On Tuesday, November 5, citizens of the United States will vote for who they want to serve as their President for the next four years. They will also vote for federal congressional representatives as well as a host of other state and local government officials.
U.S. political campaigns—especially presidential campaigns—are exhausting. This is in part because they are much longer and more expensive than the political campaigns in many other nations.
The reason that so many Americans believe this patent falsehood is because Trump and his allies have repeatedly told this lie. However, it seems that Trump and his allies don’t really believe it, given that they have been unwilling to make these same claims in court or in other contexts in which they could face legal sanctions for lying.
This is an example of the truth-revealing power of courts. The best explanation for why Trump and his co-conspirators refuse to make these false claims about the 2020 election in contexts where they realize that lying comes with significant legal consequences is that they know they are lying.
If significant legal consequences for lying are enough to stop Trump and his co-conspirators from lying in court, one might naturally conclude that the best course of action might be to create similarly significant legal consequences for lying as part of political campaigning. This is a reasonable thought, but it’s not that simple—at least not in the United States. This is because such a course of action conflicts with contemporary social and legal understandings of the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution’s protection of free speech.
This is a guest post by Professor Jeff McMahan (Oxford University), as part of the Reflections on the Russia-Ukraine War series, organized by Aaron James Wendland. This is an edited version of an article published in Studia Philosophica Estonica. Justice Everywhere will publish edited versions of several of the papers from this special issue over the next few weeks.
There are three wars currently in progress in Ukraine: the war between Russia and Ukraine, the Russian war against Ukraine, and the Ukrainian war against Russia. It is necessary for the purpose of evaluation to make these distinctions, for the first of these wars is, like the Second World War (understood as a war between allied and axis powers), neither just nor unjust. Only a war fought by one or more belligerents against an opponent can be just or unjust. Many or most of what we refer to as wars consist of a just war on one side and an unjust war on the other – or, to be more precise, a war with predominantly just aims on one side and a war with predominantly unjust aims on the other.
There is no credible understanding of a just war according to which the Russian war against Ukraine is a just war. It is a wholly unprovoked war of aggression intended by those who initiated it – primarily Putin – to conquer Ukraine, annex its territory, and assimilate its population. The motives of the war’s planners are doubtless many and various but some stand out as obvious and dominant. One is to expand the Russian empire until it is at least coextensive with its earlier boundaries under the tsars and the post-revolutionary Soviet dictators. Another motivation echoes the American concern about “falling dominoes” as a reason for invading Vietnam. Many of the states that were ruled by Soviet puppet regimes during the Cold War have, since the dissolution of the Soviet Union under Gorbachev, been adopting more and more elements of Western culture, in particular liberalism and democracy. Ukraine was a falling domino that threatened to become a fully independent, economically flourishing democracy in a large border territory that Russia had repeatedly ravaged in the past – a state that would be an example, highly visible to Russians, of an appealing alternative to Putin’s tyrannical kleptocracy.
Warsaw-Kyiv train, Chełm, July 2023. Photograph by Aaron James Wendland.
This lecture was delivered by Dr Volodymyr Yermolenko as part of a benefit conference for the Ukrainian academy that Aaron James Wendland organized in March 2023 at the Munk School of Global Affairs and Public Policy at the University of Toronto. The benefit conference was designed to provide financial support for academic and civic initiatives at Kyiv Mohyla Academy and thereby counteract the destabilizing impact that Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 had on Ukrainian higher education and civilian life. The lecture has been lightly edited for the purpose of publication in Studia Philosophica Estonica and the original presentation can be found on the Munk School’s YouTube channel.
This lecture was delivered by Professor Timothy Snyder (Yale University) as part of a benefit conference for the Ukrainian academy that Aaron James Wendland organized in March 2023 at the Munk School of Global Affairs and Public Policy at the University of Toronto. The benefit conference was designed to provide financial support for academic and civic initiatives at Kyiv Mohyla Academy and thereby counteract the destabilizing impact that Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 had on Ukrainian higher education and civilian life. The lecture has been lightly edited for the purpose of publication in Studia Philosophica Estonica and the original presentation can be found on the Munk School’s YouTube channel. Several themes from this lecture have been developed and expanded upon in Professor Snyder’s forthcoming book: On Freedom.
Soldier with Javelin, Odesa, July 2022. Photograph by Aaron James Wendland
This is the latest interview in our Beyond the Ivory Tower series and the first post of a new series dedicated to the war in Ukraine. For this interview, Diana Popescu-Sarry spoke to Professor Aaron James Wendland. Aaron is currently a Vision Fellow in Public Philosophy at King’s College London and Vice President of International Affairs and Professor of Public Philosophy at the Kyiv School of Economics. Since the start of the war in Ukraine, Aaron has spent considerable time in Kyiv and has published in Ukraine World and The Kyiv Independent, where he is currently the Head of Ideas. In March 2023 Aaron organised a benefit conference for the Ukraine academy, the proceedings of which were published in a special issue of Studia Philosophica Estonica last month – featuring an interview by Aaron with Margaret Atwood as well as essays by Timothy Snyder, Volodymyr Yermolenko, Orysya Bila, Joshua Duclos, Jeff McMahan, and Jo Wolff to name but a few. Over the course of the next few weeks, Justice Everywhere will feature these contributions, as well as an interview with Orysya Bila about the value of teaching philosophy in wartime Ukraine.
We often use visual representations and metaphors involving animals to represent human freedom. Consider, for instance, “It’s time to spread to your wings”, “I couldn’t persuade her to do otherwise. It was like trying to hold back wild horses”, “She’s a bit of a lone wolf”, “A lion does not concern himself with the opinion of sheep”. Conversely, the caged animal often serves as a symbol of human suffering, imprisonment, and oppression.
Yet many philosophers do not think animals have a genuine interest in freedom. For these thinkers, freedom only matters for nonhuman animals insofar as it contributes to their welfare. On such a view, there is nothing wrong with enslaving – if it can be called that – a nonhuman animal provided we can keep them healthy and happy. By contrast, enslaving a human is never acceptable, no matter how happy you can make them. This is because humans (and perhaps a few of the so-called higher animals) have a unique noninstrumental interest in freedom, which means that freedom matters for its own sake and not for the sake of anything else.
Among Chagossians the feelings seem more mixed. Some see it as a step in the right direction, suggesting that Mauritius is more likely to put resettlement plans in place. Others, however, have criticised the fact that, even in a decision like this, Chagossians have been systemically excluded from the discussion. One group representing Chagossians in the UK, Mauritius and the Seychelles claimed that “Chagossians have learned this outcome [of the negotiations] from the media and remain powerless and voiceless in determining our own future and the future of our homeland”. Others, speaking to the BBC, expressed frustration that, once again, decisions about their future were made without their input.
This is a guest post by Callum MacRae (Jagiellonian University, Krakow)
Wisława Szymborska park, photograph provided by Callum MacRae
Tucked behind the public Voivodeship library, connecting Karmelicka street to the east with Dolnych Młynów to the west, lies Krakow’s Wisława Szymborska park. The park is new to Krakow, having opened just last year. But, sitting just a short walk from the historic old town, those who live in the city have already come to know and love it as a precious area of public greenspace. On warm days, the park’s carefully considered design is alive with people; playing, chatting, reading, passing time, watching the world go by.
But the park represents more than just an impressively successful example of green, public, urban design. It is a product of Krakow’s Citizens’ Budget scheme, having been approved in the 2019 round of funding, and as such it also represents the power and potential of Poland’s remarkable modern engagement with participatory budgeting in local government.
In this discussion post,Justin Clardy (he/they; Santa Clara University) introduces their article recently published in the Journal of Applied Philosophy on polyamory and a defense for minimal marriage among the Black population in the USA.
The short synopsis of the article is accompanied by an asynchronous conversation among Anika Simpson (Howard) Faith Charmagne, Luke Brunning (Leeds) and Nannearl Brown (PAGES TRG) where they will engage with the article in terms of its academic and practical implications for the Black population in the US.
Created with Bing AI Image Generator (2024).
Synopsis by Justin Clardy
The Black marriage problem—or the fact that “Black folks just aren’t getting or staying married like they used to”—has been a concern for Black writers. This problem is concerning because just less than 60 years ago, Black marriages rates were thought to be one of the zeniths of the Civil Rights Movement.
In 2022, Ralph Richard Banks appeared in the New York Post doubling down on his 2011 suggestion that in order to solve the Black marriage problem, Black women should consider marrying more white men. What’s striking about Banks’ suggestion is not just that it does not take endogamy as seriously as it should, it also does not take non-monogamy among Black folks as seriously as it should either. What possibilities would expanding legal marriage to include plural marriages offer for the same populations of unmarried Black folks that Black writers believe to be driving the Black marriage crisis? This is one of the questions that I explore in a recent article called “Polyamory in Black.”
Historical records in the U.S. tell stories of non-monogamous relationships dating back to the antebellum period. Some of these relationships were, of course, forged by the pernicious design of the domestic slave trade. Other Black non-monogamous intimate relationships, however, were chosen. In her book, Black Women Black Love: America’s War on African American Marriage, Dianne Stewart writes about Dorcas Cooper who was content to remain in a polygamous marriage after arriving on a plantation to find her husband married to a second woman. When Cooper recognized how well her husband’s second wife, Jenny, took care of Cooper’s kids, historical record even shows a deep fondness of Jenny from Cooper as she would not “let anybody say anything against [Jenny].” Historical record also during Reconstruction, shows Freedmen’s Bureau agents disregarding non-monogamous intimacies in the years following the Civil War by breaking up Black non-monogamous families as one agent recounted “Whenever a negro appears before me with 2 or 3 wives…I marry him to the woman who has the greatest number of helpless children who would otherwise become a charge on the bureau.” Importantly, then just as now, marriage was tethered to a bundle of rights and entitlements that had material consequences, such as the denial of Civil War pensions, on Black individuals and families who the institution forbade.
Despite (or, perhaps because of) the presence of Black non-monogamies, both in the antebellum and Reconstruction periods, anti-non-monogamous propaganda routinely portrayed non-monogamists as Black or barbaric in order to convey messages of chaos, foreigners, and despotism. As I show in an article published in the Journal of Applied Philosophy, some of these anti-black anti-non-monogamous impressions were published in media outlets following the Reynolds v United States decision handed down by the Supreme Court. Even the Court’s official opinion white engagement with non-monogamy was said to produce a “peculiar race” as the practice was thought natural and common among Asiatic and African peoples but foreign to whites.
Insofar as the Reynolds opinion remains one of the highest opinions handed down by the U.S. Supreme Court on plural marriage, present day marriage law has disproportionately harmful consequences on the growing population of Black polyamorists in the U.S.—both socially and materially. For example, non-monogamists are more likely than their monogamist counterparts to have their relationship(s) subjected to social scrutiny and are less likely than their monogamous counterparts to have their relationships cohere with zoning laws forbidding the number of “unrelated” people living in the same household. The ongoing ban against plural marriages in the U.S. generate interesting questions about what it might take to end non-monogamous oppression and enact measures to repair the harms done by legal marriage on Black non-monogamists. And, as I argue in “Polyamory in Black” I think that a compelling rationale can be offered for thinking about Black reparations along these lines.
The hot topic in British politics last week was the government’s decision to scrap the winter fuel payment. People over the age of 65 used to be able to claim a lump sum of between £200 and £300 pounds each winter. Desperately scrabbling around for cash, the government has changed the policy so that now only elderly people who are already receiving state financial help are eligible for the payment. This is a classic example of “means-testing”: making state benefits only available to those who do not have the means to pay for things themselves.
Means-testing tends to be popular because it seems to make a lot of sense. Why waste money providing benefits to millionaires? At the most general level, a state with any egalitarian ambitions must treat the rich and poor differently.
Nonetheless, means-testing is generally small-minded and regrettable.
This blog explores issues of justice, morality, and ethics in all areas of public, political, social, economic, and personal life. It is run by a cooperative of political theorists and philosophers and in collaboration with the Journal of Applied Philosophy.
