Skip to main content

Stand With Wendy

I hope you watched at least a few minutes of Wendy Davis and her epic filibuster. I appreciate the rhetorical force of the exercise more than anything else. At the end of the day, the strength of the filibuster is not really in what is said but that a person feels so strongly about an issue, sees it as so important, that she will literally not stand down in defense. I think having that exercise is important in a democracy where consensus must emerge from public discussion and rational persuasion. We all know that rhetoric is not entirely rational, but the emotional component is an important flag for reason. The investment of the speaker demonstrates a conviction that counts in favor of revisiting one’s own position on an issue, makes you look closer at why someone would feel so strongly. These are important considerations in shaping a community because we need to recognize the concerns of our fellows as just as important to them as ours are to us. Wendy Davis demonstrated that conviction today, and well done.
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Justifications for Intellectual Property Part 1: Utilitarianism

There is no way this tutorial series would be complete without some discussion of justifications for intellectual property. While not necessarily a matter of law, some knowledge of the philosophical foundations will provide a better sense of the values at stake in intellectual property debates. Notice, for instance, that the tutorials on fair use were punctuated with appeals to values, social goods, and individual rights. Without an understanding of the moral and political framework against which the law stands, one can very easily find oneself in a stalemate, with one value pitted against another and no way of deciding which should prevail. To understand the jurisprudence around intellectual property rights, one has to have some idea of the justifying theories to which attorneys and judges appeal in their arguments and decisions. So, without further ado, let's get to the tutorial.
There are three main ways of justifying intellectual property rights: the Utilitarian theory, the Lab…
Post a Comment
Read more

Justifications for Intellectual Property Part 2: Labor-Desert Theories

I know it's been a little while, but I want to finish this tutorial series rather than abandoning it and moving on to other topics. Of course, I would have liked to have finished it by now, but various research and teaching-related obstacles have kept me nose down in the Real rather than preparing content to be released into the internet. Nevertheless, I'm returning to routine, so I'm going to release this installment today, rather than wait for my usual MWF release schedule.
At any rate, let's pick up where we left off and talk about justifications for intellectual property rights. While the utilitarian justification discussed in the last post enjoys the status of having been enshrined in law, scholars and jurists have often brought in other property-justifying theories. Perhaps the most popular of these are Labor-Desert justifications, best exemplified by John Locke (the philosopher, not the character on Lost).
In his Second Treatise on Civil Government, Locke const…
Post a Comment
Read more

Justifications for Intellectual Property Part 3: Self-Expression Justifications

The third dominant justifying theory for intellectual property rights is often called the Self-Expression justification. Most scholars attribute it to Hegel, but it ultimately has roots in Kant. While few philosophers even addressed intellectual property, Immanuel Kant discusses the sale of pirated books in Metaphysics of Morals. Kant argues that reprinting a book after first publication is a violation of the author's right to entrust his communication to a particular publisher. Viewing books as importantly communicative, not material, in nature, Kant claims that a publisher is essentially a spokesperson, someone designated by an author to communicate his ideas to others. Reprinters interrupt this process by taking it on themselves to communicate the author's idea, without his consent. Reprinting is then akin to removing the author's control over the communication of his ideas. While Kant's argument does not get you an entire system of intellectual property, he does dr…
Post a Comment
Read more