Fans of DC Comics from the 1970s will recognise Neal Adams’ distinctive style on this true story about an artist’s struggle to recover her artwork from the Auschwitz Museum.
Tag Archives | Ethics
Tortured Logic
Guest Blog by Jennifer McKitrick
[cross-posted at JenMc’s Blog]
- 1. Water boarding is torture.
- 2. The Bush administration authorized water boarding.
- 3. Authorizing torture is a punishable offense.
- Therefore… ?
What’s the rationale for denying the claim that someone from the Bush administration is liable to criminal prosecution?
- We should look forward, not backward (Obama).
I tried telling that to the judge when I was in traffic court: “That speeding I did – that’s in the past. The important thing is that I will obey the speed limit in the future.” It didn’t fly.
- We shouldn’t criminalize policy disagreements (Holder).
But what if it’s someone’s policy to break the law? It’s not their disagreeing with you that’s criminal – it’s the crime that they committed.
- The Bush administration didn’t know that what they were doing was illegal.
Ignorance of the law is no excuse. I told the judge in traffic court that I didn’t know that going 60 mph on that particular stretch of road was illegal, but that didn’t work either.
- The Bush administration acted in accord with legal counsel that said that what they were doing was legal.
Oh! The lawyers said it was OK! Why didn’t you say so? So, if I hire a lawyer to tell me that speeding is legal, I can drive as fast as I want?! Yippee!
It seems to me that the laws that protect people from being tortured should be at least as strong as the laws that protect people from my driving too fast.
And it seems to me, if something is against the law now, and the reasons it is against the law were in play at time t, then that thing was against the law at time t.
So, are there any reasons that make water boarding against the law now that weren’t in play in the last several years?
A different administrative “policy”?
What was that I heard, once upon a time, about a separation of legislative and executive branches…? If Obama’s policies can deem water boarding to be against the law when it was previously not a punishable offense, then it would seem that they would be justified in not having those policies if that were their prerogative.
Lucky for us, they’re nice guys.
Let’s hope so, since they seem to basically agree with the Bush administration about the executive being above the law.
It reminds me of when my co-worker opined that our boss was a very judgmental person. When I told her that he didn’t seem that way to me, she said “Well, it’s not obvious, since most of his judgments are positive.”
Aristotle, Codevilla, Putnam
[cross-posted at Liberty & Power]
Stuff of mine that’s newly online:
Aristotle’s Conception of Freedom [Review of Metaphysics 49.4, June 1996]
Aristotle’s Egalitarian Utopia: The Polis kat’ eukhēn [M. H. Hansen, ed, The Imaginary Polis: Acts of the Copenhagen Polis Centre 7, 2005]
A Florentine in Baghdad: Codevilla on the War on Terror [Reason Papers 28, Spring 2006]
Review of Hilary Putnam’s Collapse of the Fact-Value Dichotomy [Reason Papers 28, Spring 2006]
Anarchy in Philadelphia, Part 3
Now up, in addition, are comments from Chris Morris and Will Thomas, plus an additional comment from me.
(By the way, my own answer to Will’s question, in effect, is on p. 140 of my anthology chapter.)
The Molinari Symposium will be held in Independence Meeting Room II. (The APA program supplement says “Independence Ballroom II” but there is no such animal; the Independence Meeting Rooms are next to the Liberty Ballroom.)
Independence Meeting Room II is hard to find because it’s actually across the street (via skybridge) from the main hotel, in something called the “Deluxe Tower” (or, less glamorously, the “3rd Floor Annex”).
How to find Independence Meeting Room II: from the hotel lobby (1st floor), take the escalator (not the elevator) to the 3rd floor. (It goes directly from 1st to 3rd; I’m not sure there even is a 2nd floor.) Follow the signs that say “Deluxe Tower” or “Bridge to Convention Center.” Cross the skybridge; at the other end you’ll see an arrow pointing left saying “Convention Center” and an arrow pointing right saying “Marriott”; go right.
Anarchy in Philadelphia, Part 2
As a follow-up to my last Molinari Society update – you can now also read Jan Narveson’s comments on Crispin Sartwell, Jennifer McKitrick’s comments on me, and my comments on Nicole Hassoun.
Merry Solstice!
Anarchy in Philadelphia
[cross-posted at Liberty & Power]
Jan Narveson’s response to Nicole Hassoun’s comments is now online.
Here’s the final roster for the Molinari Society’s upcoming fifth annual Symposium being held in conjunction with the Eastern Division of the American Philosophical Association in Philadelphia, December 27-30, 2008:
GIX-3. Monday, 29 December 2008, 1:30-4:30 p.m.
Molinari Society symposium: Authors Meet Critics:
Crispin Sartwell’s Against the State: An Introduction to Anarchist Political Theory and
Roderick T. Long and Tibor R. Machan, eds., Anarchism/Minarchism: Is a Government Part of a Free Country?
Philadelphia Marriott Downtown, 1201 Market Street, Room TBA
Chair: Carrie-Ann Biondi (Marymount Manhattan College)
Critics:
Jennifer McKitrick (University of Nebraska-Lincoln)
Christopher Morris (University of Maryland)
Nicole Hassoun (Carnegie Mellon University)Authors:
John Hasnas (Georgetown University)
Charles Johnson (Molinari Institute)
Roderick T. Long (Auburn University)
Jan Narveson (University of Waterloo-Canada)
Crispin Sartwell (Dickinson College)
William Thomas (Atlas Society)
The APA, ever vigilant against the menace of free riders (and, I suspect, grossly overestimating the inelasticity of demand for APA sessions) isn’t
revealing the location of the session until we pick up our final programs at registration. But I’ll try to post the info as soon as I learn it.