Freedom, Power and Political Morality

Freedom, Power and Political Morality

Freedom, Power and Political Morality Essays for Felix Oppenheim Edited by Ian Carter Research Fellow University of Pavia Italy and Mario Ricciardi Research Fellow University of Milan Italy

Editorial matter and selection Ian Carter and Mario Ricciardi 2001 Chapter 3 Mario Ricciardi 2001 Chapter 6 Ian Carter 2001 Chapters 1, 2, 4, 5, 7 14 Palgrave Publishers Ltd 2001 Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 2001 978-0-333-76332-2 All rights reserved. No reproduction, copy or transmission of this publication may be made without written permission. No paragraph of this publication may be reproduced, copied or transmitted save with written permission or in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, or under the terms of any licence permitting limited copying issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency, 90 Tottenham Court Road, London W1P 0LP. Any person who does any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages. The authors have asserted their rights to be identified as the authors of this work in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. First published 2001 by PALGRAVE Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS and 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N. Y. 10010 Companies and representatives throughout the world PALGRAVE is the new global academic imprint of St. Martin s Press LLC Scholarly and Reference Division and Palgrave Publishers Ltd (formerly Macmillan Press Ltd). ISBN 978-1-349-41451-2 ISBN 978-0-333-99271-5 (ebook) DOI 10.1057/9780333992715 This book is printed on paper suitable for recycling and made from fully managed and sustained forest sources. A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Freedom, power, and political morality : essays for Felix Oppenheim / edited by Ian Carter and Mario Ricciardi. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-1-349-41451-2 1. Liberty. 2. Power (Social sciences) 3. Political ethics. 4. International relations Moral and ethical aspects. I. Oppenheim, Felix E., 1913 II. Carter, Ian, 1964 III. Ricciardi, Mario, 1967 JC585.F743 2000 172 dc21 00 066574 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 10 09 08 07 06 05 04 03 02 01

Contents Notes on the Contributors Introduction Ian Carter and Mario Ricciardi vii ix Part I. Normative Analysis and Political Concepts 1. Felix Oppenheim s Deontics 3 Paolo Di Lucia 2. From Hobbes to Oppenheim: Conceptual Reconstruction as Political Engagement 20 Terence Ball 3. Essential Contestability and the Claims of Analysis 39 Mario Ricciardi 4. Freedom and Bivalence 57 Hillel Steiner 5. Dimensions of Nomic Freedom 69 Amedeo G. Conte 6. Ought Implies Practical Possibility 79 Ian Carter 7. Clarifying the Science Wars: the Concept of Scientific Authority 96 Mark R. Weaver Part II. Political Morality and International Relations 8. On Public Moral Appeals and Identification 121 Jean Bethke Elshtain 9. Anarchical Fallacies : Bentham s Attack on Human Rights 134 Hugo Adam Bedau 10. Pre-empting Humanitarian Interventions 153 Thomas Pogge v

vi Contents 11. Oppenheim s Realism and the Morality of the National Interest 171 Luigi Bonanate 12. Oppenheim and the National Interest 188 George Kateb Part III. Coda 13. Oppenheim in Italy: a Memoir 207 Norberto Bobbio 14. Afterthoughts 218 Felix E. Oppenheim Bibliography of the Publications of Felix E. Oppenheim 234 Index 237

Notes on the Contributors Terence Ball is Professor of Political Science at Arizona State University. He is the author of Rousseau s Ghost: a Novel (1998), Reappraising Political Theory (1995) and Transforming Political Discourse (1988), and co-editor of the forthcoming Cambridge History of Twentieth-Century Political Thought. Hugo Adam Bedau is Austin Fletcher Professor of Philosophy Emeritus at Tufts University. An honorary fellow with the Bentham Project at University College London, he is also the author or editor of several books, including The Death Penalty in America (1964, 1982, 1997) and Making Mortal Choices (1997). Norberto Bobbio is Emeritus Professor of Political Philosophy at the University of Turin, Italy, and has written extensively on legal and political philosophy. English translations of his works include Democracy and Dictatorship (1989), Thomas Hobbes and the Natural Law Tradition (1993), The Age of Rights (1996) and Left and Right (1996). Luigi Bonanate is Professor of International Relations at the University of Turin, Italy, and has written on strategy, nuclear deterrence, international terrorism and the general theory of international relations. He is the author of Ethics and International Politics (1995). Ian Carter is a Research Fellow in Political Philosophy at the University of Pavia, Italy. He has written on the concepts of freedom and equality, and is the author of A Measure of Freedom (1999). Amedeo G. Conte is Professor of Philosophy of Law at the University of Pavia, Italy. He is the author of Filosofia del linguaggio normativo, volume I (studi 1965 81) and volume II (studi 1982 94), both published in 1995, and of Filosofia dell ordinamento normativo. Studi 1957 1968, published in 1997. Paolo Di Lucia is Professor of Philosophy of Law at the University of Camerino, Italy. He is the author of Deontica in von Wright (1992) and vii

viii Notes on the Contributors L Universale della promessa (1997). He is currently working on a book on legal ontology and the philosophy of action. Jean Bethke Elshtain is the Laura Spelman Rockefeller Professor of Social and Political Ethics at the University of Chicago. Her books include Public Man, Private Woman: Women in Social and Political Thought (1981), Democracy on Trial (1995) and Real Politics: at the Centre of Everyday Life (1997). George Kateb is William Nelson Cromwell Professor of Politics at Princeton University. His most recent book is Emerson and Self-Reliance (1995). Thomas Pogge is Professor of Philosophy at Columbia University and has written extensively in moral and political philosophy and on Kant. He is currently at the Princeton Institute for Advanced Study, completing a book entitled Real World Justice. Mario Ricciardi is a Research Fellow in Jurisprudence at the University of Milan and Lecturer in Jurisprudence at the C. Cattaneo University, Castellanza, Italy. He has written on collective rights, the philosophy of action and causation in the criminal law. He is currently working on a book on responsibility. Hillel Steiner is Professor of Political Philosophy at the University of Manchester. He is the author of An Essay on Rights (1994) and (with Matthew Kramer and Nigel Simmonds) A Debate Over Rights: Philosophical Enquiries (1998), and editor (with Peter Vallentyne) of a two-volume anthology on left-libertarianism (2000). Mark R. Weaver is Professor of Political Science at the College of Wooster. His most recent written work has focused on Machiavelli s conception of political leadership, civic republicanism as a model of political reform, and Weber s formulation of the proper role of the social scientist.

Introduction Ian Carter and Mario Ricciardi Felix Oppenheim began his long intellectual career as one of the most forceful representatives of a new philosophical movement which used the sharp instruments of logical analysis and semantic reconstruction to model new ways of thinking about politics and law. His first main work, published in 1944, is one of the earliest examples of the application of Carnap s logical analysis to the field of law. More than fifty years of subsequent research have seen the publication of numerous articles and four books devoted to the analysis of fundamental political concepts like freedom, equality, power and interests, to metaethics applied to political issues, and to international relations. Much time has passed, but Felix has continued to work with patience and intellectual honesty per metter ordine al gran disordine. Commentators in earlier years rightly considered Oppenheim s approach a revolutionary one, while many now see it as outdated and of purely antiquarian interest. Logical analysis and conceptual reconstruction are today often perceived as the annoying fixations of pipesmoking philosophers interested only in preliminary or purely academic questions. All too often we hear it said that conceptual analysis is too abstract, that all forms of rationality are context-dependent, and that the most we can do is struggle to bring about change (if change happens to be what we desire). The idea of dedicating a collection of essays to Felix Oppenheim is certainly no tribute to these recent tendencies. Its realization is testimony to an intellectual debt felt by many colleagues and former students both to Oppenheim s work and, no less, to the dedication and generosity with which he has contributed to their philosophical development commenting, dissenting, suggesting alternative hypotheses ix

x Ian Carter and Mario Ricciardi and exposing confusions or lapses into rhetoric. Fashions pass, but the ideas behind them remain. It may be true that those who once seemed revolutionary tend today to appear the conservative opponents of methodological change. But is it not right to ask those who would have us abandon the rigours of conceptual analysis and follow some alternative methodological course to provide us with a coherent account of where, exactly, they wish to take us? Oppenheim s work continues to remind us of the importance of asking questions like this. It reminds us of the importance of providing reasons and arguments for our theses, of being clear and precise about the questions we are posing, and of not being in too much of a hurry to arrive at particular answers. We should conclude our brief introduction to this volume with a note about the subject matter of the individual essays. Our original proposal for the volume consisted in an invitation to contribute essays on themes related to the work of Felix Oppenheim. We expected, and received, contributions on fundamental political and legal concepts and on the nature and scope of political morality. Reading the essays, however, we were pleased to see that many of the authors had gone further and had taken up issues on which they disagreed with their old friend and colleague, directly criticizing particular aspects of his work. For this reason, we asked Oppenheim to conclude the volume with a reply. We mention this by way of apology to those of our authors who, because they simply followed our original instructions, have been denied the privilege of having their arguments rebutted.