It’s equally harmful. I don’t think whoever is being discriminated against cares about the motive. That it harms them is all that matters. — Pinprick

No it is not. Say you are robbed of your money by a gang of thieves. That is harmful. Every year that same sum of money is being taxed by the state. You are losing the same amount of money. Equally harmful? Of course not. So motives matter.

Well, right, but my point is that if this preferential treatment continued indefinitely, it would be the same thing, only the roles would be reversed. Instead of 95% white males we would have 95% black females. — Pinprick

Yes, 'if'. But there is no reason for it to go on idenfinately because the motive is not superiority, but making starting positions equal. When that happens and they are more or less equal, there is no need for preferential treatment anymore. It is only harmful if you smuggle in some extra assumptions.

Equal treatment of others. IOW’s no discrimination based on things like race, sex, religion, socio-economic status, etc. — Pinprick

But on other criteria it is somehow miraculously fine? Equal treatment is a funny thing. Take traffic fines. In principles the fines are equal right? However, say millionaire has to pay a traffic fine of 100 dollars for a traffic violation. For the same traffic violation, a man or lady with two jobs who barely makes end meet has to pay 100 dollars as well. Who is more severely harmed by the apparently 'equal' traffic fines?

Then why wouldn’t the preferential treatment of black females be harmful, disadvantageous, and unfair to other races/genders? — Pinprick

Because they are a marginalized group, others aren't, see above.

The categorical imperative is to imagine what would happen if everyone acted in such a way at all times. So I’ll ask you. What would happen if everyone showed preferential treatment to black women all the time? — Pinprick

Well we would probably have a society such as ours but with black women at the helm instead of white man... If we can want this society we can also want that one. Anyway, that is not how Kant works. According to Kantian logic we have to find the root cause first as our maxim. That would likely be can we want a world in which everyone discriminates according to certain categories. And I think a point can be made that we have an imperfect duty not to discriminate and I would agree. However there might be other overriding considerations as imperfect duties are not absolute. I digress however.

Preferring one group over another doesn’t create equal opportunities. — Pinprick

Hoh! Pushing my mug of beer firmly on the table as if I made some kind of point!

Maybe, and I truly hope it does, but I wouldn’t hold my breath. — Pinprick

I also do not. I am not a big fan of preferential treatment and do not know if it works but I see no harm in it in this case and some benefits sometimes. Mind you, not all the time. Policy is very context dependent.

I agree, but the way to change this isn’t to bypass the process by selecting whichever group you prefer. There shouldn’t even be a group you prefer. — Pinprick

I agree race is a bogus concept, but even though race is a bogus concept ,it caused divisions that last well into the present day. We want that changed, but it is as it is. In certain institutions as I have argued before, it is good to have a plethora of perspectives. That might well include black women, but might also include a Muslim, a person from the working class, somebody with autism or ADHD (provided they have the qualifications).

No, it’s that I think all racial discrimination is wrong. That is what leads to “95% white male quotas.” As long as racial discrimination continues how can there ever be equality? — Pinprick

Yes that is what I mean. You think all racial discrimination is equally wrong, but it isn't. It matter what the motive for discrimination is and what the consequences are.

That is what leads to “95% white male quotas.” As long as racial discrimination continues how can there ever be equality? — Pinprick

No it doesn't lead to 95% male quotas, not if give preferential treatment to black women. I think you would agree with me no?

As long as racial discrimination continues how can there ever be equality? — Pinprick

What do you mean by equality? Equal representation? Well if that is the equality you mean we need to step up efforts of preferential treatment for all kinds of groups.

Those seem like two sides of the same coin. It isn’t like white people don’t “justify” their racism. By stating that a particular race is better to appoint to a position, for whatever reason, you imply the other races are inferior. — Pinprick

No of course not. White people justified their racism in the past by stating that other races were inferior. They did not justify it by arguments of equal representation or the need to diversify our perspectives. they could not since they thought their perspective was superior. right or wrong depend on context and argument. No preferential treatment policy makes that argument.

The preferential treatment of white males over minorities has been harmful, disadvantageous, and unfair to them, has it not? — Pinprick

Most certainly.

I guess I’m a bit Kantian at times, and this doesn’t pass the imperative test. — Pinprick

Why not? It cannot be because "discrimination is wrong" because we always ddiscriminate on all kinds of grounds. You choose for instance who you want to hire and what your grounds for it are, who you want to allow in your house and so on. For Kant what matters is the motive. No we cannot want everyone to start favoring a certain group over another in other to attain dominance for your own group. If everyone one would do that we would get a war of all against all. However if the maxim is bringing about a more equal society it can, even by your own lights, because from your post it shows equality is important to you.

We know where this road leads. — Pinprick

That is not a Kantian argument but a slippery slope fallacy.

Repeating the same acts (racial discrimination) that caused this problem in the first place doesn’t sound like a solution. — Pinprick

Maybe not, but think about it and maybe that gut feeling will prove false. And of course it must end somewhere. However do we already have a society where people with darker skin have the same opportunities as people with paler skin? No.

I've always been baffled by this view, as I think it clear that what you're taught, especially in law school, has nothing to do with the practice of law. Perhaps someone who does very well in law school may make a good law professor, or a judge's clerk, or an associate in a large firm who spends time doing research and writing memos and briefs. It may prepare you for that, but more than that? Why would it? — Ciceronianus

Agreed, that is why I used it as an example of arbitrary classifications. When I applied to law firms they asked me to submit a list of grades. I was good at making exams so I became a legal theoretician at uni ;) Though being good at law exams says nothing about being successful at writing a PhD either...

Again, I bow before your expertise in law, and if I’m ever in the market for Dutch legal advice I’ll be sure to let you know. — NOS4A2

Be sure to contact me when you are puzzled about legal theory, that is my field. Your remarks about law are silly in general, not just in the case Dutch law. Your other points are just a repetition of moves.

I completely agree. Biden explicitly stated his nominee will be a black woman, all of which is irrelevant to qualifications. — NOS4A2

why would 'qualifications' whatever they may be, be the sole criterion that is relevant?

Right. And it was wrong that they were excluded. I would also say it was racist, but the dictionary disagrees. — Pinprick

No in this case the dictionary was right because in the past the candidates have been excluded because they were held to be inferior. Men were considered superior to women, whites to blacks and (protestant) Christians to all other religions. It was not just racism, but also sexism and cultural superiority.

I think racial discrimination has to be included here. It is the mechanism through which racist beliefs are put into practice, and the actual actions are what causes harm. — Pinprick

I wonder what you intend to say with this. Maybe you think all discrimination is equal, but it isn't. It makes a difference whether you exclude someone on the basis of deeming that person inferior or whether you desire equal representation, or broaden the scope of perspectives or indeed correct for worse starting positions. Recial discrimination and profiling are real and that means less opportunities for certain people. Preferential treatment may be a way to mitigate against the prevailing cultural biases that hinder the full development of certain classes of people as opposed to others. You might think all discrimination is equal but that is not the case.

As we see in the current example, racist thoughts need not accompany racial discrimination, but that doesn’t make the act any less harmful, disadvantageous, or unfair. — Pinprick

Why would preferential treatment be harmful, disadvantageous or unfair? It depends on the goals you want to reach and the fairness, advantage and desirability of these. Let's face it every job description contains preferential treatment of some sort. For instance the idea that your grades in uni make you a better lawyer and so you get hired easier. It advantages people who score good grades on exam questions... It says nothing about all kinds of other qualities.

I see it like this: you've grouped people under superficial racial categories of which there is no scientific basis, look for the disparities between them, and use the results to position them, one on top of the other, in a hierarchy of superficial racial categories of which there is no scientific basis. That right there is the methodology that has unleashed racism upon the world. It results in assumptions about people on the basis of their complexion, in injustice, and finally, in racial supremacy and inferiority. — NOS4A2

I haven't grouped people, they are grouped by everyday social practices. There is no scientific basis for me being grouped among the category of Dutch people as well and I have to show a Dutch passport when I want to enter my country nonetheless. I am the first to agree with you that there is no scientific basis for the concept of race, but the historical categorization has present day consequences.

Redressing past wrongs and making starting positions qual is not the methodology that caused racism, thinking some races were inferior and some superior did.

We cannot in fact infer how much prejudice, discrimination, hostility, someone has faced by the mere fact of their complexion alone, for the same reason we cannot know what position they occupy in the economy, in ability, in intelligence, and so on. — NOS4A2

Of course we cannot know but we can compare candidates. We cannot know that the best lawyer will be a good supreme court judges but we think the chances are higher than with an inferior lawyer. We cannot know someone with a darker complexion had different experiences in life from a person with a light complexion, but it is likely given that people with darker complexion face discrimination and racially themes abuse more than do people with a pale complexion. Certainty is very rare to obtain, so we go about things in terms of probabilities.

While your ability to train students to give legal advice and draft documents are far superior to mine, I see no reason to abide by your authority in other aspects of law and Justice. — NOS4A2

Sure, why take a lawyer's word for issues having to do with law? Me, I never take a doctors word for things having to do with medicine, imbeciles they are! Car mechanics, what do they know about cars anyway? Physicist about physics, don't even get me started on that one! What they think they bloody know about physics fits into my pinky it does!
You are hilarious sometimes. Just remember that the blanket statements about legal work you made in this thread immediately peg you as ignorant about law, not just about drafting documents, but about how law is practiced generally.

Just another racial hierarchy upon which you place people with darker complexions on a lower rung. — NOS4A2

Why is that? Because I think people with a white skin get hired easier, are less often deemed suspects in criminal cases, get shot by police less often, I somehow place people with a darker complexion on a lower rung? No I simply think there is a lot of prejudice against people with a darker skin and that that means they have fewer chances in life and are required to prove themselves more than people with a light complexion. Those are cultural traits.

What does the spectrum of complexion have to do with culture? — NOS4A2

See my explanation above. There are cultural prejudices against people with darker skin.

The law does not speak, sure, but it is spoken. A judge cannot interpret her way out of it. — NOS4A2

You are not a lawyer eh? Best leave it at that. I am not going into that because I am used to being paid to give legal education. What you can do is read a few pages back in the thread, read the article Atheist provided and my comments and you may have an inkling what lawyers can and cannot do. This remark is just intellectual laziness.

You’d have to assume she’s been wronged, and base it on nothing other than the color of her skin. So already you place her on a lower rung in a racial hierarchy. — NOS4A2

No I only need to assume that there is a privilege to being white. All in research I know of confirms that privilege.

Upon what assumption do you assume she has a different perspective? — NOS4A2

Because people with a dark skin color are treated differently then people with white skin color in certain societies, as I think if the case in the US. In any case the incarceration rates is disproportionately higher for blacks than for whites and yes they run a higher chance to be murdered and so on. The only thing that I need to make plausible is that she probably had different experiences in dealing with with others in US society than whites to make her perspective a useful addition. I think it is plausible that she had different experiences.

pseudoscientific racial distinctions and nothing besides — NOS4A2

Of course not. My assumption that there are differences in perspective is formed because I find it credible that based on cultural hierarchies reiterated in discourse and practice, black people have been subjected to different experiences in life from white people.

but perhaps I’m wrong — NOS4A2

indeed

I’m not lawyer, but I assume that the only perspective that matters in a court is the word of the law. — NOS4A2

And you are again wrong. Read my discussion with mr Atheist. The law does not speak. Judges do, they interpret the law.

So-called “positive” race discrimination suggests a belief in the inferiority of the races they are designed to help. But this nomination isn’t a form of affirmative action, and it isn’t clear that Biden thinks women with darker complexions are inferior. — NOS4A2

Positive iscrimination is a way to redress past wrongs and an attempt at creating equal starting positions. It has nothing to do with inferiority or superiority.

Neither is it about racial justice. Biden worked really hard to filibuster Judge Janice Brown back in the Bush days, and threatened to do the same if she was ever nominated for Supreme Court. He actively and explicitly opposed the nomination of a black woman, so if it was about racial justice let’s just say he missed that opportunity 20 years ago. — NOS4A2

I guess he wants a black woman with a similar political agenda.

Rather, it is about identity politics, in this case using race and gender to score political points in the hopes of retaining political power now and in the future, the ethics of racial discrimination be damned. — NOS4A2

That might be a practical concern of course, politicians like to appeal to their constituencies.

You can see the justification of this form of discrimination in this very thread, complete with essentialist notions about her experience, different knowledge, and different ways of thinking, which are racist assumptions if I’ve ever seen them. So if it isn’t racist according to your definition, it soon will be. — NOS4A2

Not different ways of thinking but different perspectives. Having different perspectives represented might lead to better in the sense of better informed legal judgments. In the US there is also the principle right of judgment before ones peers to be kept in mind. That does deal with equal representation. Considered in the long term would it not also be representationally fair if a woman of color gets a chance to shape the law of the land? That is, if one thinks that judgment is a matter of being held to account by a forum of peers. (I do not necessarily think it is, but in the US with its jury system this seems to be an entrenched principle of law)
Law is, as I have tried to show a hermeneutic enterprise in which the presence of a plethora of background assumptions is beneficial. Now it is not by necessity that a woman or a or a black person brings a different perspective to the table, but it is more likely than that a white man does.

That is strange... I can seem to access it alright but not link it....
The article is called "Kelsen's theory of the basic norm" by Joseph Raz.... odd how this works or does not work.

It is self referential, it is the exact norm through which\ law states its law like character, At least that is how I understand him. There is no other norm below the grundnorm, it is a logical necessity. But lets get to the bottom if this :) here is Raz' take on it.... link Raz

Again, this reference should not be seen as an argument to support my case. It is, instead, for you to consider that your socially ingrained adoration of law is viewed by many philosophers, including from Plato's time on, as a false, misplaced adoration. — god must be atheist

No, I am not adoring the law as you say. I have read the article and I must say, so many words to state such an obvious thing! However I think the writer is mistaken, or at least not penetrating enough on a number of areas.

First of all. We are not in disagreement, certainly law and justice are intertwined. However, compare your case to his. In your case on Jones and Perez you smuggled in a hidden assumption, namely that we knew with certainty that Perez indeed owed money to Jones. In a court of law there are two types of rules, rules of substantive law (material law) which states what needs to be done. In this case Perez needs to repay the money. There are also rules of evidence, they belong to the realm of procedural, formal law and pertain what counts as evidence. In the case you present, there is some sort of a priori knowledge, but we do not have that. Therefore we need to allocate the burden of proof. It might well be than that the wrong party gets to keep the money because the other could not prove it. That is only unjust with the benefit of hindsight.

Now D'Amato's article is actually about something very different, it is about substantive law. He makes a couple of claims. With most I take no issue at all. The first is his contention that "We cannot do justice if we are blind to the law. It is critical to underline the 'facticity' of law. Law is a topographical fact just like a hill or valley or stream. It is something that exists. But it is not something that has normative power."

I do not agree with law not having normative power. It appeals to obedience by being issued as law and not as a command of a gang of thieves. That said, it is not the only precept that has normative power. there are notions, such as equality, equity, fairness, that hold normative power too and they can trump the normative power of the law. I also do not agree that law is a fact like a hill or stream. That is a silly comparison. It means that the law is simply an obstacle to overcome. It is not, it determines behaviour in a very different way. It makes an appeal to the reader of what he or she should be doing, not what they can or cannot do, as a physical impediment does. It orders our society and also signals mutual expectations. It also, and that is the crux of my argument defines what we see as justice. Amato thinks justice informs the law but the relationship is a deal more complicated than that. He gives the example of stealing oranges from a yard. It is our sense of justice he contends that makes us know we will not escape punishment. However, there is nothing inherently just in the institution of private property I would content. It came about through law ways, not even written law, probably customary law, but law nonetheless. We have just internalized it and called it 'justice'.

Secondly, he thinks that when a literal interpretation of the law leads to flagrantly unjust results we need to take recourse to justice and we also do. He cites the case of riggs v Palmer where the testator is murderer by the beneficiary and the courts did not award him the inheritance. He also uses this example in the hypothetical he constructed of the poor child being killed in an accident.

I think here he underestimates the resilience of the law and makes an appeal to some sort of category unnecessarily vague, justice. It is of course clear that in the hypothetical case the judges should acquit Alice. D' Amato thinks that this follows from justice concerns. However that leads to problems because than we have to conclude that when justice conflicts with law justice trumps law. However, our sense of justice is not always equal. Law as a whole system would than only be conditionally valid. Worse is that it sets up a false dichotomy. We would have to say that the conviction of Alice was legally right, but from a justice perspective wrong. Difficult to reconcile with the normative force of law. Fortunately there is another way.

I contend that the judges should acquit Alice not only out of justice concerns but out of legal concerns! That needs some more penetrating legal analysis. Alice crosses the white lines, but what are those white lines for? They are there to prevent accidents. The legal good they protect is the health of the participants in traffic. Alice crossed them to avoid damaging the health of a participant in traffic namely the darting child. She did exactly what the law wanted. A conviction would actually tell people not to do what the law wants, as the hypothetical also shows by presenting the case of Bruce. The verdict to convict Alice is not only wrong from a justice point of view, it is bad from a legal point of view. To that end Dworkin coined (or refined) the notion of legal principle. The law is not just what is on paper, below it there are principles at stake which lay embedded in the law. They determine whether violations of the law as it literally stands should b admitted or not. And indeed judges behave like that. They do not appeal to justice in order not to get into endless controversies but to legal principles as in the case Riggs v Palmer.

Of course such cases have been tried and we now have the ' lesser evils defense' in criminal law, appealing that you action might be justified because you averted a greater danger. It is now simply part of the law.

So what I have been trying to show you is that you mischaracterize law. It is not divorced from justice but justice emerges in a different guise, as a principle embedded within the law. The law of evidence may well be just even though in retrospect it may lead to unjust outcomes in a few individual cases. However the caricature you make out of law and lawyers, simply algorithmic rule followers, is a miss characterization. They are adapt at legal argument. If they reside in a sound legal order there will not be gross miscarriages of justice and when they occur the law and the judiciary should thoroughly self examine.

@Benkei Well not knowing anything about corporate law my 2 cts are as good as anyone else's. The SPA might be between two Dutch companies, but apparently there is a Slovak company involved and this slovak company is in the process of a name change. Can you not refer the company with its old name and add something like 'as registered' and refer to the new name as ' in the process of being registered as.... ' ? I know corporate law can be very formulaic, Turkish corporate law in any case is, which resembles this kind of problem.

Anyway, I deeply disliked corportate law ;) so back to my beloved Grundnorm and the issue of Natural law in the Amato article. Oddly enough it came up in the free will discussion so it is well worth spending some time on.. The Grundnorm first, indeed it is a sovereign act of law creation, the only one there is in the Kelsenian system. It is designed to end the ' turtles all the way down' one gets when following the steps of the legality of rules. It ends somewhere and it ends for Kelsen in a sovereign act of law creation. " I am the law!" to speak with Judge Dredd... It is an act by whoch a community establishes itself as a community under the law. It is itself not based on anything indeed but on a sovereign act.

That can't be. The Grundnorm is the norm that all other norms, rules and law, derive from. By definition it cannot be based on something else. — Benkei

No no, my apologies. I wrote it wrong. The Grundnorm is not based on justice. The Grundnorm is simpy the norm all other norms derive their binding force from.

I was reading discworld novels when studying Kelsen and I thought the "turtles all the way down" was an apt metaphor for his Grundnorm. He never defined it and I thought it was a cop out to try to avoid saying something like, it's based on divine law, it's natural law etc. I didn't particularly like him. I liked Hart better. — Benkei

They are similar in my view. Just that for Kelsen a Grundnorm is an act of state. Hart with his more common law ancestry defines it not as an act of state but an act of legal professionals.

Turtles all the way down is an apt metaphor except that in law the turtle ends somewhere. Namely at that force that has the power to say "we the people..." etc. In the Westphalian order it is the state.

I'm confronted with the Brno legal positivist school in my daily work actually. Kelsen lives on in Slovakia which for practical purposes totally sucks. — Benkei

Why are you confronted with the Brno legal positivist school? Not that I have an inkling of what they think in Brno, but it sounds cool. I am interested, please tell me more!

Yes, that is the problem, isn't it? What are you going to believe, your own experience of thinking, acting, and living, which demonstrates the reality of free will, or some half baked notion that the world is "naturalistically determined"? — Metaphysician Undercover

Well I do not think the second notion is that half baked. I also do not believe that my experience necessarily proves the reality of something, so I do think we are in a genuine philosophical conundrum.

But, do we not know enough about the laws of nature to conclude that the world is naturalistically determined? — Garrett Travers

I might well agree with you on that. From a naturalistic metaphysical point of view, free will is difficult to understand to begin with. From the perspective that everything happens in law governed chains of cause and effect, free will is hard to fathom. It would mean that something out there magically escapes that chain and acts as an uncaused causer and lo and behold it resides within our brain... so from a naturalistic standpoint I think free will is very unlikely to begin with and all the sciences based on it, like neurosciences seem to confirm that idea. the naturalistic metaphysics is the metaphysical position of the sciences today and for good reason.

The problem is that that particular brand of metaphysics cannot make sense of the particular experience of freedom of choice. Saying it is an illusion will not help because an illusion tends to disappear when it is punctured. The experience of choice and freedom is irreducible to illusion though. In philosophy the phrase is that the first person is irreducible to the third person perspective. At least that is the take I have on free will. For me it is part of a bigger problem / human condition but those ideas I will hold to myself for now.

I would say that what is important (from the POV of the individual) is the experience or feeling of freedom. And since the question cannot be answered then it doesn't matter. If it could be answered and the answer was that freedom (in the full libertarian sense) is completely illusory, then that might matter to individuals, since such a realization might demotivate or demoralize people. It would more definitely matter for the idea of moral responsibility, praise and blame. — Janus

Sure I think the question has existential importance. Strawson reasons it away and so I do not embrace his approach. In Strawson's view though we need the registers of freedom and of determinism and use them to assess the behavior of others. whether the world is really really determined we cannot know and therefore it would be merely impoverishing if we would do away with the register of freedom and treat everyone as if they were determined. My take on it is different though, though I arrive at more or less the same conclusion.

As for the traffic lights example, sure, traffic lights could also be used to make people less free. We could in theory prevent a whole class of people from going to work by hindering their community with traffic lights, than it would make them less free. What I think you arrive at though is not that teh definition of freedom is contextual, the actual assessment of who is free and who is not is contextual, determined by the facts of the case.

@banno No disagreement with you there. Indeed I am on the same page. I do not really know why that necessarily would lead to virtue ethics though and I like to ask you that question. Why would it lead to virtue ethics? Not to quibble with you because I am quite partial to virtue ethics as well, but to see why you think there is a connection there that first better with virtue ethics than with say utilitarianism or deontology.

I do not think the Grundnorm is a name for justice... the Grundnorm in Kelsen's system is based on justice. The Grundnorm is simply the norm laid down to determine which rules ultimately grant the power to make law. It is similar to Hart's rule of recognition, though Kelsen had an act of the state or ruling power in mind and Hart the behavior of legal professionals as ultimately constituting the Grundnorm/Rule of recognition... I think Kelsen's concept inspired Hart's. However, both I see as equally positivist, in that justice is not an intrinsic part of what determines law as law...

How could it be tested? — Janus

We are in agreement there. It cannot. The only way we can philosophically say something about it is by asking a different question. For instance whether it matters at all whether we really really are determined, Strawson uses this approach. We can also ask what our belief in determinism vs our experience of freedom of choice means for our existential humanity or some such question. But no testing whether the world is determined or not is I would think impossible.

To your credit the article does present some claims going your way nicely, I admit. I will have to really read it to get to the heart of it, but that is an interesting an endeavor and I am in no way dismissing it out of hand. However, the author also concedes than many authors, actually hold procedural requirements as an element of just law.

See here on p. 21 "We saw earlier that Kelsen claimed that justice was, at best, a commentary about the
law (the idea of an "unjust law"), or in the special context of the administration of the law, a
concept that reduced to legality (according to Kelsen, the just administration of the law "means
legality"). In other words, Kelsen is saying that justice makes sense above the law (as a
commentary on it), or under the law. We can concede these uses of the term ''justice,'' and yet
maintain that they do not rule out the possibility of justice within the law in the sense that I've
been talking about it (justice as part of what directly influences the judge in deciding a case)."

I think I am on Kelsen's side, which when it comes to philosophy of law is not a bad side to be on. Though I agree justice in that specific case features in an court decision. I also do not know anyone who would disagree since the reign of the so called 'legists' in 19th century Europe. However, the article is certainly interesting and requires some thorough reading so I will give it a go when there is a bit more time. Thanks for bringing it to my attention.

He actually seems to be in the natural law tradition arguing there is and should be a connection between law and justice. That is fine of course, however, he is hardly the only writer to make that point. I am also not arguing law can just forego concerns of justice, what I am saying pace the old Radbruch, is that legal certainty is itself necessary for law to function in a just way, meaning, bringing a just society closer. But by all means less discuss the article further!

@Benkei It is an adddiction Benkei.... now what I wonder is, what keeps you addicted, what is your poison?

Abstract: What does it mean to assert that judges should decide cases according to justice and not according to the law? Is there something incoherent in the question itself? That question will serve as our springboard in examining what is—or should be—the connection between justice and law.
Legal and political theorists since the time of Plato have wrestled with the problem of whether justice is
part of law or is simply a moral judgment about law. Nearly every writer on the subject has either concluded that justice is only a judgment about law or has offered no reason to support a conclusion that justice is somehow part of law. — god must be atheist

"Lex initusta non est lex" Thomas Aquinas. :brow:

I would have to read the article to see if it makes sense. However, there is a whole natural law tradition (I am no natural law theorist by the way, neither is Ciceronianus) that holds that law and justice are intimately connected. In any case it probably comes down to a definition of justice, or to the use we put it. I found my argument to be coherent, so if there is some sort of counter to it in the article I'd like to hear it.

So if nearly every writer said the same thing as I did ( — god must be atheist

I am very sure they did not. Probably the debate the article referred to is between positivism and natural law. No author I have read (and those are quite a few) claim that having a procedurally sound legal system is unjust. What the debate is about probably is whether law as such should be law also if the law is unjust. Here I side with the positivists: law is law, no matter whether if it is just or unjust. Justice is not integral to the definition of law, I agree. However, that is a different claim than a procedural legal system does not serve justice.

I think traffic lights do interfere with personal freedom. Red light means you cannot go ahead. My goal is to go ahead. I am being stopped in achieving my goal, by a control; the control is curtailing my freedom.

I am not saying that your surrounding argument is invalid, but this example does serve the exact opposite of the service you used it for. — god must be atheist

Yes and that you are forced to draw that conclusion shows how implausible your definition of freedom is. It follows that a society in which we have well regulated traffic is a less free society than a society in which everyone just does something, meaning no one arrives at their destination. Every political and social philosopher I have read on the subject considers freedom as freedom from something, but also as freedom to reach the goals you have set for yourself. The traffic light example by the way is Charles Taylor's. Those goals are much easier to reach in a society with well planned roads than in societies one just has to fin out everything by oneself.

I think it's fair to say that if we have any capability of control at all, then that is a quantum of freedom. If we never could have done otherwise than we did, then freedom is an illusion; our lives are pre-determined or at least not determined by us. — Janus

Under a certai definition of freedom. Here yoou equate every form of control with freedom. More control equals more quanta of freedom. However, that definition leads to absurd consequences because it means traffic lights would make you less free. If we define freedom as the capability to choose your own life paths than traffic lights suddenly add quanta of freedom.

That said, in the absence of external political or social forces controlling us, we can enjoy a felt freedom; would it matter if, on some externalist perspective alien to our actual lives, the feeling of freedom were thought to be an illusion? — Janus

That is a question tackled by some compatibilist philosophers I think. Possibly also by some in this thread. If you define freedom as freedom from natural impediments and control by other people, (or just control by other people) than by definition the will is free.

Anyway it seems obvious to me that the question of agency or free will has a history which predates the deliberations and deliverance of the church fathers, and that was all I was responding to. I haven't made bold to comment on the article, since I haven't read it, but only on the generalized comments of others. I don't intend to read the article, so I won't discover whether Arendt makes the claim that the idea of free will originated with the church fathers, and that's OK. — Janus

That is a dangerous way to go because others here are very silly compared to Arendt. I do not think it is obvious. Issues of control are discussed but not all control is freedom and freedom is defined differently throughout the ages that is I think the point of the article. I never come across a discussion in Greek philosophy about the problem of free will, control yes, but free will no. I know that for the church fathers it was a big issue. For Augustine and also for Boethius, in the context of the omniscience of God. that is really the only text I have looked at from the church fathers on that topic. https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/free-will-foreknowledge/

Questions of moral responsibility and freedom are inevitable in any society where a tradition of thinking about the human situation arises. — Janus

Possibly, but the SEP article paints too broad strokes. There might be questions of control of the will, Plato's discussion of the tripartite nature of the soul comes to mind, but to be an objection against Arendt, it must be discussed in terms of freedom. The same word, freedom, must be used to designate the control of desire and the notion of will must be used, instead of for instance the faculty of ratio. The SEP article merely claims that questions of control over our own choices is a perennial question, not that they are couched in the terms freedom and will, which is Arendt's contention.

And I wasn't exaggerating when I said that the legal system's workers will say, "people come to court to seek justice. The law does not serve justice, it serves what it is convinced of it should serve." Or something to that effect.

If Jones sues Perez that Perez did not repay a loan; then it may be true, that justice would be served if Perez was forced to pay back Jones. But Jones is unable to provide a document or witnesses that Perez owes him that money. (Even if in reality Perez does.) Therefore justice is not served. — god must be atheist

Well I do not agree with you that justice is not served, justice in this individual case is not served, but there is more at stake than the individual case. I will try to show that justice writ large, as in a just legal system, a legal system that leads in most cases to just outcomes is served.

Firstly you sneak in an assumption that judges cannot work with. That Jones in reality has a right to that money. That is not the way cases come for a judge, Jones claims Perez owes him money, Perez rejects the claim. How do we proceed?

A, We ask Jones to provide evidence to buttress his claim against Perez. The most common is a document, but there might also be a witness, in any case there are rules of evidence and the onus is on Jones because he makes a claim.

B. We go out of our way, leave no stone unturned, make inquiries into the bank accounts of both, look through every and all transactions, interviews neighbors, do psychological tests to assess the character of the two parties and we will not rest until eventually the truth comes out irrespective of the witness brought forward or a document of debt produced.

C. We see them in court and hear their stories and no matter what evidence presented, we just go for oir gut feeling. Whoever tells the more convincing story gets the claim awarded.

Now: option B. is most in accordance with finding the truth. We come as close to the truth as we can get and possibly Perez'deception comes to light. After a very time consuming, difficult and costly inquest, yes, the truth is finally out there. However, imagine the costs of such an operation, not only in money, but also in time and in hardship for the parties and possibly others who get investigated in the context of this inquiry. Even if it would be at all possible to find the truth, which is not a given at all, the justice system would be quickly overflow with cases. We would not have the manpower, or only against very high costs. those costs have to be subtracted elsewhere, say cancer treatments. A more truthful justice system might lead to a less healthy population. Moreover, notions like privacy, certainty, the right to closure of a dispute, would all be moot. Uncertainty will be rife because suddenly your money might be frozen because Perez claims it is his and first we have to leave no stone unturned to see whether this might be true. In that time we cannot let you make use of that money because you might hide it by transferring it to a third party. The money will be frozen for quite a while because the inquiry itself takes a long time and there is a huge backlog of cases... Owning money will become an uncertain business, leading to economically adverse consequences. People would demand more certainty before they engage in transaction. Remember we do not know a-priori who is right, I wish that was true! We are in a situation in which Joneses make claims on Perezes and sometimes Perez is right, sometimes Jones.

C. leads to arbitrariness. We hope judges are better at detecting deception and assessing the weight of different stories, but alas they are human and like I pointed out before biased and burdened by the background assumptions with which they read files, listen to stories, interpret mimicry and so on. Possibly it goes right mmore often than it goes wrong but it will go wrong and will lead to resentment and mistrust in the judiciary, eroding its legitimacy.

The only option is A. Beforehand the procedural requirements are stated one should meet in order to get your claim awarded. Since they are known beforehand and case after case saw judges require the same papers, parties know it. We know that when we lend a particular sum of money we should ask for a document, signed, that the sum of money is indeed owed. We know we need to provide a witness so we call in a third party (a notary for instance) who will oversee the transaction. Since we know it we will not have to go to court very often. We spare ourselves the trouble when we have no receipt, or otherwise a lawyer will tell you not to take the trouble. In turn we do ask for receipts when lending money because we know we will be asked for them. Third parties who are paid a sum by Perez can also trust on it that he really owes that money and there will not be some Jones who suddenly revindicates it, causing me the third party in good faith the trouble of being embroiled in law suits.

Of course, A in some cases lead to parties being cheated out of their money, but overall it leads to a more fair and free society in which people can know what they what need to do and can expect from each other. Three cheers for a procedurally consistent legal system!

The justice system is about finding "a" guilty person, regardless of his or her being truly guilty or not. If the court is satisfied that the person is guilty, they condemn him or her. What they find actually is unrelated to reality. — god must be atheist

That is a very peculiar take on law. There are standards of evidence and if the evidence meets the standards the person is probably guilty. Necessarily guilty, no of course not. However a judge is not 'satisfied' simply because of some gut feeling.

Thanks Bert1. The post might also serve as a reply to NOS. It is not the color of one's skin that matters it is the perspective someone of color, or a woman, or a woman of color is more likely to bring to the table.

Legal interpretation is conceived of by many, including some legal theorists as a strictly logical, syllogistic enterprise. One applies general rules to a concrete state of affairs and the outcome follows: it is either conforming to the general rule or it is not and if it is not it should conform to another general rule, or not. If not we have a problem and according to HLA Hart it is up to the judge's discretion nd if so the general rule applies.

In practice though the matter is far more complex. The law may be contradictory, judges have biases, there are certain legal principles that function not as hard and fast rules, but as 'rules of thumb', markers for the right direction without indicating some sort of outcome automatically. There may still be some kind of super judge, judge Hercules (Dworkin) who reaches the best legal outcome, but this judge has to be able to know all of the law, be versed in its principles and history and free from bias. In practice we do not have a judge Hercules, that is why there are more judges in a court than one usually.

Most legal scholars that I know of see legal interpretation more as a hermeneutic practice. One enters into legal interpretation from a range of presuppositions and assumptions one is only dimly aware. Textual interpretation, historical interpretation, systematic and teleological interpretation (the exact terminology is different in US systems but is not different in its operation) will result in an an outcome that seems the right interpretation in the case at hand and may bring one's own assumptions to light. However, if this picture is accurate, the integrity of the legal process is aided by the inclusion of multiple perspectives in order to make the background from which the law is interpreted as broad as possible. These different perspectives may inform one another. Now every lawyer is versed in the legal system and certainly a supreme court justice is. However, we cannot exclude the notion that a black woman may bring slightly different assumptions to the table enriching the process.

In conclusion Biden's preference is defendable from a legal point of view I would say, not primarily from the point of view of equal representation but because it enriches the background horizon from which the judges operate. @Ciceronianus point is well taken, they are not Herculeses, they are lawyers aka people with knowledge of the law. their task is still human all too human.

By the way welcome back @Benkei :p

Well, if you can contrive to turn up at the same time as Tobias, perhaps he will allow us to make a night of it. — Banno

That would be a truly joyous occasion! Talks and drinks... smokey, non-smokey... smooth and sharp...

The principle, and hence freedom, is found, then, not in thought or in will but in action. And action occurs in the public sphere, not the private.

It does seem odd that frank agrees with Arendt agrees, only to say that she is wrong. — Banno

Interesting indeed. It was also the point nicely put by @Joshs However, than we are faced with the question why action occurs in public space but not in private. I am actually inclined to think that for Arendt freedom manifests itself in collective action, well, in individually being able to take part in collective action. Another interesting turn looms actually: the relegation of the private sphere. She accepts that apparently without any hesitation. I have the idea though that currently this notion is being critiqued (though I do not know enough of the subject).

This suggests a community is incapable of promoting individual freedom or inclined against it by its nature, absent law--which I suppose may be deemed communal. We can't give up the law, though. But retirement beckons, so perhaps soon. Regardless, the law's certainly an expression of sovereignty, so that won't work. — Ciceronianus

By its nature, or perhaps, by the way we have bundled together ideas of community, sovereignty and freedom as Arendt suggests. However, that for me is also perhaps a tad overestimating the power of philosophy and conceptualization. It is a bit of an empirical question, how are communities that followed a different trajectory of development doing in terms of allowing everyone a place?

Law is an expression of sovereignty but also a relinquishing of it. The state also binds itself by law. However, I agree with you that sovereignty is central to law. Maybe legal anthropology is of help here. I do know that a lot of sociologists of law question the centrality of the state for law, following John Griffith. However I tend to hold on to a more classical centralized conception as well. How Arendt conceives of law I do not know. She certainly uses the discourse of rights, which according to me are also an expression of sovereignty... A lot of rethinking to do before you may retire Ciceronianus ;)

"Freedom needed, in addition to mere liberation, the companyof other men who were in the same state, and it needed a common public space to meet them a politically organized world, in other words, into which each of the free men could insert himself by word and deed." — Garrett Travers

In other words, freedom requires first the experience of being liberated from the forces of nature or man's arbitration, then to conceptualize and value it, to thereby be enacted in word and deed. So, she actually concedes my position, oddly enough. — Garrett Travers

Yes, one needs first 'liberation'. In slavery one is not free. However, you hold on to some 'true requirement', as if that is enough. For her that is not enough. That is where her essay gets interesting.

The nature of this insufficiency can be approached from many different points of view. Kierkegaard said that freedom was the ability to do things. Living as an individual requires more than setting up a boundary.
The matter of capabilities and resources appears immediately when enough people associate with each other to share or not share them. Declaring all to be equal may be one way to begin but hardly is adequate for the struggles such a life must engage with. — Paine

Exactly, but I think Kierkegaard would not go far enough for her. Indeed one needs to ability 'to do things', but also to have a voice in setting the rules of the social game so to speak. Ahrendt asserts the 'right to have rights' in The Origins of Totalitarianism which she seems to divide the right to action and the right to opinion. Her point, at least the way I take it, is that you have a right to matter, in the sense of being taken into account. One is only free if one can matter politically. If not, if a group is marginalized and becomes politically outcast, it will lose all other rights. For that, you need a space in which you deal with others on an equal footing. Quite Habermassian this all seems. Therefore, liberation by itself is not enough.

There Cic's point comes in:

I think a community can, as a community, as a nation, assert its commitment to the freedom of all its members/citizens. The U.S. does that and has done that since its foundation; so have other nations (France, most notably, since the Revolution). So that in itself is quite "thinkable." It's apparent, in fact, so I assume that's not what she refers to, and this of course raises the question--what does she mean? — Ciceronianus

Yes it can, but this assertion as a kind of motto is not worth anything. It has to provide that ground in practice. The USA in her time nominally supported freedom but there were many social groups disenfranchized even more so than now. I guess in her view, the thinking in terms of sovereignty prevents this politically free space to emerge, because politics is not a free space in which 'free men can insert themselves by word and deed', but an arena, to use a common sociological term, in which one wins and loses. Whether she is right I do not know, it is what I gather from her texts.

And when the forces of tyranny do gather their capacity to cancel freedom, the strength to resist comes from those capabilities being alive and well. That work doesn't happen by simply establishing a set of rules. — Paine

Indeed! It requires a rethinking of 'setting rules' to begin with.

Additionally, her point is not that freedom is not thinkable, she is trying to rethink freedom so that would be as silly assertion, but that it is unthinkable in the terms we have hitherto been using. Then she says, will you end up in contradictions. I do not know if that is true, but quite frankly I do not care, because if I get hung up there I miss the rest of her essay. Perhaps it is hyperbole, god knows.

Perhaps a community which fosters a desire for it, instead. Free from, would make more sense than free with, I think. I find it hard to conceive of a community which fosters freedom as we think of it now--or at least as I think of it. Perhaps those damn Romantics, with their emphasis on individuality, bear some responsibility for this perspectives. I like to poke at them now and again, as well. — Ciceronianus

I think that is exacly the point. You equate freedom immediately with 'free from'; free from interference, free from those pesky other people. That is whatthe whole of western tradition was geared towards, freedom became 'free from'. As a lawyer that idea is immediately appealing, we hold our human rights in high regard and a community making demands is suspect. Her challenge to that I think is to rethink this notion. She asks how a free community is thinkable, in which you ar efree with others. We think of a free community in terms of isolated individuals free from interference by others.

She specifically mentions a number of logical challenges to the idea of volition. Her approach is: this crap is taking place in the realm of philosophy, and this is why: people became ensnared by theology and so fail to see the wisdom of the Greeks (which is actually a Hegelian insight, not Greek, but anyway,) — frank

I always like Hegelian ideas, but here I am not sure what you mean. I can follow it to some extent, but what is the Hegelian insight you speak of? Not to quiblle, an honest question for some clarification. Which of course you are under no obligation whatsoever to give... ;)

How do you not read this as saying the Greek view was superior and the concept of will was a mistake? — frank

Well she surely thinks the connection to the will was a mistake. Perhaps she thinks the Greek view is superior in the fact that they saw freedom as political. However, what she actually thinks about it is not very clear to me. She does not dwell much on it.

She's wrong because the arguments against freedom of the will (nobody tops Schopenhauer there) are all purely logical. All you can do with a purely logical argument is map out the way we think. You can't use it as an ontological proof. Those arguments can't be used to reduce our everyday experience to "nothingness" as she says. — frank

Does she intend to do that? As someone steeped in a phenomenological tradition I doubt that really is her wish. I read it as follows: when we look at ourselves in the first person we see freedom and choice an experience them as such. However, when we take a step back and see ourselves as a body, a third person view, we seem to be under the sway of all kinds of causality. Therefore it is thought itself that leads to tis antinomy. Her approach seems to me to be phenomenological, not logical.

↪Tobias Tobias, I essentially said the same thing several pages ago that you said here. I expect Banno to give you a sophisticated and cajouling answer... and my thoughts earned from him this: — god must be atheist

I do not know. I address that paradox here, but I agree with Banno that it is of little concern to the text as a whole. I like the paradox Banno referred to and it might be considered in its own right, but detracts from the text. Probably Banno did not answer you because he saw so many points being made about free will, most of them having nothing to do with the text, that he did not answer you. Do not get worked up over it, people choose what they engage with. My argument on the paradox is for me also a side note, as I think it is for Banno. I think it has to do wit the way the thread went instead of with your argument.

One day... one day I will learn how to properly spell the referred-to author's name. — god must be atheist

No harm done I assure you. ;)

Well spotted! This was indeed a thought that occurred to me while reading the text, rather than one found in it. For your efforts in making such a close reading of the text, you win a bottle of Laphroaig, which you may collect when next over this way. — Banno

I am sure to take you up on that offer when I will finally arrive once in the land down under! :100:

The line that urged the thought upon me was "it must appear strange indeed that the faculty of the will whose essential activity consists in dictate and command should be the harborer of freedom". Asking if one is free to act against one's own will is a way of bringing out the contrary relation between will and freedom that is Arendt's starting point. Indeed, as you say, the question presupposes a notion of freedom Arendt rejects, and hence in disagreeing with the question folk are agreeing at least in part with Arendt, that freedom is not consequent on will. — Banno

Ahhh, yes. That is indeed her starting point and actually, her end point. Freedom and will have become conjoined in a way that is on the face of it logical but has historical roots. Nonetheles... the notion of free will only asserts that the will is free, not that it itself cannot make unfree. In other words, I might not be able to act against my own will, that would require a second will, also being mine, and that would be rather absurd, but that will that commands me, is indeed free in a sense. It is free to choose to choose the objects of its desire. I believe such is Sartre's view, but I might be wrong. I would still argue against that notion, because I think it is determined by all kinds of societal and biological processes, but strictly speaking it does not follow from the fact that will is about commanding, that it itself cannot be free.

Come to think of it, the opposite may also be asserted I thin with an equal amount of credibility: the will must itself be free because it determines the structure of dictating and commanding. It follows from her characterization of the will.

So a free will, in the sense of being uncontrolled by something else, would be possible if we accept her assertion. It is trivial of course because what most people ask is actually not whether they have 'free will' but whether they have control over their own will, so precisely if their will is not free ;)

She's pretty throughly wrong.

The Greeks abhorred the idea of being free from a community, one assumes because it meant vulnerability. Therefore they didn't explore the idea of an inward locus of control and the moral responsibility that is dependent on that idea.

There's nothing superior about the Greek outlook. And "freedom from" requires context for meaning. — frank

Why would she be wrong if we also accept your statements as correct? I do not think you are in disagreement. Maybe about whether the philosophical life as an inward life started with the fall of Rome or whether it is older. I think it is older, because of Aristotle's rumination of some unmoved mover, thinking only itself. So the philosophical circle as something going on inside thought is recognizable, but even if it was indeed your sociological explanation... is that deadly to her argument? I do not think she holds the Greek conception to be superior, if only because according to her the Greeks had no philosophical problem of freedom. We do.

↪Tobias Yes, there are so many threads...for me the issue is undecidable, and thus of little interest. I only took it up because I thought the attempt to deny free will was somewhat lame; it is not freedom which is hard to understand, it is will.

One thing I am certain of is that here is no freedom without constraint, so there is no absolute freedom. The idea that my freedom trumps, and thus can cancel, yours is unjust; I don't think it's hard to see that. — Janus

For me the issue is undecidable as well and therefore interesting ;) Many, if not all philosophical issues are undecidable and dwelling on them is only enriching when it opens up different perspectives on the topic at hand. The strategy of taking a different 'tack' so to speak is actually also true for the analytic tradition, that attempts to dissolve philosophical questions by demonstrating they are products of 'bewitchment by language'.

I agree with your conception if freedom as only possible with constraint and therefore not being absolute. In the philosophical language I embrace, thinking through freedom leads to a dialectic because it brings into view the necessity of constraint. I do not think Arendt would isagree with you per se though. Sartre might... but Arendt I think not as she locates freedom inside a community, which automatically brings constraints into view. Her point seems to me to be that unmooring freedom from community leads to all kinds of paradoxes, one of which being that my 'will to freedom' clashes with yours. This problem has been the problem John Rawls eventually tried to deal with.

Banno introduced the issue of free will in the OP — Janus

Yeah, I know. All latched on to it. Which is fine of course, but I think the essay is richer than that. Besides, there are so many threads on free will...

Apology accepted. Now can we address my arguments? — Garrett Travers

:cry: :rofl: :cry: :rofl:

My guess is status and position were more important in Graeco-Roman times than freedom. Julius Caesar was assassinated because he usurped the authority and honors, the imperium, of the Senate, not because the people of Rome longed to be free. His much wiser grand-nephew created a new form of government, the Principate, in which the form of the rights and privileges historically held by the Senate was preserved and honored, while actual authority was held by Augustus and his successors. — Ciceronianus

Yes, but also you work with a notion of freedom that Arendt at least contends did not exist as a problem for ancient philosophy. However, the concept of imperium is I think important. We have a kind of model of what rulership, sovereignty and imperium consists in. We have copied this model (just as we copied a model of the senate) in the history of our political concepts. I think Arendt would agree with you. There was no concept of freedom or liberty and of liberal autonomy. There was a concept of honors and rewards, that was what justice consisted in, giving everybody his due meant, give everyone the honors and rewards due to the role they play. I am curious of what Arendt makes of freedom as a political concept for the ancients, she says it was antithetical to a philosophical life, might well be, but she does not inform us of the political in which it then presumably still plays a role.

What strikes me in the essay as interesting, is that the concept of imperium (as sovereignty) and freedom become intertwined. It becomes married to Plato's conception of the soul that consists of base desires, spirit (in the sense of a spirited, impetuous individual) and the highest faculty, reason. In Plato's conception ratio ought to rule the other two faculties. In the Christian version this becomes a bit of a problem. Conversion means a willed 'act of fate', more an act of spirit than of ratio. We beget a new problem the problem of will as the source of freedom and knowledge as the source of freedom.

It becomes a thorny issue in all of western philosophy since then and up until a century or so ago, how to reconcile knowledge and faith or knowledge and will. Kant seems to hold a very Platonic sense of freedom still, it is ratio that should rule nature. The utilitarians choose the opposite, it is after all 'pleasure and pain' that rule us. Both though have something in common, namely they are both individualized. What I think Arendt wants to do is reconceptualize freedom in a non individualized manner. how exactly I do not know but she is making the point that freedom can only exist within a community that fosters it, that gives you something to be free with. Individual freedom is not interesting for her, it is communal freedom.

I think what she does is hard because she wrote at a time before the onset of the debate on political freedom, on comunitarianism and liberalism. However, I agree I am filling in a lot, but that is how I can engage with the text and gather something from it.

what it has to do with sovereignty and why giving up sovereignty will make us free. — Ciceronianus

I do not think she thinks giving up sovereignty makes is free, but it is a step in a direction. If we assume freedom rests in sovereignty it follows that we need to establish that sovereignty and that means gain control of others. It transforms freedom into a zero sum game (I thought I read it before, I do not anymore who said it) if I am free, you are not. Freedom, seen from this perspective, leads to a war of all against all, the exact opposite of it.

That began to change, though, and my guess is that concerns regarding freedom as we understand it now began to arise in the conflict among nations and sects that arose when theocracy failed. Just a guess, though. — Ciceronianus

Well, that conflict between nations may also have been (partly) caused by our conception of freedom and sovereignty. Just remembered the beef between France and the Holy roman Empire over the sovereignty of the emperor of the HRE. Lawyers have written libraries about the position of the king vis a vis the emperor.

I don't find him interesting, I'm afraid. I confess I find it very hard to read his work--his student, the young woman he seduced while her teacher, who wrote the essay being discussed in this thread, was a model of clarity in comparison to him. I find him, to the extent I can understand him, to be romantic, mystical, muddled; inclined to obfuscate if it suits his purposes, inclined to pontificate, a "self-infatuated blowhard" as it seems Don Idhe called him in reviewing his rhapsodic musings on the Parthenon while ranting about modern technology (Heidegger was apparently not content with merely likening the manner in which the Jews were killed by the Nazis in the camps to the mechanisms employed in modern agriculture in his critique of technology--his only mention of the Holocaust, apparently).

H.L. Mencken used to call William Jenning Bryan "the Great Mountebank." I feel much the same about Heidegger. — Ciceronianus

I do not have shares in the philosophy of Martin Heidegger. His reference to the concentration camps is in very bad taste, even criminally offensive, seeing that he lend his support to exactly that regime for so long. He does make that equation in what I think is a masterful piece of thinking on the nature of technology and the 'technification' of the world. A point which Arendt in this essay makes but with different words and a different target. The ;point being is that 'will to power' has usurped the way we view the world. For Heidegger this was a 'sinking' into an epoch in which we would appropriate everything and lost our ability to 'let things be' Arendt thought to operationalize this notion politically I think and took the concept of freedom as a target, a concept that became equated to 'will to power' as well.

To me it is interesting, but we all have our personal endeavors and interests, one no better than the other. I also do not like the name dropping, I am a child of my time too. However, in the continental tradition that was and (unfortunately) still is common practice. It is doable but it take time to get to know the discourse. In defense of it, it is a deeply historical, rather scholastic take on philosophy, not unlike law in that respect. For me though I have the same problem with the analytic tradition, the logic chopping is abhorrent and when they explain it to me in lay terms I think "óhh but could you not have said that clearly?"

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But to be frank I like to poke at sacred cows, and there's none more sacred in philosophy. — Ciceronianus

Ohh you, poking at all those poor cows! Imagine how they must feel.... ;) nahh, keep kicking against the pricks Ciceronianus!

I welcome any contribution to engage with the content of Arendt's essay. I find it worthwhile and interesting. Unfortunately it has been completely buried under all kind of mud slinging. I apologize for my part in it.

Freedom is individual human action, as is demanded by your nature, independent of interpersonal coercion. — Garrett Travers

This was your definition of freedom. Kant disagrees. For him freedom is a victory of ratio over nature. It s not being compelled by your desires but choosing the moral law freely. So no, they do not agree with you, nor with a dictionary definition.

And no Arendt does not agree with Kant or you either. I find what Arendt says interesting, you do not. That is fine.

You have not presented anything worth my time, really. I think you just do not like to hear that. Please go on doing things your way, but do not compel me to read it as I find philosophy by dictionary simply boring.

Foucault's not a philosopher, dude. He was nihilistic child predator who hated the world and everyone in it, especially the people he could confuse to the point neurotic derangement. And Heidegger was fucking Nazi. The idea that you would even remotely have an urge to critique my philosophical approach, without providing even a single argument against my position, when your ideological leaders are the most immoral, disgusting specimens among men imaginable, is next level self-myopia. And yes, it actually is the case the clearly defined terms are a elemental in philosophizing. Foucault has abused you, as well, it seems. — Garrett Travers

Perhaps you forget I am under no obligation to engage with you at all. In the above statement your true colors show. Whoever does not do philosophy your way is no philosopher. You are fond of fallacies right? Look up 'no true Scotsman'. While you are at it also read up on the argumentum ad hominem and please stop annoying me.

The idea that a word's usage must be accepted by all, is a standard you are simply fabricating for no other reason than you do not want to contend with the clear rebuttal that I presented against the argument of this psuedo-philosopher. — Garrett Travers

I hold no such view. I just hold the view that philosophers does not need to accept a working definition, also not when that definition is held by many other philosophers. She enters into a genealogical exploration of a philosophical concept and finds different meanings. What is wrong with that? The analytic tradition and continental tradition also may have a different definition of freedom. This I got from an article on Kant: "Kant formulated the positive conception of freedom as the free capacity for choice. It asserts the unconditional value of the freedom to set one’s own ends. Autonomy of the will is the supreme principle of morality and a necessary condition of moral agency." here

Hegel's definition of freedom: "So a philosophy of right is necessarily a philosophy of freedom that seeks to comprehend freedom actualized in how we relate to each other and construct social and political institutions." here

And here Heidegger on freedom: "In Heidegger's late thinking, human freedom is determined not any more by the obligation of choosing oneself but by the necessity of clearing the truth of Being." taken from here

All different articulations, none of which correspond to your working definition whatever that may be. In any case I am sure I can find many others and a google search like assert is no sound basis either. On such concepts such as freedom even if definitions seem alike, there may be worlds of difference. In political philosophy the term freedom is still hotly debated even though there may be definitions that are more or less dominant. I do recognize your definition, that is not the point, there are many others though and Arendt's essay might well be insightful even if she does not share your definition.

And I don't know what Objectivist leanings means. What about might Stoic leanings? Or, my Virtue Ethics leanings? Or, my Utilitarian leanings? Would any of those dictate whether or not I could read a definition clearly defined and clearly expounded upon within the philosophical tradition over the course of thousands of years? Seems a strange thing to toss into a question about reading comprehension. — Garrett Travers

I do not know which one of those makes you incapable of engaging with a philosophical genealogy of the concept of freedom. I suspected objectivism, that is all. It is not about reading a definition, it is about thinking that that is what philosophy is.

By not seeing arguments that are "not worth my time," you mean to say, "you have clearly refuted the original claims of the essay in question, using both modern cognitive neuroscience, logicical argumentation, and clear definitions of a word that has long had the same basic understanding informing its description, thus I would rather not engage with you and instead insult you, even though you've done no such thing to me." — Garrett Travers

No, apply your own definition: not worth my time, means not worth my time. I am not saying that assessment is necessarily correct. Maybe I am missing a brilliant rebuttal of Arendt, might be. But your responses have not given me any new insight or made any contribution to my understanding of it.

Yes, by clearly defining terms, because to not do so would be a fallacy of ambiguity - that's something you learn in introductory logic, supporting those definitions with a description of how the brain operates as per cited academic journals provided by frontiers in science, and actually addressing every single critique of my assessment sent in my direction..... How do you do philosophy? And tell me, when you describe said methodology, will you please do me the favor of just showing me how you do it, while leaving the insults to yourself; it's kind of not a philosophical approach to discussions, it's actually a fallacy, which makes it unphilosophical. — Garrett Travers

No, philosophy is not 'clrearly defining terms'. I had a class on introductory logic, all well and good. It is by no means the only approach to philosophy. Not even the dominant approach anymore, it seems. How the brain operates has never been a philosophical topic, but one for neuro-science. I take my bearings in philosophical methodology from Michel Foucault, who stands in a Heideggerian tradition. I conduct genealogical enquiries in the history of concepts mostly. Moreover, I also tend to take an approach taken from G.R.G. Collingwood, namely the identification of absolute presupositions. But in any case, do it as you want it, try to get published. But again, that is not an insult but a statement of fact, you have not said anything I find worth my time. Take that statement from the perspective of ordinary language philosophy.

And yes, you do insult me. You do not engage in dialogue, you merely wish to set the terms of it and expect everyone to agree. You do so in a very condescending way. That I find insulting and indeed provokes counter barbs, from which I should and will refrain.