55 ideas
| 7500 | Early Greeks cared about city and companions; later Greeks concentrated on the self [Foucault] |
| Full Idea: For early Greeks their techné for life was to take care of the city, of companions (see Plato's 'Alcibiades'). Taking care of yourself for its own sake starts with the Epicureans, and becomes very general in Seneca and Pliny. | |
| From: Michel Foucault (On the Genealogy of Ethics [1983], p.260) | |
| A reaction: In Aristotle the two strike me as ideally balanced - to become a wonderful citizen by looking after yourself. Presumably the destruction of the city-states by Alexander took away the motive, and the aim became more private. |
| 15045 | The big issue since the eighteenth century has been: what is Reason? Its effect, limits and dangers? [Foucault] |
| Full Idea: I think the central issue of philosophy and critical thought since the eighteenth century has always been, still is, and will, I hope, remain the question: What is this Reason that we use? What are its historical effects? What are its limits and dangers? | |
| From: Michel Foucault (Space, Knowledge and Power (interview) [1982], p.358) | |
| A reaction: One can hardly deny the fairness of the question, but I hope that won't prevent us from trying to be rational. Maybe logicians do a better job of clarifying reason than the political and historical speculations of Foucault? |
| 7426 | Critical philosophy is what questions domination at every level [Foucault] |
| Full Idea: In its critical aspect, philosophy is that which calls into question domination at every level | |
| From: Michel Foucault (Ethics of the Concern for Self as Freedom [1984], p.300) | |
| A reaction: A very French view of the subject. It is tempting to say that they had their adolescent outburst in 1789, and it is time to grow up. With rights come responsibilities... |
| 7423 | Philosophy and politics are fundamentally linked [Foucault] |
| Full Idea: The relationship between philosophy and politics is permanent and fundamental. | |
| From: Michel Foucault (Ethics of the Concern for Self as Freedom [1984], p.293) | |
| A reaction: This idea is one of the biggest gulfs between continental and analytical philosophy. Many aspects of philosophy are turning out to be much more social than analytical philosophers might have thought - epistemology, for example. |
| 15038 | Structuralism systematically abstracted the event from sciences, and even from history [Foucault] |
| Full Idea: One can agree that structuralism formed the most systematic effort to evacuate the concept of the event, not only from ethnology but from a whole series of other sciences and in the extreme case from history. | |
| From: Michel Foucault (Truth and Power (interview) [1976], p.115) | |
| A reaction: 'Abstract' might be a better word than 'evacuate'. In that sense, this at least seems to have it the right way round - that structure can be abstracted, but in no way can a structure be prior to its components (pace Ladyman, Shapiro etc). |
| 7420 | When logos controls our desires, we have actually become the logos [Foucault] |
| Full Idea: Plutarch says if you have mastered principles then logos will silence your desires like a master silencing a dog - in which case the logos functions without intervention on your part - you have become the logos, or the logos has become you. | |
| From: Michel Foucault (Ethics of the Concern for Self as Freedom [1984], p.286) | |
| A reaction: If you believe that logos is pure reason, you might be quite happy with this, but if you thought it was a cultural construct, you might feel that you had been cunningly enslaved. If I ask 'what is 7+6?', logos interrupts me to give the answer. |
| 21945 | Foucault originally felt that liberating reason had become an instrument of domination [Foucault, by Gutting] |
| Full Idea: In early work Foucault writes in opposition to the Enlightenment. ..The reason that was supposed to liberate us has itself become the primary instrument of our domination. ..His heroisation of the mad aims to set up an alternative to the regime of reason. | |
| From: report of Michel Foucault (works [1978]) by Gary Gutting - Foucault: a very short introduction 7 | |
| A reaction: Adorno and Horkheimer are cited as background. I hear Spinoza turning in his grave, because right reason could never be an instrument of domination. |
| 15044 | 'Truth' is the procedures for controlling which statements are acceptable [Foucault] |
| Full Idea: 'Truth' is to be understood as a system of ordered procedures for the production, regulation, distribution, circulation, and operation of statements. | |
| From: Michel Foucault (Truth and Power (interview) [1976], p.132) | |
| A reaction: Foucault is not absurdly relativist about this, but I don't think I agree, even in his terms. In a sexually prudish culture, blunt sexual truths are clearly true to everyone, but totally unacceptable. Society shudders when unacceptable truths are spoken. |
| 15042 | Truth doesn't arise from solitary freedom, but from societies with constraints [Foucault] |
| Full Idea: Truth isn't a reward of free spirits, the child of protracted solitude, nor the privilege of those who have succeeded in liberating themselves. Truth is a thing of this world: it is produced only by virtue of multiple forms of constraint. | |
| From: Michel Foucault (Truth and Power (interview) [1976], p.131) | |
| A reaction: This obviously has a degree of truth in many areas of human belief, but I just don't buy it as an account of Newton's researches into optics, or Lavoisier's chemistry. Politics is more involved once big money is required. |
| 15037 | Why does knowledge appear in sudden bursts, and not in a smooth continuous development? [Foucault] |
| Full Idea: How is it that at certain moments and in certain orders of knowledge, there are these sudden take-offs, these hastenings of evolution, these transformations which fail to correspond to the calm, continuist image that is normally accredited? | |
| From: Michel Foucault (Truth and Power (interview) [1976], p.114) | |
| A reaction: The answer is either in the excitement of a new motivation, which may concern power, or may concern pure understanding - or else it is just that one discovery brings a host of others along with (like discovering DNA). |
| 21942 | Foucault challenges knowledge in psychology and sociology, not in the basic sciences [Foucault, by Gutting] |
| Full Idea: Foucault's project is to question quite specific claims to cognitive authority, made by many psychologists and social scientists. He has not problems with other domains, such as mathematics and the basic sciences. | |
| From: report of Michel Foucault (works [1978]) by Gary Gutting - Foucault: a very short introduction 5 | |
| A reaction: Nowadays we describe his target as Epistemic Injustice (see book of that title by Miranda Fricker). |
| 7424 | Saying games of truth were merely power relations would be a horrible exaggeration [Foucault] |
| Full Idea: When I talk about power relations and games of truth, I am absolutely not saying that games of truth are just concealed power relations - that would be a horrible exaggeration. | |
| From: Michel Foucault (Ethics of the Concern for Self as Freedom [1984], p.296) | |
| A reaction: I take this to be a denial of the more absurd forms of relativism. I think there is an interesting convergence between this kind of continental thinking, and the social view of justification found in the later work of Alvin Goldman. |
| 16861 | A false theory could hardly rival the explanatory power of natural selection [Darwin] |
| Full Idea: It can hardly be supposed that a false theory would explain, in so satisfactory a manner as does the theory of natural selection, the several large classes of facts above specified. | |
| From: Charles Darwin (The Origin of the Species [1859], p.476), quoted by Peter Lipton - Inference to the Best Explanation (2nd) 11 'The scientific' | |
| A reaction: More needs to be said, since the whims of God could explain absolutely everything (in a manner that would be somehow less that fully satisfying to the enquiring intellect). |
| 21941 | Unlike Marxists, Foucault explains thought internally, without deference to conscious ideas [Foucault, by Gutting] |
| Full Idea: Unlike Marxists, Foucault's project is to offer an internal account of human thinking, without assuming a privileged status for the conscious content of that thought. | |
| From: report of Michel Foucault (works [1978]) by Gary Gutting - Foucault: a very short introduction 4 | |
| A reaction: His project is historical. Personally I resent anyone who claims to understand my thought better than I do. I suppose my intellectual duty is to read Foucault, and see (honestly) whether his project applies to me. |
| 7422 | A subject is a form which can change, in (say) political or sexual situations [Foucault] |
| Full Idea: The subject is not a substance but a form, which is not always identical to itself. You do not have the same relation to yourself when you go to vote and when you seek to fulfil your desires in a sexual relationship. | |
| From: Michel Foucault (Ethics of the Concern for Self as Freedom [1984], p.290) | |
| A reaction: I don't think I believe this. If it were true, the concept of 'sexual politics' would mean nothing to me. A brutal or sympathetic nature is likely to express itself in both situations. |
| 22235 | Feelings are not unchanging, but have a history (especially if they are noble) [Foucault] |
| Full Idea: We believe that feelings are immutable, but every sentiment, particularly the most noble and disinterested, has a history. | |
| From: Michel Foucault (Nietzsche, Genealogy, History [1971], p.86), quoted by Johanna Oksala - How to Read Foucault 5 | |
| A reaction: This is the sort of remark that makes me think Foucault is worth reading. Aristotle thought you could teach correct feelings. That implies that you can also teach incorrect feelings. |
| 23616 | Legal excuses are duress, ignorance, and diminished responsibility [McMahan] |
| Full Idea: The common legal practice is to distinguish three broad categories of excuse: duress, epistemic limitation, and diminished responsibility. | |
| From: Jeff McMahan (Killing in War [2009], 3.2.1) | |
| A reaction: McMahan cites these with reference to soldiers in wartime, but they have general application. The third one seems particularly open to very wide interpretation. Presumably I can't be excused by just being irresponsible. |
| 21939 | The author function of any text is a plurality of selves [Foucault, by Gutting] |
| Full Idea: Foucault maintains that for any 'authored' text a plurality of selves fulfils the author function. | |
| From: report of Michel Foucault (works [1978]) by Gary Gutting - Foucault: a very short introduction 2 | |
| A reaction: This is a completely different concept of a 'self' from the one normally found in this database. I would call it the sociological concept of self, as something changing with context. So how many selves is 'Jane Austen'? |
| 7419 | Ethics is the conscious practice of freedom [Foucault] |
| Full Idea: What is ethics, if not the practice of freedom, the conscious [réfléchie] practice of freedom? | |
| From: Michel Foucault (Ethics of the Concern for Self as Freedom [1984], p.284) | |
| A reaction: Makes Foucault sound very existentialist. I'm not sure I understand this kind of remark, given that serial killers seem to be exceptionally good at 'practising their freedom'. However, the idea is akin to Kant's notion of a truly good will (Idea 3710). |
| 7501 | Why couldn't a person's life become a work of art? [Foucault] |
| Full Idea: Couldn't everyone's life become a work of art? Why should the lamp or the house be an art object, but not our life? | |
| From: Michel Foucault (On the Genealogy of Ethics [1983], p.261) | |
| A reaction: This sounds wonderfully appealing until I try to think how I would implement it. The Augustine move, from sinner to saint, is a possibility, but there is nothing good about sin. The Christian ideal, of colossal self-sacrifice, can be very heroic. |
| 7498 | Greeks and early Christians were much more concerned about food than about sex [Foucault] |
| Full Idea: It is interesting to see the very slow move from the privileging of food, which was overwhelming in Greece, to interest in sex. Early Christians (and rules for monks) were more concerned with food. Sex only dominates from the seventeenth century. | |
| From: Michel Foucault (On the Genealogy of Ethics [1983], p.253) | |
| A reaction: Certainly the Greeks were obsessed with food, and the Sicilian Greeks were notorious for their love of it. Is it simply that food becomes more plentiful, or does female freedom lead to more sex? Puritanism hates the greatest pleasures the most. |
| 21940 | Nature is not the basis of rights, but the willingness to risk death in asserting them [Foucault] |
| Full Idea: The decision 'to prefer the risk of death to the certainty of having to obey' is the 'last anchor point' for any assertion of rights, 'one more solid and closer to the experience than "natural rights"'. | |
| From: Michel Foucault (works [1978], EW III:449) | |
| A reaction: I recall a group of Afrikaan men going to face certain death, rather than give up apartheid. |
| 15043 | Every society has a politics of truth, concerning its values, functions, prestige and mechanisms [Foucault] |
| Full Idea: Each society has its regime of truth, its 'general politics' of truth - the types of discourse it accepts and makes function as true; the mechanisms for distinguishing; the means of sanctioning it; the values in its acquisition; the status of its keepers. | |
| From: Michel Foucault (Truth and Power (interview) [1976], p.131) | |
| A reaction: [compressed] This idea is appropriately filed under 'society' rather than under 'truth'. Foucault knows there is a genuine truth beneath the complex social story. |
| 15040 | Marxists denounced power as class domination, but never analysed its mechanics [Foucault] |
| Full Idea: Power in Western capitalism was denounced by the Marxists as class domination; but the mechanics of power in themselves were never analysed. | |
| From: Michel Foucault (Truth and Power (interview) [1976], p.117) | |
| A reaction: This seems to pinpoint Foucault's distinctive contribution to political thought, and it makes him one of the most interesting thinkers in the area. It is a good approach to history, but also to the role of power as a background to conventional thought. |
| 15041 | Power doesn't just repress, but entices us with pleasure, artefacts, knowledge and discourse [Foucault] |
| Full Idea: If power was only repressive, would we obey it? What makes power accepted is the fact …that it also traverses and produces things, it induces pleasure, forms knowledge, produces discourse. | |
| From: Michel Foucault (Truth and Power (interview) [1976], p.120) | |
| A reaction: Once you present 'power' this way, it permeates so deeply into human activity that it is in danger of becoming a mere triviality of social analysis. Is every conversation that ever took place actually a power struggle? |
| 8991 | Foucault can't accept that power is sometimes decent and benign [Foucault, by Scruton] |
| Full Idea: It became impossible for Foucault to accept that power is sometimes decent and benign. | |
| From: report of Michel Foucault (Power/Knowledge [1980]) by Roger Scruton - Upon Nothing: Swansea lecture p.12 | |
| A reaction: Actually Idea 7425 suggests that Foucault has no dream of eliminating power, but he does seem to be utterly in favour of maximum autonomy, and to regard paternalism as inherently evil. What sort of parent would Foucault have been? |
| 7425 | The aim is not to eliminate power relations, but to reduce domination [Foucault] |
| Full Idea: The problem is not to dissolve power relations in a utopia of transparent communications, but to acquire the rules of law, the management techniques, the morality, the practice of the self, that allows games of power with minimum domination. | |
| From: Michel Foucault (Ethics of the Concern for Self as Freedom [1984], p.298) | |
| A reaction: If you are a democrat it is hard to disagree with this, though I am still unclear why being dominated should rank as a total disaster. A healthy personal relationship might involve domination. 'Management techniques' is interesting. |
| 22236 | The big question of the Renaissance was how to govern everything, from the state to children [Foucault] |
| Full Idea: How to govern was one of the fundamental question of the fifteenth and sixteenth century. ...How to govern children, the poor and beggars, how to govern the family, a house, how to govern armies, different groups, cities, states, and govern one's self. | |
| From: Michel Foucault (What is Critique? [1982], p.28), quoted by Johanna Oksala - How to Read Foucault 9 | |
| A reaction: A nice example of Foucault showing how things we take for granted (techniques of control) have been slowly learned, and then taught as standard. Of course, the Romans knew how to govern an army. |
| 21947 | Power is localised, so we either have totalitarian centralisation, or local politics [Foucault, by Gutting] |
| Full Idea: Foucault's analysis suggests that meaningful revolution, hence genuine liberation, is impossible: the only alternative to the modern net of micro-centres of power is totalitatian domination. Hence his politics, even when revolutionary, is always local. | |
| From: report of Michel Foucault (Discipline and Punish [1977]) by Gary Gutting - Foucault: a very short introduction 8 | |
| A reaction: It is hard to disagree with this. |
| 21946 | Prisons gradually became our models for schools, hospitals and factories [Foucault, by Gutting] |
| Full Idea: Foucault's thesis is that disciplinary techniques introduced for criminals became the model for other modern sites of control (schools, hospitals, factories), so that prison discipline pervades all of society. | |
| From: report of Michel Foucault (Discipline and Punish [1977]) by Gary Gutting - Foucault: a very short introduction 8 | |
| A reaction: Someone recently designed Foucault Monopoly, where every location is a prison. All tightly controlled organisations, such as a medieval monastery, or the Roman army, will inevitably share many features. |
| 7418 | The idea of liberation suggests there is a human nature which has been repressed [Foucault] |
| Full Idea: I am somewhat suspicious of the notion of liberation, because one runs the risk of falling back on the idea that there is a human nature, that has been concealed or alienated by mechanisms of repression. | |
| From: Michel Foucault (Ethics of the Concern for Self as Freedom [1984], p.282) | |
| A reaction: Personally I think there is (to some extent) a human nature, and that it fails to flourish if it gets too much 'liberation. However, the world contains a lot more repression than liberation, so we should all be fans of liberty. |
| 23606 | Liberty Rights are permissions, and Claim Rights are freedom from intervention [McMahan] |
| Full Idea: There are two types of right. A Liberty right is merely a permission, meaning it is not wrong to do it. But a Claim right is a right against intervention, meaning no one has a liberty right to prevent it. | |
| From: Jeff McMahan (Killing in War [2009], 2.3) | |
| A reaction: There must also be a third type of right, which requires other people to perform actions on your behalf. If you pay for a book in a shop, you must then be given the book. |
| 21116 | Power is used to create identities and ways of life for other people [Foucault, by Shorten] |
| Full Idea: For Foucault power is less about repressing people or issuing commands, and more about producing identities and ways of living. | |
| From: report of Michel Foucault (works [1978]) by Andrew Shorten - Contemporary Political Theory 01 | |
| A reaction: I take this to be the culmination of the Hegelian view of a person, as largely created by social circumstances rather than by biology. I'm beginning to think that Foucault may be a very important philosopher - although elusive. |
| 23620 | A person or state may be attacked if they are responsible for an unjustified threat [McMahan] |
| Full Idea: It is a necessary condition of liability to defensive attack that one be morally responsible for posing an objectively unjustified threat. | |
| From: Jeff McMahan (Killing in War [2009], 4.1.1) | |
| A reaction: This implies that one may not actually be doing the threatening (but merely ordering it, or enabling it). McMahan aims to have the same criteria for wartime as for peacetime. He denies Anscombe's claim that merely posing the threat is enough. |
| 23598 | You (e.g. a police officer) are not liable to attack just because you pose a threat [McMahan] |
| Full Idea: It is false that by posing a threat to another, one necessarily makes oneself liable to defensive action. A police officer who shoots an active murderer does not thereby by make herself liable to defensive action. | |
| From: Jeff McMahan (Killing in War [2009], 1.2) | |
| A reaction: This is one of his arguments against the moral equality of combatants. It is not morally OK to shoot all the local soldiers when you unjustly invade a territory. Sounds right to me. |
| 23594 | Wars can be unjust, despite a just cause, if they are unnecessary or excessive or of mixed cause [McMahan] |
| Full Idea: Wars can be unjust despite having a just cause, because they are not actually needed, or they will cause excessive harm, or they also pursue some unjust causes. | |
| From: Jeff McMahan (Killing in War [2009], 1.1) | |
| A reaction: [compressed] The point is that older writers often think that a 'just cause' is sufficient. He is obviously right. |
| 23597 | Just war theory says all and only persons posing a threat are liable to attack [McMahan] |
| Full Idea: In mainstream just war theory (Anscombe, Nagel, Walzer) the criterion of liability to attack is simply posing a threat. Since all combatants pose a threat to each other, they are morally liable to attack; because noncombatants do not, they are not liable. | |
| From: Jeff McMahan (Killing in War [2009], 1.2) | |
| A reaction: McMahan says that the distinction between legitimate and illegitimate targets rests mostly on this basis. The problem is that a huge range of unarmed people can also pose various degrees of threat. |
| 23595 | The worst unjustified wars have no aim at all [McMahan] |
| Full Idea: The most serious reason why a war might be unjustified is that it lacks any justifying aim at all. | |
| From: Jeff McMahan (Killing in War [2009], 1.1) | |
| A reaction: It seems that Louis XIV invaded the Netherlands in around 1674 purely to enhance his own glory. That strikes me as worse. I supposed Ghenghis Khan invaded places simply because he enjoyed fighting. |
| 23619 | A defensive war is unjust, if it is responding to a just war [McMahan] |
| Full Idea: It is possible for a defensive war to be unjust, when the defensive war to which it is a response is a just war. | |
| From: Jeff McMahan (Killing in War [2009], 3.3.3) | |
| A reaction: An example might be a state resisting an intervention from outside, when the state is in the process of exterminating some unwanted minority. Or perhaps the invaders are crossing the state's territory to achieve some admirable end. |
| 23600 | Proportionality in fighting can't be judged independently of the justice of each side [McMahan] |
| Full Idea: There is simply no satisfactory understanding of proportionality in war that can be applied independently of whether the acts that are evaluated support a just or an unjust cause. | |
| From: Jeff McMahan (Killing in War [2009], 1.3) | |
| A reaction: He rejects traditional just war theory, which sees both sides as morally equal in combat, and hence equally subject to the principles of proportional response. But the just can then be harsher, when their just principles should make them milder. |
| 23603 | Can an army start an unjust war, and then fight justly to defend their own civilians? [McMahan] |
| Full Idea: There is a paradox if the unjust are justified in fighting the just in order to protect their own civilians who have been endangered by the starting of an unjust war. | |
| From: Jeff McMahan (Killing in War [2009], 2.1) | |
| A reaction: [my summary of MacMahan pp.48-49] It suggests that in a war there may be local concepts of justice which are at odds with the general situation - which is the ad bellum/in bello distinction. But this is the justice of fighting, not how it is conducted. |
| 23611 | Soldiers cannot freely fight in unjust wars, just because they behave well when fighting [McMahan] |
| Full Idea: We must stop reassuring soldiers that they act permissibly when they fight in an unjust war, provided that they conduct themselve honorably on the battlefield by fighting in accordance with the rules of engagement. | |
| From: Jeff McMahan (Killing in War [2009], 2.8) | |
| A reaction: This culminates McMahan's arguments against the moral equality of combatants, and against the sharp division of justice of war from justice in war. How rare it is for philosophy to culminate in a policy recommendation! |
| 23612 | The law of war differs from criminal law; attacking just combatants is immoral, but legal [McMahan] |
| Full Idea: Unlike domestic criminal law, the law of war is designed not to protect moral rights but to prevent harm. …This means when unjust combatants attack just combatants they violate their moral rights, yet they act within their legal rights. | |
| From: Jeff McMahan (Killing in War [2009], 3.1.1) | |
| A reaction: He says we must bring the law of war much closer to the morality of war. If there is any hope of slowly eliminating war, it may lie in reforms such as these. |
| 23617 | If the unjust combatants are morally excused they are innocent, so how can they be killed? [McMahan] |
| Full Idea: If most unjust combatants are morally innocent because they are excused, and if it is wrong to intentionally kill morally innocent people, then a contingent form of pacificism may be inescapable. | |
| From: Jeff McMahan (Killing in War [2009], 3.3.1) | |
| A reaction: A very nice argument against the moral equality of combatants. If I think we are the good guys, and the opposing troops are no morally different from us, how can I possibly kill them? |
| 23599 | You don't become a legitimate target, just because you violently resist an unjust attack [McMahan] |
| Full Idea: It is hard to see how just combatants could become legitimate targets simply by offering violent resistance to unjust attacks by unjust coombatants. | |
| From: Jeff McMahan (Killing in War [2009], 1.3) | |
| A reaction: It is, however, hard to criticise a soldier who is dragged into fighting for an unjust cause, and then kills just defenders in the course of the fight. Once the bullets fly, normal morality seems to be suspended. Just survive. |
| 23596 | If all combatants are seen as morally equal, that facilitates starting unjust wars [McMahan] |
| Full Idea: It would be naïve to doubt that the widespread acceptance of the moral equality of combatants has facilitated the ability of governments to fight unjust wars. | |
| From: Jeff McMahan (Killing in War [2009], 1.1) | |
| A reaction: The point is that their armies are both compliant and seeing their actions as guiltless, which makes them perfect tools for evil. McMahan's ideal is an army which asks sharp questions about the justification of the war, before they fight it. |
| 23604 | Volunteer soldiers accept the risk of attack, but they don't agree to it, or to their deaths [McMahan] |
| Full Idea: When soldiers go to war, they undoubtedly assume a certain risk. They voluntarily expose themselves to a significant risk of being attacked. But this is entirely different from consenting to being attacked. | |
| From: Jeff McMahan (Killing in War [2009], 2.2.1) | |
| A reaction: This is his response to Walzer's thought that soldiers resemble people who volunteer for a boxing match. The sailors at Pearl Harbour obviously didn't consent to the attack, or accept the Japanese right to kill them. |
| 23608 | If being part of a big collective relieves soldiers of moral responsibility, why not the leaders too? [McMahan] |
| Full Idea: If acting as an agent of a political collective justifies the combatants fighting an unjust war, that should also release the leaders from responsibility for their role in the fighting of that war. No one ever explains why this is not so. | |
| From: Jeff McMahan (Killing in War [2009], 2.5) | |
| A reaction: At the very least there seems to be a problem of the cut off point between innocent soldiers and culpable leaders. Which rank in the army or executive triggers the blame? |
| 23610 | If soldiers can't refuse to fight in unjust wars, can they choose to fight in just wars? [McMahan] |
| Full Idea: There is a certain symmetry here. The permissibility of disobeying a command to fight in an unjust war suggests the permissibility of disobeying a command not to fight in a just war. | |
| From: Jeff McMahan (Killing in War [2009], 2.7) | |
| A reaction: The argument considered here is that since we could never allow soldiers to choose to fight in their own wars, we similarly cannot let them opt out of the official wars. Implying obedience is absolute. Soldiers don't get to 'choose' anything! |
| 23613 | Equality is both sides have permission, or both sides are justified, or one justified the other permitted [McMahan] |
| Full Idea: Moral equality means either 1) because just combatants are permitted to fight in a just way, so are the unjust , or 2) because the just are justified, so are the unjust, or 3) because the just are justified, the unjust are therefore permitted. | |
| From: Jeff McMahan (Killing in War [2009], 3.1.2) | |
| A reaction: [summary] McMahan calls 1) the weak version, and 2) the strong. He suggests that although 3) is unusual, it is what most people believe - that if the good are justified, the bad are permitted to fight back. He rejects them all. |
| 23615 | Fighting unjustly under duress does not justify it, or permit it, but it may excuse it [McMahan] |
| Full Idea: It is said that combatants are compelled to fight; they have no choice. But duress is not a justification; nor does it ground a permission - not even a subjective permission. It is, instead, an excusing condition. | |
| From: Jeff McMahan (Killing in War [2009], 3.1.2) | |
| A reaction: The 'subjective' permission is believing you are just, even if you aren't. A nice, accurate and true distinction made by McMahan, I think. It is roughly our postwar attitude to the Nazi army. |
| 23605 | Soldiers cannot know enough facts to evaluate the justice of their war [McMahan] |
| Full Idea: When soldiers are commanded to fight, they cannot reasonably be expected to have the factual knowledge necessary to evaluate the war as just or unjust. | |
| From: Jeff McMahan (Killing in War [2009], 2.3) | |
| A reaction: This is part of the 'epistemic' justification for a soldier to fight in an unjust war. Sometimes soldiers do have enoough knowledge, especially if they join up late on in a war, when they have studied and observed its progress. |
| 23602 | Innocence implies not being morally responsible, rather than merely being guiltless [McMahan] |
| Full Idea: My alternative conception is that one is 'innocent' if one is neither morally responsible for nor guilty of a wrong. Classical theory focused on guilt, but I think we should focus on moral responsibility (which is something less). | |
| From: Jeff McMahan (Killing in War [2009], 1.4) | |
| A reaction: This seems to make the supporters of evil equally liable to attack with its perpetrators. But you can observe perpetration a lot more easily than you can observe support. |
| 23618 | Unconditional surrender can't be demanded, since evil losers still have legitimate conditions [McMahan] |
| Full Idea: Achieving unconditional surrender can never be a justification for the continuation of war, since there are always conditions that a vanquished adversary, no matter how evil, can be justified in demanding. | |
| From: Jeff McMahan (Killing in War [2009], 3.3.1) | |
| A reaction: McMahan is particularly discussing Hiroshima, but this also applies to the European war in 1945. Presumably a civilised victor will grant the conditions which the losers would have demanded, and that probably happened in 1945. It's about power. |
| 15039 | History lacks 'meaning', but it can be analysed in terms of its struggles [Foucault] |
| Full Idea: History has no 'meaning', but it is not absurd or incoherent. On the contrary, it is intelligible and should be susceptible of analysis down to the smallest detail - but this in accordance with the intelligibility of struggles, of strategies and tactics. | |
| From: Michel Foucault (Truth and Power (interview) [1976], p.116) | |
| A reaction: I take this to be an essentially Marxist view, in which one teases out the dialectical processes of any period. I can't think of a better way to approach history. The alternative is to only recount one side of the struggle, which must be bad history. |