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This innovative book explores the role of utopian thinking in law and politics, including alternative forms of social engineering, such as technology and architecture. Building on Levitas’ Utopia as Method, the topic of utopia is addressed within the book from a multidisciplinary perspective.The book addresses central questions surrounding utopian thinking: What are its implications for law and politics? To what extent does it constitute a desirable vision? What are its risks or dangers? How is utopia related to ideology? An impressive selection of contributors reflect on the challenge of utopianism and its attraction, advancing the global public debate on social and political issues. Divided into three accessible parts, this book discusses the relationship between utopia and the law, the notion of utopian politics and utopia in architecture and technology.Addressing the topic of utopia from a variety of perspectives, this book will be an interesting read for academic scholars and students in the field of law, legal and political theory, philosophy, ethics, sociology, religious studies, technology and architecture. In particular, it is relevant for scholars who are interested in the dynamics of social, legal and political change.

In political liberalism there is, generally speaking, a deep distrust of utopian thought. It is conceived as a blueprint for a radical reordering of the existing legal and political order. At the same time, liberal politics appears to be a rather dull affair. Compared with utopia, it seems to have less inspirational and motivational force. This chapter addresses the question of how to conceive of the relation between utopia and the rule of law. Does the rule of law completely rule out utopian thought? According to Van Klink, the rule of law depends for its survival on its ideological as well as its utopian dimension. To prevent that the rule of law is taken too much for granted as a self-evident and fixed idea, it is important to stress its utopian dimension. Conversely, its ideological stabilisation has to secure that the rule of law does not become a flee-floating fantasy.

In this chapter, Van Beers builds on Helmuth Plessner's philosophical anthropology to come to a better understanding of the relation between two contemporary utopias: the humanist utopia of human rights and the transhumanist techno-utopia of human enhancement. According to transhumanist thinkers, transhumanism is the logical extension of humanism. They stress that their school of thought, like humanism, presupposes a rather utopian account of the human based on which individual choice and freedom are to be pursued and protected. For them, human enhancement is not only compatible with, but even commanded by, human rights. Based on an analysis of the utopianism involved in humanism and transhumanism, I argue that this position only holds superficially. Upon closer examination, the transhumanist's quest for techno-utopia, even if he uses human rights as a starting point, is likely to pave the way for a world that can hardly be viewed as utopian according to humanist standards. To come to that conclusion, Van Beers offers a comparison between humanism and transhumanism through the lens of Plessner's first and third fundamental law of anthropology: the law that humans are artificial by nature and the law of the utopian standpoint.

This innovative book explores the role of utopian thinking in law and politics, including alternative forms of social engineering, such as technology and architecture. Building on Levitas’ Utopia as Method, the topic of utopia is addressed within the book from a multidisciplinary perspective.

This timely and engaging book examines the rise of populism across the globe. Combining insights from linguistics, argumentation theory, rhetoric, legal theory and political theory, if offers a fully integrated characterization of the form and content of populist discourse. Offering an in-depth analysis and evaluation at the intersection of language, law and politics, Vox Populi will be a great benefit to students and scholars from a range of disciplines.

In this chapter, the editors Henrike Jansen, Bart van Klink and Ingeborg van der Geest provide an overview of conceptions of populism, explanations of this phenomenon and various types of research that have been conducted in order to come to gripes with it.

Hoe moet het juridische vaardighedenonderwijs in er in de toekomst uitzien? Is het wenselijk dat de rechtenstudent wordt gevormd tot een T-shaped lawyer die, behalve over juridische kennis, ook beschikt over algemene kennis en vaardigheden? Ter verheldering van de discussie presenteert Van Klink een Vaardighedenkwadrant, waaruit verschillende opties voor de verdere ontwikkeling van het juridische vaardighedenonderwijs volgen.

Hoe moet het juridische vaardighedenonderwijs in er in de toekomst uitzien? Is het wenselijk dat de rechtenstudent wordt gevormd tot een T-shaped lawyer die, behalve over juridische kennis, ook beschikt over algemene kennis en vaardigheden? Ter verheldering van de discussie presenteert Van Klink een Vaardighedenkwadrant, waaruit verschillende opties voor de verdere ontwikkeling van het juridische vaardighedenonderwijs volgen.

In contemporary legislation theory, legislation is approached from roughly two different models: law as symbol vs. law as instrument. Each model offers its own specific perspective from which in concrete cases legislation can be described and evaluated. In the Law As Symbol (LAS) model legislation is seen as an ongoing communicative and interactive process in which various actors in society—the legislator, officials and citizens—work together on an equal level to create and implement legislation. In the Law As Instrument (LAI) model legislation is conceived, on the other hand, as a command that is issued by the legislature, from a position above or outside society, in order to achieve a specific policy goal. In this chapter I explore, building on these two models, how we can account for the bind- ingness of law. How to explain or justify the general expectation that legal norms are, or have to be, respected? As I argue, these models are not mutually exclusive but are co-dependent on each other. For law to function as a command (according to the LAI model), the legislature has to succeed in communicating its message to society. Conversely, to become a convincing symbol (within the LAS model), the law cannot remain a matter of discussion forever; the process of communication and interaction has to stop at some point and the law has to be applied unilaterally and enforced in case of non-compliance. Moreover, I intend to demonstrate that both models have difficulties in explaining law’s authority. How can a command or com- munication in itself generate legal duties? What is missing in both models, in my view, is a reflexion on the role ideology plays within the law. Before one can give commands to citizens (in the LAI model) or enter into meaningful conversations with them (in the LAS model), the existing order has to be accepted as a legitimate legal order. In other words, law has to presuppose its own authority but cannot pro- duce it—only ideology can.

Dit artikel is een pleidooi voor een academische verbreding van de universitaire rechtenopleiding, waarbij het recht wordt bestudeerd in een bredere, sociale, morele en theoretische context. De rechtenopleiding dient meer ruimte te bieden aan reflectie en verbreding en meer gebruik te maken van alternatieve en activerende werkvormen, die studenten stimuleren zelf na te denken en het recht vanuit verschillende perspectieven te zien. Daarmee is ook de rechtspraktijk gediend. De jurist van morgen is geen juridisch specialist, maar een breed geschoolde academicus die het recht in een ruimere context kan plaatsen en kan meedenken over de wetenschappelijke en maatschappelijke uitdagingen van de toekomst.

Wat dragen de reflexieve (of metajuridische) vakken precies bij aan de academische vorming van rechtenstudenten? Heel wat, aldus Bart van Klink en Bald de Vries in deze bijdrage.

Advances in reproductive biotechnology increase control over who is born and under what circumstances. Resulyingly, we are confronted with the question: what do we owe to future people who are born with the help of these technologies? In an attempt to do justice to future people, a new entity has appeared the legal stage: the future child. This is the child that has not been born or even conceived yet – but might be at some point in the future. In order to be able to include this new entity in discussions on the regulations on reproduction, we need a theoretical framework that helps us understand what this entity is and how we can address it. In the regulations on reproduction, the future child is often conceptualised as a subject of rights or interests. Yet, as a result of these regulatory frameworks that invoke the interests of the future child, the future child itself is ultimately prevented from coming into existence, which renders the future child as a merely legal construct and a complex entity. This research aims to assess the conceptualisation of the future child in the regulations on reproduction, by scrutinizing the tenability of the ‘interests of the future child’ construction. In order to assess this construction, it is deconstructed into the four assumption upon which it is based. These are: first, the core values underlying the regulations on reproduction can be understood as interests of an individual subject; second, the future child has an implicitly assumed interest in its own non-existence; third, the future child is a legal subject and, fourth, the future child whose existence is prevented is capable of having interests. The critical assessment of these four assumptions reveals that each of them is questionable. The first and second assumptions are untenable in most cases. The third and fourth assumptions, pertaining to the future child’s subjectivity, are completely untenable due to the future child’s non-existence. In short, the interests of the ‘interests of the future child’ construction appears to be unable to articulate various values that underlie the regulatory framework and it is internally contradictory. In response, I propose an alternative theoretical framework based on the work of Hans Jonas that is capable of taking up this task. This alternative approach conceives the future child as the object of our responsibility. In order to set the parameters of our responsibility towards the future child, we need a more articulated normative account of the human person. In this research, I explore how perceiving the human person as equal and an autonomous end in himself is capable of making sense of the various values that can be distilled from the regulation of reproduction. Of course, the notion our humanity may remain topic of discussion, as it is surrounded by unprecedented complexities. As technological developments erode the boundaries between the given and the made, it may seem that we are losing our grip on this endeavour. But precisely because the regulation of biotechnology touches upon the intimate aspects of our humanity, and every regulatory choice implies an idea of what it means to be human, we cannot escape articulating such a collective perspective. Nor can we hide behind the ‘interests of the future child’ in an attempt to present our perspective on humanity as based on individual interests or rights. Therefore, rather than shy away from it, we must take up the challenge to at least further reflect upon the notion of humanity that forms the foundation of the regulations on reproduction and to attempt to articulate in more depth what it means to be human.