Saturday, October 29, 2005

I am an anachronism?

Via Feministe. I couldn't resist.

tortured conceptual artist
You are a Tortured Conceptual Artist. Your fellow
postmodernists call you an anachronism, but
you've never cared much about the opinions of
others. After all, most of them are far too
simple-minded to appreciate the nuances of your
work. They talk, while you are part of a lived
tradition.


What kind of postmodernist are you!?
brought to you by Quizilla

I suppose it beats being a Deconstructionist Weirdo.
 

Thursday, October 27, 2005

Keep your Sox on!



I don't follow sports much, but I am a proud Chicagoan now and this is very good news:

The White Sox completed their incredible conquest Wednesday night, eliminating the final demons that haunted the franchise since their last World Series title in 1917.

They completed their stunning run in a manner that mirrored their amazingly successful season, riding the pitching of Freddy Garcia and the bullpen to a 1-0 victory over Houston and completing a four-game sweep of the 2005 World Series.

There goes my theory that every World Series is rigged so they'll go to seven games and sell all the advertising slots. And leave it to Da Mayor to waste no time in planning the celebration.

City officials planned to announce Thursday details regarding a parade and rally for the White Sox.

City Hall sources said late Wednesday that the celebration "probably" would be on Monday, beginning with a motorcade of players and their families leaving U.S. Cellular Field. The motorcade likely will wind through several Chicago neighborhoods before arriving at Grant Park for a rally.

Will it be the Cubs' turn next year?
 

Wednesday, October 26, 2005

Reflections on the Revolution in Victor

I am slowly and reluctantly realizing that I am a rather conservative Rawlsian. I find myself quoting Edmund Burke and A Theory of Justice in the same sentence (both approvingly!) and falling back on theories of the "ancient constitution" to counter contemporary democratic absolutism. All the while defending gay rights, reproductive rights and the legalization of, well, everything. Strange trip, indeed.

After this paper on constitutionalism and intergenerational justice is over I'll have to reexamine my life. But briefly, because there's a disertation to write!

... which might not soothe the angst, now that I think of it.
 

Thursday, October 20, 2005

The Phoebean condition

Cross posted at Political Arguments.

Some of the contributors to this blog are bound to get a kick out of this:

Let me say this: Hannah Arendt was super-cool. I would venture to say she might even beat Ed Koch in the smart Ashkenazi Jew department. Reading Arendt, or just reading about her, is the intellectual equivalent of seeing Amanda Peet at the City Bakery—why can't that be me? If there is, somewhere, an individual who thinks like Arendt, looks like Peet, and, say, is close friends with and thus gets free clothing from Agnes B. of agnes b., then the world is unfair, but at least I'd have my role models all rolled up into one.

I don't know who I'd roll into an all purpose role model. I get the feeling I'd end up with someone who thought like John Rawls, looked like John Rawls, and dressed like John Rawls. Not very exciting, but very, very just.
 

Tuesday, October 18, 2005

Comment of the week

Cross posted at Political Arguments.

From Reason's "Hit and Run":


Q:What do you give the girl who has everything?

A:Imperium

I thought it was funny.
 

Thursday, October 13, 2005

The little things

Bloglines has unveiled a very useful new feature. They now display new and saved posts separately on the feeds list, separated by a colon.

If none of this is comprehensible to you, then you are still safe. Walk away now. There is still hope for you.

It was originally a bit confusing to me, since, in my line of work, numbers in the form 15:3 usually mean "volume 15, issue 3" in a journal. But I eventually figured it out. It means "fifteen new posts, three saved ones." Aha!

This is good because now you don't have to go clicking through your feeds to know whether you've already read those ten Becker-Posner posts, or if the folks at Crooked Timber have put up anything new in the last two hours.

Not revolutionary, but useful nonetheless.
 

Sunday, October 09, 2005

Ombudsing

The latest issue of The University of Chicago Magazine ran a piece on the Office of the Student Ombudsperson, which I currently head. The article was written by Hana Yoo, a student in the College and a summer intern at the Magazine.

It is an office of the students, by the students, and for the students. Student staffed and answering only to the University president, the ombudsperson?s office, "cutting red tape since 1968," as its motto goes, bills itself as the first of its kind in the country. The ombudsperson and associate ombudsperson investigate complaints on a case-by-case basis and recommend institutional changes.

Hana did a good job, and I'm very proud of the work that the Office does.
 

Saturday, October 08, 2005

What though the field be lost?

We are reminded by Tyler Cowen that today is the three hundred and thirty first anniversary of John Milton's death. From Paradise Lost:

"... What though the field be lost?
All is not lost—the unconquerable will,
And study of revenge, immortal hate,
And courage never to submit or yield:
And what is else not to be overcome?
That glory never shall his wrath or might
Extort from me. To bow and sue for grace
With suppliant knee, and deify his power
Who, from the terror of this arm, so late
Doubted his empire—that were low indeed;
That were an ignominy and shame beneath
This downfall; since, by fate, the strength of Gods,
And this empyreal sybstance, cannot fail;
Since, through experience of this great event,
In arms not worse, in foresight much advanced,
We may with more successful hope resolve
To wage by force or guile eternal war,
Irreconcilable to our grand Foe,
Who now triumphs, and in th' excess of joy
Sole reigning holds the tyranny of Heaven."

Wednesday, October 05, 2005

Spirit of #76

Via Jacob Levy (who isn't blogging, really!), we get Lawrence Solum ventriloquizing Alexander Hamilton's opinion on Miers... from beyond the graaaaaave!. In fact, it's from Federalist #76. But never have <b>, <u>, and <font=color> had a funnier effect.

Dan Drezner also collects a number of very pointed remarks from the right side of the blogosphere. Let's just hope that the Miers farce convinces moderate Republicans and libertarian fellow-travellers to bail on this president. Maybe the "War on Terror" is just the thing to provoke a realignment in American politics. It's long overdue.
 

The word from Chicago

Cross posted at Political Arguments.

For folks outside the Windy city, here's the opinion of two University of Chicago professors on the Miers nomination. Geoffrey R. Stone—former Dean of the U of C Law School—points out that Miers is grossly underqualified for the position when measured against her potential brethren currently sitting on the Court.

Nominees to the Supreme Court are supposed to be individuals with serious records of achievement in the law. Consider those who have been confirmed over the last quarter century:

  • John Roberts, Harvard Law School, law clerk to Justice William Rehnquist, among the finest appellate advocates in the nation.

  • Stephen Breyer, law clerk to Justice Arthur Goldberg, distinguished scholar of constitutional and administrative law at Harvard Law School, judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals for 15 years.

  • Ruth Bader Ginsburg, professor at Columbia Law School, one of the nation's leading Supreme Court advocates, judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals for 13 years.

  • Clarence Thomas, Yale Law School, chairman of U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals.

  • David Souter, Rhodes scholar, Harvard Law School, justice of the New Hampshire Supreme Court, judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals.

  • Anthony Kennedy, Harvard Law School, professor of constitutional law for 23 years, judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals for 13 years.

  • Antonin Scalia, influential scholar of constitutional and administrative law at the University of Chicago, judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals for five years.
  • Sandra Day O'Connor, Stanford Law School, majority leader of the Arizona Senate, state court judge for six years.


I wholeheartedly agree. Some Levellers will argue against using academic or professional credentials as proxies for judicial talent. I would ask them for an alternative. There is no one route to the High Bench, but whatever route is taken should reflect excellence, both for the effect it has on the work of the Justices and for the respect it inspires in the legal profession and the citizenry.

Take legal education. Top law schools are able to draw the best legal scholars and a very excellent pool of students. The atmosphere created at these law schools is of markedly hig quality, even if, arguendo its superiority was the result of institutional injustice. The solution then would be to repair those injustices, not to disregard excelence in scholarship. It should come as no surprise that the current Justices of the Court hail from Harvard, Yale, Stanford, Columbia, and Northwestern, or that many of them taught at those same schools. It is something to be welcomed and cherished.

The same goes for judicial experience, whether on the bench or as a law clerk at a top Appelate Court. The challenge faced by the cases that reach the highest stages in the most contentious Circuits—or, of course, the Supreme Court itself—fosters an important set of skills that we should value in a Justice. Now, I admit, these are not the only useful skills that a Justice should have. Experience in the legislature (O'Connor) or at high levels of executive administration (Thomas) are extremely helpful to have in a court that is constantly called upon to pass judgment on legislative and executive actions. But the Dallas City Council? The Texas Lottery Commission? Not quite the same, is it?

On a different note, Gerald Rosenberg—who is in my department and for whose Intoduction to Constitutional Law I TA'ed a few years ago—argues that the whole debate about Miers's views on substantive issues misses the point.

The real debate is not about Miers' views on abortion, executive power or states rights. It is about the role of the Supreme Court in American society. Should it strike down acts of Congress with which five of its members disagree? Should it interpret ambiguous constitutional language in opposition to congressional majorities? Should it attempt to resolve controversial political and moral debates to save the country from turmoil?

Miers' views on particular substantive issues only matter to the extent that these questions are answered in the affirmative.


I think Rosenberg is right on the empirical point that the Court has not been the diving force that activists on both sides of the aisle take it to be. But is has intervened in many controversies and its influence, however derivative and reactive, is an element of public deliberation. So, given that the Court has acted in politics, however improperly, is it sufficient that it simply abstain from future action? Are there not soime decisions that should be overturned, if they were illegitimately decided? Marbury may be hard to get rid of—assuming one would want to (I, for one have nothing against it)—but some others can surely be revisited (e.g. Wickard v. Filburn). Won't charges of judicial activism and illegitimate meddlesomeness be raised against such backtracking?

None of this means Rosenberg's wrong. It only means that the catch-22 of judicial review may be insurmountable, or may take a considerably longer time to be set right.
 

Monday, October 03, 2005

Sayre-McCord on Moral Realism

Cross posted at Political Arguments.

The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy has a new entry on "Moral Realism" by none other than Geoffrey Sayre-McCord, one of the most important living metaethicians. I haven't read it yet, but will do so first thing tomorrow morning. It opens thus:

Taken at face value, the claim that Nigel has a moral obligation to keep his promise, like the claim that Nyx is a black cat, purports to report a fact and is true if things are as the claim purports. Moral realists are those who think that, in these respects, things should be taken at face value ? moral claims do purport to report facts and are true if they get the facts right. Moreover, they hold, at least some moral claims actually are true. That much is the common (and more or less defining) ground of moral realism.

For purely autobiographical reasons, I think I'll find it interesting to look back at moral realism, which I once thought self-evident, and trace the process by which I became a constructivist, and by which I came to think of constructivism as a form of non-realism (and not just another way to get to realism).

By the way, I highly recommend SayreMcCord's edited volume Essays on Moral Realism. I first read it in a grad seminar with Nick Sturgeon—which at the time went straight over my undergraduate head—but I've gone back to it many times since. In fact, I think I'll pick it up right now, than you very much.
 

Justice Miers it is

Cross posted at Political Arguments.

Bush has nominated White House Counsel Harriet Miers to the Supreme Court. Miers has no judicial experience at any level—state or federal—and no elective experience except for one term in the Dallas City Council.

This could make for interesting cases, but I'm too attached to the civil-law idea of a judicial career to think it's a bonus. Judging requires acertain temperament, which is best cultivated through many years of practice. The Supreme Court, of course, is the least typical of all courts, but I'm not sure that reinforcing this exceptionalism (as through the appointment of people wholly outside the judicial system) is a good thing either.

The most revealing element of the nomination, to be sure, is that it continues to show the Bush White House as a loyalty-obsessed club. Bush's personal lawyer in Texas is elevated to White House Council and from there to the highest court in the land. Ultimately, such personalized politics can't be good for the GOP (not to say the country); even if they confer a short-term strategic advantage, as soon as an internal rift appears in the party ranks it will reverberate ever more loudly across the entire political system.