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There are all sorts of ways in which one can dirty one's hands in politics. The classic problem is that of the political leader who finds he has to act immorally for the sake of the greater good. But some dirty-hands problems are more mundane. They arise out of the fact that one acts in politics alongside others, particularly in a democracy, and so one is not always in control of the values and principles that are being put into play. This happens sometimes because of the need for compromise; or through procedures like majority decision. Some of these cases have an interesting historical dimension. They reflect the fact that politicians have to act against the background of decisions made by their predecessors. Laws routinely remain in force, for example, despite the demise of the political factions that enacted them: so a politician may have to keep faith with and faithfully administer a legal decision he condemns. I argue that this is best understood not as the balancing of disparate personal convictions, but of his having to act in the name of the whole society (understood as an entity existing over time). The sense of "dirty hands" arises from the juxtaposition of the politician's own convictions with the requirements of his particular role as speaking for an entity larger than himself. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Jeremy Waldron is University Professor and Professor of Law at New York University, a position he has held since 2006. He has recently been elected to the Chichele Chair of Social and Political Theory at All Souls College, Oxford, which he will hold jointly with his NYU position beginning in 2011. Professor Waldron was born in New Zealand and educated in law and philosophy first at Otago University and then at Oxford. His career has included academic appointments at Edinburgh, Berkeley, Princeton, and Columbia. His recent books include God, Locke and Equality (Cambridge, 2002), and Torture, Terror and Trade-offs: Philosophy for the White House (Oxford, 2010). [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The article focuses on theoretical arguments for a bicameral legislature. Topics discussed include approach of philosopher Jeremy Bentham diatribe against bicameralism, differences in the matter of the electoral system and the organization of constituencies and the principle of the separation of powers relevant to the issue of bicameralism.

The applicability of the ideal we call ‘the Rule of Law’ (ROL) in international law (IL) is complicated by (1) the fact that there is no overarching world government from whom we need protection (of the sort that the ROL traditionally offers) and it is also complicated by (2) the fact that IL affects states, in the first instance, rather than individuals (for whose sake we usually insist on ROL requirements). The article uses both these ideas as points of entry into a consideration of the applicability of the ROL in IL. It suggests that the ‘true’ subjects of IL are really human individuals (billions of them) and it queries whether the protections that they need are really best secured by giving national sovereigns the benefit of ROL requirements in IL. For example, a national sovereign's insistence that IL norms should not be enforced unless they are clear and determinate may mean that individuals have fewer protections against human rights violations. More radically, it may be appropriate to think of national sovereigns more as ‘officials’ or ‘agencies’ of the IL system than as its subjects. On this account, we should consider the analogous situation of officials and agencies in a municipal legal system: are officials and agencies in need of, or entitled to, the same ROL protections as private individuals? If not, then maybe it is inappropriate to think that sovereign states are entitled to the same ROL protections at the international level as individuals are entitled to at the municipal level. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on the author's general observations on the insights, criticisms, and suggestions given in his article "Are Sovereigns Entitled to the Rule of Law?." The author mentions his philosophical orientation of the rule of law and the international legal system associated with the understanding of international sovereignty. The author is particular on the relation between law and state and its implication on the international law in sovereigns and jurisprudence.

The article presents a lecture by Jeremy Waldron delivered at the 2010 Natural Law Lecture, in which he discusses positive law and its importance to natural lawyers as well as the view of Thomas Aquinas about the Latin word determinatio that means concretization or positivization within the principles of natural law.

The question about whether judges are better than legislatures at identifying and addressing the moral issues associated with rights needs to be posed in a more refined way that takes account of the suggestions made by Professors Beaud, Dyzenhaus, and Sadurski. As Professor Sadurski points out, it is not clear that issues about rights differ in their moral salience from other decisions that need to be faced in politics. Professor Dyzenhaus insists, quite rightly, that the question be posed as a question about institutional competence and institutional procedures. In this response, however, I argue that that reformulation does not make the question go away; it just poses it in a more complex setting. Professor Beaud rightly emphasizes that the question is usually raised in this form only in common law systems. Here, however, I argue that the fact that moral reasoning is concealed beneath the esoteric structures of adjudication in civil law systems does not mean that my question has no application there. All it means is that, in order to answer it, we must persuade judges to be a little more candid about what they are doing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Debates about judicial authority-including debates about the desirability of judicial review of legislation-sometimes turn on the question of whether judges have superior skills when it comes to addressing what are, essentially, moral issues about rights. This paper considers the possibility that the answer may be "no," not because judges are inept morally, but because the institutional setting in which they act and the role that they adopt both require them to address questions about rights in a particular legalistic way-indeed, in a way that, sometimes, makes it harder rather than easier for essential moral questions to be identified and addressed. Of course, what we want is for moral issues to be addressed, not as one would make a personal moral decision, but in the name of the whole society. Perhaps the judicial mode of addressing them satisfies that description, but there are other ways of satisfying it too-including legislative approaches, which proceed by identifying all the issues and all the opinions that might be relevant to a decision, rather than artificially limiting them in the way that courts do. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Uses the biblical parable of the Good Samaritan to explore the issues of the moral problem of distance. Question of whether moral concerns diminish over distance; Assertion that the parable evokes the intuition that the sheer proximity of two human beings, even in the absence of any ethnic or other affiliations, generates moral obligations; Suggestion that the impartial and universal message of the parable can be useful for morality.

Discusses the theoretical foundations of liberalism. Definition of the terms 'socialism', 'conservatism' in relation to liberalism; Practical propositions that might be regarded as the core or the essence of the ideology in question; Development of the theory of government.

Considers the way in which different images of charity are related to the issue of the justification of welfare provision. Denial of the moral legitimacy of welfare provision in the modern state; argument that if we adopt a different image of charity, one will find the complaint about the morality of compulsory charity less convincing.

Focuses on the idea of mixing one's labour. Basis for a plausible account of the genesis of property rights in Locke's state of nature; Goods owned in common.

Examines the economic philosophies and concepts postulated by philosopher and economic thinker, John Locke in relation to the "enough as good" clause from the "Second Treatise". Private goods and property; Restriction on acquisition; Invention of money; Inegalitarian order; Entitlement conception of justice; Natural limitations on property.