianism and libertarian socialism plausible theories of libertarianism, even exceeding potential for individual autonomy found in right-libertarian theory, but that they both successfully reconcile this autonomy with equality. In defending libertarian socialism, it was determined that it is a successful reconciliation of self-ownership and equality, though this comes at the expense of the potential for minor decreases in self-ownership among individuals when compared to Otsuka’s left-libertarianism. This was defended, however, as libertarian socialism seems more promising a theory for those who hold stronger commitments to equality as well as additional commitments, namely a commitment to democracy.

No description available.

Doctorat en philosophie et lettres / info:eu-repo/semantics/nonPublished