Rights of Others and Responsibilities toward Others in Modern Political Thought

Session Submission Type: Full Paper Panel

Session Description

Inspired by the 2023 APSA theme of ‘rights and responsibilities,’ we propose to organize and present a panel on ‘The Rights of Others and Responsibilities Towards Others in Modern Political Thought.’ We are asking for the panel to be considered for inclusion in Division 1 for Political Thought and Philosophy.
This panel will feature recent scholarship contributing to a critical history of rights by specialists working actively on the subject. Rights are foundational to modern liberal political theory. Can rights be balanced or reconciled with the responsibilities that are due to others? Can the legal history of rights offer innovative solutions to this vexing problem in modern liberal thought?
The papers on this panel will investigate a variety of sources such as Neo-Scholasticism, the jurisprudence of Grotius and Pufendorf, the legal history of American slavery, and the responsibility to protect doctrine. On the theme of ‘responsibilities towards others,’ the distinguished historian of political thought, Anthony Pagden (UCLA), will present a paper examining the intellectual origins of the ‘Responsibility to Protect’ doctrine in the theoretical corpus of the duty to protect innocents. John Harpham (University of Chicago) will present a chapter from his current book project on the legal history of American slavery. Francesca Iurlaro, author of The Invention of Custom: Natural Law and the Law of Nations 1550-1750 (Oxford, 2021) and formerly a senior research fellow at the Max Planck Institute for Comparative Public Law and International law, will prepare a paper on the rights of animals in Scholastic jurisprudence and theology, and the political duties that such rights activate. Finally, Daniel Lee (University of California, Berkeley) will present a paper from his current project on The Science of Right, focusing on the theory of ‘imperfect’ rights and obligations and the moral economy of esteem in the jurisprudence of Grotius and Pufendorf.
We are especially fortunate and honored that the distinguished intellectual historian and scholar of French Enlightenment social and political thought, Dan Edelstein, has agreed to serve in the vital role of discussant. Prof. Edelstein is the author of three major studies on the history of rights in the Enlightenment and serves as an editor of the new multivolume Cambridge History of Rights project. He will be the ideal interlocutor for the participants on this panel. Finally, Michael Mosher (University of Tulsa) has agreed to serve as chair for the panel.

Sub Unit

• Division 1: Political Thought and Philosophy

Individual Presentations

• Imperfect Rights and the Moral Economy of Esteem - Daniel Lee

• The Protection of the Innocent as Casus Belli from Vitoria to R2P - Anthony Pagden

• The Intellectual Origins of American Slavery - John Harpham, Harvard University

• A Movable Feast: Noah, Animals, and a Catholic Genealogy of Meat-Eating - Francesca Iurlaro

Chair

• Michael A. Mosher University of Tulsa

Discussant

• Dan Edelstein Stanford University