Comments on: The Ethics of Reading and Writing http://www.concurringopinions.com/archives/2008/02/the_ethics_of_r.html The Law, the Universe, and Everything Sun, 22 Nov 2009 12:47:09 -0700 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.8.3 hourly 1 By: Peter Brooks http://www.concurringopinions.com/archives/2008/02/the_ethics_of_r.html/comment-page-1#comment-50329 Peter Brooks Mon, 10 Nov 2008 17:52:52 +0000 http://www.solove.org/archives/2008/02/the-ethics-of-reading-and-writing.html#comment-50329 This post re my "Ethics of Reading" piece in the Chronicle of Higher Education has just come to my attention-many months too late! I won't, then, try to add more substance to the argument, simply to say that I basically agree with Carrie (and meant my article to suggest this) that lit crit and theory are not to be blamed for the tortured readings of Bybee, Yoo and Co. I actually believe that lit crit tends to be more ethical and less cynical and exploitative in its interpretations--though I know we don't always live up to the best practics. Incidentally, I'll be teaching a faculty/student seminar at Princeton over the next threee years, called "The Ethics of Reading and the Cultures of Professionalism," precisely to address these issues. Spring 09 has as its theme: "Reading Law Reading," and is devoted to moments where the law is explicit about its interpretive practics (and by no means always intelligently so). Suggestions welcome. Peter Brooks Mellon Visiting Professor Princeton University This post re my “Ethics of Reading” piece in the Chronicle of Higher Education has just come to my attention-many months too late! I won’t, then, try to add more substance to the argument, simply to say that I basically agree with Carrie (and meant my article to suggest this) that lit crit and theory are not to be blamed for the tortured readings of Bybee, Yoo and Co. I actually believe that lit crit tends to be more ethical and less cynical and exploitative in its interpretations–though I know we don’t always live up to the best practics. Incidentally, I’ll be teaching a faculty/student seminar at Princeton over the next threee years, called “The Ethics of Reading and the Cultures of Professionalism,” precisely to address these issues. Spring 09 has as its theme: “Reading Law Reading,” and is devoted to moments where the law is explicit about its interpretive practics (and by no means always intelligently so). Suggestions welcome.

Peter Brooks

Mellon Visiting Professor

Princeton University

]]> By: Peter Brooks http://www.concurringopinions.com/archives/2008/02/the_ethics_of_r.html/comment-page-1#comment-50328 Peter Brooks Mon, 10 Nov 2008 17:50:26 +0000 http://www.solove.org/archives/2008/02/the-ethics-of-reading-and-writing.html#comment-50328 This post re my "Ethics of Reading" piece in the Chronicle of Higher Education has just come to my attention-many months too late! I won't, then, try to add more substance to the argument, simply to say that I basically agree with Carrie (and meant my article to suggest this) that lit crit and theory are not to be blamed for the tortured readings of Bybee, Yoo and Co. I actually believe that lit crit tends to be more ethical and less cynical and exploitative in its interpretations--though I know we don't always live up to the best practics. Incidentally, I'll be teaching a faculty/student seminar at Princeton over the next threee years, called "The Ethics of Reading and the Cultures of Professionalism," precisely to address these issues. Spring 09 has as its theme: "Reading Law Reading," and is devoted to moments where the law is explicit about its interpretive practics (and by no means always intelligently so). Suggestions welcome. Peter Brooks Mellon Visiting Professor Princeton University This post re my “Ethics of Reading” piece in the Chronicle of Higher Education has just come to my attention-many months too late! I won’t, then, try to add more substance to the argument, simply to say that I basically agree with Carrie (and meant my article to suggest this) that lit crit and theory are not to be blamed for the tortured readings of Bybee, Yoo and Co. I actually believe that lit crit tends to be more ethical and less cynical and exploitative in its interpretations–though I know we don’t always live up to the best practics. Incidentally, I’ll be teaching a faculty/student seminar at Princeton over the next threee years, called “The Ethics of Reading and the Cultures of Professionalism,” precisely to address these issues. Spring 09 has as its theme: “Reading Law Reading,” and is devoted to moments where the law is explicit about its interpretive practics (and by no means always intelligently so). Suggestions welcome.

Peter Brooks

Mellon Visiting Professor

Princeton University

]]> By: John Lofton, Recovering Republican http://www.concurringopinions.com/archives/2008/02/the_ethics_of_r.html/comment-page-1#comment-50327 John Lofton, Recovering Republican Thu, 21 Feb 2008 23:07:02 +0000 http://www.solove.org/archives/2008/02/the-ethics-of-reading-and-writing.html#comment-50327 Really? We can have “better and worse interpretations” without objective principles? How so, please? According to what you say, how would you know if an interpretation was “better” or “worse”? “Better” or “worse” by what standard? And if you, as you do, eschew “a rule-based theory of meaning,” how are we to know what your post here says? Oh, and because what you say is the spirit of our age, we are, indeed, “in a lot of trouble.” John Lofton, Editor TheAmericanView.com JLof@aol.com Really? We can have “better and worse interpretations” without objective principles? How so, please? According to what you say, how would you know if an interpretation was “better” or “worse”? “Better” or “worse” by what standard? And if you, as you do, eschew “a rule-based theory of meaning,” how are we to know what your post here says? Oh, and because what you say is the spirit of our age, we are, indeed, “in a lot of trouble.”

John Lofton, Editor

TheAmericanView.com

JLof@aol.com

]]> By: Daniel Goldberg http://www.concurringopinions.com/archives/2008/02/the_ethics_of_r.html/comment-page-1#comment-50326 Daniel Goldberg Wed, 13 Feb 2008 19:19:15 +0000 http://www.solove.org/archives/2008/02/the-ethics-of-reading-and-writing.html#comment-50326 This is a good post, and it's one reason I like the medieval and Renaissance humanists as a model so much. (It is no accident, I submit, that so many of them took training in law). They eschewed the search for truth and dogma embodied in the metaphysics of Scholasticism, and instead focused on cultivating virtue amidst the uncertainty and ambiguity of the world. One of the ideas that irritates me most is that if we lack objective principles we are consigned to the bowels of moral nihilism, where it is impossible to judge or justify. Though I can't get into this in detail in a blog comment, I agree completely that we can still have what Dewey referred to as practical certainty, or what David Tracy terms "relative adequacy." We can still have better and worse interpretations, and stronger or weaker justifications, even without a logically positivist conception of ethics. Hell, we'd better, or else we're in a lot of trouble, because post-Wittgenstein, it's quite difficult to hold on to a rule-based theory of meaning (and why would ethics be excepted from Wittgenstein's analysis on semantics?). Meaning, including ethical and moral meaning, does not precede our practices, but rises from them, as does law. This is a good post, and it’s one reason I like the medieval and Renaissance humanists as a model so much. (It is no accident, I submit, that so many of them took training in law). They eschewed the search for truth and dogma embodied in the metaphysics of Scholasticism, and instead focused on cultivating virtue amidst the uncertainty and ambiguity of the world.

One of the ideas that irritates me most is that if we lack objective principles we are consigned to the bowels of moral nihilism, where it is impossible to judge or justify. Though I can’t get into this in detail in a blog comment, I agree completely that we can still have what Dewey referred to as practical certainty, or what David Tracy terms “relative adequacy.” We can still have better and worse interpretations, and stronger or weaker justifications, even without a logically positivist conception of ethics.

Hell, we’d better, or else we’re in a lot of trouble, because post-Wittgenstein, it’s quite difficult to hold on to a rule-based theory of meaning (and why would ethics be excepted from Wittgenstein’s analysis on semantics?). Meaning, including ethical and moral meaning, does not precede our practices, but rises from them, as does law.

]]> By: Frank http://www.concurringopinions.com/archives/2008/02/the_ethics_of_r.html/comment-page-1#comment-50325 Frank Wed, 13 Feb 2008 03:31:28 +0000 http://www.solove.org/archives/2008/02/the-ethics-of-reading-and-writing.html#comment-50325 Very interesting post. I am reminded of Dahlia Lithwick's critique of the relativistic tenor of recent arguments about waterboarding: "I'm sure there's some law professor out there who can make the legal argument that executive power in wartime encompasses even the reckless guesses and impressionistic whims of a single man, as they arise. At which point, that too will become an 'open question' on which 'reasonable people will differ.'" at http://www.slate.com/id/2182348/ I think Brian Tamanaha has also lamented the new plasticity of legal norms--essentially arguing that the most pro-torture factions in government have appropriated radical interpretive methods to justify what can only be called tortured readings of key statutory texts. Very interesting post. I am reminded of Dahlia Lithwick’s critique of the relativistic tenor of recent arguments about waterboarding:

“I’m sure there’s some law professor out there who can make the legal argument that executive power in wartime encompasses even the reckless guesses and impressionistic whims of a single man, as they arise. At which point, that too will become an ‘open question’ on which ‘reasonable people will differ.’”

at http://www.slate.com/id/2182348/

I think Brian Tamanaha has also lamented the new plasticity of legal norms–essentially arguing that the most pro-torture factions in government have appropriated radical interpretive methods to justify what can only be called tortured readings of key statutory texts.

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