WPES: February 5, 2009
Introduction
Unlike last week's presenter, Zach Hoskins' paper didn't result in a free voyage to any exotic locale (though I'm sure he'd be grateful for opportunities you know of). The paper does, however, represent the first chapter in Hoskins' dissertation, and I suppose one could think of that as the beginning of the end of a very different sort of journey. If the high-quality, extremely lucid argumentation in this first chapter is indicative of what we can expect from the rest of his project, I have no doubt that Hoskins' story will have a happy ending.
Argument Summary
Hoskins' dissertation touches on all the main questions on the legal institution of punishment - why punish, who and how, but this paper tackles the more fundamental question of whether or not a society may be justified in punishing at all. Hoskins' argues that it can, but he finds fault with prior attempts to do so. He plants his own account of punishment under the "fair play" category, which attempts to frame the issue as connected to obligations engendered by the benefits of societal cooperation. Hoskins' summarizes the fair play account as follows: "the fact that each member benefits from the compliance of other members generates an obligation to reciprocate by similarly complying" (3).
Hoskins' version of fair play, however, is an atypical one in that it includes compliance with the practice of punishment as one of the cooperative practices from which individuals in a society benefit. In other words, citizens are obliged to comply with punishment (either by refraining from breaking the rules or by accepting the resulting punishment) because they benefit from others' doing so.
Paper Commentary from Discussant Nate Adams
Nate Adams is one of Hoskins' fellow graduate students in the Washington University Philosophy Department. After summarizing the paper in far more (and far better) detail than I have here, he offered some penetrating questions to Hoskins' paper. First, Adams asked why individuals could not reject the benefits of collaborative society and thereby also reject their obligations to contribute and cooperate to it. Hoskins paper quotes Klosko as stating "because the benefits [of defense] are indispensable, [a person] could not say he does not want them" (26), but Adams disagreed that such overwhelming utility foreclosed the possibility of rejection. Even if such a course would be unwise, it is not incoherent and therefore remains an available option. As such, they are not obligated to cooperate. Adams went even further to suggest that Klosko's argument ultimately collapses to a consequentialist one.
Adams also pressed Hoskins to expand upon one of the potential objections that the paper addressed. Since Hoskins' account of punishment derives from society, it doesn't provide any explanation for whether or not punishment would be permissible in the state of nature or in any situation outside of a well developed society. Hoskins conceded that his intuitions on the state of nature are foggy but suggested that punishment may be justifiable in wholly different ways in non-societal cases.
I thought Adams' strongest criticism dealt with Hoskins' formulation of compliance with punishment: a citizen might agree that punishment generally is necessary for the functioning of society, but the individual might also think that the punishment for some particular crime (say, jaywalking) is far out of proportion and therefore does not actually entail a moral obligation to comply.
General Discussion
Jeff Brown astutely pointed out that Hoskins' paper could be interpreted as going against the democratic tradition since it seemed to indicate that even a religious despot could give rise to moral obligations to comply with laws and punishments. Somewhat surprisingly, Hoskins' agreed, stating that the obligations to accept punishment result from the existence of benefits of societal compliance with the law - not from the procedures by which the laws were made. This could theoretically exclude antidemocratic or tyrannical laws, but that depends on empirical and not theoretical questions.
Julia Driver followed up on Brown's point by pressing Hoskins' on cases where individuals do not necessarily benefit from the law. She provided the example of Columbian drug lords, who are the explicit enemies of the Columbian government and could much more easily engage in their trade in its absence. Driver asked, since they do not benefit from the law, doesn't Hoskins' account say they are under no obligation to accept punishment for violating it? Hoskins agreed that the conceptual possibility of individuals who are on balance worse off from the law would be problematic, but he was skeptical of the possiblity of such a case in real life.
Adrienne Davis was receptive to Hoskins' fair play account and suggested that it also offered a prescription for excuses and exceptions to punishment. In her view, if a person violates a law due to circumstances that would lead any reasonable person to also violate the law, then Hoskins' account does not require their being punished. Jeff Brown, however, interjected to say that this explanation raised the specter of consequentialism.
Conclusion
Zach Hoskins is one of the most consistent and active participants in the political theory workshop, and his contributions are always very worthwhile. I don't think I'm alone in thinking that this paper is a special accomplishment. Looking over it again before writing this post, I was struck by how Hoskins is able to maintain crystal clear writing and yet still densely pack substantive contributions into every paragraph. If you didn't already read the paper before, I hope you'll take the opportunity to do so now. Truly, he doesn't waste a single sentence, and we all wish him the best as he finishes his dissertation.
-Greg
No comments:
Post a Comment