Jeremy Waldron's analysis of right-based arguments for private property makes use of the distinction drawn by H. L. A. Hart between special and general rights. Special rights, according to Hart, “arise out of a special transaction between individuals, or out of some special relationship in which they stand to each other.” As a result, “both the persons who have the right and those who have the corresponding obligation are limited to the parties to the special transaction or relationship.” Thus if A has consented to pay me $9.99 for the sale of a particular item, the right I have acquired over the $9.99, which is presently deposited in A's bank account, is a special right. Correlative to my right over the money she owes me, A now has a duty to pay her debt. The duty that has been generated is limited to the party of the special transaction, and so the duty belongs to no one but A. Thus, a special right is a right in personam (or ius ad rem). It is a right directed against a particular person and not against the world at large.

Suivant une conception banale dans les sciences humaines et la philosophie contemporaines, l'individu rationnel se caracterise par deux propriétés solidaires : ses préférences sont représentées par une fonction-objectif et ses choix sont les valeurs de la variable-instrument qui maximisent cette fonction. La rationalité impliquerait donc le critère de l'optimisation. Ce point de vue heurte, dans une certaine mesure, les intuitions du langage ordinaire, pour lequel la notion de rationalité est a la fois ample et mal définie : est rationnel l'individu qui choisit de manière appropriée aux conditions de ses choix, ou encore qui agit suivant de bonnes raisons. Ces deux définitions ne prétendent pas à l'exclusivité; elles ne sont d'ailleurs pas immédiatement coextensives. Mais elles font voir que l'approche traditionnelle de la rationalité n'implique pas, en première analyse, l'idée extrêmement précise et technique de l'optimisation.

Any good ethical theory aspires to provide as comprehensive a guide to moral value and motivation as possible. Within modern moral philosophy, conceptions of moral value have been dominated largely by considerations of justice and concerns for the common good, and moral shortcomings have been accounted for primarily by appeal to ignorance, weakness, indifference or outright hostility to moral values. Yet the ways in which we fall short are far more complicated. By discussing one interesting example here, I hope to provide some support for the claim that our conceptions of moral value and motivation need enrichment. In making my case, I utilize a character who is more like a caricature than a figure from ordinary life. This touch of hyperbole is deliberate. Reflect for a moment on the function of a good cartoon caricature. By exaggerating physical features, it draws our attention to characteristics that go unnoticed in their normal context. Whereas cartoon caricatures aim at amusement, my goal is to distil some of our perceptions of moral excellence.

An acquaintance who works with street teens once said to me, “They live in a completely different world.” She did not mean only that they lived downtown and not in the suburbs, slept under bridges and not in beds, ate in soup kitchens instead of restaurants. She meant that street teens experienced a social reality radically different from the reality of those who have lived most of life in a relatively sheltered and stable middle-class environment. They have a different view of other people, of social authority, of human nature, of political and social institutions. As my acquaintance understood it, this difference resulted from experiences at home and school, experiences with adults who were at best negligent, at worst abusive and hostile. Children were not cared for at home, fared poorly at school, then ran from home to the street. The street teens she knew were hostile and despairing and expected others to be the same. A fundamental difference was in the area of trust: these teens lacked trust in family, teachers, peers, police, even those who sought to help them. And apparently for good reason, given the circumstances from which many of them emerged.

S'agissant du problème lié au statut de la connaissance humaine en général, la querelle du faillibilisme et du fondationnalisme n'est pas neuve. On peut même dire qu'elle parcourt l'histoire de la philosophie depuis ses tout débuts. Dans le contexte des préoccupations propres à la pensée contemporaine, cette querelle semble cependant se cristalliser autour de la question suivante : quel statut devons-nous aujourd'hui accorder à nos énoncés philosophiques? Pouvons-nous et devons-nous encore revendiquer pour ces énoncés, traditionnellement chargés d'établir les fondements et les principes premiers, un statut ontologique, sinon transcendantal? Ou au contraire, le développement des sciences expérimentales modernes, ayant éveillé en nous de manière sans cesse plus aiguë la conscience de la précarité de nos connaissances, ne nous incite-t-il pas désormais à envisager les propositions philosophiques comme n'étant rien de plus, malgre leur prétention et leur visée, que des énoncés faillibles, relatifs à l'expérience ou à l'histoire?

For some 20 years now, Judith Jarvis Thomson has written penetrating, insightful and scrupulously argued essays on controversial issues involving rights. The most important of these were collected and edited by William Parent in a volume entitled Rights, Restitution, and Risk. In an Afterword, reflecting on these essays, she lists a number of things that she felt were lacking from her discussions. Three of them are particularly important: a clear account of what it is to have a right, a clear statement of what rights we have and a clear statement of the role that detailed discussions of controversial cases play in moral theory construction. The volume under review expands and refines her earlier work on rights, and provides a more systematic treatment by, among other things, filling these three gaps. Those familiar with her work will not be disappointed: the new book is as lucid, challenging, illuminating and vigorously argued as her earlier essays, but now affords an overview of the realm of rights, as well as a delineation and location of “the territory of rights” on “the continent of morality” (p. 3).

No idea sounds so silly that no ancient Greek fervently defended it. I hope we do not lose sight of the value there is in studying the Greeks. Yet it is even better to do as they did and not just to study what they said.

For some years now Martha Nussbaum's reputation as a brilliant literary critic, literary scholar and philosopher has grown with each new publication until today the fact is readily acknowledged even by her most vigorous opponents. Her splendid book, The Fragility of Goodness: Luck and Ethics in Greek Tragedy and Philosophy put her in the first rank of both Greek scholarship and contemporary ethical thought. It has already achieved the rare stature of one of those monumental works by which moral philosophers and literary scholars must now orient their work. Love's Knowledge, however, is not likely to enhance her considerable reputation by much since it contains very little that is new.