Lena Halldenius | Lund University (original) (raw)

Papers by Lena Halldenius

Theoria, 2011

... To the Editor of Theoria. Neha Khetrapal. Article first published online: 11 AUG 2011. DOI: 1... more ... To the Editor of Theoria. Neha Khetrapal. Article first published online: 11 AUG 2011. DOI: 10.1111/j.1755-2567.2011.01112_2.x. © 2011 Stiftelsen Theoria. Issue. Theoria. ... More content like this. Find more content: like this article. Find more content written by: Neha Khetrapal. ...

Södertörn Academic Studies, 2008

Cosmopolitanism is one of those terms that seem to be always around, denoting something vaguely l... more Cosmopolitanism is one of those terms that seem to be always around, denoting something vaguely laudable and therefore more
or less up for grabs. It is often used synonymously with terms like
global justice, international justice, or international morality, and
so has become a vehicle for expressing the idea of global obligations of justice. No job could be more important. Indeed it is so important that it cannot be safely left to a rhetoric of ‘global community’ and ‘humane world order’. Taking the idea of global obligations seriously, I will discuss what kind of theory such an idea requires. Leaving the conceptual history to others for the moment, I will start by presenting what I see as three aspects of modern cosmopolitanism conceived as a position within political philosophy. I wish to emphasize that these three aspects in no way are meant to count as a definition, nor are they exhaustive, but they are there in the ongoing debate. What I want to highlight initially is cosmopolitanism conceived as a multifaceted position including, first, a certain attitude or state of mind; the cosmopolitan regards herself as a member of a global community, tied together by a thin tie of shared humanity. Second, the cosmopolitan is committed to moral universalism. The third is an institutional implication. Cosmopolitans support a global or transnational set of institutions with a degree of priority over local, national or regional institutions. These three together seem to form a backbone of contemporary cosmopolitan philosophy.

Discrimination is a moral and a legal issue. It is regulated in national and international law. T... more Discrimination is a moral and a legal issue. It is regulated in national and international law. The rationale for regulation is the assumption that discrimination is unfair; the legal issue presupposes the moral one. If discrimination does not measure up as a moral concept, the legal regulation is not a regulation of “it” but of an ad hoc set of behaviors that we dislike, possibly for good reason. I start by trying to identify what discrimination is taken to be in the moral and legal discourse. I will go on to set up a number of requirements an account of discrimination should meet and assess what I understand to be the standard view in
light of these requirements. Pinning discrimination down as a legal issue in need of regulation makes it more difficult to account for it in a meaningful way as a moral issue. There seems to be a conflict between these two concerns. I will end by spelling that conflict out.

In this article I will do three things: I will argue that solidarity is not necessary for politic... more In this article I will do three things: I will argue that solidarity is not necessary for political legitimacy, that non-domination is a strong candidate for legitimacy criterion, and, finally, that non-domination can legitimate the egalitarian welfare state.

AJOB Neuroscience, 2014

Deep brain stimulation (DBS) is a developing technology. New generations of DBS technology are al... more Deep brain stimulation (DBS) is a developing technology. New generations of DBS technology are already in the pipeline, yet this particular fact has been largely ignored among ethicists interested in DBS. Focusing only on ethical concerns raised by the current DBS technology is, albeit necessary, not sufficient. Since current bioethical concerns raised by a specific technology could be quite different from the concerns it will raise a couple of years ahead, an ethical analysis should be sensitive to such alterations, or it could end up with results that soon become dated. The goal of this analysis is to address these changing bioethical concerns, to think ahead on upcoming and future DBS concerns both in terms of a changing technology and changing moral attitudes. By employing the distinction between inherent and noninherent bioethical concerns we identify and make explicit the particular limits and potentials for change within each category, respectively, including how present and upcoming bioethical concerns regarding DBS emerge and become obsolete. Many of the currently identified ethical problems with DBS, such as stimulation-induced mania, are a result of suboptimal technology. These challenges could be addressed by technical advances, while for instance perceptions of an altered body image caused by the mere awareness of having an implant may not. Other concerns will not emerge until the technology has become sophisticated enough for new uses to be realized, such as concerns on DBS for enhancement purposes. As a part of the present analysis, concerns regarding authenticity are used as an example.

The scholarship on Mary Wollstonecraft (1759–1797) is divided concerning her views on women's rol... more The scholarship on Mary Wollstonecraft (1759–1797) is divided concerning her views on women's role in public life, property rights, and distribution of wealth. Her critique of inequality of wealth is undisputed, but is it a complaint only of inequality or does it strike more forcefully at the institution of property? The argument in this article is that Wollstonecraft's feminism is partly defined by a radical critique of property, intertwined with her conception of rights. Dissociating herself from the conceptualization of rights in terms of self-ownership, she casts economic independence—a necessary political criterion for personal freedom—in terms of fair reward for work, not ownership. Her critique of property moves beyond issues of redistribution to a feminist appraisal of a property structure that turns people into either owners or owned, rights-holders or things acquired. The main characters in Wollstonecraft's last novel—Maria, who is rich but has nothing, and Jemima, who steals as a matter of principle—illustrate the commodification of women in a society where even rights are regarded as possessions.

The aim of this paper is to make it credible that there are feminist reasons for being a republic... more The aim of this paper is to make it credible that there are feminist reasons for being a republican about freedom. In focus is Quentin Skinner's conception of republican, or “neo-Roman”, freedom. Republican theory in history has not excelled in making poverty, gender hierarchy, and racism within the republic into main sources of concern. So can there be a radical republican theory of liberty fit for a feminist, to make sense of arbitrary power in the every day life of work, households, and local communities, where power is vague and unorganized? Proceeding from three questions – What does freedom mean? Under what circumstances does the issue arise? Why should we care? – I argue that in a feminist republicanism the lived experience of the unfree will have primary and not, as Skinner now suggests, secondary importance. A feminist republican will be particularly concerned not only with what unfreedom is but with what it is like.

In this article Hobbes’s view of the commonwealth, and of law and liberty within it, is discussed... more In this article Hobbes’s view of the commonwealth, and of law and liberty within it, is discussed from the point of view of social ontology. The artificial character of the commonwealth and the constitutive function of the covenant is put in terms of the institutional world being constructed through collective intentionality, which is performative, self-referential, and collective, and which serves as truth-maker. Hobbes is used here to make the point that it is a mistake to argue, as for example Tuomela has done, that the construction of institutions require a joint commitment: we-attitudes held in the we-mode. Instead, institutions on a ‘Hobbesian’ model are constructed by we- attitudes held in the I-mode. This analysis is used in a discussion of law as an institution and law serving as a constraint on freedom. The constructive character of law means that the idea of law can serve as a constraint even in an area of life where in actual fact is unregulated. In order to assess whether liberty can be said to be infringed when that happens we need to go back to the notion of an external constraint, appreciating that what agents there are, what they can do and the powers they possess are functions of collective attitudes conveying meaning and status.

A structural affinity between republican freedom as non-domination and human rights claims accoun... more A structural affinity between republican freedom as non-domination and human rights claims accounts for the relevance of republicanism for cosmopolitan concerns. Central features of republican freedom are its institution dependence and the modal aspect it adds to being free. Its chief concern is not constraint, but the way in which an agent is constrained or not. To the extent I am vulnerable to someone’s dispositional power over me I am not free, even if I am not in fact constrained. Republican freedom adds a substantial element to a justification of human rights in terms of entitlement, rather than mere satisfaction of interests. A satisfied interest is not a satisfied right if the satisfaction is dependent on personal goodwill and can be withdrawn at any time. Like republican freedom, human rights claims add a modal aspect to enjoyment. Both can be violated by institutional arrangement alone and can be secured only within accountable institutions. National borders may well be irrelevant to the dispositional powers to which people are vulnerable. An international set of institutions globalizes those circumstances in which republican liberty arises as a concern.

My aim in this article is twofold. I will discuss different ways of conceptualising the relation ... more My aim in this article is twofold. I will discuss different ways of conceptualising the relation between liberty and law. By ‘law’ I refer throughout to law in the sense of civil law: rules with accompanying sanctions, promulgated by a legislator for the regulation of action in political society. I do not intend to say anything about ‘natural law’, unless I explicitly state otherwise. For the purposes of my argument I will loosely group the positions I discuss under different labels: ‘liberty from the law’, ‘liberty by the law’, and ‘liberty under law’. There is nothing self-serving about these labels; indeed, they may appear simplistic and historically inept. I use them to direct our attention and in order to illustrate my second aim, which is to make a fairly general point that seems to me to fall out of the preceding discussion. That point is that concepts like liberty are institution dependent and that
we cannot hope to understand or even talk about what they mean
without adhering to that fact. I will argue that even when liberty is
understood in terms of the absence of law, the presence of law or the possibility of its presence will have to be assumed in principle in order for its absence to make sense. Freedom from law refers to different kinds of absences, depending on whether the law that is not there is the institution itself or an instance of regulation within an institution that is present.

Mary Wollstonecraft’s status as an early feminist writer and vindicator of women’s rights has gai... more Mary Wollstonecraft’s status as an early feminist writer and vindicator of women’s rights has gained her a great deal of both analytical and biographical attention. Most of what is written about her is focused on her feminism, on her literary style and on her historical status as a pioneering advocate of women’s rights. For Wollstonecraft’s feminism to be properly understood, however, it needs to be contextualized, not only in its historical
setting but also, and importantly, in her normative political thinking of which it forms an integrated part. My emphasis is therefore on Wollstonecraft’s political morality, its components and its manifestations in relation to property, sex equality and legitimate government. Two lines of argument run through this paper: liberty, equality and virtue fit indissolubly together in
Wollstonecraft’s thinking. I analyse how they do so, and how they explain each other. Additionally, this triad is based on a theory of rights, making the notion of rights logically prior to and a necessary condition for it.

The Ethics and Governance of Human Genetic Databases, 2007

My concern is whether genetic discrimination and the regulation of it can be given a reasonable f... more My concern is whether genetic discrimination and the regulation of it can be given a reasonable foundation in philosophy. Of particular interest is on what grounds we identify instances of discrimination. We make distinctions between people all the time. Whenever an employer hires someone, someone else is filtered out. On what grounds do we distinguish between fair and unfair filtering?
First, can there be a well-supported conception of discrimination that admits genetic information in principle among its grounds? I argue that ‘the standard account of
discrimination’ cannot explain genetic discrimination in those sectors with which we are concerned. One cannot refute an account of a normative concept merely to support a political proposal, so we need to see if there are other reasons for questioning the standard account. I find at least two. Proceeding from these, I argue for an alternative account that fares better. This alternative is capable of explaining genetic discrimination.
I briefly address the regulation of the insurance sector. Even on my account of discrimination distinguishing between genetic and non-genetic medical information seems unwarranted. I consequently question the assumption that genetic information is exceptional.

New Waves in Political Philosophy, 2009

The philosophical debate about liberty has recently gained in complexity and political relevance ... more The philosophical debate about liberty has recently gained in complexity and political relevance through the revival of the republican understanding of liberty as the absence of asymmetric power relations or domination. As a staunch defender of the importance of theorizing liberty in this way, I nevertheless argue that a theory of liberty in the social world needs to be conceptually multifaceted and also take into account the social and institutional circumstances within which liberty and its violations are played out and made possible.
In this article I will do three things. First, I will spell out the multidimensional feature of liberty, as being practical, moral-political and evaluative. Second, I will argue that, across these dimensions, assessing an agent’s liberty or lack of it requires a consideration of power as a dispositional concept, i e power as capacity. This will be explained by means of addressing what we might have in mind when we talk about freedom to (act or be) and freedom from, where the absence required for freedom to obtain is understood, again, in a multifaceted way as actual obstacles or constraints, disabling circumstances, and, importantly, domination. All these, not only freedom from domination, relate to power or capacity in interesting ways, both the agent’s own and the power relations in which she stands to others. This fact also shows the link between freedom to and freedom from. For example, my freedom to act can consist in my capacity to transcend an external obstacle or to resist domination. Third, liberty and its restriction and violation are played out in a social and institutional setting, a setting which sets conditions for what liberty can meaningfully be understood to mean. For example, “freedom from law” not only implies different things depending on whether we talk about freedom from the practical, moral-political or evaluative dimension; it also means different things depending on whether our outlook is internal or external to the institution of law. Hence, what liberty is or can be and when and how it is or can be restricted, by and for whom, is largely conditioned on institutional circumstance and the vantage point from which we view our collective existence.

In this article, John Locke’s theories of political liberty and legitimate government are read as... more In this article, John Locke’s theories of political liberty and legitimate government are read as expressions of a normative demand for non-arbitrariness. I argue that Locke locates infringements of political liberty in dependence on the arbitrary will of another, whether or not interference or restraint actually takes place. This way Locke is tentatively placed in that tradition of republican thought recently brought to our attention by Pettit, Skinner and others. This reading shifts the focus on legitimacy and identifies the independent moral argument for legitimate government as ruling for the good of the people. Consent is left with a hypothetical role to play.

The article discusses the purpose of the civil condition and the obligation to move from a state ... more The article discusses the purpose of the civil condition and the obligation to move from a state of nature and asks questions about obligation in relation to the republican form of the state and on non-republican despotic forms. Immanuel Kant's position on freedom as related to obligation to law in political society will be accounted through obligation as an attribute of the free person, that a social contract cannot have a causal function and that people are morally obligated to enter the civil condition. Kant's response on how to resolve conflicts without war is through law in a civil state. It concludes that any constitutional change is a change from a state of nature to a civil condition and resistance is a necessary part of the slow progress of freedom in civil society.

Freedom and the Construction of Europe. Volume 2, 2013

The focus of this chapter is the complex interplay between politics and morality in the thought o... more The focus of this chapter is the complex interplay between politics and morality in the thought of philosopher, novelist, political thinker and feminist pioneer Mary Wollstonecraft. It is fundamental to Wollstonecraft’s moral theory that morality as a standard of rightness is derived from nature and knowable through reason. The principles of morality are a matter of eternal, universal truth with a foundation in nature and they are the same for all. She alludes to (and needs) this unshakeable nature of morality to highlight the subversive inconsistency in calling women good while keeping them ignorant of moral duties and of holding them to duties at all while denying them rights. Famously insisting that ‘there there can be but one rule of right, if morality has an eternal foundation’ and that there is no ‘sex to morals’, 1 she still and importantly regards the political situation of persons as prior to moral agency. Attending to the relation between the political circumstances of women, and other persons who live lives of dependence and subordination, and the moral principles to which they are duty-bound by nature is crucial for understanding Wollstonecraft’s politics. The importance of claiming rights for women was for her not merely so that they could become citizens but, more fundamentally, so that they could be moral agents in full. Political exclusion is, ipso facto, moral exclusion. Proceeding from an interpretation of Wollstonecraft’s view of freedom and the centrality of ‘independence’ within it, I shall attempt an analysis of the priority of the political situation to moral agency. This priority, I argue, can be explicated in terms of three interconnected but analytically distinct relations. Two are explanatory relations. The first is causal and explains the psychological effects of oppression and submission; the other is conditional and explains processes of deliberation and reasons for action. The third relation is constitutive; it concerns the moral character of an act. I maintain that moral agency for Wollstonecraft is an exercise of freedom; moral acts are characterized by having the modality of being performed freely.

The argument in this article is that Hobbes’ theory of freedom in Leviathan allows for four ways ... more The argument in this article is that Hobbes’ theory of freedom in Leviathan allows for four ways of being free to act – corporal freedom by nature, freedom from obligation by nature, the freedom to disobey and the freedom of no-rule – each corresponding to a particular absence, some of which make sense only in the civil state. Contrary to what some have claimed, this complexity does not commit Hobbes to an unarticulated definition of freedom in tension with the only one that he explicitly offers, which is that freedom consists of nothing other than the absence of external impediments of motion. To be free from obligation is to be free from impediments. As a political subject in the state, the power that is blocked or compelled by law is a person’s power to perform artificial acts as her will directs. Laws and prior commitments are external impediments that block or compel making an artificial, institution-dependent act either impossible or unavoidable. The bonds of law bind artificially yet corporally, given that the power that makes them is, quite literally, an external body that moves at will.

Books by Lena Halldenius

Liberty is a contested concept, and different interpretations of it, and of its value, abound. Th... more Liberty is a contested concept, and different interpretations of it, and of its value, abound. This book argues for an interpretation of liberty that focuses on symmetrical relations of power and influence, rather than separate instances of action. Enjoying liberty requires that one is not subordinated. ”Liberty as non-domination” has recently been advocated by republicans. Here it is employed in a different context, in a discussion with three interrelated themes: To establish non-domination as a radical and feminist, but not republican, interpretation of liberty; to argue that non-domination can function as an independent criterion of political legitimacy; and that the egalitarian aspect of non-domination includes equality of socioeconomic goods. The systematic discussion is preceded by an analysis of how the concept of liberty has been used in the history of political thought, exemplified by Kant, Locke, Mill and Wollstonecraft.

Vi är alla goda liberaler numera och tror på medborgerliga friheter och individens självbestämman... more Vi är alla goda liberaler numera och tror på medborgerliga friheter och individens självbestämmande. Men hur ser liberalismen som distinkt politiskt alternativ egentligen ut? Att vara liberal är något mer specifikt än att gilla yttrandefrihet och tolerans. Liberalismen behandlas här som en politisk filosofi – en teori om det rättvisa samhället. Olika liberala riktningar diskuteras utifrån de grundläggande värden som förenar dem: en viss syn på individen, fokus på individuella rättigheter och ett specifikt svar på frågan om vari individens frihet består. Utifrån denna liberala värdegrund granskas och kritiseras liberala tolkningar av vad det innebär att tro på frihet, jämlikhet, legitimitet och rättvisa.

Theoria, 2011

Södertörn Academic Studies, 2008

AJOB Neuroscience, 2014

The Ethics and Governance of Human Genetic Databases, 2007

New Waves in Political Philosophy, 2009

Freedom and the Construction of Europe. Volume 2, 2013

Mary Wollstonecraft is a writer whose work continues to provoke scholarly debate. But Wollstonecr... more Mary Wollstonecraft is a writer whose work continues to provoke scholarly debate. But Wollstonecraft the historical figure often obscures her importance as a philosopher. Halldenius explores Wollstonecraft’s political philosophy, focusing on her treatment of republicanism and independence, to propose a new way of reading her work – that of a ‘feminist republican’. Wollstonecraft’s works of fiction and non-fiction are analysed and the use of her own experience of a lack of freedom (the lot of an eighteenth-century woman) is examined as a valid line of philosophical enquiry and not – as others have viewed them – as a form of autobiography.

Review of Quentin Skinner Hobbes and Republican Liberty (Cambridge, 2008)