Comments on: Justice and Justifications: The Duty to Deliberate and the “Barrel of Reasons” http://www.anotherpanacea.com/2006/02/justice-and-justifications-the-duty-to-deliberate-and-the-barrel-of-reasons/ Cure-alls and Remedies Fri, 03 Sep 2010 23:09:28 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.0.1 By: anotherpanacea http://www.anotherpanacea.com/2006/02/justice-and-justifications-the-duty-to-deliberate-and-the-barrel-of-reasons/comment-page-1/#comment-3 anotherpanacea Wed, 22 Feb 2006 16:55:00 +0000 http://www.anotherpanacea.com/wordpress/2006/02/20/justice-and-justifications-the-duty-to-deliberate-and-the-barrel-of-reasons/#comment-3 Well, the Ackerman/Fishkin proposal for a national day of deliberation is one such attempt at coerced self-justification. I don't think the US could survive if we actually coerced the content of these self-justifications. Yet we would be free create educational institutions in rhetoric and informal logic to help people differentiate between good arguments and bad ones. Even a set of instructions during deliberation about what counts as a valid justification would seem to have some dubious, but desirable, coercive value. One of the grad students at PSU once proclaimed that she voted for Bush because he has an honest face. I kid you not. The Ackerman/Fishkin proposal is about getting electoral politics to at least achieve the level of thoughtfulness required of jury deliberations. That's not asking much. Well, the Ackerman/Fishkin proposal for a national day of deliberation is one such attempt at coerced self-justification. I don’t think the US could survive if we actually coerced the content of these self-justifications. Yet we would be free create educational institutions in rhetoric and informal logic to help people differentiate between good arguments and bad ones. Even a set of instructions during deliberation about what counts as a valid justification would seem to have some dubious, but desirable, coercive value. One of the grad students at PSU once proclaimed that she voted for Bush because he has an honest face. I kid you not.

The Ackerman/Fishkin proposal is about getting electoral politics to at least achieve the level of thoughtfulness required of jury deliberations. That’s not asking much.

]]> By: specter_of_spinoza http://www.anotherpanacea.com/2006/02/justice-and-justifications-the-duty-to-deliberate-and-the-barrel-of-reasons/comment-page-1/#comment-2 specter_of_spinoza Wed, 22 Feb 2006 08:13:00 +0000 http://www.anotherpanacea.com/wordpress/2006/02/20/justice-and-justifications-the-duty-to-deliberate-and-the-barrel-of-reasons/#comment-2 In what sense is "an enforceable duty to defend your positions" enforceable? For something like this to be enforceable would seem to require a level of state intrusion that is totally unacceptable. Did you hear about this Irving fellow who was sentenced for 3 years in Austria for denying the Holocaust? Now, granted, I'm sure he had some set of reasons to cover his ass, so it's a slightly different issue. But, as offensive as Holocaust denial is, individuals should not be penalized--and certainly not imprisoned--for publishing such an opinion, reasoned or not. I don't see how giving reasons could be enforced w/o requiring some sort of restrictions on free speech. In fact, you seem to be advocating a position that would make a certain kind of silence unlawful. As someone who even opposes campus speech codes, I'd need to hear a lot more to be willing to countenance such a measure. Or am I just misunderstanding your position? In what sense is “an enforceable duty to defend your positions” enforceable? For something like this to be enforceable would seem to require a level of state intrusion that is totally unacceptable.

Did you hear about this Irving fellow who was sentenced for 3 years in Austria for denying the Holocaust? Now, granted, I’m sure he had some set of reasons to cover his ass, so it’s a slightly different issue. But, as offensive as Holocaust denial is, individuals should not be penalized–and certainly not imprisoned–for publishing such an opinion, reasoned or not.

I don’t see how giving reasons could be enforced w/o requiring some sort of restrictions on free speech. In fact, you seem to be advocating a position that would make a certain kind of silence unlawful.

As someone who even opposes campus speech codes, I’d need to hear a lot more to be willing to countenance such a measure. Or am I just misunderstanding your position?

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