95674 - Philosophy of Law (LM)

Learning outcomes

This Course aims to provide students with specific themes and problems within the present philosophical debate on law, among them the relationship between law and morality, human rights, the tension between law and violence, the source and structure of intentional forms of social violence. With regard to this context of discussion, the Course intends to promote a competent and critical way of thinking

Course contents

Political Lying. Morality, Law and Society

Against Socratic intellectualism, Aristotle emphasizes the decisive importance of purpose, deliberation and voluntariness, in the motivation of an agent which we can appropriately define a "liar". Better is not the one who knows and therefore can tell the true and the false - as Socrates suggests -, but the one who can tell the true and the false and voluntarily chooses the true.

In the Platonic perspective, the cognitive level overlaps the moral one, while Aristotle asks that the two profiles be grasped in their distinction, and that the ethical evaluation of behaviors is precisely based on this. In this way he throws light on the meaning not only of the individual theme of the lie, projecting us into the political dimension of it. A deceitful person is somone who induces false images in others mind.

Starting from the modern age, the lie takes on a double meaning. Alongside the persistence of the traditional meaning of the lie as the single action of concealing the truth for convenience as an arcana imperii or state secret, there is also a much more pregnant meaning. Lying becomes action: lying means affecting reality, giving a certain direction to events. To distinguish and outline these two different, but compatible concepts of lies, it is with great effectiveness Hannah Arendt who distinguishes from the arcana imperii the publicly exhibited falsification, or at least to the best known, of the truth of facts.

The lie in the first case concerns those government strategies that do not recognize the principle of transparency in the exercise of power and therefore also provide the possibility of not making available facts, circumstances, intentions in order to preserve the "good" of the political community. Here the lie is one tool, among others, available to the politician.

Quite different is the lie as a programmatic invention of concepts, ideologies, facts, documents in order to affirm or consolidate a political regime: to create a new reality, functional to one's own interest or power. Thanks to the ability to multiply, spread and generate an artificial reality, this form of lie can lead even to the extreme boundaries of the creation of a totalitarian society, of an upside-down world where "the lie passes into history and becomes truth".

This is the face of lying on which we would like to reflect together during the Course, starting from the study of the Kantian essay on the prohibition of lying to arrive at current issues that focus on the tension between falsehood, in its multiform propagation, diffusion, pervasiveness, and the implicit or explicit, introjected or publicly claimed, expectations of truthfulness.

 

Student Reception: Thursday at 10 am via teams (after chat teams on the morning of reception) or in presence at the end of the lessons on Monday and Tuesday.

Timetable of lessons: Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday 11 am -1 pm - Room IV - via Zamboni, 38.

Beginning of the Course: I Semester - September, 19 2022.

Readings/Bibliography

§ Textbooks (compulsory for all students):

· Immanuel Kant, Bisogna sempre dire la verità?, ed. by A. Tagliapietra, RaffaelloCortina, Milano 2019, pp. 87-167 (or English translation).

· Hannah Arendt, Verità e politica, ed. by Vincenzo Sorrentino, Bollati Boringhieri, Torino, 2004, pp. 29-76 (or English version).

· Hannah Arendt, Menzogna in politica. Riflessioni suo “Pentagon Papers”, ed. by Olivia Guaraldo, Marietti, Padova, 2018 (or English version).

· Jürgen Habermas, Storia e critica dell’opinione pubblica (1962), Laterza, Rome-Bari 2005 (or English translation).

· Menzogna tra verità e giustizia, “Sociologia”, XLVIII, 1 (2014) articles on Nietzsche, Stirner, Foucault, Kant, Constant by A. Tagliapietra, P. Persano, M. Lalatta, N. Riva, L. Cedroni.

· One text among the following:

La propaganda, Bollati Boringhieri, Turin 1995 (with short texts by Freud, Jacques, Kris, Money-Kyrle).

Francisco Javier Ansuategui Roig, Libertà di espressione: ragione e storia, Giappichelli, Torino 2018 (or Spanish version).

Paul Corner (a cura di), Il consenso totalitario. Opinione pubblica e opinione popolare sotto fascismo, nazismo e comunismo, Laterza, Rome-Bari 2009 (texts by Kershaw, Fitzpatrick, Kulka, Fullbrook etc.) (or English version). (Alternative reading on the same issue: W.S. Allen, Come si diventa nazisti, Einaudi, Turin 1994; or I. Kershaw, Hitler e l'enigma del consenso, Laterza, Rome-Bari 2001, event. English version).

Otfried Höffe, Kant. Morale, storia, politica, religione, Scholé, Brescia 2018.

Massimo La Torre, Libertà di parola. Cittadinanza e avvocatura, Carocci, Rome 2021.

Vincenzo Sorrentino, Il potere invisibile. Il segreto e la menzogna nella politica contemporanea, Dedalo, Bari 2011.

Claudio Vercelli, Il negazionismo. Storia di una menzogna, Laterza, Rome-Bari 2013.

Optional seminar activities offered by the Course:

§ Seminars on key topics of the Course:

· Conference/seminar on Confessione: una prova regina? with Michele Passione (November 2022).

· International Round-table on Contemporary French Philosophy (Merleau-Ponty, Lefort, Castoriadis) with Dick Howard, Manlio Iofrida, Massimo La Torre: 11.30.2022.

· Seminar on Democrazia tra paradossi e perversioni with Nadia Urbinati (date to be definied).

§ Self-tutoring seminar, held by Graduates and PhD students of the Discipline for an overview on the Course, its articulations, the ways to prepare the exam, the exam interview, hints and bibliographic suggestions for further optional readings. This seminar - available online - is particularly recommended for non-attending students.

§ Seminar on Basic German language dedicated to students of the Course, held by dr. Manuel Fiori.

§ Seminar for graduating students of philosophy of law or bioethics (the updated calendar of online meetings is available and updated in the Notices of the teacher's unibo web page).

Teaching methods

Lectures, seminars and discussion on bioethical themes.

Interdisciplinary seminars will be hold by experts working in the field.

Lessons will be regularly recorded and made available by accessing ad hoc virtual teams-classroom. Access is possible through the unibo institutional credentials at the link present from September on the virtual materials of the Course.

Non-attending students and Erasmus students are recommended to follow (online) the Self-tutoring Seminar of the Course.

Assessment methods

Final oral examination. Room 5.01 (str. Zamboni 38). On September there will be an examination schedule.

Evaluating criteria:

1. Expertise; practical reasoning ability; critical competence.

Notes:

18-21/30 basic level

22-25/30 moderate level

26-28/30 good level

29-30/30 excellent level.

Teaching tools

Optional seminar activities offered by the Course:

§ Seminars on key topics of the Course:

· Conference/seminar on Confessione: una prova regina? with Michele Passione (November 2022).

· International Round-table on Contemporary French Philosophy (Merleau-Ponty, Lefort, Castoriadis) with Dick Howard, Manlio Iofrida, Massimo La Torre: 11.30.2022.

· Seminar on Democrazia tra paradossi e perversioni with Nadia Urbinati (date to be definied).

§ Self-tutoring seminar, held by Graduates and PhD students of the Discipline for an overview on the Course, its articulations, the ways to prepare the exam, the exam interview, hints and bibliographic suggestions for further optional readings. This seminar - available online - is particularly recommended for non-attending students.

§ Seminar on Basic German language dedicated to students of the Course, held by dr. Manuel Fiori.

§ Seminar for graduating students of philosophy of law or bioethics (the updated calendar of online meetings is available and updated in the Notices of the teacher's unibo web page).

Office hours

See the website of Marina Lalatta Costerbosa