Political Science, Law and Politics

The work of Henri Bergson has gone almost completely unnoticed in philosophy of sport literature. This in no way indicates the level of relevance his programme may carry for the subject. Many of the entrenched debates that have historically helped to shape the field are mirrored by Bergson’s own concerns regarding perception and skill acquisition. As such, a thorough study of how the Bergsonian programme might approach the topic of athletic action is in no wise an idle pursuit – in fact, very much the opposite. My intention in this paper is twofold: first, to indicate the natural commerce that exists between Bergson’s philosophy and the philosophy of sport; second, and perhaps more ambitiously, to demonstrate that his approach to perception and action not only anticipates, but in some cases may help to edify, certain unresolved issues within the field. The paper develops in three parts. In part I, I provide a brief summary of Bergson’s theory of perception as it is developed in Matter and Memory (1896). Parts II and III will apply that theory to two of the central aspects of human motor activity: in part II, I investigate what it is to be in possession of skilled motor behaviour – to make that behaviour ‘automatic’, as it were; in part III, the controversial subject of what it is to acquire and modify skilled motor behaviour will be examined.

Lying somewhere between a positive theory of law and a strong natural law position, Mark Murphy’s weak natural law jurisprudence argues that, ‘law not backed by decisive reasons for action is indeed still law, but is defective precisely as law’. This paper examines the philosophical viability of Murphy’s proposal by asking, ‘in the face of law’s being defective, what is it about law that still constitutes it as ‘law’?’ The claim is made that if an answer to this query cannot be gleaned from Murphy’s account, one has reasonable basis to question the account’s general viability.

Dissent is a word we come across frequently these days. We read it in the newspapers, use it in discussions with friends and colleagues -- perhaps even engage in the activity ourselves. And yet for all of its popularity, few of us, if pressed, would be able to pin down exactly what dissent is. It is this question I wish to explore in this paper. In particular my aim will be to provide a conceptual analysis of the idea of dissent such that we may more cleanly distinguish it from other related forms of disagreement. I use a recent book written on the topic by Ronald Collins and David Skover as an argumentative foil.

The argument I defend in this paper takes for granted that the proceduralist indictment against judicial review is at least partly justifiable, and that a complete theory of dem- ocratic legitimacy will therefore attempt to address it to the greatest possible degree. I examine how the indictment can be addressed via the practice of nonparty participa- tion, whereby members of the general public may seek participatory involvement in a court proceeding despite not being directly implicated by the dispute at issue. Through this practice, courts acquire a means to expose themselves to a cross-section of societal influences, which in turn can be said to improve the legitimacy of the deci- sions they render from a procedural perspective. Importantly, however, such legiti- macy will not be transmitted spontaneously, as if the mere fact that courts allow nonparties to participate is all that is needed to address the proceduralist’s concern. The crux of my argument is that only when the practice is conceived in a particular way, and is subjected to the appropriate conditions, does it have a genuine chance of realizing its legitimating promise.

My aim in this paper is to offer a normatively attractive and explanatorily sound interpretation of the Supreme Court of Canada’s approach to third party intervention. The crux of my interpretation is that the policy the Court has developed on intervenors allows it to strike a reasonable balance among a number of competing democratic considerations, all of which have value in the context of judicial decision making. In this respect, the Court should be commended for identifying a way to liberalize a practice that possesses many democratically-attractive features, but also the inherent capacity to undermine the democratic standing of the Court. I buttress my argument against early literature on the subject, and use more recent works by Ian Brodie and Benjamin Alarie and Andrew Green as argumentative foils.

An often overlooked tension in liberal theory turns on its commitment to procedural accounts of legitimacy on the one hand, and to the robust protection of the right of citizens to dissent on the other. To the extent that one evaluates legitimate decision-making on the basis of the procedures that bear on it, determining how extra-procedural expressions of dissent fit into the picture becomes a complex undertaking. This is especially true if one accepts that protecting extraprocedural expressions of dissent is itself foundational to the overall legitimacy of the state. My aim in this paper is to explore some of the implications that follow from this tension. The paper proceeds in two parts. In the first part, I review the political grounds that support a protection on dissent. By drawing on its republican foundations, I argue that the functional role that the right to dissent serves in complex political communities is intimately connected to concerns over legitimacy. I claim that for the right to perform its function successfully, protections must be placed on both procedural and extra-procedural forms of dissent. The second part of the paper issues a direct challenge to procedural accounts of legitimacy. If a protection on citizen dissent is vital to legitimating government action, and if that protection necessarily extends to both procedural and extraprocedural forms of dissent, it follows that legitimacy cannot be captured by procedure alone-even procedures that secure the fair and equal participation by all affected parties.

The argument I defend in this paper challenges whether Waldron's explanation of the conditions required for a moral right to satisfy its autonomy-promoting function is the best one available. It questions the suitability of Waldron's preferred taxonomy of moral action, where acts are divided into: (1) those that are morally required; (2) those that are morally prohibited; and (3) those that are morally indifferent, advocating instead for a binary classification consisting of: (a) actions that admit of reasonable moral disagreement; and (b) actions that do not admit of reasonable moral disagreement. My claim is that the protective sphere moral rights set up in organizing the moral relations among persons is applicable only to the former category-namely, actions that admit of reasonable moral disagreement. Actions that do not admit of reasonable moral disagreement will either: (b') not normally demand a right against interference in the first place (if the action is unquestionably permissible); or (b") fail to admit of a right against interference at all (if the action is unquestionably impermissible). This competing explanation allows us to preserve the autonomy-promoting conception of moral rights Waldron endorses while avoiding a number of its suspect implications. More than forty years have passed since Jeremy Waldron set out his argument in defense of a right to do wrong (RW) as a way to explain moral rights. The central claim of his defense is that "the possibility of a right to do wrong, far from being a contradiction in terms, is actually required by the way in which rights function in moral theory." 1 My aim in this paper is to offer a new perspective on this claim. Although I am ultimately critical of the terms upon which he arrives at his conclusion,

The argument I put forward in this chapter is relatively uncontroversial. I merely join a long list of scholars who believe that regulating online content for its epistemic quality is a highly problematic path for democratic states to follow. What is more controversial is the way I arrive at that conclusion. My claim is that if one believes that online expression should be regulated in the service of upholding certain core democratic values, then they ought to believe that in-person protest should be regulated for exactly the same reasons. The upshot of course is that any discomfort we may feel committing ourselves to the latter conclusion should arise as well when we contemplate the former.

Participation-based arguments in support of courts adopting a large and liberal attitude on intervention were persuasive at the outset of the Charter era. Due to the newness of the document at the time, a compelling case could be made that public participation in Charter challenges was a vital component of developing that document in a way that aligned with the core democratic commitments of the Canadian state. But the persuasiveness of such arguments has waned over time. If one accepts a common law approach to constitutional interpretation – where judicial activism is held in check by way of established precedent – arguments based on the participatory rights belonging to those potentially impacted by court decisions appear to be past their due date. This does not mean, however, that courts no longer have any democratic responsibilities concerning the practice of intervention. The positive contribution this article makes is to establish two alternative bases that can account for that responsibility — one inspired by the role intervention plays in encouraging public deliberation; and a second on the increased confidence the practice instills in judicial decision-making. In both cases, the ground of the responsibility is rather weak and can thus be easily defeated. Nevertheless, that courts have this responsibility at all offers a better explanation for why, even in times when an intervening party might not satisfy the strict criteria pertaining to the practice, there is reason to allow that intervention to proceed.