Procrastination
It seems like every semester I end up having to read more books then the last.
Here’s what’s been read up to this point (not including journal articles or books that I have not had to read all the way through):
Electoral Politics
- Jacobson, The Politics of Congressional Elections
- Brady and Johnston, Capturing Campaign Effects
- Johnson-Cartee and Copeland, Inside Political Campaigns
- Iyengar and Kinder, News that Matters
- Key, Southern Politics in State and Nation
- Bishop, The Big Sort
- Ansolabhere and Snyder, The End of Inequality
Politics of Education
- Bracy, Put to the Test
Interest Groups
- Baumgartner, et al, Lobbying and Policy Change
- Berry and Wilcox, The Interest Group Society
- Andres, Lobbying Reconsidered: Understanding Influence
Public Policy Analysis
- Hill and Hupe, Implementing Public Policy
- Weimer and Vining, Policy Analysis Concepts and Practice
Fiction
- Gregory, The White Queen
- Sparks, The Last Song
Yep – that’s the list for now. Still have more to go… back to work!
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This Post…
… Is going to be a vent, and I’m sorry. So if you don’t want to read, stop reading.
I have been blessed with a seemingly endless love for learning. I enjoy reading newspapers, scholarly articles, and political science books in my free time. Doing homework is usually something that’s pretty interesting for me. Studying for tests, while stressful, also makes me feel like I’ve accomplished something. And writing papers, while the research can usually take forever, I can thankfully write very fast with an outline.
Learning is interesting for me. Learning is fun. School has never been that difficult for me. I work hard, sometimes too hard. And I have been blessed with being rewarded for my hard work with good grades that reflect the effort that I put in. Until now.
Studying abroad is supposed to be fun, professors know this and they are supposed to take it easy on you. Well, I guess that’s not how my professors here play the game. It seems like no matter how hard I research my papers, how long I study, how hard I work at my internship, nothing changes, nothing improves, the grades aren’t there.
I cannot express how annoying this is for me. When you think you write a perfectly good paper, one that goes above and beyond what the professors asks, and you still do not get the grade you expect, it’s defeating. It makes you doubt your abilities. It makes you think that if you can’t even handle study abroad classes, how are you going to handle your masters classes next semester? Or your masters exam a two years away? Or law school classes?
I guess now I finally understand what it feels like to work so hard for something and then not achieve it in the end. It makes you want to give, especially because you feel like you have nothing else left to give.
I hate it.
I hate grade deflation.
If I work hard, if I do what is expected – beyond what is expected – I want a good grade. You cannot look me in the eye and tell me that some of the classes that I’ve taken at BU and have gotten As in are easier than the classes I’ve taken here. The classes here are dumb – the professors briefly touch on the details and they give no guidance as to the papers. The fact that we need to write papers for our internships – with sources – is insane, especially after working 32 hours a week and going to class for another 4 (along with having work to do for that class).
Seriously, this just makes me want to go home. To forget this semester. And to move on.
[INSERT EXPLETIVES HERE]
PO335 Notes
Britain is a part of Europe and distant from it.
British people don’t see themselves as European.
France only cares about wine and cheese (and themselves).
An EU constitution threatens Parliamentary Sovereignty.
– Keep in mind, exam tomorrow!
New Idea for My Thesis
Dual political socialization:
Our parents political socialized us towards a certain political party.
However, in this election, many young adults have been convincing their parents to vote for the Democratic ticket. Why?
This is a process of duel political socialization. We are socializing our parents, incorporating the racist-free, individualistic, accepting, and fearful era that we have grown up in.
This era has influenced us towards overwhelmingly supporting Barack Obama. We are now getting our parents to vote for him as well.
What will this mean for the future of American politics? Has this occurred in the past with other candidates that had strong youth followings?
Notes on Tonight’s Posts
About 300 pages of reading is waiting for me on various topics from African age-sets, to presidential polls, to the American judicial system. Never mind the thousands of pages of reading on the Lost Boys of Sudan for my term paper.
All of that has been put aside by tonight’s anger-filled events.
In order to both calm myself down and get a better handle on those events, commentary on that will occur in the last post of the night.
Stay tuned!
My Life
September 14, 2008, 10:07 pm
Filed under: Classes
Filed under: Classes
From now until Wednesday at noon, my life will revolve around memorize the names of all of the countries, capitals, and major landforms in Africa.
Take a look… there are 54 countries in Africa.
The Effect of Global Warming on Human Civilization
The world will get too hot. Plant and animal species will start to die off. The weather patterns will change with an increase in dangerous types of extreme weather becoming more common. Sea levels will rise and polar ice caps will melt covering most of New York City and drowning Florida. And… Humans will become dumber.
According to recent research, IQ in white civilizations decreases as the heat index increases. The amount of white people in prison increase as heat increases.
Now I can’t even being to start of where to critique this research. The first thing I would have to say would be the obvious thing anyone who has taken PO102 at BU or who has had a TA who taught PO102 at BU (for me, that latter): this so-called correlation between heat and IQ and heat and prisoners is most definitely causation, not correlation.
However, I didn’t link to this article because of how interesting and informative or even scientifically significant it was to the whole global warming debate, but rather because it provides an interesting juxtaposition to a theory that was discussed in my PO241 Public Policy class. In this class, during our Environmental Policy section, Professor Rossell told us that global warming might not be that bad because, among other things, humans might actually get SMARTER. According to Rossell, there was a heat wave that spark the Renaissance (some more causation, not correlation), so therefore, global warming could actually be good. Well let’s just say that this comment sparked off quite a discussion among us global warming hating liberal college students during our sections on Friday.
Funny how people can use two different types of research to come to two completely opposite conclusions.
History Paper!
I just had to post it all…
Generations are defined by the years in which they were born and the specific attributes that the members of the generation hold in common. All generations have defining shared experiences that influence the way in which they live and view the world (Liesse 1). For members of the Millennial Generation, the September 11th terrorist attacks are the first event that they will remember exactly where they were and what they were doing when they heard the news. Similar to how parents of Millennials told their children where they were when President John F. Kennedy was shot, Millennials will be able to enthrall their children with stories about their personal experiences on September 11th, 2001. The attacks have been the single major event that has affected the lives of the Millennial Generation. The cultural memory of the Millennial Generation, in regards to September 11th, is still being formed, but one can be certain, the terrorist attacks have had a strong impact on the lives of this group of young people. September 11th has made them more interested in making a difference in the world, thereby helping them get involved with both community service and politics.
The Millennial Generation encompasses those born between 1982 and 2003. The Millennials are still a developing generation, as all of its members have not yet reached adulthood. Because of this, demographers disagree as to the size of the generation. The number varies from about 76 million to 83 million (Understanding the Millennial Generation 3, “The Progressive Politics of the Millennial Generation” 2). They grew up in an era of technological advances, from the Internet to cell phones, from DVD players to iPods. Two-thirds view their generation and themselves as unique (Pew “How Young People…” 1). They were nurtured by their parents while growing up, more than any other generation and; therefore, keep strong ties to their parents (Girl Scout Research Institute 3). But most importantly, the Millennial Generation was shaped by the September 11th attacks. One day, the caring and calm childhood they had come to know while growing up in the 1990s, during a time of relative economic prosperity and peace, was shattered a four plane crashed at the hands of the terrorist organization Al-Qaeda and their leader Osama bin Laden.
The events of September 11th fit in precisely with Strauss and Howe’s model for the stages of generations. According to research and analysis done by Strauss and Howe, generations go through four different defining periods during the course of their lifetimes. The four stages are Awakening, Unraveling, Crisis, and High. During an Awakening, civil order comes under attack because of the values of the new group in power . An Unraveling encompasses an era of relative peace and prosperity, a high between two chaotic periods . A Crisis involves an era of secular upheaval, often with decisive wars being waged . A High era is one between a Crisis and an Awakening . (Strauss and Howe Generations 69-79) The period upon which a new generation enters the world affects the characteristics of that generation. Because of this fact, the events that occur during and even before a generation emerges play a role in shaping that generation and the way in which they respond to catastrophes that occur during their lifetime.
How do the Millennials and September 11th fit into Strauss and Howe’s model? According to the cycle, Strauss and Howe classified the Baby Boomers as an Idealist generation, Generation Xers as a Reactive generation, and the Millennials as a Civic (Hero) generation. A Civic generation is born during an Unraveling. For the Millennials, this Unraveling period was during the 1980s and 1990s, an era of economic prosperity and technological advances. This period allowed the Millennial Generation to be nurtured by their parents in a way that has made Millennials believe that they can do anything they set their minds to. Civic generations spend the beginning of their adult years during a Crisis. (Strauss and Howe Generations 335-346) For the Millennials, this Crisis began with the attacks on September 11th and has continued through the present day with the War on Terror and the War in Iraq. Their overly cared for upbringing during the roaring 1980s and 1990s created an upbeat and optimistic generation of Millennials that was ready with vigor to react to September 11th through community service and even a newly created sense of being citizens of the world.
Strauss and Howe classify the Millennials as a new emerging Civic generation based on their research on the cycles of generations. According to the pair, every fourth generation can be classified as a Civic generation, one “that does great deeds, constructs nations and empires, and is afterward honored in memory and storied in myth” (Strauss and Howe Millennials Rising 326). Civic generations are known for being vigorous and rational institution-builders. They tend to be upbeat, optimistic, and group-oriented. Their generation cycles involve creating new roles for the government and dealing with major problems facing the nation and the world (Winograd and Hais 6).
The last Civic generation was the G.I. Generation, one that was leaving this world as the Millennials were entering, leaving the “hero” void for the Millennials to fill (Strauss and Howe Millennials Rising 51-52). By claiming that the Millennials are America’s next Civic Generation based on their cycle of generations, Strauss and Howe predicted the way in which the Millennials would react to the initial catastrophe that would being their Crisis period, similar to the way the G.I. Generation reacted to the Great Depression and World War II, at the start of their Crisis period.
The Millennial Generation’s desire to make a difference through community service and political participation could simply be attributed to Strauss and Howe’s positioning them as a Civic generation. Civic generations are supposed to be community-oriented and driven, simply because of the way in which they were raised. However, in order to fully understand Strauss and Howe’s cyclical nature of generations and eras, one must also take into account the events that have occurred during a generation’s lifetime. Because the events in one’s lifetime effect the way in which one will react to future catastrophes, it is simply impossible to believe that the Millennial Generation would be as civically inclined as they currently are without the terrorist attacks of September 11th.
As the defining event for the Millennial Generation, September 11th caused a shift from a Unraveling period to a Crisis period in American history and therefore, it has had a profound impact on the Millennials. Members of the Millennial Generation view themselves as unique and as able to bring about change in the United States and in the world (Winograd and Hais 92). Aside from the immediate responses of personal fear and worry, September 11th caused 61 percent of Millennials to be currently worried about the state of the world and feel personally responsible for making a difference (Cone Inc. and AMP Insights). These feelings have translated into Millennials to taking more active roles in their communities, through an increase in community service and a newly found interest in world events and politics. The calm and prosperous world that the Millennials had grown up in was no more; it was now time for them to fully enter the world as participatory citizens, stand up for what they believe in, and help their country in its time of greatest need.
The “Bowling Alone” that Robert Putnam warned about in his 2000 book seems to be dissolving, or at least not applicable to the Millennial Generation. The events of September 11th and the subsequent responses of the Millennial Generation have caused Putnam to rethink his original theory. He theorizes that the terrorist attacks, which caught the Millennial Generation in its formative years, might produce a more community-oriented and engaged group of young people (Putnam 1). Putnam’s reasoning is derived from the fact that in survey after survey, Millennials state that they are looking for ways to leave their mark on the world. This group not only expects change to occur in their communities and in the world, but they want to be the agents of that change (Sandfort and Haworth). September 11th was the first event in their lifetimes that showed the Millennials the problems of their communities, of America, and of the world. It was this event allowed the Millennials to act on these feelings in a definitive way, reshaping the world as it is currently into a better one for the future.
The first way Millennials decided to make their mark on the world was through community service. 85 percent of Millennials believe that community service is an effective way to solve problems facing both a local community and the greater world community (Winograd and Hais 262). This can be seen in the community service activities that Millennials engaged in after the September 11th attacks. Directly following the events, most of the volunteer activities that the Millennials were engaged were centered directly on the events. They donated money to and raised money for charities set up for the families of the victims, donated clothes and food to New York City, sent cards to families and eventually the United States troops in Afghanistan, and raised and sent money to Afghanistan for the population there (Girl Scouts Research Institute 8-9).
Millennials, because of their team-orientation and independence, along with their desire to make a difference directly following September 11th, not only helped on activities and with charities that were created by older generations in response to the attacks, but also put together their own programs and funds. For example, the “9-11 Stuffy Fund” created by an eleven-year-old New Yorker named Lindzay. Lindzay is a typically Millennial, born in 1990, close to the halfway point for the Millennial Generation. Lindzay’s fund raised and donated over 6,500 stuffed animals to children in the New York City. She was spurred into volunteering in this way because of the way in which she saw her fellow classmates affected by the tragedy, rather than as a way to be recognized. To Lindzay every stuffed animal that she gave to her classmates and other similar children in New York City helped her personally deal with the horror of the events while making it easier for her peers to handle what had happened as well. (“September 11th: Take Action!”)
Moving beyond the direct aftermath of the September 11th attacks, Millennials have continued to stay involved with community service. Millennials will be known for their “grassroots reconstruction of community, teamwork, and civic spirit… in the realm of community service,” and the emergence of the Internet as a tool for mass communication, has aided the Millennials in their endeavors (Strauss and Howe Millennials Rising 214). A large number of Millennials use the Internet, especially social networking sites such as MySpace and Facebook, to connect with their peers, promote their views, and get people involved in their service projects. Advocacy groups and volunteer organizations have popped up all over Facebook and MySpace, allowing “young people [to] weave the internet seamlessly into their activism as they do in their social lives” (Kornblum). Facebook and MySpace, along with other resources on the Internet have also allowed the Millennials to penetrate their new socially conscious ideas for the world into the land of cyberspace.
Since September 11th, volunteerism has been internalized as part of the lifestyle for the Millennials (Winograd and Hais 84). 81 percent of the young people surveyed by Cone Inc. and AMP Insights have volunteered in the past year (Cone Inc. and AMP Insights 2). Additionally, 51 percent of Millennials say that it is important to volunteer (Liesse 1). Many Millennials think about volunteering as just another aspect of life, such as playing youth sports or learning an instrument, a view that has been reinforced in the classroom, as volunteer time is now usually a requirement for high school and even college graduation.
The United States has seen an explosion in youth involvement in community service following September 11th. While this could be attributed to the fact that the Millennials are a large generation, much larger than their Generation X counterparts, evidence shows that this outpouring of youth participation has occurred simply because the Millennials are more interested in making a difference in their communities. Currently, two-thirds of college freshmen believe that it is necessary to help others. From 1974 to 1989, participation rates in national community service programs for young adults fell from 23.6 percent to 20.4 percent. However, after 2001, with Millennials coming of age to participate and the September 11th attacks, the percentage of volunteers has surged and reached a high in 2005 of 28.8 percent (Corporation for National and Community Service 2007 qtd. in Winograd and Hais 261). Analysts attribute this strong increase in participation to the fact that Millennials began to get involved in community service, both in stronger numbers than their smaller Generation X counterparts, but also with more of a ferocity than the members of Generation X ever had.
Millennials are “coiled for civic action,” both donating their time and money to community service activities, but also getting involved with politics. This civic involvement is not only because of the stage in their life that they are currently in, but also because of the “lingering effects of the unifying national crisis they had experienced in their formative years” (Putnam 1). As the Millennials saw on September 11th, world issues do have an effect on America. Before September 11th, few Millennials knew about Al-Qaeda and their leader Osama bin Laden. The oldest Millennials were too young to remember the circumstances surrounding the First and Second Gulf Wars, the only major encounters they had with terrorism before September 11th were the Oklahoma City Bombing and the 1993 attack on the World Trade Center. Since September 11th, Millennials have become more interested in current events and more interested in the actions of the national government, whose effect they are directly seeing with America’s involvement in the War on Terror and the War in Iraq. Only 44 percent of those aged 18-30 held that they were bored with the actions of the federal government in late 2001, as compared to the same question in 2000, where 56 felt this way (PEW “Public Opinions Six Months Later” 4). The Millennial interest in current events has continued on even after September 11th faded from the main headlines. Young people are not only interested in news on the war and terrorism, but in all types of politics (PEW “Public Opinion Six Months Later” 4).
By getting the Millennials interested in the news and current events, September 11th has changed the way the Millennials get involved with politics. Because of their sense of optimism and desire to make a difference, 60 percent of young people believe that political engagement is an effective way to solve issues for the entire country and for their local community (Harvard Institute of Politics October 2006 Survey qtd. in “The Progressive Politics of the Millennial Generation” 2). The easiest way that Millennials have found to voice their opinions about American policies and get involved with politics has been through voting.
Voting is one civic action that that young generations in the past have struggled to do year after year. However, for the Millennials, things are looking different. Before September 11th, during the 2000 election, the participation rate among young voters aged 18-24 was 36 percent. However, in 2004 the rate was 47 percent, up 11 percent from the previous national election. (“The Progressive Politics of the Millennial Generation” 1) This increase in participation is due in part to the increasing number of Millennials coming of age to vote. As more of the Millennial Generation turns 18, the United States will see a surge in participation numbers , simply because of the large size of the Millennial Generation. The extent of the increase in percentage points reflects the way in which September 11th and the subsequent actions of the federal government in the War on Terror and the War in Iraq have affected the Millennial Generation.
September 11th was the single turning point in the lives of the members of the Millennial Generation, spurring them into taking civic action through voting and community involvement. The mismanagement of the Bush Administration in the War in Iraq and in the War on Terror, also prompted the Millennials to vote in large numbers. The increase in youth participation in elections continued in the 2006 midterm elections where there was a 24 percent increase in voter turnout for those aged 18-24 (Winograd and Hais 87). The Millennials have already made their mark on the 2004 and 2006 elections and it is likely that they will continue to do so in the upcoming elections.
Being the largest generation in American history, behind the Baby Boomer Generation, the Millennials’ newfound interest in politics could have a significant impact on the political arena. Politically coming of age in America after the September 11th attacks has influenced the policies and party that the Millennial Generation supports. Polling for the Millennial Generation has shown that they are developing an extremely progressive world-view. Millennials favor a multilateral approach to foreign policy, as they recognize the need for the world to work together to not only solve problems between warring states and with terrorism, but also issues such as global poverty and global warming (Connery “Millennials Rising” 2). This opinion is a clear rejection of the Bush Administration’s foreign policy, which many Millennials view as aggressive and unwarranted. 69 percent of Millennials favor a larger government that provides social services for the population (Winograd and Hais 95).
Furthermore, Millennials are concerned about economic inequalities and believe that it is the government’s job to help iron out some of these disparities (“The Progressive Politics of the Millennial Generation” 1). In both of these areas, the Millennials see the Bush Administration and Republican Party as failing, such as in the lack of a quick response to Hurricane Katrina. Currently, Democratic Millennials outnumber their Republican counterparts by at 1.75:1 ratio, a number that could have a significant impact on American politics (Winograd and Hais 206).
By November 2008, 50 million Millennials will be eligible to vote and by 2016, they will make up one-third of the electorate (“The Progressive Politics of the Millennial Generation” 1). These numbers in themselves have the ability to change politics. Additionally, the fact that the impact of September 11th increased the civic-mindedness and political involvement of the Millennial Generation may in fact encourage the Democratically inclined youth to vote in large numbers in November 2008, as they have in the past two elections (Winograd and Hais 197). The impact of the Millennials has already been seen in the 2008 primaries, as the turnout for the Millennial Generation in the 2008 primaries has been anywhere from three to four times higher than ever in the past (Putnam 1). It is because of this strong youth vote and his strong appeal among the youth that Barack Obama has pushed past Hillary Clinton in many of those primary contests.
The attacks on September 11th were the first events in the political and historical consciences of the Millennial Generation. For this reason, the events will no doubt have a profound impact on the members of youth as they grow up and continue through adulthood with their childhoods effectively shattered by those events. Their cultural memory of the events has made the Millennials “wary, aware, but extremely optimistic” (Hart qtd. in Nagar 1).
The terrorist attacks were the catalyst that the Millennials needed to start up their increased involvement in the community and in politics. “Just as Pearl Harbor had spawned the civic-minded “Greatest Generation,” so too Sept. 11 might turn out to produce a more civically engaged generation of young people (Putnam 1). The full results of the beginning of the Crisis period in the Millennials’ lifetime have yet to be fully determined. September 11th not only caused the Millennial Generation to become more involved in community service, but also in politics and Democratic politics at that. It is highly possible that September 11th could have created the cultural memory for the Millennial Generation that would be necessary to spark a civic realignment in favor of the Democratic Party in either the 2008, 2012, or 2016 elections. However, because those elections have yet to take place, along with the fact the cultural memory for the Millennial Generation in response to September 11th is still being developed and current events are always changing, one can never be certain that a realignment will occur in either of these three upcoming elections, or will occur at all.
Politics and Philosophy Review Notes
May 7, 2008, 2:30 am
Filed under: Classes
Filed under: Classes
Theories of Justice
- Plato- an ideal between justice as an individual moral virtue and as a political virtue
- Thucydides- only existing between equals
- Hobbes- only a political virtue of non-ideal societies
- Locke- arising from and responding to natural moral rights via consent
Rights
- How to justify, what is the role of state in relation to rights
Rawls
- Fundamental idea in concept of justice is fairness
- Design of institutions
- 2 principles
- Inequalities work for everyone’s advantage (difference principle)
- All institutions must be open to all (liberty principle)
- Justice: liberty, equality, rewards for services contributing to public good
Equilibrium and “Original Position”
- Recognition of equal standing, impartiality, fair procedure for attaining equilibrium
- Build society from scratch
Slavery
- Utilitarian- just if promotes general happiness
- Rawls attacks this
- Slavery is always unjust, slave-holder’s happiness does not need to be taken into account
- Slavery violates difference and liberty principles
Criticisms of Rawls
- Simmons- principles don’t follow, deliberators would seek social minimum
Nozick
- Accepting right to profit from talents undercuts difference principle
- 3 sense of justice: acquisition, transfer, rectification
- Historical justice: was it just? / end-state justice: justice as an ideal end
What Does It Show?
- Wilt Chamberlin- if each fan drops money into box and money goes to Chamberlin
- Should he profit?
- Nozick- right to profit
- Simmons criticizes
- Ok if Chamberlin paid taxes
Rousseau’s 2nd Discourse
- What is the basis for the inequality we find among men?
Dedication
- To idealized Geneva
- Idealized republic- unified, law-abiding, simple and free, small city-state capable of governing itself without corruption and with full citizen participation
Preface- Basic Questions
- More we know, more we are removed from society
- All right from
- Amour propre (self-love)- desire to further our own interests / ends
- Pity- feel in relation to suffering of others
- Original man just ruled by passions
Human Nature
- Physically much like us
- Driven by passions
- Pre-linguistic
- Have will and perfectibility
- Natural state- equal state with little change b/c needs were satisfied
How did we end up where we are now?
- 1st man to enclose ground- civil society
- Property and tricking / deceiving each other = inequality of civil society
- Vs. Hobbes and Locke- civil society protects property
- Hobbes- need progress to have stable lives
- Locke- right to property is basis of all civil society
- Justice is about securing property
- Rousseau- injustice begins with property- fall of humankind
- Nothing natural about property- it is an attempt to deceive
The Initial Fall
- Natural population pressures
- Adaptation
- Drive men to pride, distinctions, jealousy
- Create distinctions that are unnatural
- Language allows people to lie
- Farming society may be best kind of human society
Society
- Humans lie and deceive = wars begin
- Weak banded together to protect from oppression and submitted to gain freedom from societies
- Part of our enslavement because of our dependence on them
- Dependences leads to inherent disequality
End Game
- Wholly dependent on society and laws = worst kind of tyranny
- Subordinating power to common good- Rousseau thinks this is bad
- Destroys natural pity we ought to feel
Legitimacy
- Criticizes predecessors
- How can you transfer liberty?
3 Stages of Inequality
- Law and Right of Property
- Institution of Magistracy
- Master and Slave- everyone alienated from their own liberty
Justifying Democracy
- Justified by showing it is optimal / even obligatory
Instrumental Justification
- Leads to greatest happiness
- Best expresses individual preferences, best tracks general will
Harm Principle
- 1st concern- liberty of action
- Only in cases of self-protection is it ok to interfere with liberty of action
- Can’t make people do things for their own good
- “Over himself, over his own body and mind, the individual is sovereign”
Problem Cases
- Children, mentally ill- not capable of being sovereign over themselves = paternalism ok
- Problem: slippery slope
- Difference between making a statement and making a statement that would cause people to act
- Can’t use other things as an excuse for your behavior
Speech and Truth
- Thought and discussion allowed b/c strongly connected to truth
- Isn’t at all evident that we know the truth- horribly unpopular
- Knowing a truth means actively challenging orthodoxy and really understand why you accept a belief
Individuality, Eccentricity, Variety
- Continuously engaged with experiments of living
- Should cherish eccentricity
- Social laws force people to conform
- Character and life isn’t one size fits all
Rights
- Should be hands off unless harm is manifest
Objections
- Don’t we punish people all the time for moral indiscretion?
- When society interferes it does so in the wrong place and in the wrong way
- Govt. won’t stop once they start
- Hart- allows judges to decide what is immoral
- Mill- need strict boundaries (harm principle)
Stephen
- What are the conditions under which and limitations within which law can be applied with success to the object of making men better
- Law is about making you moral and punishing things that are immoral
The Moral Role of Law
- Criminal law applied to suppression of vice
- Law is about also hurting people who hurt others because we are resentful and want revenge
The Law is about Morality
- Limits
- Law can’t be meddlesome and strict rule of evidence
- Privacy- can’t regulate with family- inefficiency of law in punishing in this way
- Law codes change as morality changes- reflect a moral majority
Hart
- Legal positivism- law code is arbitrary in that they don’t need to deal with morality
Questions about Relation between Law and Morality
- Does the development of law been influenced by morals?- yes
- Must some reference to morality enter into an adequate definition of the law or legal system?- legal positivism, yes
- Is law open to moral criticism
- Is the fact that certain conduct is by common standard immoral sufficient to justify making that conduct punishable by law
Shaw v. Direct or Public Prosecutions
- Found guilty of conspiring to corrupt public morals
- Injects arbitrariness into law, advocates strong connection between law and morals
- Allows judge too much power
- Only based on morals
- Result: any cooperative conduct is criminal if jury considered it ex post facto to have been immoral
Is the enforcement of morality morally justified?
- Positive morality- moral system we have
- Critical morality- morality we should / ought to have
- Issues involves this
Paternalism and Punishment
- Devlin- consent not a valid defense, law is there to enforce moral principle and nothing else
- Paternalism- because it will be better for him / enforcement of morality- because in the opinion of others it would be right
- Stephen- grading punishments in relation to crimes shows that the law concerns persecuting the grosser forms of vice
- Doesn’t show it- we grade punishments in proportion to our moral conventions
- Difference between justifying punishment as such and justifying the amount of punishment
- Morality can be part of law, but law cannot be based on punishing morality
Bigamy
- Seems to support Stephen / Devlin
- But law only concerns formal marriage, not cohabitation
- If done in private, it is not an offense to others
- Distinction between immorality and indecency
Extreme and Moderate Legal Moralism
- Moderate Legal Moralism- Devlin
- Shared morality is the cement of society
- Breach against moral principle is an offense against society
- Society can use law to preserve its morality as it uses it to safeguard anything else essential to its existence
- Extreme Legal Moralism- Stephen
- The enforcement of morality is regarded as a thing of value: even if immoral acts harm no one directly, or indirectly
- People have done immoral things and must be punished
Enforcement
- Enforcing sexual morality- coercion (fear of law), punishment
- What good can come from coercion if the act is consensual
Punishment
- What is retribution for sexual means?
- Denounce crime?
Positive Conservatism
- Social morality worth preserving
- Advocate holding onto any moral principle we happen to have and backing it by punishment
- Stephen and Devlin- this is the moral code we have therefore it needs to be preserved
Realism and Moral Reality of War
- Realism- Thucydides and Hobbes
- Reveal true human nature
- Just and unjust really means strong and weak
- Ex: Melian Dialogue and Hobbes’ state of nature
Agincourt and POWs
- Henry V commanded that the prisoners be killed, then relented
- Walzer- shows how even in war we want to be moral
- Garrett- doesn’t show this
The Crime of War
- Justice of war / justice in war
- Clausewitz- deny that there’s any distinction- war naturally escalates beyond any boundary we set for it
“War is Hell”
- Saw war in moral terms
The Rules of War
- Degrees of coercion matter
- Wrong to kill wounded or surrendering
The War Convention
- Rules concerning when and how soldiers can kill and who they can kill
Aggression
- Legalist Paradigm
- There is an int’l society of independent states
- Int’l society has a law that establishes the rights of its members
- Any use of / imminent threat of force against T.I. or P.S. of another = aggression and is criminal
- Aggression justifies self-defense and law enforcement
- Nothing but aggression can justify war
- Once aggressor has been repulsed, it can be punished
Resistance vs. Appeasement
- Glorify resistance against immoral aggression
- Hard to decide when appeasement is appropriate
Preventative War and Pre-Emption
- Preventative war- justified by arguing that balance is essential to liberties and that not to act would incur dramatic costs
- Logic ends on devaluing human life
- Pre-emptive decisions harder
- Depends on manifest intent to injure, active preparation, and situation where waiting would increase risk
- 6 Day War- example of difficulties
Interventions
- Mill- anti-interventionist, self-determining
- Need strict standards of when and how
Civil War and Counter-Intervention
- Vietnam
- Walzer- hard to view as a legitimate case of counter-intervention
- Lack of internal support for S. Vietnamese regime
- Goal of counter-intervention: not to win war
War’s Means
- How to guide means- proportionality? utility?
War’s Ends
- Goal affects end of war- unconditional surrender
- Hold ends constant and in view- unchanged by way the war is going
- Rights of nations to be states can’t be affected by end of the war
Noncombatant Immunity and Military Necessity
- Naked soldiers
- Civilians- make what soldiers need to fight / make what soldiers need to live
- Laconia Order
Double Effect
- Surface: limits what can be done in war
- Really: allows you to do things in war if they seem to be good
- Act is indifferent and good
- Direct effect is morally acceptable
- Actor’s intention is good, doesn’t intend evil effect
- Evil effect is not one of his ends nor a means to his ends
- Good effect is sufficiently good to compensate for the evil effect
Terrorism
- Random murder of civilians for strategic reasons
- Are you allowed different tactics because you don’t have conventional things for war?
- Terrorism violates doctrine of double effect- kill civilians as a means to an end
- When do you move from being a civilians to being a govt. official
- Terror is the totalitarian form of war and politics
Reprisals
- Uneasy
- Always bad?
Winning and Fighting Well
- Duke of Sung- refused to engage in tactics against rules of war
- Rawls- sliding scale- more justice, more rights
- Walzer- erosion of rights (utilitarian argument)
- Still need to maintain justice in war- need to respect rights of soldiers
- Accepts that under certain conditions of necessity you can violate some / all rules
- What is an acceptable test?
Supreme Emergency
- When can we give into necessity and target civilians?
- Be careful when claim necessity for mere expediency
- Case of extreme annihilation, last stand
- Ex: Melos
- If you are ration and calm and can formulate the question of necessity- it’s not necessity
War Crimes: Political Leaders
- Weizsaecker- how difficult to distribute responsibility
- Didn’t like Nazis, mid-level German govt.
- Continued with duties
- Brought up on war crimes- should have resisted at some point
- Can you really expect people to be heroic?
- Gerstein- member of S.S. who killed himself
War Crimes
- Excuse defenses
- “I was insane”
- “I was just following orders”
- My Lai massacre
- General Yamashita- atrocities in Philipennes during WWI
- Couldn’t communicate with soldiers when they were committing war crimes
- Sentenced to death and hung
- Generals should train their soldiers not to commit war crimes even when they are not there- Gen. Yamashita didn’t train his soldiers well
