Legal, Political and Moral Rights: What are the Limits?

In legal, political and moral spheres rights serve as a justification for actions and institutions.  In each of these spheres, to claim the existence of a right is to claim the existence of something that we should value and respect.   Rights, consequently, shape the way we conceive our relationships with others, the way we build our institutions and also the manner we direct our own lives.  However, what are the limits, if any, of what we call rights?  This question becomes especially relevant when we notice the emergence of an extraordinary number of right-claims in increasingly diverse forms: rights to silence, rights to disobey, rights not to be punished, rights to be punished, rights to life, rights to die, group rights, rights to be left alone, and so on.

The York Political Philosophy Conference 2009 invites PhD students to present papers on rights and their limits.    The conference will accept six papers, each of which will have a discussant. In addition, The York Political Philosophy Conference 2009 will have two plenary sessions given by Professors Ingram and Caney, leading academics working on the area of rights.

Programme of the Conference 

10.00-10.15

10.15-11.45

Plenary Speaker: Professor Simon Caney (Oxford)

Chair: Professor Matthew Festenstein (York)

11.45-12.00

Coffee Break

12.00-1.30

Paper 1: Liz McKinnell (Durham) “Environmental Rights”

Respondent: Alice Pinheiro Walla (St. Andrews) 

Chair: Jon Parkin (York)

1.30-2.45

Lunch

2.45-4.15

Paper 2: Caleb Yong (Cambridge) “Does Freedom of Speech Include Hate Speech?”

Respondent: Mike Wood (York)

Chair: Jean-Paul De Lucca (Malta)

4.15-4.30

Coffee Break

4.30-6.00

Paper 3: Katy Dineen (LSE) “The Arbitrariness Claim: David Miller's Objection to Simon Caney”

Respondent: Ambrose Lee (Stirling)

Chair: Elizabeth Ellis (Edinburgh)

7.00

Conference Dinner

9.30-10.00

Coffee

10.00-11.30

Paper 4: Mona El-Kouedi (KCL) “Legitimating Right-claims and the Construction of Public Spaces”

Respondent: Miroslav Imbrisevic (Heythrop)

Chair: Dr. Tim Stanton (York)

11.30-11.45

Coffee Break

11.45-1.15    

Paper 5: Meghan Benton (UCL) “The Tyranny of the Enfranchised Majority: Resident non-citizens and the limits of rights discourse”

Respondent: Kate Seaman (Lancaster)

Chair: Dr. Kerri Woods (York)

1.15-2.15

Lunch

2.15-3.45

Paper 6: Jeremy Williams (LSE) “Wrongful Life and Abortion”

Respondent: Sandra Lindgrem (Gothenburg)

Chair: Daniela DeBono (Sussex)

3.45-4.00

Coffee Break

4.00-5.30

Plenary Speaker: Professor Attracta Ingram (UCD)

Chair: Professor Sue Mendus (York)

5.30-5.45

Closing Words: Professor Sue Mendus (York)

5.45

            
            
All the sessions are in ARRC Building, Room RC/010 (map available via the Conference Programme link on the left column of the website)
 

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