Following the enormous political, legal, and media interest that has surrounded high profile cases of whistleblowing, such as Chelsea Manning and Edward Snowden, the fundamental ethical questions surrounding whistleblowing have often been obscured. In this fascinating book Eric Boot examines the ethical issues at stake in whistleblowing. Can the disclosure of classified government documents ever be justified? If so, how? Why does it require justification in the first place? Can there ever be a duty to blow the whistle? When is (...) breaking the law justified? On a more practical level, this book also considers the various whistleblower protection documents and finds them often lacking in consistency and clarity, before providing an argument for a plausible "public interest" defense for whistleblowers. (shrink)

Appeals to the public interest in law are commonplace, but typically made without clarifying what the public interest is and how it can be determined. In law, this has led to ad hoc applications of the public interest and, consequently, to “judicial idiosyncrasy,” posing a threat to legal certainty. This paper aims to remedy these problems by providing much‐needed conceptual clarification. It proposes that something is in the public interest if it increases the opportunities of the members of the public (...) to pursue and realize the (permissible) ends they all share qua equal members of the public. (shrink)

Though whistleblowing is quickly becoming an accepted means of addressing wrongdoing, whistleblower protection laws and the relevant case law are either awkwardly silent, unclear or mutually inconsistent concerning public disclosures of classified government information. I remedy this problem by first arguing that such disclosures constitute a pro tanto wrong as they violate (1) promissory obligations, (2) role obligations and (3) the obligation to respect the democratic allocation of power. However, they may be justified if (1) the information disclosed concerns grave (...) government wrongdoing, (2) alternative channels of disclosure are first exhausted and (3) steps are taken to minimize harm. (shrink)

Given the crucial role unauthorized disclosures can play in uncovering grave government wrongdoing, it makes sense to search for a defense of justified cases of what I call “classified public whistleblowing.” The question that concerns me is what form such a defense should take. The main claim will be a negative one, namely, that a defense of whistleblowing cannot be based on individual rights, be they legal or moral, though this is indeed the most commonly proposed defense. In closing, I (...) will outline a more appealing alternative, namely, a justification defense. (shrink)

It is commonly stated, by both whistleblower protection laws and political philosophers, that a breach of state secrecy by disclosing classified documents is justified if it serves the public interest. The problem with this defense of justified whistleblowing, however, is that the operative term – the public interest – is all too often left unclarified. This is problematic, because it leaves potential whistleblowers without sufficient certainty that their disclosures will be covered by the defense, leading many to err on the (...) side of caution and remain silent, depriving the public of much-needed information. Failing an agreed upon definition of the public interest or a process to determine it, judges’ applications of the public interest in whistleblowing cases have been criticized for demonstrating ‘judicial idiosyncrasy’. The present paper, therefore, sets out to provide some clarity concerning the concept of the public interest, and to ascertain the extent to which a public interest defense for whistleblowing is feasible and desirable. (shrink)

This paper sets out to answer two questions: (1) Are lawyers complicit in their fossilfuel clients’ contributions to climate change and, if so, how blameworthy are they for this complicity?; (2) If lawyers are blameworthily complicit, how is the degree of blameworthiness impacted by their professional role? In order to answer the first question, this paper will mainly use Lepora and Goodin’s theory of moral complicity, but propose an alternative to their “shared purpose factor” (one of the factors that determine (...) the blameworthiness for complicity), namely a quality of will approach: the blameworthiness of a lawyer’s complicity is greatest when she acts from ill will, whether her motives mirror those of the principal or not; it is decreased (but remains!) when she acts ‘merely’ from a deficiency of good will. In order to answer the second question, an important factor must be added to Lepora and Goodin’s method of assessing blameworthiness for complicity, namely the capacity in which one acts, that is, one’s (professional) role. Given the fact that appeals to role are a common way to (attempt to) deflect charges of complicity, this is a crucial addition. With these two adjustments in place, we can determine lawyers’ complicity and assess its blameworthiness. This article breaks with the scholarly and professional consensus by arguing that lawyers are complicit in their fossil fuel clients’ contributions to climate change, that their complicity is very blameworthy (at first glance), but that their professional role mitigates this blameworthiness, though it does not remove it entirely. (shrink)

This book demonstrates the importance of a duty-based approach to morality. The dominance of what has been labeled “rights talk” leads to the neglect of duties without corresponding rights and stimulates the proliferation of questionable human rights. Therefore, this book argues for a duty-based perspective on morality in order to, first, salvage duties of virtue, and, second, counter the trend of rights-proliferation by providing some conceptual clarity concerning rights and duties that will enable us to differentiate between genuine and spurious (...) rights-claims. The argument for this duty-based perspective is made by examining two particularly contentious duties: duties to aid the global poor and civic duties. These two duties serve as case studies and are explored from the perspectives of political theory, jurisprudence and moral philosophy. The argument is made that both these duties can only be adequately defined and allocated if we adopt the perspective of duties, as the predominant perspective of rights either does not recognize them to be duties at all or else leaves their content and allocation indefinite. This renewed focus on duties does not wish to diminish the importance of rights. Rather, the duty-based perspective on morality will strengthen human rights discourse by distinguishing more strictly between genuine and inauthentic rights. Furthermore, a duty-based approach enriches our moral landscape by recognizing both duties of justice and duties of virtue. The latter duties are not less important or supererogatory, but function as indispensable complements to the duties prescribed by justice. In this perceptive and exceptionally lucid book, Eric Boot argues that a duty-focused approach to morality will remedy the shortcomings he finds in the standard accounts of human rights. The study tackles staple philosophical topics such as the contrasts between duties of virtue and duties of justice and imperfect and perfect obligations. But more importantly perhaps, it also confronts the practical question of what our human rights duties are and how we ought to act on them. Boot's book is a splendid example of how philosophy can engage and clarify real world problems. Kok-Chor Tan, Department of Philosophy, University of Pennsylvania A lively and enjoyable defence of the importance of our having duties to fellow human beings in severe poverty. At a time when global justice has never been more urgent, this new book sheds much needed light. Thom Brooks, Professor of Law and Government and Head of Durham Law School, Durham University. (shrink)

This chapter starts by clarifying the central concepts of this book: rights, duties, justice and virtue. This exposition of the fundamental concepts is distinctly Kantian in nature. Furthermore, this chapter elucidates the relation between rights and duties, and argues that perfect duties of justice are not, as is so often erroneously held, more binding or of greater importance than imperfect duties of virtue. Finally, the case is made for a duties-based perspective on morality instead of the by far more common (...) rights-based perspective. In doing so, I defend myself against critics who fear that a renewed focus on duties will necessarily be detrimental to our rights. I, therefore, explain that, rather than weakening or endangering human rights, a renewed emphasis on our duties will prove to strengthen human rights, particularly by preventing the proliferation of unclaimable rights. Starting from duties rather than rights, furthermore, will enable us to recognize the importance of duties of virtue, to which the perspective of rights must remain blind as the duties it recognizes are limited to rights-based duties, that is, duties of justice.This chapter, in short, provides a Kantian theory of duties and rights, which will allow us to resolve practical problems from the fields of human rights law and politics in the remaining three chapters, which will discuss the two contentious duties singled out in Chap. 2, namely duties of aid to the global poor and duties to the community. (shrink)

This chapter will demonstrate the importance of the regular and widespread performance of civic duties for the stability of a democratic polity, thus providing another example of the importance of duties of virtue (next to the already discussed duties to the global poor). This chapter, furthermore, discusses the claim of several human duties declarations (discussed in Chap. 2 ) that rights without morality cannot long endure; what is needed, the drafters of such declarations claim, is “voluntary self-obligation.” Even legal rights (...) that can be coercively enforced will be more reliably secured if all respect such rights willingly, rather than merely for prudential reasons. The present study is in agreement with such statements and this chapter provides arguments that illustrate why calls for a virtuous disposition need not serve a hidden paternalistic agenda, provided they are limited to appeals for civic rather than personal virtue. Accordingly, this chapter argues for instrumental republicanism as an attractive middling position between intrinsic republicanism and an all too rigid (yet fairly common) account of liberal neutrality.In sum, this chapter provides us with another illustration of the importance of (duties of) virtue as complement to the sphere of justice. It thus also demonstrates the desirability of the perspective of duties, for it can recognize such ethical duties to the community, whereas the perspective of rights can at best view them as optional excellences. The perspective of duties thus also solves the second problem caused by the perspective of rights, namely the impoverishment of our moral landscape. (shrink)

Political philosophical work on whistleblowing has thus far neglected the role of journalists. A curious oversight, given that the whistleblower’s objective - informing the public about government wrongdoing - can typically not be realized without the media. The present article, therefore, aims to start remedying this neglect by exploring some of the most pressing questions. Accordingly, the paper will be structured as follows: Section 1 will explain why the authorities have treated whistleblowers far more harshly than the journalists who publish (...) their disclosures. Still, the freedom of expression of media workers is less extensive than that of ordinary individuals. Section 2 will explain why by arguing that the freedom of expression of the press, contrary to that of individuals, is not an unconditional good; instead, it is good merely instrumentally. Section 3 considers and refutes an argument for a more expansive press freedom based on the marketplace of ideas model and, in doing so, also discusses some important differences between the ethics of the traditional and the new online media. Often journalists, like whistleblowers, will justify their publications based on leaked classified documents by appealing to the public interest. Yet, this is problematic for two reasons: the public interest is never clarified; and this argument overlooks the fact that the public interest can also be a reason for not publishing about leaked classified documents, even if the leaks are verified. Accordingly, Section 5 sets out to clarify the public interest. Section 4 then discusses two case studies – one concerning unverified leaks, and one concerning verified leaks – in order to demonstrate how we might employ the concept of the public interest in order to determine the permissibility of publishing about leaked classified information in practice. (shrink)

This chapter discusses the debate that ensued from the promulgation of sundry human duties declarations over the past two decades. These declarations argue that especially Western liberal democracies overemphasize individual rights and personal freedom at the cost of our duties and of an understanding of freedom as involving necessarily a sense of responsibility. This imbalance between rights and duties, between freedom and responsibility, results, they maintain, in an unbridled individualism which could lead to conflict and discord.These human duties declarations have (...) been sharply criticized by human rights scholars. In general, the critics argue that such declarations are either superfluous, as human rights documents already make ample mention of rights-based duties, or, insofar as the human duties declarations contain duties that go beyond rights-based duties, they are dangerous. This chapter explores the debate between the drafters of these various declarations and their critics. It, furthermore, provides an overview of the individual duties present in the major human rights documents in order to assess the critics’ claim concerning the superfluity of human duties declarations. This discussion then culminates in the selection of two individual duties that are particularly contentious, namely duties to the community and duties of aid to the global poor, which will function as case studies in the last three chapters.Ultimately, the discussion of human duties declarations and the ensuing debate concerning their desirability will serve as a springboard for reflections on the importance of a renewed focus on duties, and the relation between rights and duties. (shrink)

This chapter undertakes to provide some clarity regarding the nature of individual duties concerning global poverty by asking, firstly, who has what duties in fulfilling global subsistence needs, secondly what the status of such duties is (are they duties of justice or duties of virtue?), and thirdly, whether subsistence needs do indeed give rise to a human right to subsistence. It is in this manner that this chapter demonstrates how starting from duties can allow us to discriminate more precisely between (...) genuine and (as yet) spurious rights, thus solving the first problem caused by the perspective of rights, namely the inflation of human rights. In this chapter, I also position myself within the larger global justice debate in order to illustrate how my position differs from dominant theories regarding our duties to the global poor. The main difference is that I consider those duties to be duties of virtue, and not duties of justice, which ultimately means that, at present, there can be no genuine human right to an adequate standard of living. (shrink)

This chapter examines what we can learn from human rights documents and human duties declarations regarding the nature of the duties correlative to the human right to an adequate standard of living, and the duties to the community. Regarding the former duties, I find that such documents do not at all sufficiently clarify the nature of individual duties concerning global subsistence needs. These are, therefore, further clarified in Chap. 5.Regarding the duties to the community, by contrast, the study of the (...) relevant human rights documents – particularly the travaux préparatoires of the Universal Declaration –will prove far more fruitful. We will find that duties to the community were considered an essential part of the Universal Declaration from the very beginning. The drafters’ intention with Article 29 was to illustrate how individual rights function in a larger moral context, a context that next to rights also includes duties, public order and general welfare. Furthermore, it will become clear that the Universal Declaration rejects, by way of Article 29, the view of the lone rights-bearer for whom the claims of the community are but so many burdens, and instead affirms the interdependence between the individual and the political community in which she finds herself. (shrink)

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The Italian philosopher Norberto Bobbio rightly spoke of the primacy of rights in current political and legal discourse as a radical overturning of the millennia-old practice of considering moral philosophy’s chief task to consist in the drafting of a catalog of duties, rather than of rights (Bobbio 2009, p. 432). From Moses’s two tablets, to Cicero’s De officiis, onto even Immanuel Kant – who viewed his Sittenlehre as a “doctrine of duties,” (Kant 1996, Ak 6:239) –, moral philosophy was believed (...) to be a study of man’s duties. Thus, the overarching question of Kant’s second Critique is not “What are my rights?,” but rather “What should I do?”. (shrink)

This paper aims to clarify how Kant understood the relation between the two spheres of morals. Did he, as O’Neill claims, acknowledge the need for civic virtue as necessary for maintaining a liberal state? Or did he take the opposite view that citizens’ virtuous dispositions are irrelevant and that all that matters is the justice of institutions? Though The Metaphysics of Morals gives the impression that Kant shared the latter position, I will argue that, in fact, Kant held a position (...) somewhere between the Rousseauian view that the essential difficulty of politics concerns the cultivation of civic duty in citizens, and contemporary liberals’ exclusive focus on the justice of institutions, by arguing that it is the laws themselves that foster respect for the laws. In short, Kant views virtue as the felicitous by-product of legality. (shrink)