Licensing Parents

Ryan Jenkins from 1000-Word Philosophy examines the potential worth in licensing parents.

Most people think it’s obvious that we have a right to procreate and raise children. In fact, many people think reproductive rights are among the most important rights we have. After all, reproductive rights protect some of the most intimate acts between adults and many people think that rearing children is the greatest source of meaning and fulfillment in life. It’s hard to fathom a government with the arrogance to deny its citizens these rights.

At the same time, most of us think there are some situations where the government is justified in taking away someone’s children. Cases of extreme neglect or abuse come to mind – cases where people have demonstrated that they are not fit parents. If it’s okay to take someone’s children away after the fact, could it ever be okay to deny them the right to raise children beforehand? One way of denying parents the opportunity to raise children would be to require them to procure a license to parent in the same way we require licenses to drive a car or own a handgun. Many would find this surprising, but perhaps there is a good argument for licensing parents.

Just War Theory

In Justice, Theory

Ryan Jenkins from 1000-Word Philosophy gives an account of just war theory.

War is a profoundly destructive institution, yet most of us still believe there are good wars. Authors as far back as Cicero, and in various cultural traditions,[1] have sought to answer this question: When is a war just? The just war tradition (or just war theory) is one subset of military ethics.[2] Recently, interest in just war theory was ignited by Michael Walzer’s Just and Unjust Wars (2006), published in the wake of the Vietnam War. More recently, profound challenges to “traditional” just war theory—under the banner of “revisionism”—have shaken the foundations of the ethics of war (McMahan, 2009; Rodin, 2005). This article will explore the criteria of traditional just war theory before briefly discussing the revisionist school’s recent critiques.

Jus ad Bellum: Justice in the Resort to War

Traditional just war theory concerns itself with two questions: (1) when it is just to go to war and (2) how may a war be justly fought?[3] (These two areas usually go by their Latin names: jus ad bellum and jus in bello, respectively.) This way, we can say that a war was just to declare but fought unjustly, or perhaps vice versa.[4]

When is it just to resort to war? (Notice this moral question is separate from when war is prudent or popular.) Traditionalists hold that a state must satisfy several criteria: just cause, right intention, last resort, proportionality, probability of success, and proper authority.

Theorists usually think the only just cause for declaring war is self-defense: that is, as a response to an actual aggression. Pre-emptive war—declaring war on a state because it is believed they will be a threat—is clearly a Pandora’s box. Instead, we must meet a high evidential burden in order to justify war, and a merely suspected attack is not enough.

Racist Ideas, Justice, and Freedom: A Review and Reflection on Ibram Kendi’s ‘Stamped from the Beginning’

In Arts & Letters, Justice, Practice, Theory

By: Jeremy Kingston Cynamon

We tend to think that hierarchical institutions like slavery emerge as the result of racist and hateful ideas. Ibram Kendi’s new book Stamped From the Beginning, offers an intriguing and far reaching historical challenge to that narrative. Kendi reverses the causal arrow and argues that rather than racist ideas causing discriminatory practices, racist ideas are more accurately understood as ex post justifications of those practices. In other words, hierarchical institutions emerge first – owing to self-interested economic, political, and social reasons – and are then justified in theory by clergy, intellectuals, and other elites.[1] Perhaps Kendi’s most surprising claim is that racist ideas penetrate even the minds of liberal reformers, activists, and theorists, who are otherwise considered progressives. Here he cites W.E.B. Du Bois and Barack Obama amongst many others, ultimately suggesting that racist ideas infiltrate nearly every discourse and sphere of social life.

Kendi’s book is, as its subtitle suggests, an incisive and thoroughgoing study of the history of racist ideas in America. But it is more than that; Stamped From the Beginning is also rife with implications for political theory. It has much to say both about the ongoing discussion about distributive justice, and about how we conceptualize freedom. Its central argument, which points to the need to address deep structures of inequality, can be interpreted as particularly troublesome for liberal theories of distributive justice. This same argument also highlights some important limitations of the typical bifurcation of freedom into its positive and negative variants.[2]

Pro-life Replies to Pro-choice Arguments

In Justice, Practice

By: Hendrik van der Breggen

Below are some popular arguments for abortion choice followed by some pro-life replies. These pro-choice arguments are real (from a critic of one of my recent articles published here and here) and so are the replies (which I presented as responses).

I hope the interaction between this critic and me will encourage careful reasoning in Canada’s public discourse on abortion.

Perspective Needed on Abortion

In Justice, Practice

By: Hendrik van der Breggen

Abortion has been in Canadian news lately, thanks to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s Summer Jobs Program and its “pro-choice”/ “reproductive freedom” values test (i.e., agree with the PM’s values or you don’t get funding).

Many Canadians believe (I think rightly) that this values test is deeply unfair and violates some basic Charter Freedoms, though, of course, many Canadians disagree. It is important, then, to encourage public discourse about abortion that’s respectful, thoughtful, and well informed.

Harvey Weinstein and the Aims and Structure of Hollywood

In Arts & Letters, Justice, Theory

Howl of the Day: Oct 13, 2017

Political scientist Corey Robin has an interesting take on the current Harvey Weinstein debacle. Robin observes that power relationships leave little room for morality:

In virtually every oppressive workplace regime—and other types of oppressive regimes—you see the same phenomenon. ….

Those at the bottom of the regime, these less established actresses who need the most, look up and wonder why those above them, those more established actresses who need less, don’t speak out against an injustice: The more established have power, why don’t they use it, what are they afraid of?

Those higher up the ladder, those more established actresses, look down on those at the very bottom and wonder why they don’t speak out against that injustice: They’ve got nothing to lose, what are they afraid of?

Neither is wrong; they’re both accurately reflecting and acting upon their objective situations and interests. This is one of the reasons why collective action against injustice and oppression is so difficult. It’s Adam Smith’s Invisible Hand at work (in both senses), without the happy ending: everyone pursues their individual interests as individuals; the result is a social catastrophe.

This seems true, but at the same time, focusing on the power dynamic at play as opposed to the ends for which the power is used obscures something essential about the problem.

The Libertarian Error

In Justice, Theory

By: Richard Oxenberg

I. Introduction

As Congress gears up for another round of massive tax cuts whose benefits will primarily go to the wealthiest, it might be worthwhile to consider the underlying rationale for these cuts.

In general, there are two arguments presented in justification for such cuts. The first is a utilitarian argument. The claim is that tax cuts for the wealthy will stimulate the economy and make things generally better for everyone. There are many good reasons to think that this is not true, but I am going to leave this claim aside for now as it is largely a practical question concerning how a capitalist system operates.

The more fundamental, and more philosophical, justification comes from the libertarians. The libertarian claim is that taxation for any other purpose than the defense of liberty is illegitimate, indeed, a kind of theft. According to the libertarians, the government simply has no right to impose taxes for such services as public education, aid to the poor, health care, social security, or any other service that does not involve a direct protection from those who might deprive us of liberty (e.g., criminals or foreign invaders).

This libertarian idea has gained a lot of traction in recent decades, even among many who would not identify as libertarian. It provides the ideological foundation for the hostility toward government, indeed toward democracy as a form of government, fostered by the radical right. I believe it is deeply flawed. The following is my attempt to say why.

Right to Silence in the Age of Aadhaar

In Justice, Practice

By: Ishaan Saha

India’s Aadhaar is the world’s largest biometric ID system. Linking biometric data to income tax returns, the scheme is now mandatory for all Indian residents. This article analyzes the Aadhaar scheme in the context of the right to privacy, and in particular, the fundamental right to silence.

There is a distinction in the law on the right to silence, between compelling a person to divulge her password to a digital device, as opposed to compelling a person to use her fingerprint to unlock the same device. In light of this distinction, Aadhaar could effectively render the right against self-incrimination illusory, as the biometric information already stored on the Aadhaar database could easily be used to access an individual’s digital information stored on her phone or computer protected by a fingerprint lock.

Comparing US law on the right to silence and its interface with digital technology with the Indian law on the issue, we see that the US position on the subject is incongruous to the fundamental rights envisaged under the Indian Constitution and also out of pace with the technological advancements of the day. Unless the right to silence comes of age and accommodates the technological challenges posed by biometric ID systems, the lacuna in the law which protects one’s right to refuse to divulge a password confined in her mind, while at the same time excluding from the ambit of protection, the use of one’s fingerprint or other biometric information to access the very same information stored on a hard drive, can be exploited to render the fundamental right to silence — which is often the last bastion of civil society — an abortive ideal.

All Generalizations are False. Including this One

In Justice, Theory

By: Anurup Doshi

Racial profiling techniques have been at the heart of debates about crime-fighting for a very long time. The application of such techniques has generally been followed by accounts of abuse and horror stories about harassment. Profiling was the focus of renewed attention in 2016 when Donald Trump called for adopting an Israeli-style practice. Particulars of the Israeli-system aside, profiling techniques are often accused of being outright discriminatory, and of turning generalizations into policy. Even beyond the realm of policy making, the use of a generalization in a social context tends to draw pronounced indignation. Frequently, the statement ‘you must not generalize’ becomes a blanket assertion that is thrown around while talking about different categories of people.

When certain actions based on generalizations proliferate and have wide reaching consequences on society, these actions, and the underlying generalizations, become the target of a great deal of public ire. It can be argued that such outrage is not misplaced. It might also be that a person’s loathing for a generalization is most conspicuous when his or her individual identity is directly challenged by it. That is, however, just a superficial look at the entire picture. A generalization is actually a tool that is used by default, or by design, on a regular basis.

This article aims to separate the formation and usage of a generalization from the effects of acting on it. It explores the manner in which generalizations take root, the pivotal role they play in different contexts, and it attempts to dissect the rationale behind using them in policy making and the nuances associated with the implementation of such policies. Given the pitfalls accompanying such an approach, it also hopes to define some boundaries for subscribing to generalizations.

Two Proposals to Foster Autonomy, Renew Democracy and Exit Post-Truth Politics

In Justice, Practice, Theory

By: Marco Senatore

In a world where money is the only universal means of exchange, how different would society be if racists had economic incentives to embrace human rights, and the average citizen found it profitable to foster democracy? In this article I will attempt to answer this question.

Last year the neoliberal narrative suffered a major blow in the United Kingdom, with the vote for Brexit, and in the United States, with the election of Donald Trump as President. By neoliberalism here I mean that political and cultural model that subordinates every public decision to economic rationality, and adapts the state and the whole society to the needs of the market. More specifically, I include in neoliberalism the Ordo-liberal School that influenced the architecture of the Economic and Monetary Union, the Chicago School, the so-called Washington Consensus and, somewhat, the Third Way developed during the 1990s. Beyond its economic principles, neoliberalism has also been important in supporting human rights and rule of law, as they facilitate the functioning of the markets.

In the current juncture, highlighting the risks of populism and of post-truth is an important and useful exercise. It is obvious that the manipulation of facts, racism and other forms of discrimination make populists much more dangerous for democracy than most politicians who have ruled the world in the recent decades.

However, in order to change some of the paradigms that are shaping the political debate in America and – to a less extent, after Macron’s election – Europe, it would be essential to deal also with the flaws of that neoliberal order, whose contradictions have helped the rise of populists. After recalling some elements that are shared by populism and neoliberalism, I would like to propose two forms of social interaction, aimed at overcoming these elements.

Category: Justice (Page 1 of 2)