Home About us Contact
|
Home About us Contact | ||
|
|
||
Obligations
Kinds of Obligations Selected AbstractsONE CASE,ONE SPECIALIZED JUDGE: WHY COURTS HAVE AN OBLIGATION TO MANAGE ALIENATION AND OTHER HIGH-CONFLICT CASESFAMILY COURT REVIEW, Issue 1 2010Hon. Donna J. Martinson This article challenges the traditional approach to alienation and other high-conflict cases in which many different generalist judges deal with the case. The objectives of the judicial process, dealing with cases in a just, timely, and affordable way that instils confidence in the public and litigants, cannot be met unless high-conflict cases are actively managed by one specialist family law judge. Allowing parents in high-conflict cases to decide when and how often their case should come before the court exacerbates the negative effects of the litigation on children. This article concludes that, unless the litigation is properly managed by specialist judges, the justice system unintentionally causes harm to children. [source] COMMUNITY, OBLIGATION, AND FOOD: LESSONS FROM THE MORAL GEOGRAPHY OF INUITGEOGRAFISKA ANNALER SERIES B: HUMAN GEOGRAPHY, Issue 3 2010Nicole Gombay ABSTRACT. Using Inuit as an illustration, this article discusses what it means to live in community, and argues that by taking people's moral geographies into account one may understand more fully the make-up of community. The article maintains that their moral geography creates a feeling among Inuit of obligation for the other. It is this obligation that serves as the basis for community. The article theorizes about the implications of internalized mores based on obligation, and discusses how, in contrast to the concept of rights, such mores contribute to the formation and maintenance of community. The article concludes that developing a situated understanding of people's moral geographies may help to expand our comprehension of community construction and maintenance. [source] FOREKNOWLEDGE, FREEDOM, AND OBLIGATIONPACIFIC PHILOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY, Issue 3 2005ISHTIYAQUE HAJI A recent, noteworthy challenge to this presupposition invokes a "Divine Frankfurt-type example": God's foreknowledge of one's future actions prevents one from doing otherwise without having any responsibility-undermining effect on one's actions. First, I explain why features of God's omniscience cast doubt on this Frankfurtian response. Second, even if this appraisal is mistaken, I argue that divine foreknowledge is irreconcilable with moral obligation if such foreknowledge eliminates alternatives. [source] ANSCOMBE ON A LAW CONCEPTION OF ETHICS AND THE EXPERIENCE OF OBLIGATIONTHE HEYTHROP JOURNAL, Issue 2 2010KEVIN E. O'REILLY First page of article [source] THE PARENTAL OBLIGATION TO EXPAND A CHILD'S RANGE OF OPEN FUTURES WHEN MAKING GENETIC TRAIT SELECTIONS FOR THEIR CHILDBIOETHICS, Issue 4 2007ERIC B. SCHMIDT ABSTRACT As parents become increasingly able to make genetic trait selections on behalf of their children, they will need ethical guidance in deciding what genetic traits to select. Dena Davis has argued that parents act unethically if they make selections that constrain their child's range of futures. But some selections may expand the child's range of futures. And other selections may shift the child's range of futures, without either constraining or expanding that range. I contend that not only would parents act unethically if they make selections that constrain the range of their child's futures, they would act unethically if they make selections that shift the range of their child's futures, because selections that shift the range of the child's futures would allow parents to over-determine their child's futures. Thus, I contend that parents would act ethically only if they make selections that expand their child's range of futures. [source] THE MIRACLE OF THE CELLS: AN EXPERIMENTAL STUDY OF INTERVENTIONS TO INCREASE PAYMENT OF COURT-ORDERED FINANCIAL OBLIGATIONS,CRIMINOLOGY AND PUBLIC POLICY, Issue 1 2008DAVID WEISBURD Research Summary: In this article, we present findings from an experimental study of an innovative program in fine enforcement developed by the Administrative Office of the Courts (AOC) of New Jersey, termed Project MUSTER (MUST Earn Restitution). The project was initiated by the New Jersey AOC as a response to concerns among probation personnel that probationers sentenced to monetary penalties often failed to meet their financial obligations. The program sought to increase payment of court-ordered financial obligations among probationers who are seriously delinquent in paying fines, penalties, and restitution, and was designed to "strengthen the effectiveness of restitution and fine sanctions by forcing those offenders who have the ability to make regular payments to do so." Project MUSTER relied on a combination of intensive probation, threats of violation to court and incarceration, and community service. We find that probationers sentenced to Project MUSTER were significantly more likely to pay court-ordered financial obligations than were those who experienced regular probation supervision. However, probationers sentenced to a second treatment group, in which the only intervention was violation of probation (one part of the MUSTER program), had similar outcomes to the MUSTER condition. These findings suggest that the main cause of fine payment was a deterrent threat of possible incarceration, which is often termed the "miracle of the cells." Policy Implications: Our study shows that it is possible to gain greater compliance with court-ordered financial obligations and that such compliance may be gained with a relatively simple and straightforward criminal justice intervention. Threats of violation of probation are an effective tool for gaining compliance with financial obligations. Given the growing interest in monetary penalties as an alternative to incarceration, these findings have particular policy importance. [source] STILL A PATCHWORK QUILT: A NATIONWIDE SURVEY OF STATE LAWS REGARDING STEPPARENT RIGHTS AND OBLIGATIONSFAMILY COURT REVIEW, Issue 3 2010Susan L. Pollet This article surveys state laws regarding stepparents and stepchildren throughout the United States with regard to custody and visitation rights, child support obligations, adoption and inheritance rights. It provides background information, statistics and general definitions regarding stepparents, a review of some of the psychological and legal literature, information regarding websites and articles for the general public on the topic, and a description of the survey of the states nationwide. Finally, it provides some suggestions regarding future goals for the law in this arena. [source] Rethinking Care Theory: The Practice of Caring and the Obligation to CareHYPATIA, Issue 3 2005Daniel Engster Care theorists have made significant gains over the past twenty-five years in establishing caring as a viable moral and political concept. Nonetheless, the concept of caring remains underdeveloped as a basis for a moral and political philosophy, and there is no fully developed account of our moral obligation to care. This article advances thinking about caring by developing a definition of caring and a theory of obligation to care sufficient to ground a general moral and political philosophy. [source] Our Obligation to the DeadJOURNAL OF APPLIED PHILOSOPHY, Issue 2 2002Bob Brecher Can we have a real obligation to the dead, just as we do to the living, or is such a notion merely sentimental or metaphorical? Starting with the example of making a promise, I try to show that we can, since the dead, as well as the living, can have interests, not least because the notion of a person is, in part, a moral construction. ,The dead', then, are not merely dead, but particular dead persons, members of something like the sort of ,transgenerational community' proposed by Avner de,Shalit. More generally, I argue, we have an obligation to the dead that goes beyond the particularities of promise,making, on account of their role in having made us who we are. I then suggest, though only embryonically, that such obligations may appropriately be discharged by remembering the dead, who they were and what they did. Finally, I consider some possible objections. [source] Presumptive Bene,ts and Political ObligationJOURNAL OF APPLIED PHILOSOPHY, Issue 3 2001Alan Carter First page of article [source] Civil Disobedience in a Business Context: Examining the Social Obligation to Obey Inane LawsAMERICAN BUSINESS LAW JOURNAL, Issue 2 2010Daniel T. Ostas First page of article [source] Health Care for the Elderly: A Social ObligationNURSING FORUM, Issue 2 2002J. Michael Stallard PhD First page of article [source] Obligation as Self-Determination: A Critique of Hegel and KorsgaardPACIFIC PHILOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY, Issue 2 2003Mark Shelton I examine the differences between their accounts in order to show that their efforts suffer from a common inadequacy, namely, overlooking that there are two distinct ways we can value things as self-determining agents. I maintain that accounting for the actual stringency of moral judgment depends on explaining the superiority of one of these ways of valuing over the other. [source] Obligation, Divine Commands and Abriham's DilemmaPHILOSOPHY AND PHENOMENOLOGICAL RESEARCH, Issue 2 2002PHILIP L. QUINN First page of article [source] State Obligation, Sovereignty, and Theories of International LawPOLITICS & POLICY, Issue 3 2001Marc G. Pufong Much of what constitutes the business of international relations is undertaken by states in response to their perceived self-interest, and the commitments of states create duties and obligations. This paper assesses critical values that permeate substantive understanding of state duties and obligations. It explores how states traditionally gain community standing and how their choices bind them to existing community norms, even though some are often contested. Assuming a state to be a bona-fide and recognized member of the international community, its self-interested activities, praise-worthy or controversial, create obligation, i.e., a moral and legal duty recognized and actionable by law. In practice, what actually constitutes obligation may not be the same in all situations, or be fulfilled similarly by the same parties, or confer the same rights. It is difficult to establish a uniform reference with which to grapple with state obligation across all situations. This difficulty, however, does not enlighten debates on state responsibilities with regard to the binding force of international law where human rights abuses and other moral/legal violations are concerned. The argument is presented that since community membership, statehood, and state capacity provide the prima-facie basis for state obligation, attempts by rogue states to raise and frame secondary issues of sovereignty and autonomy in order to fence-out noncompliance are invalid States, therefore, are obligated and duty bound by community norms despite subsequent defenses that are raised in an effort to expunge transgressions. [source] III,Moral Obligation: Form and SubstancePROCEEDINGS OF THE ARISTOTELIAN SOCIETY (HARDBACK), Issue 1pt1 2010Stephen Darwall Beginning from an analysis of moral obligation's form that I defend in The Second-Person Standpoint as what we are answerable for as beings with the necessary capacities to enter into relations of mutual accountability, I argue that this analysis has implications for moral obligation's substance. Given what it is to take responsibility for oneself and hold oneself answerable, I argue, it follows that if there are any moral obligations at all, then there must exist a basic pro tanto obligation not to undermine one another's moral autonomy. [source] Levinasian Ethics and Legal Obligation,RATIO JURIS, Issue 4 2006JONATHAN CROWE I begin by examining the structure of moral reasoning in light of Levinas's account of ethics, looking particularly at the role of the "third party" (le tiers) in modifying Levinas's primary ethical structure of the "face to face" relation. I then argue that the primordial role of ethical experience in social discourse, as emphasised by Levinas, undermines theories, such as that of H. L. A. Hart, that propose a systematic distinction between legal and moral species of obligation. [source] Transgenerational Obligations: Twenty-first Century Germany and the HolocaustJOURNAL OF APPLIED PHILOSOPHY, Issue 1 2003Doris Schroeder Do the grandchildren of Holocaust perpetrators or the grandchildren of inactive bystanders carry any obligations that are only related to their ancestry? These questions will be at the centre of this investigation. It will be argued that five different models of justification are available for or against transgenerational obligations, namely liberalism, the unique evil argument, the psychological view, a form of consequentialist pragmatism and the community-based approach. Only two of these models stand up to philosophical scrutiny. Applying the community-based model leads to the conclusion that young Germans do indeed have indirect, indeterminate, but strict obligations that transcend generation borders. However, it will be argued that only the obligation of compensation can be restricted to Germans. The remaining two Holocaust-related obligations of prevention and remembrance have to be seen as universal. [source] Child Support Obligations and Low-Income FathersJOURNAL OF MARRIAGE AND FAMILY, Issue 5 2005Chien-Chung Huang Using the 1994,1998 waves of the Current Population Survey,Child Support Supplement (N =5,387), the aims of this study are to document child support obligation rates of nonresident fathers, to examine the effect of the obligation rate on child support compliance, and to calculate the trade-off between fathers' financial responsibility and children's well-being, paying particular attention to low-income fathers. The results indicate that low-income fathers have high child support obligation rates, which significantly reduce their child support compliance. Although lowering the obligation rate for these fathers may improve their compliance, it does not fully offset the lowered obligation amounts and leads to a 30% net payment loss for welfare mothers and a 43% loss for nonwelfare mothers. Policy implications are discussed. [source] Ideology, Context, and Obligations to Assist Older PersonsJOURNAL OF MARRIAGE AND FAMILY, Issue 4 2002Timothy Killian Are older adults responsible for meeting their own needs, is it their children's obligation to care for them, or is there a collective responsibility to see that older adults have their needs met? The purpose of this study was to examine the normative obligations of individuals, family members, and the government to provide for the needs of older adults. The authors examined how ideological beliefs and contextual circumstances are related to beliefs about obligations to older persons. Data were collected from phone interviews of a sample of 270 adults who were over 40 years old. The results indicate that ideological beliefs were better predictors of normative obligations than were contextual variables. Future research should reflect the complex relationships among ideological beliefs, contextual circumstances, and normative obligation beliefs. [source] Following the Nyinkka: Relations of Respect and Obligations to Act in the Collaborative Work of Aboriginal Cultural CentersMUSEUM ANTHROPOLOGY, Issue 2 2007Kimberly Christen In July 2003 the Warumungu Aboriginal community opened the Nyinkka Nyunyu Art and Culture Centre in Tennant Creek, Northern Territory, Australia. Nyinkka Nyunyu is a Warumungu community center, museum, and tourist destination. As such it embodies the eclectic and practical modalities of Aboriginal business. This article examines the practices of Aboriginal representation and self-determination through the behind-the-scenes work of community consultation, collaboration, and culturemaking. Looking to existing social relations and systems of obligation, the Warumungu community's production of the visual displays for the Centre demonstrates the interdependent networks forged out of a colonial history of displacement and a present trajectory of alliance-building. [source] Environmental Obligations and the Limits of Transnational CitizenshipPOLITICAL STUDIES, Issue 2 2009Andrew Mason Notions of cosmopolitan and environmental citizenship have emerged in response to concerns about environmental sustainability and global inequality. But even if there are obligations of egalitarian justice that extend across state boundaries, or obligations of environmental justice to use resources in a sustainable way that are owed to those beyond our borders, it is far from clear that these are best conceptualised as obligations of global or environmental citizenship. Through identifying a core concept of citizenship, I suggest that citizenship obligations are, by their nature, owed (at least in part) in virtue of other aspects of one's common citizenship, and that obligations of justice, even when they arise as a result of interconnectedness or past interactions, are not best conceived as obligations of citizenship in the absence of some other bond that unites the parties. Without ruling out the possibility of beneficial conceptual change, I argue that Andrew Dobson's model of ecological citizenship is flawed because there is no good reason to regard the obligations of environmental justice which it identifies as obligations of ecological citizenship, and that other models of cosmopolitan or global citizenship face a similar objection. [source] In Defence of Associative Political Obligations: Part OnePOLITICAL STUDIES, Issue 3 2006John Horton Part One of this article seeks to defend the idea of associative political obligations against a number of criticisms that have been advanced opposing it. The purpose of this defence is not to demonstrate that the associative account is therefore the best explanation of political obligations, but only that the principal reasons which have been given for rejecting it are much less compelling than its critics maintain. The argument focuses in particular on the various criticisms advanced by A. John Simmons. Two general lines of defence figure especially prominently. First, it is shown how many of the criticisms in one way or another ultimately rest on the assumption that political obligations must be voluntarily acquired, when it is just this assumption that is contested by an associative account. Secondly, it rebuts the charge that the idea of associative obligations faces a particular problem because it entails the view that members must have obligations to associations or groups that are evil. While it is not claimed that the idea of associative political obligations is entirely without difficulties, it is contended that stories of its demise are greatly exaggerated, and in this respect the ground is laid for Part Two of the article, which sketches a particular account of associative political obligations. [source] United Nations Human Rights Conventions: Obligations and CompliancePOLITICS & POLICY, Issue 4 2003Carol M. Glen Since the creation of the United Nations in 1945, a dramatic increase has occurred in the volume of international law, particularly in the area of human rights. Today, there are dozens of UN sponsored human rights conventions, and most have been widely ratified. We examine how effective these treaties have been in protecting individual rights and liberties. Specifically, we hypothesize that a positive correlation exists between aggregate human rights treaty ratification over time and an improving global human rights record. We also test whether an observed improvement in a country's human rights record correlates positively to recent human rights treaty ratification. Our results support our hypotheses. [source] Human Resource Management: Meeting the Ethical Obligations of the FunctionBUSINESS AND SOCIETY REVIEW, Issue 1 2010KEN SLOAN ABSTRACT Effective human resources management (HRM) is focused on the only dynamic asset of the organization, its people; and, behind every business issue ultimately lies a human issue. Thus, the ethical adequacy of responses to all business issues rests on judgments made by individuals. HRM has a role to play as organizations address ethical challenges and as many strive to become ethical organizations. This article outlines three key responsibilities of HRM with regard to supporting an organization's efforts to become an ethical organization: (1) to establish ethical HR practices; (2) to facilitate the change process as all functions move to ethical business practices; and (3) to create cultures that build individual ethical capability and commitment to the goal of becoming an ethical organization. [source] Compliance in small claims court: Exploring the factors associated with defendants' level of compliance with mediated and adjudicated outcomesCONFLICT RESOLUTION QUARTERLY, Issue 2 2003Jennie J. Long This study explores how defendants in small claims cases, settled in either mediation or adjudication, react to case outcomes that require them to make some form of payment to the opposing party. Of particular interest was the relationship between dispute resolution forum and the reasons given for compliant behavior. Data were drawn from thirty-nine structured interviews in small claims cases filed in a local justice court. In mediated cases, defendants tended to comply with case outcomes from a sense of personal responsibility and obligation to fulfill a promise made to complainants, while defendants in adjudicated cases reported that they complied with the judgment in their case because of their duty to obey the law. [source] On the Compatibility of a Conservation Ethic with Biological ScienceCONSERVATION BIOLOGY, Issue 2 2007MARK SAGOFF Darwinismo; estética; ética de conservación; teología Abstract:,If value entails or implies purpose, it follows that natural objects (e.g., endangered species) lack value and thus cannot be worth protecting except for a purpose they may serve,either the end for which God created the world (according to natural theology) or some use to which human beings may put them (according to a consequentialist or utilitarian ethic). If value requires purpose, the refutation of natural theology after Darwin implies that humanity has no obligation to respect or preserve the natural world except insofar as it is economically efficient to do so. Drawing on the distinction between explanation and communication found in Calvinist theology, I argue that value does not entail purpose. The expressive, aesthetic, or communicative aspects of nature may be valuable or endow natural objects with value apart from any use or purpose these objects may serve. The crucial distinction between explanation and communication,one scientific, the other aesthetic,offers a rationale for an obligation to protect the natural world that may appeal to members of faith communities and to biologists and other scientists. This approach also helps resolve the "lurking inconsistency" some scholars see in the relationship between a deterministic biological science and a conservationist ethic. Resumen:,Si el valor conlleva o implica propósito, se entiende que los objetos naturales (e.g., especies en peligro) carecen de valor y por lo tanto no merecen ser protegidos excepto porque pueden servir para el fin por el que Dios creó al mundo (de acuerdo con la teología natural) o para algún uso asignado por humanos (de acuerdo con la ética consecuentalista o utilitaria). Si el valor requiere propósito, la refutación de la teología natural después de Darwin implica que la humanidad no tiene obligación para respetar o preservar el mundo natural excepto si es económicamente eficiente hacerlo. Con base en la distinción entre explicación y comunicación encontrada en la teología Calvinista, argumento que el valor no implica propósito. Los aspectos expresivos, estéticos o comunicativos de la naturaleza pueden ser valiosos o proveer valor a los objetos naturales independientemente de cualquier uso o propósito que puedan tener estos objetos. La distinción crucial entre explicación y comunicación,una científica y la otra estética,ofrece un fundamento para la obligación de proteger el mundo natural que pueda interesar a miembros de comunidades religiosas, a biólogos y otros científicos. Este método también ayuda a resolver la "inconsistencia al acecho" en la relación entre una ciencia biológica determinista y una ética conservacionista que algunos académicos ven. [source] Creating Value Through Corporate GovernanceCORPORATE GOVERNANCE, Issue 3 2002Robert A.G. Monks Value and governance are such familiar words that we do not often enough reflect on their meanings in a specific situation. This paper will suggest: Value is in the eye of the beholder. The appearance of governance may be preferable to the real thing. In order better to understand value, we will work with a simple question , is it appropriate for a global investor to purchase common shares in Volkswagen? There are many kinds of shareholder, each with distinctive interests that are not always compatible with the interests of the other investors. A global investor is typically the trustee of a pension plan with the simple obligation to collateralise the pension promise by maximising the long,term value of trust assets. The beneficiaries of pension funds are not rich people. Fluctuations in market values are no longer primarily a question as to whether rich people are a bit richer or poorer, they are a question as to whether pensions will be paid to the roughly half of the population of the OECD world who have interests in employee benefit plans. This makes investment a matter of social and political concern. At the end of our trip through the mythology and prospects for adding value to corporate enterprises through effective governance, we come to a very simple conclusion. I bastardise a celebrated principal of physics to conclude that both in science and in business a watched particle behaves differently than one that is not watched. "An observed board behaves differently" and is more likely to generate value for corporate owners. [source] THE IMPULSE OF PHILANTHROPYCULTURAL ANTHROPOLOGY, Issue 4 2009ERICA BORNSTEIN ABSTRACT In practices of philanthropy and charity, the impulse to give to immediate others in distress is often tempered by its regulation. Although much of what is written on charity and philanthropy focuses on the effects of the gift, I suggest more attention be paid to the impulse of philanthropy. To coerce the impulse to give into rational accountability is to obliterate its freedom; to render giving into pure impulse is to reinforce social inequality. The only solution is to allow both to exist, and to create structures to encourage them. This essay examines the power of the spontaneous and fleeting impulse to give and its regulation through an analysis of contemporary practices of philanthropy and their relation to sacred conceptions of d,n (donation) in New Delhi. When scriptural ideas of disinterested giving intersect with contemporary notions of social responsibility, new philanthropic practices are formed. On the basis of ethnographic research with philanthropists who built temples, started NGOs, and managed social welfare programs, as well as families who gave d,n daily out of their homes, this essay documents how both NGO and government efforts to regulate one of the most meritorious forms of d,n, gupt d,n (or, anonymous d,n) expresses critical issues in philanthropy between the urge to give in response to immediate suffering and the social obligation to find a worthy recipient for the gift. [source] Compassion and Repression: The Moral Economy of Immigration Policies in FranceCULTURAL ANTHROPOLOGY, Issue 3 2005Didier Fassin Immigration policies in Europe in the last three decades have become increasingly restrictive. During the 1990s, political asylum lost much of its legitimacy, as new criteria based on humanitarian claims became more common in appeals for immigration. Asylum seekers were increasingly identified as illegal immigrants and therefore candidates for expulsion, unless humanitarian reasons could be found to requalify them as victims deserving sympathy. This substitution of a right to asylum by an obligation in terms of charity leads to a reconsideration of Giorgio Agamben's separation of the humanitarian and the political, suggesting instead a humanitarianization of policies. Sangatte Center, often referred to as a transit camp, became a symbol of this ambiguous European treatment of the "misery of the world" and serves here as an analytical thread revealing the tensions between repression and compassion as well as the moral economy of contemporary biopolitics. [source] | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||