Posted by alexandra_k on August 18, 2014, at 21:04:56
In reply to Re: another year..., posted by alexandra_k on August 18, 2014, at 20:24:23
the stuff we are doing now in law is so weird. it is like a parallel universe or something to philosophy...
i guess philosophy focuses on theories of morality, primarily. we need to start out distinguishing what is the case from what should be the case... how you can't get an 'ought' from an 'is' and... depending on how many law students you have in the room... distinguishing legality from morality. cases like... how it might be illegal to drive on the incorrect side of the road but how it isn't obvious that it would be immoral to do so... how morality might prescribe that one break an unjust law... and of course hitler cases (just following orders etc) to try and show how what is legal and what is moral can be quite different...
but law focuses on theories of (surprise surprise) law. but it sort of runs together morality / legality... thinking that law gets its authority from morality or something like that... or that what is moral has something to do with what is lawful... on some correct understanding of 'lawful' (where some laws might be illegitimate somehow if they seem to be immoral). weird... and we got a hitler case... an informant. who informed on her husband for him saying nasty things about hitler and he was sentenced to the front line... and her trial in her defense... she said she was following the laws at the time informing on her husband... and intuition was supposed to be that she was immoral (hence guilty of something) and so they found some prior law that made the law she claimed she was following illegitimate. so they said that the prior law... well... she was guilty under that. so... guilty.
and i'm confused as hell... because people simply are gossipy gossipy gossips. and i don't understand why she (horribly immoral woman) wasn't given a bit f*ck*ng slap on the hand and told to go away... and really... the judge who sentenced her husband to the front line... well... he's the one guilty of depriving him of his liberty if anyone is.
scapegoating the bottomfeeders. mmm hmm.
anyway... i was the only person in the class who had the intuition that informants are... should be... innocent. in hindsight. i mean.
'just following orders' (to justify things like murder) is different. is differnt from her (say) telling a judge that x and the judge chooses to use x to try and justify.... say... murder...) i just don't see how we can or should make laws about gossipy gossip gossips... so very hard to enforce. but then i guess we have slander / libel laws or whatever... but that is about telling lies... so different again...
i just don't see...
poster:alexandra_k
thread:1069972
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/social/20140718/msgs/1069977.html