Mill’s Defense of Capital Punishment

John Stuart Mill strongly supports capital punishment for aggravated murder. He rejects various arguments against capital punishment, including the claim that it is incompatible with respect for human life. He believes that capital punishment is a superior deterrent to the alternative of life imprisonment with hard labor. However, the deterrent effect of capital punishment is achieved by its appearance of severity. In fact, it is less cruel than the alternative, and it is the least severe form of punishment that would effectively deter murder. Mill regards death itself, as distinguished from the manner of dying, as a relatively minor evil. His views on death and capital punishment are not compelling, and, if they were widely accepted, would undermine the seriousness of some types of murder.     

In Defense of Kant’s League of States

This article presents a defense of Kant’s idea of a league of states. Kant’s proposal that rightful or just international relations can be achieved within the framework of such a league is often criticized for being at odds with his overall theory. In view of the analogy he draws between an interpersonal and an international state of nature, it is often argued that he should have opted for the idea of a state of states. Agreeing with this standard criticism that a league of states cannot establish the institutional framework for international justice, others also suggest an alternative stage model interpretation. According to this interpretation, Kant’s true ideal is in fact a state of states, whereas the league is merely introduced as a temporary and second best solution. In contrast to both the standard criticism and the stage model interpretation, I argue that fundamental normative concerns count in favour of a league rather than a state of states. I also argue that Kant’s defense of such a league is consistent with his position on the institutional preconditions for just interaction in the domestic case because of crucial relevant differences between the state of nature among individuals and the external relations between states.     

Sinthome Law: Theoretical Constructions upon Lacan’s Concept of the Sinthome

Lacan’s psychoanalytical theory is of interest to legal theorists for a number of reasons. In particular, the concept of the Name of the Father allows a sophisticated theorisation of law and legal institutions. However, the Name of the Father was not Lacan’s only theory of law. In his final Seminars, Lacan developed a second and fundamentally different theory of law: the sinthome. By drawing upon Roberto Harari’s commentary on Lacan’s concept of the sinthome, the sinthome can be investigated in terms of topology, chaos, and morphogenetic theories. This can allow a complex theory of the sinthome to be put forward as real, immanent, emergent ordering through the de-limiting of singularities. From this a concept of Sinthome Law can be developed as a novel concept of law, and as a potential way to understand some contemporary problematics in law. The example of the emerging law on electronic signatures is introduced to indicate this.     

Retracing One’s Steps: Searching for the Ethics of Legal Interpretation

The article discusses the problem of interpretation in law. Are there some criteria by which we can distinguish a good interpretation from a bad one, interpretation from over-interpretation? It is argued in this article that there is always a choice in defining the meaning of a text and this choice can be seen as an ethical one. This article thus studies the question of limits of interpretation by focusing on the ethical elements of interpretation. It is argued here that legal interpretation contains a requirement of justice that shapes the responsibility that the interpreter carries for his choices of meaning. Therefore the ethical elements of interpretation are especially pressing in the interpretation of legal texts.     

In Defense of His Guru: Dratsepa’s Rebuttal to the Challenges Articulated by the Proponents of the Other-Emptiness Doctrine

The buddha-nature literature has a significant place within the Indian Mahāyāna tradition and Tibetan Buddhism. While it is usually included in the so-called Last Wheel of the Buddha’s teachings, many Tibetan thinkers began to cast doubts about the textual significance of buddha-nature discourse in fourteenth-century Tibet. In this article, I will examine one particular case where there is apparent tension between multiple Tibetan masters over the importance of buddha-nature teachings. This paper primarily analyzes Dratsepa’s commentary to the Ornament (mdzes rgyan) written by his teacher, Buton. Dratsepa construes the Ornament as a work critiquing Dolpopa’s interpretation of the buddha-nature literature. He levels a barrage of criticisms against Dolpopa by referring to Indian śāstras and sūtras that are equally important to both of them, and also by tracing his own assessment of the tathāgata-essence teachings to early Tibetan scholars. In contradistinction to Dolpopa’s claims, Dratsepa offers several nuanced readings of the buddha-nature literature and complicates the notion of what it means to have tathāgata-essence, what a definitive or provisional meaning entails, and the relationship between the Middle Wheel and the Last Wheel teachings. In brief, Dratsepa’s text sheds light on one of the earliest discourses on the tension between self-emptiness and other-emptiness presentations.     

Foucault’s Critique: A Topology of Thought

In order to elucidate some of the ways in which critique and subjectivity become inextricably linked in Foucault’s oeuvre, the paper proceeds first by briefly discussing the concept of critique as limit-attitude as it appears in some of Foucault’s methodological writings. Subsequently, the main tenets of Judith Butler’s commentary on the essay ‘What is Critique?’ will be summarized, concentrating on the image of the virtuous, self-making subject that the author’s interpretation brings out of Foucault’s original text. The second part of the paper aims to develop an alternative reading of Foucault’s notion of critique by looking at the ways in which the notion of space operates as an underlying perspective in his archaeological analysis. Ultimately, it will be shown how the spatial implications of Foucault’s early works and a more passive form of subjectivity as unfolding from his discussion of the ‘author function’ and his own methodological reflections coalesce into a form of practical critique, which, as wished by the author, may take ‘the form of a possible transgression’ (Foucault 1984a, p. 45).     

A test of Sprinzak’s split delegitimization’s theory of the life course of far-right organizational behavior

This article applies Sprinzak’s theory of split delegitimization to the American far-right. We examine a sample of 30 violent and 30 nonviolent far-right groups for each year of their existence, drawn from the Extremist Crime Database, and explore the violent and legal behavioral patterns over their lifecycle. Sprinzak hypothesized that far-right groups undergo a radicalization process through three stages, conflict of legitimacy, crisis of confidence, and crisis of legitimacy. He predicted that terrorism would occur at the peak of group radicalization or during the third stage. Results supported Sprinzak’s conceptualization of conflict of legitimacy and crisis of confidence stages. Groups initially selected nongovernment targets, but after experiencing disillusionment with the ruling regime, they equally attacked government and nongovernment targets. Importantly, prolonged and increasingly violent acts against government targets were not observed.     

A Hunter’s Moon: the Effect of Moon Illumination on Outdoor Crime

We use National Incident-Based Reporting System (NIBRS) data and an AutoRegressive Integrative Moving Average (ARIMA) study design to investigate the effect of moon illumination on reported crime occurring outdoors between the hours of 10 pm to 2 am in 13 U.S. states and the District of Columbia. Prior research analyzed a confounded dependent variable that amalgamated indoor and outdoor crimes. This situation is problematic in that there is little reason to speculate a relationship between moon illumination and indoor crime because artificial illumination is used within dwellings. Findings show that while moon illumination has little influence on total crime and indoor crime, the intensity of moonlight does have a substantive positive effect on outdoor criminal activity. As moon illumination intensifies, outdoor crime increases markedly. Plausible explanations for this relationship are discussed.     

A Partial Test of Moffitt’s Developmental Taxonomy: Examining the Role of Genetic Risk

A developing line of research indicates that behavioral patterns associated with the typologies identified in Moffitt’s developmental taxonomy may be influenced by genetic factors. Based on these findings, the current study examines whether Moffitt’s etiological explanations of life-course persistent offenders, adolescence-limited offenders, and abstainers have merit after controlling for genetic influences. To do so, a sample of twins drawn from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health were examined. The results revealed that genetic influences significantly predicted entry into each of the typologies identified by Moffitt even after controlling for theoretically relevant factors. Implications of the findings and suggestions for future research are discussed.     

From the Officer’s Perspective: A Multilevel Examination of Citizens’ Demeanor during Traffic Stops

Over the past 60 years, a substantial body of research has considered the influence of citizens’ demeanor on police behavior; and more recently, the correlates of citizens’ demeanor. This study advances our understanding of the demeanor construct by measuring officers’ perceptions of citizens’ disrespect, non‐compliance, and resistance during traffic stops. Using multilevel statistical models, we examine the correlates of citizens’ demeanor and assess the racial differences in these perceptions. The findings demonstrate that officers’ perceptions of citizens’ demeanor vary across racial/ethnic groups, after controlling for other relevant factors. Although White officers were significantly more likely than Black officers to classify drivers as disrespectful, Black and White officers were equally likely to report drivers as displaying behaviors that were non‐compliant and/or verbally resistant. Black drivers were significantly more likely to be reported as disrespectful, non‐compliant, and/or resistant, regardless of the officers’ race. The implications for future research and policy are discussed.     

Venirepersons’s Attitudes Toward the Insanity Defense: Developing,Refining, and Validating a Scale

Given the prevalence and predictive strength of negative attitudes toward the insanity defense, we conducted three studies with 426 venirepersons to develop an understanding and a measure of public attitudes toward the insanity defense. In these studies, we developed, iteratively refined, and cross-validated the insanity defense attitude-revised (IDA-R) scale. The results suggest that IDAs are underpinned by ones degree of (a) orientation toward strict liability, and (b) concern about perceived injustice and danger associated with the defense. The IDA-R assesses these two-dimensions with good internal consistency, convergent and divergent validity, and predictive utility. The IDA-Rs predictive utility generalizes across jurisdictions and manipulation of case facts. Theoretical and practical implications for research and for identifying impartial jurors at voir dire are discussed.     

Theoretical Considerations on Men’s Experiences of Intimate Partner Violence: An Interview-Based Study

This study aims at exploring and interpreting men’s experiences of intimate partner violence (IPV) in the light of selected current theoretical contributions to the field, with an emphasis on Michael P. Johnson’s violence typology. The material consisted of twenty interviews with men who self-identified as having been subjected to IPV. Men generally did not consider physical violence to be threatening when it was perpetrated by women. They were also not subjected to the multiple control tactics that define the intimate terrorism category of Johnson’s violence typology, lending support to the argument that women’s and men’s experiences of IPV differ in opposite-sex relationships. Furthermore, our findings encourage the integration of structural inequalities related to gender and sexuality in analyses of men’s experiences of IPV.     

Eating Peas with One’s Fingers: A Semiotic Approach to Law and Social Norms

This paper proposes a semiotic theory of norms—what I term normative semiotics. The paper’s central contention is that social norms are a language. Moreover, it is a language that we instinctively learn to speak. Normative behaviour is a mode of communication, the intelligibility of which allows us to establish cooperative relationships with others. Normative behaviour communicates an actor’s potential as a cooperative partner. Compliance with a norm is an act of communication: compliance signals cooperativeness; noncompliance signals uncooperativeness. An evolutionary model is proposed to explain how this comes about: evolution has generated an instinctual proficiency in working with these signals much like a language—a proficiency that manifests in an emotional context. We see these social rules as possessing a certain ‘rightness’ in normative terms. This adaptive trait is what we call internalization. Internalization enhances the individual’s ability to speak this code. Because these signals communicate who is and who is not a reliable co-operator, sending and receiving cooperation signals is crucial to individual survival. Individuals who internalized the entire process and thus became more adept at speaking the language were at an advantage. Law seeks to shape the language of norms by maintaining the collective standards of society; as such, understanding how and why this normative language emerges is critical to understanding a core function of law.     

Where the Margins Meet: A Demographic Assessment of Transgender Inmates in Men’s Prisons

Drawing on official data and original interview data on 315 transgender inmates in California prisons for men, this research provides the first empirical portrayal of a prison population in California that is unique by virtue of being both transgender and incarcerated. Situated at the nexus of intersecting marginalities, transgender inmates fare far worse on standard demographic and health measures than their non‐transgender counterparts in the US population, the California population, the US prison population, and the California prison population. With the possible exceptions of partnership status and educational attainment, these factors combine to reveal that transgender inmates are marginalized in heretofore undocumented ways. At a time in which an evidence‐based approach to corrections is increasingly embraced by corrections officials in the US, this article provides the first systematic profile of transgender prisoners. It reveals they can be regarded as a special population that, from a policy point of view, raises what Minow calls “the dilemma of difference”.     

China’s stolen children: internal child trafficking in the People’s Republic of China

Trafficking in children has attracted worldwide attention in the last two decades primarily due to its links with global migratory movements and the role ‘transnational organised crime’ is perceived to play in these. Internal trafficking is largely ignored primarily because of a preoccupation with cross-border, transnational migratory movements. Arguably, the growth of the relevant literature has given rise to certain widespread perceptions about the uniformity in the trade characteristics and actors under the common rubric of ‘trafficking in human beings’. By capitalising on direct linguistic access to a wide range of Chinese open sources, the purpose of the article is to offer an account of the various dimensions of the issue as they present themselves in the particular Chinese context. Our main concern has been to perform a systematic presentation of this material in light of the extant wider literature. In the Chinese case the combination of socioeconomic, political and cultural factors set a complex picture that highlights the shortcomings of dominant ways of thinking about the phenomenon. This complex picture serves usefully to cast doubts with regard to how the criminal activity itself is being conceptualised as well as to perceptions of victimisation embodied in current discourses on human trafficking.     

Agamben’s Grammar of the Secret Under the Sign of the Law

This paper suggests that a grammar of the secret forms a concept in Agamben’s work, a gap that grounds the enigma of sovereignty. Between the Indo-European *krei, *se, and *per themes, the secret is etymologically linked to the logics of separation and potentiality that together enable the pliant and emergent structure of sovereignty. Sovereignty’s logic of separation meets the logic of relation in the form of abandonment: the point at which division has exhausted itself and reaches an indivisible element, bare life, the exception separated from the form of life and captured in a separate sphere. The arcanum imperii of sovereignty and the cipher of bare life are held together in the relation of the ban as the twin secrets of biopower, maintained by the potentiality of law that works itself as a concealed, inscrutable force. But the ‘real’ secret of sovereignty, I suggest, is its dialectical reversibility, the point at which the concept of the secret is met by its own immanent unworking by the critic and scribe under the *krei theme, and subject to abandonment through the work of profanation; here, different species of the secret are thrown against one another, one order undoing the other. The secret founded upon the sacred is displaced by Agamben’s critical orientation toward the immanent: what is immanent is both potential and hiddenness.     

Haṭhayoga’s Philosophy: A Fortuitous Union of Non-Dualities

In its classical formulation as found in Svātmārāma’s Ha?hapradīpikā, ha?hayoga is a ?aiva appropriation of an older extra-Vedic soteriological method. But this appropriation was not accompanied by an imposition of ?aiva philosophy. In general, the texts of ha?hayoga reveal, if not a disdain for, at least an insouciance towards metaphysics. Yoga is a soteriology that works regardless of the yogin’s philosophy. But the various texts that were used to compile the Ha?hapradīpikā (a table identifying these borrowings is given at the end of the article) were not composed in metaphysical vacua. Analysis of their allusions to doctrine shows that the texts from which Svātmārāma borrowed most were products of a Vedantic milieu—bearing testament to Vedānta’s newfound interest in yoga as a complement to jñāna—but that many others were ?aiva non-dual works. Because of the lack of importance given to the niceties of philosophy in ha?hayogic works, these two non-dualities were able to combine happily and thus the ?aiva tenets incorporated within ha?hayoga survived the demise of ?aivism as part of what was to become in the medieval period the dominant soteriological method in scholarly religious discourse in India.