This is Part 2 of a four (or five) part series based on a conference-length version of a longer paper I’m currently preparing for submission to academic journals. Part 1 is just a brief introduction to the paper, but it has generated a deep and ongoing conversation about the nature of justice which is well worth reading (and joining). You can also consult the full paper at any time.

This section of the paper is more substantial, but it is also primarily exegetical. I’m certainly interested in hearing critiques or additions to my interpretations of Rawls and Hume. But we can also continue some of the deeper discussion about justice if some readers would like to critique substantive elements of Hume and/or Rawls as interpreted. Another question that might be worth exploring in light of our discussion of Part 1: how similar or different is this account of the circumstances of justice from the account(s) we find in Plato’s Republic?

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In a rather hilarious development, my class here at Al Quds was canceled yesterday due to lack of enrollment. Apparently, the enrollment minimum for summer classes here is 20. Since my class has only 14 enrolled (of whom only four students have regularly attended), it was canceled. (This comes after a strike shut down classes on the first day.)

I don’t know whether I was thrilled or dismayed to learn of the cancellation, but I ended up going from office to office with my friend and translator Hadi Abu Hilweh to see if an exception could be granted in my case. On the one hand, the prospect of a whole summer without academic responsibilities was an attractive one, to put it mildly. On the other hand, it seemed a little absurd to have traveled 10,000 miles to teach a class and not teach it. And then, I kind of needed to get paid, so that I could cover the costs of my airfare here. We finally ended up at Academic Affairs, and after some skillful negotiation (on Hadi’s part), got the class re-instated. Definitely a first in my career–begging to teach a class that’s been canceled. Continue reading →

Thanks to Irfan for his generous invitation to join the Policy of Truth blog, and thanks to all of you who are taking the time to read this. As Irfan has said, I’m a Visiting Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Providence College. If you’d like to know more about me or see some of my other philosophical writing or teaching materials, you can browse my website.

This paper is a conference-length version of a longer paper I’m currently preparing for submission to academic journals. Following the lead set by David Potts, I’ll be posting each section of the paper as separate posts, but you can also consult the full paper at any time. There are currently four sections, and if all goes well I may add a fifth post with material taken from the longer version of the paper. Today’s introductory section is quite short, but one thing we might talk about is why any of this matters. Why did Rawls – why might we – think it important to identify these “circumstances?” Or, in a more skeptical vein, does anyone think there is already something wrong in this way of talking about the role of principles of justice?

Without further ado:

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The following quotation has become the general reaction to Donald Trump’s charge that the judge presiding over his civil fraud lawsuit has an ethnic conflict of interest. It comes from the UK’s Guardian:

Trump’s broadsides against Judge Curiel certainly crossed a line. The presumptive GOP nominee suggested that the judge’s “bad decisions” against him were not the result of Curiel’s interpretation of the law, but rather because, as Trump put it, he’s a “Mexican” (Curiel was born in Indiana). Since Trump has a harsh view of illegal immigration from Mexico, Trump alleged that Curiel’s ethnic heritage made it impossible for him to offer unbiased judgments on Trump’s case. This is, as even Republicans have pointed out, the textbook definition of racism.

With all due respect to Cohen, the charge in question isn’t a textbook definition of racism. Rather, Trump’s charge is a textbook example of the poisoning the well fallacy. Without getting too fancy and formal, the poisoning of the well fallacy is a failure of relevance whereby, in the words of Douglas Walton, “the critic questions the sincerity or objectivity of an arguer by suggesting that the arguer has something to gain by supporting the argument he has advocated” (Informal Logic, Walton, pg. 170). To supplement Walton’s definition, the poisoning the well fallacy is the commission of the ad hominem fallacy where the objectivity of the arguer is called into question by implicitly or explicitly suggesting s/he has a vested in the topic. The dialectical water well, so to speak, is thus poisoned since anything the arguer says is subject to suspicion on the basis of a presumed conflict of interest. The fallacy, superficially persuasive in argument when successfully utilized, is a cardinal error even if the motivation is a noble one. Anyone exposed to the basics of critical thinking ought to be able to spot the fallacy a mile away.

No doubt Trump’s comments about judge Curiel are ethnically insensitive and politically destructive. However, the charge of racial insensitivity (or racism) misses the point. The point isn’t that it is argumentatively wrong to bring up race as a basis to call into question someone’s neutrality. The relevant point is that it is always wrong to impugn another’s objectivity by suggesting that they have a vested interest, whether the “vested interest” is racial, ethnic, religious or political. That much is true even if the biographical facts in question are true. Thus even if judge Curiel loathes Trump’s accession from a famous business mogul to presumptive Republican nominee or is an active member of a Latino lawyers’ association, it simply does not follow that those facts undermine Curiel’s judicial objectivity in Trump’s civil case. Curiously, some have called for judge Curiel to recuse himself from the case to avoid signalling a hint of bias. For Curiel to do so would give legitimacy to Trump’s charge. Fallacies, by definition, are illegitimate.

What’s amazing about this fiasco is that it’s raged on for nearly two weeks and no one (to my admittedly limited knowledge) has called Trump’s flagrant error by its proper name. There has to be a reason, but for the life of me I can’t think of one. Not that any of this matters in the grand scheme of things. Trump’s comments will be memory-holed only to be replaced by a more degenerate and blatant set of comments as the national conversation has already ceded territory to terrorism, radical Islam, the prospect of banning Muslims US entry, and “crooked” Hillary Clinton.

For a dated (though relevant) essay on the poisoning of the well fallacy, I leave you with this fine essay.