phlogma

the point of the death penalty
The meaning of capital punishment—insofar as it has a meaning and is not a reflex—is concerned with the distribution of responsibility. The field of responsibility is limited to moral agents. Constituted authorities are not moral agents. Individuals, who are, may or may not be missing the requisite nerve. Usually, they […]

O’Neill addresses the Kantian moral concepts of not treating others as means (i.e., using them) and treating them positively as persons, how these are related, and finally how “an adequate understanding of what it is to treat others as persons must view them not abstractly as possibly consenting adults, but as particular men and women with limited and determinate capacities to understand or consent to proposals of action.” The Kantian moral ideal so far as it has practical application must take account of human limitations.

Notes on Mill, On Liberty, chapter 5
Self-sale into slavery
Not only persons are not held to engagements which violate the rights of third parties, but it is sometimes considered a sufficient reason for releasing them from an engagement, that it is injurious to themselves. In this and most other civilized countries, for example, an engagement by […]

Notes on Immanuel Kant, The Philosophy of Law (1796)
There are, however, two crimes worthy of death, in respect of which it still remains doubtful whether the Legislature have the Right to deal with them capitally.
And since they cannot be dealt with “capitally,” they cannot, on Kantian terms, quite be seen as murder.
It is the sentiment […]

Notes on Kant, “Theory and Practice,” part 2
From the concluding section:
It thus follows that all resistance against the supreme legislative power, all incitement of the subjects to violent expressions of discontent, all defiance which breaks out into rebellion, is the greatest and most punishable crime in a commonwealth, for it destroys its very foundations. This […]

Notes on:
Matthias Steup, “A Defense of Internalism”
310
Steup takes “internalism to be the view that J-factors [things that make beliefs justified or not] must be directly recognizable, that is recognizable on reflection.” The idea is that if one has available now, or could deduce from what is available now, information to justify a belief then one […]

Certain analogies between moral and epistemological problems

Reactions to Robert C. Solomon’s views on sentimentality

Notes on Jean Hampton’s moral educationist theory of punishment

Why mother’s may kill, but governments may not…