Search

As terrorism increasingly penetrates Western democracies, liberals and libertarians are obliged to ask themselves whether contending with it justifies restricting civil liberty and, if so, to what extent. Neither personal security nor individual liberty is ever fully realised--both are a matter of degree--and they are often perceived as being at odds with each other. Hence it has been suggested that we reconsider the existing trade-off between them, or reassess their 'rate of exchange'. While such questions are sometimes raised by left-leaning liberals, they are in fact particularly acute for liberals on the right, or libertarians, who would normally resist any increase in government intervention. Right-wingers who advocate 'hands off' policies on all other occasions now call for an increase in government intervention as regards security measures. Many left-liberals, on the other hand, are reluctant to concede any further power to the state in order to combat terrorism.

The events of September 11, 2001 and the dramatic increase in Arab terrorist activity in Israel throughout the last two years have placed the issue of combating terrorism at the [...]

This paper considers the role of efficiency arguments in grounding territorial rights from a liberal perspective. The view advanced here is pitted against some recent arguments voiced by Margaret Moore opposing the inclusion of any efficiency criterion in our moral reasoning about territorial entitlement. Though I argue against the view, my own conclusion - favouring the adoption of only a moderated version of such principles - is a relatively mild one. It maintains, on the one hand, that the beneficial use of land is morally relevant to determining its rightful owner, but, on the other hand, it also recognizes the limitations of any such principle of utilization. Ultimately, there are good moral reasons for viewing the way in which a given land has been put to use as a relevant component (though admittedly only one) of our account of territorial entitlement.

The issue of settlement is examined to determine how it can be used to decide the allotment of territory in a just manner as well as to touch on its moral value as a form of human endeavor. It is argued that the fact that individual members of a nation are settled on a particular piece of land constitutes a primary factor that should be taken into account in evaluating their nation's claim to control over the territory.