The Legal Basis for Killing U.S. Citizens in Al Qaeda

Administration lawyers have asserted that it would be lawful to kill a United States citizen if “an informed, high-level official” of the government decided that the target was a ranking figure in Al Qaeda who posed “an imminent threat of violent attack against the United States” and if his capture was not feasible, according to a 16-page document made public on Monday.

The white paper is available here.

Army Deploys Soldiers Accused of Felonies

"Deploying troops accused of felonies is one of a growing list of accomodations, ranging from airport body scans to uncharged detainees at Guatanamo Bay, that the United States has made in the past decade to fight terrorism. And it is one with an ironic twist:The effor to impose civil order abroad is eroding the rights of some at home."

Read the article here.

Recap – Lessons 7-9

Socrates’ turn to ethical questions on how one should live a good life was characterized by (1) the subjects of his inquiry, for example, in The Republic, the question what is justice?; and (2) the technique he employed – dialectic – which provided an example of how one should authentically seek knowledge. Compared to the technique employed by the sophists, which was to “win” an argument without particular regard for the truth, dialectic was both more collaborative and more open-ended. It could also be more frustrating, as the discussions rendered by Plato didn’t always yield a definitive conclusion, and we’re often left to develop our own answers.

That was the case after our first reading from The Republic. Your answers to the question, what is justice?, clustered around the notions of it being external and based on punishment and reward. As we read, Socrates dealt with similar formulations from Cephalus, Polemarchus, Thrasymachus, and Glaucon. Each fell short of providing a satisfactory conception. Glaucon proposed perhaps the greatest challenge to any conception of justice by retelling the story of Gyges Ring: what would you do if you could get away with anything?

To answer, Socrates and his companions undertake an elaborate thought experiment where they build a city from scratch, the goal being to first identify where justice resides in the city, then to find analogues in the individual. Our second reading from The Republic described the virtues – wisdom, courage, and moderation – as they appear in both the city and the soul. Justice, it’s finally agreed, is harmony among these virtues, with each performing its function to sustain that balance.

Since justice is internal and not purely motivated by reward and punishment, Socrates and Plato have to take up the final task of answering why one should be just. By way of explaining, Socrates relates the allegory of the cave, which you skillfully rendered for your third assignment. As a metaphor for Plato’s theory of knowledge (the divided line), the story relays the struggle entailed for humans to break free from the comforts of illusion. There’s also a caution: sharing newly acquired wisdom may be hazardous to your health. The allegory also contains a mystery, which some of you identified: who freed the prisoner, and what was his/her status?

What is Justice?

Here are the results from the discussions last class on how you would define justice:

Justice is...

1st Period – getting what one deserves in terms of punishment and reward; karma

2nd Period – the fair, balanced and reasonable distribution of “stuff”

3rd Period – the fair dispersal of rewards and punishment

4th Period – the perception of what’s due; the permissibility of making honest mistakes

So for the most part, justice is something external that is done to you, and it’s evenhanded.

When we talked about the Ancient Greek religion (what we refer to now as the Greek myths), we talked about how the myths coalesced into a shared heritage of ancestral memories relayed down generations and later, how they formed patterns of belief that gave meaning to life and formed the basis of moral codes.

One of those patterns might be reflected in your conception of justice, the mythopoeic ethic. In Greek mythology, the “moral of the story” often revolved around punishment and reward: please the gods and be rewarded; oppose the gods and standby for punishment.

Perhaps there’s some resonance between your conception of justice and your life here at the Academy. We’ll see what Socrates has to say about that…

The Republic - Reading Guide I

How to use the reading guide:

The first reading from The Republic is broken down into sections of argument (using the Stephanus pagination). Identify the main points of each section and follow the flow of the overall dialogue as the participants move from one argument to the next.