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A Zero-Relationship Justification of Rights: A Contractual Approach Based on Rawls’ Device of the “Original Position”
ZHU Wanrun
Front. Philos. China. 2014, 9 (1): 21-38.
https://doi.org/10.3868/s030-003-014-0002-3
In contemporary moral and political philosophy, there are two leading approaches to the justification of rights. These could be broadly identified as deontological theories and consequential theories. These two schools of theories each have their own strengths and weakness, while there is also a third contractual approach that is under represented. Because Rawls’ and Scanlon’s well-known contractual theories are designed for purposes other than the justification of rights, the purpose of this paper is to establish a principle of rights on the basis of Rawls’ justification device of the “original position.” First, it supplies a criterion based on human conduct or action. Second, based on this account of human conduct, different types of relationships are constructed and presented to the parties in the “original position.” Third, it will show that the parties in the “original position” would choose one of these relationships as the principle of rights. Finally, Rawls’ first principle of justice will be reformulated. The procedure of choosing a principle of rights in this paper could also be viewed as a demonstration that, when properly situated and motivated, human beings exhibit their potential as rational beings.
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Husserl on Intentionality as an Essential Property of Consciousness
LI Zhongwei
Front. Philos. China. 2014, 9 (1): 87-108.
https://doi.org/10.3868/s030-003-014-0006-1
In the phenomenological tradition intentionality is considered to be an essential property of consciousness. Philosophers from this tradition (Brentano, Husserl, Sartre, etc.) generally share the following two commitments: (i) intentionality is an essential property of consciousness; and (ii) all intentional states are directed at, and are intentionally related to, objects. This view of consciousness has two pressing problems. Firstly, philosophers such as John Searle and David Rosenthal have suggested raw feelings and some forms of seemingly undirected and thus non-intentional feelings as counterexamples to the essential intentionality of conscious states. Secondly, some analytical philosophers and Husserlian scholars inspired by Frege, such as Smith and Føllesdal, deny that every intentional state is related to a correlative object. This paper presents a Husserlian view concerning the essential intentionality of consciousness. It will be shown that both problems can be successfully dealt with from an essentially Husserlian and phenomenological perspective.
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