Justice and Stuff

In Antony and Cleopatra, Shakespeare uses Mark Antony to show the importance of proper goal orientation to pursuing a fulfilling life, as well as the level of commitment and dedication necessary for its pursuit.  Numerous themes undercut Antony and Cleopatra.  The complex relationship between feelings of honor, loyalty and fulfillment runs throughout, but ultimately Antony’s fickle nature and liquid prioritization ability prove to be his downfall.

Antony has an explicit duty to govern and care for the interests of the Roman Empire.  In the past, various sacrifices have been justified only in his specific interest in that higher calling.  Antony arguably “took the deal” to pursue higher ends and goals than merely dying well.  His pursuit of these higher ends has lost its zeal in the midst of earthly pleasures.  Anthony renounces his duty to Rome altogether:

Of the ranged empire fall.  Here is my space.  Kingdoms are clay.  Our dungy earth alike, (Act I, Sec 1, 39-40).

There’s not a minute of our lives should stretch without some pleasure now,  (Act I, Sec 1, 53-54).

While these statements have a certain transcendental tone about them, they are intellectually weak.  Antony’s “taking the deal” only maintains its relevance if he sticks to the pursuit of higher, noble ends.  In a search for shallow pleasure, he externalizes an internal issue – his struggle for fulfillment – and tries to find meaning with Cleopatra. 

Although Antony’s relationship with Cleopatra is passionate and exciting, it is also treacherous.  Cleopatra is the very embodiment of self-interest and his relationship with her proves to be his downfall.

Go tell him I have slain myself.  Say that the last I spoke was “Antony," and word it. Prithee, piteously.  Hence, Mardian, and bring me how he takes my death. –To th’ monument! (Act IV, Sec 14, 10-14).

This is not to say that Cleopatra is evil or bad, merely that Antony has misoriented both his search for meaning and the methods by which he can get there.  In seeking a fulfilling, good life, he’s realized the maximal growth of his current position.  Perhaps this means he should reorient his goals to accommodate different potential.  His response, however, prioritizes another person – Cleopatra – and her presence as the end all be all of his life. 

Notably, this relationship bears complications in the fulfillment of his duties to Rome.  Where Antony finds himself conflicted, his commitment is forced to the middle of two incompatible goals.  In failing to choose either Cleopatra or Rome, he effectively prevents himself from having either.

What is interesting is not the absence of sufficient options or goals in Antony’s life that proves detrimental; it’s his indecision and reluctance to choose:

There’s a great spirit gone, thus did I desire it.  What our contempts doth often hurt from us.  We wish it ours again.  The present pleasure,By revolution lowering, does become the opposite of itself, (Act I, Sec 2, 137-141).

One campus rape is one too many. But the severe new policies championed by the White House, the Department of Education, and members of Congress are responding to the idea that colleges are in the grips of an epidemic—and the studies suggesting this epidemic don’t hold up to scrutiny.

A new article by Emily Yoffe of Slate describes how several universities handle cases of rape and sexual assault, the incentives behind these policies, and the unintended consequences. 

These policies have good intentions, but the quasi-judicial methodology employed, and the presumptions made, are detrimental to the idea of justice, and speak to the misplaced role these universities now play.

She begins by detailing Drew Sterrett's experience at the University of Michigan, including the conflicting testimony of Sterrett, his accuser, and the only witness, their mutual friend and Sterrett's roommate. Despite conflicts and discrepancies in CB's account,

In her deposition, CB acknowledged that she didn’t do that, that in fact she’d never used the words “sexual assault” to describe what happened. The report said that Sterrett’s roommate was asleep during the entire sexual encounter. This was contradicted by the time-stamped Facebook message complaining that he was being kept awake.

and additional testimony that directly contradicts CB's story,

I cannot state it more clearly that this is untrue. I asked her if she wanted to have sex; she said ‘yes.’ ” (CB’s assertion was also challenged later by an affidavit sworn on Sterrett’s behalf by his freshman year roommate, the one in the upper bunk. The roommate said that he saw CB get into Sterrett’s bed of her own volition and that his bed and Sterrett’s were so close that he would have heard if she had exclaimed, “no” or “stop.”

the University of Michigan still pursued disciplinary action against Sterrett.  To a degree this is understandable.  Despite the prevalence of faulty campus rape statistics (statistical analysis suggests a number closer to 1/30, not 1/4) the federal government has made specific incentives for universities to prosecute rape, and to lower the standard in doing so:

Colleges were told to adopt a “preponderance of evidence” standard when evaluating whether a student was to be found responsible for an allegation. This is the lowest evidentiary standard, only requiring a smidge more than 50 percent certainty. Because the punishment for such infractions can be severe—from suspension to expulsion—many schools had previously used the "clear and convincing evidence" standard, a significantly higher burden of proof, though still below the “beyond a reasonable doubt” standard used in criminal proceedings.

This is problematic.  Rape change an otherwise legal act - sex - and upon removal of consent, criminalizes the act.  Understandably, rape can be difficult to prove.  Not only must the act be confirmed, but also the absence of consent.  Especially with interactions that only have two actors, like sex, the conflicting and adversarial testimonies complicate the process.  This has led to a judicial system that poorly prosecutes rape and sexual assault.

However, In attempting to correct this problem, the university response has gone too far:

The critiques of how the criminal justice system treats victims are many and justified, but that’s an argument for further reform, and for finding ways to reduce the trauma to victims, not for asking schools to take over the role of law enforcement.

The reality of this situation and our legal system is stark, but changing the fundamental nature of our system - the presumption of innocence - is not an adequate response to any poor prosecutorial relationship, and certainly not one this complex.  By disregarding the complexity questions of consent have, and failing to properly address the issue alcohol plays in many of these situations, Universities have sought to protect themselves and their image, under the guise of student safety.  

I scrolled through my newsfeed and didn't see any posts about police killing people today, and certainly none about white officers and black victims, so here we go. 

A NY Grand Jury recently decided not to indict Daniel Pantaleo, in the death of Eric Garner.  Pantaleo placed Garner in a chokehold when Garnder resisted arrest.  This chokehold killed Eric Garner.  In case you forgot the NYPD's chokehold policies, allow me to remind you: yes, NYPDOs are banned from using them.  Watch a video of the Garner CH here or here.

No Grey Area for NYPD Chokehold Use

Part of the reason chokeholds are banned, is the window between effectiveness and damage is difficult.  If a person is not out in 5-10 seconds, the hold has likely been performed incorrectly, and may suffer brain damage, or death.  

So when Pantaleo decides to use a CH and kills someone, why is the Grand Jury so hesitant to indict?  He's clearly liable for criminal charges, despite his claims of intent.  

“I became a police officer to help people and to protect those who can’t protect themselves,” Officer Pantaleo said. “It is never my intention to harm anyone." 

He is either lying, or lacks the necessary mental processes (like following protocol, or releasing after the CH has exceeded legitimate duration) to follow through on protecting and avoiding harm.  

Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics explores one fundamental end of human experience: fulfillment, or happiness.  Previous texts contain simple examples, but Ethics takes a theoretical approach.  Where the Iliad and Odyssey narrate Achilles’s search for glory in wartime and Odysseus’s adaptation in pursuit of a goal, Ethics, explores fulfillment as a concept.  Aristotle describes the relationship of happiness and its guarantor – the good life – through nature, process, and application.

Nature: What is the good life?

The good life is happiness; their relationship is interactive.  Every action performed by men is aimed “at some good” and Aristotle claims the good desired through this process “is happiness” (1095a.13).  While most men “identify happiness with pleasure” (1095b.16), their identification is shallow.  Happiness is a conclusion, “something final and self-sufficient…the end of action” (1097b.21-22).

Theory behind the good life has three aspects: desire, practice, and reflection.  Desire embodies what might produce happiness, the practice is the very act thought to bring it, and the reflection relates the two in attempts to direct future actions.  No conception of the good can be completely accurate – “it is not a common element answering to one idea” (1096b.26) – but ideas must always seem correct to individuals.  Even when false, those ideas serve as a starting point for the good life; “having this as a sort of pattern we shall know better the goods that are good for us, and if we know them shall attain them” (1097a.1).  This reflection is also interactive.  Thought, directed action, and reconsideration, all occur somewhat congruently:

…but the term ‘good’ is used both in the category of substance and in that of quality and in that of relation, and that which is per se, i.e. substance, is prior in nature to the relative (for the latter is like an offshoot and accident of being) (1096a.19-22).

Process: What makes the good life good?

Three sub-characteristics guide practice of the good life: pursuit, priority, and patience.  The good life demands pursuit of virtue.  The good life also requires virtues be organized with balance to themselves and other virtues.  Patience acknowledges the limits of this organization and returns the process to its start for more accuracy. 

Virtue is ultimately a “state of character concerned with choice” (1106b.36).  One must pursue being a person of good character, to pursue the good life.  Virtue is inherently good action, in concordance with knowledge of the goodness of those actions.  “Both the reasoning must be true and the desire right, if the choice is to be good” (1139a.24-25).  It is – in a sense – moral mastery. 

The key guide of virtue, however, is knowledge-priority.  Logically, virtues that assist in the guidance of other virtues are primary.  Where certain virtues – patience, for example – serve to guide action in a positive manner, they are limited.  Knowledge of both the practical world and of reason gives the virtue-seeker access in to the merits of different virtues: wisdom.  “Therefore wisdom must plainly be the most finished of the forms of knowledge” (1141a.17-18).

Conceptualizing this idea in a true hierarchy is impossible.  Each stage interacts repetitively with the others, but reflection on past, and projection toward the future bear the greatest responsibility to seek virtue.  Rather, consider it a cycle with governing rules, but no clear order.  Incomplete wisdom may fail, but the process inevitably improves the quality of new wisdom.  “For with the presence of the one quality, practical wisdom, will be given all the virtues” (1145a.2-3).

If happiness is activity in accordance with virtue, it is reasonable that it should be in accordance with the highest virtue; and this will be that of the best thing in us.  (1177a.11-13)….Firstly, this activity is the best (since not only is reason the best thing in us, but the objects of reason are the best of knowable objects); and, secondly, it is the most continuous, since we can contemplate truth more continuously than we can do anything. (1177a.20-23).

Application: What promotes good living?

Simply, the good life promotes the good life.  It is a self-supporting process.  Given the primacy of knowledge and wisdom, however, it does have a specific outward application through sharing. 

Community is important, and Aristotle suggests that life for a solitary happy man “would be hard” (1170a.5).  Through community, the good life expands itself exponentially:

“the good man in becoming a friend becomes a good to his friend.  Each, then, both loves what is good for himself, and makes and equal return in goodwill” (1157b.34-35). 

Law, police, and the justice system form a protective blanket that many feel is necessary to freedom in today’s world.  This security is often successful, but the system is inherently limited through its human actors.  Sometimes their actions not only allow injustice, rather they perpetuate it by withholding evidence and convicting those not guilty. 

Last week, a judge was actually sentenced to jail time.  Ken Anderson (at the time a prosecutor) withheld evidence regarding the innocence of Michael Morton.  Morton went on to serve 25 years behind bars.  

"What happened to the police/prosecutors who did this to the poor guy?" The answer is almost always, "Nothing," or worse, "The police officer was promoted and now is the chief of his department."

Many feel Plato’s Republic is a representation of the perfect utilitarian society.  While there is some truth to this, the good society depicted in the book is meant as an allegory; it shows the hierarchical value of the human soul and its virtues.  Certain pursuits are inherent to different people in Plato’s Republic, and subsequently to the human soul.  These pursuits are not, however, all equal, and some must have authority over others.  Socrates shows a society that illustrates this hierarchy.  Despite its flaws, the illustration’s relevance on the human soul is sound.  His conclusion, though, is more difficult in application.

Socrates describes his just city as balanced between classes with different propensities and purposes: care for the city vs. care for themselves.  Justice exists in the correct power displacement of these classes to each other.  Normal people are concerned with normal things.  They have trade and craftsmanship.  They are the producers.  Conversely, those charged with ruling are concerned with the well being of the city, at large.  Correct alignment with these classes is important both internally and externally, as subgroups exist within these classes.  The ruling class, for example, contains both a subclass inclined towards knowledge, and a subclass inclined towards honor, enforcement, and protection. 

While an initial reading of The Republic might suggest that this really is the perfect society, Socrates, by his own disclaimer, suggests that the real takeaway with regard to justice rests on the individual:

So the, perhaps there would be more justice in the bigger and it would be easier to observe closely.  If you wan, first we’ll investigate what justice is like in the cities.  Then, we’ll also go on to consider it in individuals, considering the likeness of the bigger in the idea of the littler? (Book II: 368e)

Additionally, as a system built off of inherent qualitative differences among individuals is ultimately untenable in an imperfect world, Glaucon serves as the audience by inquiring if such a city is even possible. The Republic does not shy from this subject, but rather moves towards the evils of the misaligned city, and subsequently the misaligned soul. 

Socrates’ transition into how this tripartite understanding applies to the individual is most important for this reason.  Similar to how the just city is divided into guardians, auxiliaries, and producers, the soul is divided by inherent difference and purpose.  The producers are motivated by general incentives, like greed or lust.  They represent the carnal or appetite portion of the soul.  The auxiliaries – the applicative aspect of the ruling class – represent the spirited, emotional part of the soul.  The knowledge inclined ruling class, the guardians, represents the logical reasoning of the just soul.  The spirit is important, because it holds the strength of both the city and the soul.  When correctly aligned with the ruling class, the city functions, as does the soul. 

This seems a fascinating categorization and mirroring of political and intrapersonal life, but the significance goes much deeper.  Ultimately, the city cannot uphold this kind of division.  It is untenable.  The methodology required to determine the quality of different persons, be it eugenics or predetermined career paths, is impossible to achieve.  Shortcomings like this – the inability to apply perfect theory to an imperfect world – render the perfect city somewhat impossible.  That being said, it is possible to conceptualize the reflection of this idea and its relationships to the individual.  While placing different people in ruling and subsidiary positions based on their inherent quality is questionable, subduing carnal desires to calculated reasoning is legitimate.  The core takeaway of Socrates’ message – an appeal to philosophy – rests on a healthy thirst for knowledge to best equip rational governance.