The End of History and the Last Man

1.. HARD CASES 5. Legal Rights A. Legislation . . . We might therefore do well to consider how a philosophical judge might develop, in appropriate cases, theories of what legislative purpose and legal principles require. We shall find that he would construct these theories in the same manner as a philosophical referee would construct the character of a game. I have invented, for this purpose, a lawyer of superhuman skill, learning, patience and acumen, whom I shall call Hercules. I suppose that Hercules is a judge in some representative American jurisdiction. I assume that he accepts the main uncontroversial constitutive and regulative rules of the law in his jurisdiction. He accepts, that is, that statutes have the general power to create and extinguish legal rights, and that judges have the general duty to follow earlier decisions of their court or higher courts whose rationale, as l

Taking Rights Seriously

acceptance of what is given extends into subtleties of language when dealing with contemporary China. Thus, on p. 158 the Mount Sung monasteries were "sacked" by the warlord Feng Yfi-hsiang in 1926, but were "troubled" once again during the Cultural Revolution. A second major limitation of Morris’s book is in its selection of comparative illustrations. In this it stands in contrast to the broad selection offered by Keswick. With the exception of one small color illustration from the Palace Museum, Taipei, all of the Chinese paintings reproduced by Morris come from the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Some are excellent and apropos; others would have been much better chosen from other collections, here and abroad, so as to provide the apt illustration of a point or place discussed in the text. Thus the late, poor copy of The Sp~JngFestival on the River gives no idea of either the original handscroll now in Peking, nor of what the great Northern capital looked like at the beginning of the twelfth century. Far worse, though, and indicative of some aesthetic confusion on the author’s part, is the full page illustration on page 109 purporting to show Tiger Hill in Suchou. The caption suggests a panoramic photo-view, but the poor reproduction is of an equally poor painting giving a very poor idea of Tiger Hill. What I describe as aesthetic confusion is also apparent in the short section devoted to the Astor Garden Court at the Metropolitan (pp. 243-6). Here the author shares the misapprehension of another writer unfamiliar with art, Edward C. Banfield, whose The Democratic Muse (The Twentieth Century Fund, 1984) makes heavy use of the idea of the "perfect reproduction." The Chinese garden of the Astor Court is indeed a good introduction for the Westerner to some appearances of the gardens of Suchou. But that it is a "perfect unity" and a "perfect reproduction" simply is not true and the sooner we recognize it, the sooner we may find our way to the delights of the original. Finally, a fine opportunity was lost to use positive comparative approaches in considering the Chinese garden in relation to the various Japanese and Western approaches to garden art. Too often Morris simply puts down the nonChinese garden rather than use the comparative method to improve our understanding of the special contributions made by all. On page 213 Morris writes that the solution of the Zen monks for garden art was the dry-garden format, thus leaving out a large number of water, moss, and shrubbery designs of importance equal to the dry type. The Gardens of China is useful, principally because of its horticultural content, but not a reliable guide to the background, ambience, and development of the Chinese garden. There are numerous signs of hasty proof-reading: even on the page with chapter headings, Chapter 4 is listed as beginning on 08 rather than 68; and on page 221 complete editorial confusion reigns between Sir William Temple and Sir William Chambers, the latter being the true author of the Dissertation on Oriental Gardening. We still need a fine work of haut-vulga~4sation for the still little-known art of the Chinese garden. Sherman E. Lee is Adjunct Professor in the Department of Art at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, N.C., 27514.

Discovering the vernacular landscape

Strong Democracy: Participatory Politics for a New Age.

Conservation biology emerged in the mid-1980s, drawing on established disciplines and integrat- ing them in pursuit of a coherent goal: the protection and perpetuation of the Earth's biological diversity. Opportunistic in its borrowing and application of knowledge, conservation biology had its roots within the established biological sciences and resource management disciplines but has continually incorporated insights from the empirical experience of resource managers, from the social sciences and humanities, and from diverse cultural sources. The Society for Conservation Biology (SCB) has represented the field's core constituency, while expanding that constituency in keeping with the field's integrative spirit. Conservation Biology has served as SCB's flagship publication, promoting research, dialog, debate, and application of the field's essential concepts. Over the last 20 years the field, SCB, and the journal have evolved to meet changing conservation needs, to explore gaps in our knowledge base, to incorporate new information from related fields, to build professional capacity, and to provide expanded opportunities for international participation. In turn, the field, SCB, and journal have prompted change in related fields, organizations, and publications. In its dedication to advancing the scientific foundations of biodiversity conservation and placing that science at the service of society in a world whose variety, wildness, and beauty we care for, conservation biology represents both a continuation and radical reconfiguration of the traditional relationship between science and conservation.

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“A Mission-Driven Discipline”: the Growth of Conservation Biology

How can we make ethical decisions about our environment in the face of increasingly conflicting needs and opinions This collection of essays offers a wide range of viewpoints representing many of the world's cultural and religious traditions to help readers better make such determinations for themselves. In this paper, the authors seek to clarify the ethical principles surrounding the concept of sustainable development. They provide a synoptic overview of the contemporary moral challenge of sustainable development and the similarities and differences in its interpretation throughout the world. In bringing together contributions by authorities in environmental ethics and developmental ethics, and by those who are addressing these questions from the perspectives of religion and humanistic philosophy, the book develops the concept of sustainability as the ethical approach to reconciling the needs of environmental conservation with economic development.

Ethics of environment and development

Sacred Sands: The Struggle for Community in the Indiana Dunes

Series Foreword by G. E. Gorman Foreword by Dieter T. Hessel Preface Acknowledgments Critical Survey: The Struggle to Integrate Ecology, Justice, and Christian Faith Bibliographic Survey: 1961-1993 Historical and Cultural Studies Biblical Interpretation Theological and Philosophical Perspectives Ethical Analysis Feminist Criticism Science and Technology Social and Political Issues Economics and Sustainability Land and Resource Use Church and Mission Institutional Forums and Organizations Author Index Title Index Subject Index

Ecology, Justice, and Christian Faith: A Critical Guide to the Literature

The pressing question is therefore how the present system can be modified to become truly sustainable... Are there democratic processes available, capable of bringing about a change of direction? Is it possible at all to find solutions within the framework of democratic structures? Is it possible to institute democratic control at the international level where today de facto the fundamental economic and political decisions are taken? Or do we have to resign ourselves to the fact that the development of society increasingly escapes democratic control? Has the dream of democracy in reality come to an end? Lukas Vischer (Vischer 2000, 3)

J. Ronald Engel

Papers

Ethics of environment and development

Sacred Sands: The Struggle for Community in the Indiana Dunes

Ecology, Justice, and Christian Faith: A Critical Guide to the Literature

The earth charter as a new covenant for democracy

The Faith of Democratic Ecological Citizenship