Activity last six months
Debates 4
Judges make law in hard cases, and pretending they discover it does more harm than good
DebateFor 2 · Against 3
LawAmericanAnalyticH. L. A. HartRonald Dworkin#hard-cases#judicial-discretion#legal-realism#open-texture
6 repliesA role-based ethics gives too little protection to the person the roles are failing
DebateFor 1 · Against 2
Moral theoriesChineseIndianJapanese & KoreanConfucianismMohismB. R. AmbedkarConfucius#ambedkar#dissent#remonstrance#role-ethics
6 repliesThe Gita’s svadharma cannot be cleanly separated from varṇa, and readers should face Ambedkar’s reading
DebateFor 2 · Against 2
Religions comparedIndianMimamsaVedantaAdi ShankaraB. R. Ambedkar#ambedkar#bhagavad-gita#svadharma#varna
6 repliesQuestions 5
Capabilities or the social model: which better tells a city what it owes disabled residents?
Should judges interpret constitutions by their original meaning?
What’s the difference between negative and positive liberty?
What is pragma-dialectics, and what makes a “critical discussion” different from ordinary arguing?
What is threshold deontology, and isn’t it just consequentialism with extra steps?
Discussions 2
Recent replies
- Privacy as a virtue, not just a right
I like this. Legal rights depend on people valuing what the right protects. If nobody practises privacy, courts will eventually decide there's no "reasonable expectation" of it. In that…
- What does “intersectionality” mean philosophically, beyond the slogan?
Crenshaw's 1989 paper, "Demarginalizing the Intersection of Race and Sex", started from cases like DeGraffenreid v. General Motors (1976). Black women sued for discrimination. The court…
- Is there a coherent left-wing case for private property?
The Indian constitutional history is interesting here. The right to property was originally a fundamental right, but it was gradually limited to allow land reform, and in 1978 it was removed from the…
- Does a constitution need a shared conception of the good?
India is an interesting middle case. The constitution is secular, but Ambedkar and others built in substantive commitments: abolishing untouchability, social reform of religious institutions. It'…
- Gandhi’s satyagraha as philosophy, not just a tactic
It's worth remembering Ambedkar's critique. Gandhi's fast against separate electorates for the Depressed Classes in 1932, which led to the Poona Pact, looked to Ambedkar like coercion:…