Kant and Lying to the Murderer at the Door . . . One More Time: Kant's Legal Philosophy and Lies to Murderers and Nazis

Varden, Helga

doi:10.1111/j.1467-9833.2010.01507.x

Cited by 36 publications

(15 citation statements)

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“…First, the risk of 'legal radicalisation' understood as the law's swerving out of the control exercised by 'non-normative reality' remains an irremovable possibility within normativity. It is a one-way path of temptation: once adopted, it leads directly to Kant's allegedly 'inhumane' praise of veracity for all costs, including life (Kant 1993;Varden 2010). This temptation can never be tamed otherwise than by a reference to 'common sense' which acts as a corrective mechanism for normativity.…”

Section: Lacanian Icing On the Cakementioning

confidence: 99%

Melancholy of the Law

Tacik

2020

Law Critique

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The paper attempts to construct a theoretical account of what melancholy—in a psychoanalytical and cultural sense—may mean for jurisprudence. It argues that the map of relations and displacements between the object and the subject that is associated with melancholy in different psychoanalytical approaches can be fruitfully adopted for understanding of normativity. Based on a thorough re-reading of Freud’s Trauer und Melancholie (Mourning and Melancholy), it suggests that there is an irremovable component of melancholy contained in the primordial act of separation of normativity from non-normative reality. This interpretation is confronted with Kelsen’s Theory of Pure Law in order to analyse in which respect the momentum of self-sufficiency within normativity entails structures of melancholy. Kelsen’s concept of ‘effectiveness’ is proposed as a key link which explains how melancholic withdrawal allows the law to interact with reality. Then the paper discusses Agamben’s theory of applicability and of the state of exception to demonstrate the law’s melancholic trap. Finally, the paper draws on Lacanian and post-Lacanian approaches to melancholy in order to investigate how melancholic momentum is inherent in the very structure of the law’s validity.

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Section: Lacanian Icing On the Cakementioning

confidence: 99%

Melancholy of the Law

Tacik

2020

Law Critique

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“…Another good example also happened during World War II. When Jews were arrested and imprisoned in concentration camps, some courageous "Samaritans" lied to German soldiers looking for Jews hidden in their homes [45]. However, these are unusual times when not telling the truth is a good thing.…”

Section: Analysis Of Naturalness Stabilitymentioning

confidence: 99%

Limitations and Prospects of Skyrmsian Evolutionary Game Theory in the Perspectives of Genotype Phenotype Mapping and Evolutionary Psychology

Yu¹

2018

Int. j. appl. phys. sci.

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Based upon evolutionary game theory, philosopher of science Brian Skyrms developed certain simulationbased models to explain cultural phenomena for which alternate theories failed to offer plausible explanations. This article aims to examine the preceding claim by unpacking the logical structure of the Skyrmsian theory. Because the mathematical model employed by Skyrms is challenged by the author, the methodology of this study is analytical rather than mathematical simulation. The Skyrmsian approach is purely phenotypic rather than genotypic. Further, it is evolutionary generalist and thus omits the psychological mechanisms or the evolutionary histories from which humans emerge. To compensate for the lack of detail in describing psychological mechanisms, mathematical properties such as robustness are introduced in the Skyrmsian approach. This article illustrates how omitting genotypic factors and the interlocking attributes of phenotypic components might pull the Skyrmsian model away from reality. As a model of force that emphasizes the detail of psychological drives (forces), evolutionary psychology can play a vital role in defining input variables for the Skyrmsian approach, while the latter can function as an evaluation tool to assess the explanatory power of proposed models in terms of robustness. In the era of big data, it is possible for both evolutionary game theorists and evolutionary psychologists to extract robust behavioral patterns and social dynamics from voluminous data.

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“…Kant wants to show that it is not even permissible to lie to the murderer and that, a fortiori, it cannot be obligatory. Kant and his modern‐day supporters have exploited the ambiguity of Constant's question and have focused on the legal dimension (e.g., Varden, ). Constant is indeed confused when he claims that truth as a universal principle would make “society impossible” (VRML VIII:425).…”

Section: Exceptionsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Thinking about cases: Applying Kant's universal law formula

Bojanowski

2017

European J of Philosophy

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According to a widespread view, Kant's claim that moral wrongness has its ground in a contradiction underlying every immoral action is a “bluff” rooted in “dogmatic moralism”. Ever since Benjamin Constant's exchange with Kant, counterexamples have played a crucial role in showing why Kant's “universalization procedure” fails to determine the moral validity of our judgments. Despite recent attempts to bring Kant's ethics closer to Aristotle's, these counterexamples have prevailed. Most recently, Jesse Prinz has launched another attack along the same lines. Prinz insists that Kant's universalization procedure fundamentally begs the question and fails to generate plausible results. Even authors who are very sympathetic to Kant, such as Allen Wood, have tried to downplay universalization, focusing instead on other formulations of the categorical imperative. In this paper, I respond directly to four of the most prominent counterexamples. In each case, I aim to show how we can uphold Kant's fundamental claim that the universal law formulation of the categorical imperative articulates the form of our particular moral judgments.

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Kant and Lying to the Murderer at the Door . . . One More Time: Kant's Legal Philosophy and Lies to Murderers and Nazis

Cited by 36 publications

References 0 publications

Melancholy of the Law

Melancholy of the Law

Limitations and Prospects of Skyrmsian Evolutionary Game Theory in the Perspectives of Genotype Phenotype Mapping and Evolutionary Psychology

Thinking about cases: Applying Kant's universal law formula

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