Combining Texts

Ideas for 'The Social Contract (tr Cress)', 'Creating Capabilities' and 'Critique of Judgement I: Aesthetic'

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9 ideas

25. Social Practice / D. Justice / 1. Basis of justice

21009	Capabilities: Life, Health, Safety, Mental life, Love, Planning, Joining in, Nature, Play, Control [Nussbaum, by PG]
	Full Idea: Ten Capabilities: Life (decent), Health (reproduction, shelter), Safety, Mental life (with education), Love (relationships), Planning (with free beliefs), Joining in (and non-discrimination), Nature (relations to), Play, Control (politics and property).
	From: report of Martha Nussbaum (Creating Capabilities [2011], 2) by PG - Db (ideas)
	A reaction: She gives her crucial list in rather wordy form. To have impact it needs to be reduced to brief simple slogans.

21010	Justice requires that the ten main capabilities of people are reasonably enabled [Nussbaum]
	Full Idea: The basic claim of my account of social justice is this: respect for human dignity requires that citizens be placed above an ample (specified) threshold of capability in all ten of the areas.
	From: Martha Nussbaum (Creating Capabilities [2011], 2)
	A reaction: [The capabilities are given, briefly, in Idea 21009] The one word that bothers me here is 'dignity'. It is very vague, and can, I think, be reduced to much clearer and more obvious concepts. A person lacks dignity when they vomit, in ordinary usage.

21013	Capabilities are grounded in bare humanity and agency; qualifying as rational is not needed [Nussbaum]
	Full Idea: The capabilities approach grounds rights claims in bare human birth and minimal agency, not in rationality or any other specific property, something that permits it to recognise the equal human rights of people with cognitive disabilities.
	From: Martha Nussbaum (Creating Capabilities [2011], 3)
	A reaction: She says elsewhere that she also sees animals as included in the capabilities approach. This is a rejection of the Kantian grounds for rights (by a well-known Aristotelian).

21014	Rights are not just barriers against state interference; governments must affirm capabilities of citizens [Nussbaum]
	Full Idea: A prominent idea, common in the U.S., sees rights as barriers against interfering state action. ...The Capabilities Approach, by contrast, insists that all entitlements involve an affirmative task for government, to actively support capabilities.
	From: Martha Nussbaum (Creating Capabilities [2011], 3)
	A reaction: This makes her approach very left wing, by U.S. standards, because it needs higher taxation and a degree of government paternalism. Her approach strikes me as an excellent agenda for a fairly interventionist European liberal party.

25. Social Practice / D. Justice / 2. The Law / a. Legal system

19819	The state ensures liberty, so civil law separates citizens, and binds them to the state [Rousseau]
	Full Idea: The relationship of members to each other should be as small as possible, and as large as possible to the entire body. ...Only the force of the state brings about the liberty of its members. From this relationship civil laws arise.
	From: Jean-Jacques Rousseau (The Social Contract (tr Cress) [1762], II.12)
	A reaction: I'm guessing that these laws could be said mainly to prescribe both our rights and our duties. His four types of law are political, civil, criminal, and customary.

25. Social Practice / D. Justice / 2. The Law / c. Natural law

7245	Natural justice, without sanctions, benefits the wicked, who exploit it [Rousseau]
	Full Idea: The laws of natural justice, lacking any natural sanctions, are unavailing among men. In fact, such laws merely benefit the wicked and injure the just, since the just respect them while others do not do so in return.
	From: Jean-Jacques Rousseau (The Social Contract (tr Cress) [1762], II.06)
	A reaction: This seems a very accurate observation, and points us towards either contracts, or a justification of the use of force by good people.

25. Social Practice / D. Justice / 3. Punishment / a. Right to punish

19809	We accept the death penalty to prevent assassinations, so we must submit to it if necessary [Rousseau]
	Full Idea: Whoever wills the end also wills the means. ...The death penalty inflicted on criminals can be viewed from more or less this point of view. It is in order to avoid being the victim of an assassin that a person consents to die, were he to become one.
	From: Jean-Jacques Rousseau (The Social Contract (tr Cress) [1762], II.05)
	A reaction: This seems to be roughly the spirit in which Socrates submitted to his death. I doubt whether many criminals agree with harsh punishments dished out to other criminals who get caught.

19810	A trial proves that a criminal has broken the social treaty, and is no longer a member of the state [Rousseau]
	Full Idea: The legal proceeding and judgement are the proofs and the declaration that a criminal has broken the social treaty, and consequently that he is no longer a member of the state.
	From: Jean-Jacques Rousseau (The Social Contract (tr Cress) [1762], II.05)
	A reaction: This seems to be a plausible rationalisation of capital punishment, but what about lesser crimes. Is the interior of a prison a sort of temporary exile from the state? Hence the significance of whether prisoners are allowed to vote. But 19811.

25. Social Practice / D. Justice / 3. Punishment / c. Deterrence of crime

19811	Only people who are actually dangerous should be executed, even as an example [Rousseau]
	Full Idea: There is no wicked man who could not be made good for something. One has the right to put to death, even as an example, only someone who cannot be preserved without danger.
	From: Jean-Jacques Rousseau (The Social Contract (tr Cress) [1762], II.05)
	A reaction: This formulation implies that we could execute a dangerous person as a deterrent, even though they were not guilty of this particular crime. I suspect that Rousseau was too nice to go through with that.