PLPT 3030 Midterm

What is the 'decision'? (Schmitt)

"He [the sovereign] decides: (1) whether there is an extreme emergency as well as (2) what must be done to eliminate it"

What is Schmitt's tagline?

"Sovereign is he who decides on the exception"

Slave morality - reaction

'Evil' is a term slaves use to describe the masters (wicked, cruel, insatiable, godless), 'good' is an afterthought, a term they use to describe themselves (Christian virtues, humility, community, non-egosim) - "THEY are EVIL"

Master morality - action

'Good' is a term masters use to describe themselves (nobles, strength, passion, happiness), 'bad' is an afterthought, a term they use to describe the lesser-than class (plebeians, poor, weak) - "WE are GOOD"

Weber's view of the modern world

- "Disenchanted" - God is dead, professors do not have all the answers, similar to Nietzche in terms of you have to come to your own conclusions and give yourself an own sense of morality - Modern culture is continuously enriched by ideas, knowledge, and problems. Because of this progress, human lives lost meaning which used to be drawn from the organic cycle of life. Instead, continuous progress makes every meaning human tries to impose into something provisional

What is the 'exception'? (Schmitt)

- A case of extreme peril, danger to the state - "What characterizes an exception is principally unlimited authority, which means the suspension of the entire existing order" - Assumes an opposite of normalcy

How does Weber view the ethics of absolute ends and responsibility?

- A good leader needs to know when to use each one, neither is superior it depends on the situation - They are "not absolute contrasts but rather supplements, which only in unison constitute.... A man who can have 'the calling for politics'"

Where do you see ressentiment operational in U.S. politics or culture today?

An example of modern day ressentiment is in the election of Donald Trump as President in 2016, who mobilized a populist movement by tapping into the resentments of many working-class Americans.

What is work?

Artificial world of things, worldliness, distinct from nature, homo faber- fabrication of durable artifacts

What is labor?

Biological processes of the human body, life itself, perpetuation of species, animal laborans- laboring in order to physically survive (though the location of animal laborans shifts over the course of Arendt's story)

What is Nietzsche's tagline?

Question everything!

What is Arendt's conception of politics? (Concise)

Speech and action combine to disclose newness; action matters more than consequences; action is superior to laboring and fabrication.

What does Brown believe?

The economic sphere/neoliberalism/ "homo oeconomicus" is taking over all spheres of life, including education and politics which is a bad thing especially for democracy

What did the rise of the nation state bring?

The modern world → the social

Effective Altruism

Using our resources to help others; thinking not only of yourself but of how others may be affected by something

What does Walzer believe about the concept of Dirty Hands?

- A politician must be willing to acknowledge the value of getting their hands dirty and how it is wrong while facing the repercussions - Any crime done by a politician → consequences - Do utilitarian/duties of office + acknowledge the value of following moral rules = dirty hands

Nietzsche vs. Singer - similarities

- About individuals - About morality - Desire to shake up received wisdom - Desire to shake up liberalism

What does human plurality enable?

- Action and speech - For politics to happen you need human plurality

What are four key aspects of action and speech?

- Action and speech are unpredictable because they happen within the "web" of action and speech by others - Action and speech involve being the hero rather than the author of your story - Action and speech are more important than motivations or consequences - Action and speech enact power, which differs from strength and violence

According to Weber, what can or cannot science do and why?

- Can give us scientific frameworks and models - Cannot tell us what to value - only facts - Can tell us origins of phenomena but not the value the phenomena has

How can we interpret "Sovereign is he who decides on the exception" in critical and normative sense?

- Critical argument: how to locate sovereignty (argument about normal times) - Normative argument: how sovereignty should be organized (life is unpredictable - precise details of an emergency cannot be anticipated nor can the details)

What are some criticisms of Dirty Hands?

- Deriving hypotheticals - ticking bomb is unrealistic because it's not a little bit of torture once, it's hard to stop the ball if its rolling - If the system wants torture then it is a torturing system - In order to punish politicians the public must also get our hands dirty → chain/cycle of punishment keeps going

What did the social consist of?

- Expansion due to the rise of the nation-state. - Economic issues become public concern. - Conformity. - The family as a model for the nation. - Activities connected to survival appear in public (46) - Behavior/behaviorism. - Statistics. - "national housekeeping."

Why does Schmitt appeal if he supported Nazism?

- He is a critic of liberalism and constitutionalism - Focused on security and needs to take drastic action - Believes in preventing the executive from always doing what they want - When there isn't a threat: the sovereign should let everyone do whatever they want

What responsibilities does Dirty Hands create for democratic publics?

- Impeachment, voting out of office = institutional - Public pressure → protest - our responsibility as democratic citizens to hold democratic values (right to protest) - Democratic values → punishment because moral responsibility us on us and political responsibility is on politicians

What are the main differences between the ethic of absolute ends and the ethic of responsibility?

- Intentions: good intentions following moral rules / "must be wiling to pay the price" - Pertinent values: Christian values / necessity - Regarding truth: be truthful/ promote the truth emerging• - Responsibility: does not ask for consequences / results are attributed to actions

What are some of Schmitt's main criticisms of liberalism?

- Liberalism is based on an abstract concept of individualism that ignores the importance of community, tradition, and identity - Liberalism is too focused on rationalism and the rule of law, which ignores the role of emotions, passion, and intuition in politics - Liberalism is based on a false assumption of neutrality and impartiality, which leads to a lack of political engagement and a disconnection between the rulers and the ruled - Liberalism's emphasis on capitalism and economic growth leads to a focus on efficiency and productivity at the expense of other values

Weber's ideal politician

- Male - Not concerned with going to heaven - Understands duty to his people - Acts responsibly and accepts consequences - Have a cause - cause and how the politician strives to use power is a matter of faith (you must have an cause external to yourself) - Must recognize ethics of responsibility

How is Nietzsche both a hero to racist white nationalists like Spencer and a source of theoretical resources for Brown and others on the Left who want to criticize Spencer?

- Nietzsche isn't interested in politics narrowly understood - He doesn't do political theory in a typical (or easily understandable) way - He is interested in the idea that our moralities come from history → Genealogy of Moralities

What is the aim of politics for Arendt? What is it not?

- Point of politics is not instrumental (get things done) - violence is better for that - Aim of politics is to bring newness into the world - to act is to begin - When engaging in speech and action people show who they are, not what they are - uniqueness not generic character traits

Why study Hanisch and CRC?

- Possible examples of alternatives to Homo Oeconomicus - Theorize the relationship between politics and personal life - Explain/enact one way to do political theory

What does the ancient world consist of?

- Public/polis/Action/Politics (freedom, power of speech, equality) - Private/household/Labor (deprivation, hierarchy, violence/command)

What does Arendt refer to when saying "Our newest experiences and most recent fears"

- Rapid development of science - scientists "move in a world where speech has lost its power" ideas so complicated they cannot be put into words → cannot be part of politics if cannot be spoken about - Because our society has free time due to new developments, we won't know how to use it - No longer have the capacity to engage in meaningful activities in our free time

Singer vs. CRC/Hanisch - differences

- Singer focuses on morally changing people's minds, CRC/Hanisch focus on oppression and how power operates - Singer focuses on changing people's personal decisions, CRC/Hanisch focus on showing why "personal" problems can only be addressed collectively - Singer draws on hypotheticals. CRC/Hanisch draw on first-hand experience

Nietzsche vs. Singer - differences

- Singer looks to religion/traditional morality for backup, Nietzche does not - Singer seeks to implement a moral system; Nietzche seeks to call one into question - Singer's is a normative question about what to do, Nietzche's is primarily a critical move to show how morality has shaped us- what has led to it and what its effects are

What were the negative aspects of the rise of the social influencing politics?

- Smaller - Violence to defend the social - Porous border with the social sphere

What was the effect of the social on the political and private spheres?

- Social overtook political and private - Private sphere of the household transforms → more about intimacy than labor - Realm of social is associated with work - Social is mostly bad, some kinds of work are bad but some are necessary and good - Less of the kind of politics Arendt wants

What did the transition from private/household (ancient) → labor/intimate (modern) mean?

- Some kinds of labor - Privacy (good) - Love, intimacy - Individuality - Now sometimes called the 'intimate sphere'

What is power to Arendt?

- Springs up between men when they act together and go away when they disperse - Collective - enabled by the political realm, not about domination but about making things happen - Violence > Power - Strength > Violence - Power > Strength

How does Weber define politics?

- The State, defined by its means (violence) - Violence determines the peculiarity of all ethical problems of politics, political actions have unintended effects

Singer v. CRC/Hanisch - similarities

- The status quo/our typical ways of doing things must be radically changed - Individuals (rather than governments) can play a major role making change

Why does Nietzsche's main question of 'what values do our moral values have?' matter?

- The things we call good are not entirely good - some values people hold are only held only because it benefits those above them - People have taken the value of these 'values' as given, as factual, as beyond all questioning." This is why "we need a critique of moral values" - He is saying there are underlying power/interest relationship behind values we hold and we must be conscious of it

What does Walzer believe politicians should do?

- Utilitarianism/duties of office - Prevent kidnappings - Get elected o to serve constituents - Prevent bombs - Follow moral rules - No assassinations - No accepting bribes - No torture

Utilitarianism and negative utilitarianism

- Utilitarianism: promote the greatest good for the greatest number (can be specified in different ways) - Negative utilitarianism: reduce the most suffering for the most people

What does it mean when Weber says "the ultimate possible attitudes toward life are irreconcilable"

- Values contradict → we are the ones who have to choose and bear those consequences - "... and hence their struggle can never be brought to a final conclusion"

Supreme emergency

- Walzer - An extraordinary event that threatens a political community/society and justifies breaking moral laws to preserve the nation - Only event where the murder of attackers is warranted - Imminent threat: no other means to an end - Number of people killed < number of deaths prevented

Dirty hands

- Walzer - Some people have political obligations to meet and that obligation can be wrong in terms of morals - Any act a politician commits can cause them to have dirty hands

What are the 9 objections to Singer's argument?

1. Not realistic 2. He is too focused on money! 3. Aid organizations are corrupt, ineffective, etc. 4. That's just his opinion! 5. It's my money I can do with it what I want. 6. He's asking us to do too much ("demandingness objection") 7. Ignores/covers over past and ongoing harm. 8. Renders poor/disaster-affected people as helpless victims. 9. Leaves structures that perpetuate extreme poverty and wealth untouched (and relies on them)

What are the answers to Weber's three main questions?

1. Professor's training offers them no special insight on questions of value 2. Scientists must appeal to their own ultimate values and use interpretation to discern the value of scientific endeavor for themselves. Science cannot explain why science is worthwhile 3. Instrumental reasoning, clearer, more logical thinking, "self-clarification" of moral conflicts/questions

What are Weber's three main questions?

1. Why shouldn't professors make partisan speeches in the classroom? 2. What is the value of doing science for the individual scientist? 3. What is the value of science for humanity as a whole?

What is more meaningful than fabrication?

Action is more meaningful than fabrication (even fabrication by geniuses).

How do Hanisch and the CRC describe the activity of doing political theory?

Both Hanisch and the CRC viewed political theory as a means of understanding and challenging power structures and advocating for social change. They recognized the importance of theorizing from the perspectives of those most directly affected by oppression and emphasized the need for feminist theory to be grounded in the experiences of marginalized communities.

Economization

Brown, examples: degrees focused on making money, national obsession with stock market

Neoliberalism

Brown, governing rationality that has turned society economically focused

Intersectionality

CRC, being a black woman is different from being a black man or white woman because of overlapping oppression

What could Arendt be classified as politically?

Civic Republican or Agonistic Democrat

Ressentiment

Defines as a shifting of moral values as the slave morality dominates the master morality

What is Weber, Walzer, and Schmitt's conception of politics? (Concise)

Focus on political leaders of states; violence is central to politics; politics is about making hard/decisive and (for Weber and Walzer) tragic decisions.

Singer's main argument

Give all that you can, it is your duty to prevent evil

What is Weber's tagline?

Life is tragic...deal with it!

What is Brown's tagline?

Homo oeconomicus is taking over!

What are the three aspects of Vita Activa?

Labor, work, and action

Brown's main argument

Neoliberalism is destroying democracy and downplaying the true value of a liberal arts education

Do conventional Christian values (as Nietzsche conceives of them) discourage the pursuit of individual excellence? Is that good/bad/indifferent?

Nietzsche does critique conventional Christian values as promoting a morality of weakness and slave mentality, which he sees as inhibiting the pursuit of individual excellence. According to Nietzsche, Christian morality encourages people to deny their own desires and instincts in favor of conformity and submission to authority, leading to a society of mediocrity and conformity.

How are Nietzsche's ideas useful for diagnosing/critiquing/unmasking aspects of contemporary politics?

Nietzsche's critique of morality as a form of social control can be applied to contemporary politics, particularly in the context of identity politics and the culture wars. Nietzsche argued that morality is a tool used by the powerful to maintain their power and control over the masses. In contemporary politics, this can be seen in the use of moral rhetoric to mobilize and manipulate various groups, including the use of identity politics to promote the interests of certain groups while silencing dissenting voices.

What is action?

Plurality, politics, history, natality

What is Arendt's tagline?

Politics is speech and action!

What does "the personal is political" mean for Hanisch?

She believed personal struggles and experiences could not be separated from larger social and political structures that perpetuated inequality and injustice. She saw the feminist movement as a way to connect personal experiences to political action and social change.

What is Arendt's conception of politics?

She believes participating in political action is the best use of your time - most noble thing you can do is engage in politics

What is Hanisch/CRC's tagline?

The person is political

Is Weber's fact/value distinction too stark? Are facts always "value-laden"? How and to what extent are values already embedded in concepts? Can they be entirely excluded? Should they be?

Values are often embedded in concepts, and it is difficult to separate them entirely from objective facts but this does not mean that values should be entirely excluded from discussions of facts. Instead, it is important to recognize the ways in which values are embedded in concepts and to acknowledge their role in shaping our understanding of the world.

What are the two aspects of The Human Condition? (Arendt)

Vita Contemplativa and Vita Activa

What is Walzer's main question?

What should political leaders should do when faced with existential threats to communities - is it commit acts of violence?

What is the CRC's critique of white feminism?

White feminist approach is exclusive, fails to acknowledge the existence of intersectionality

What is Singer's tagline?

You ought to because you can