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The Brown University Journal of Philosophy, Politics, and Economics (JPPE) is a peer reviewed academic journal for undergraduate and graduate students that is sponsored by the Political Theory Project and the Philosophy, Politics, and Economics Society Program at Brown University. The Brown Journal of Philosophy, Politics & Economics Volume VII, Issue I scroll to view articles Featured Articles Philosophy Body Ethics: Moving Beyond Valid Consent Christine Chen Non-Self Through Time Anita Kukeli Divisive Identities Exploring the Interplay of Personal and Social Identities Ella Neeka Sawhney The Captain and the Doctor George LeMieux Read More PoLitics The European Union Trust Fund for Africa: Understanding the EU’s Securitization of Development Aid and its Implications Migena Satyal A Death Sentence Beyond Death Row: Helling v. McKinney and the Constitutionality of Solitary Confinement Hallie Sternblitz Rewriting the Antitrust Setlist: Examining the Live Nation-Ticketmaster Lawsuit and its Implications for Modern Antitrust Law Katya Tolunsky Read More Economics Read More Not Paying income tax timely leads to significant financial losses for the governments. What design changes could be made to tax collection policy to minimize these delays? Aryan Midha One Planet, One Oklahoma: Exploring a Framework for Assessing the Feasibility of Localized Energy Transitions in the United States Anna Hyslop Applications for JPPE will resume in the fall! See Available Positions

Author Name < Back Refuting the Myth of Progressive Secularism: An Analysis of the Legal Frameworks Surrounding Religious Practice in France and Bahrain Bridget McDonald This paper explores the idea that a secular state is inherently more progressive than a religious nation (a country with a designated state religion). Looking through the lens of freedom of religious expression, I argue that having a secular clause in a country’s constitution does not necessitate a higher degree of religious freedom. Decades of Western discourse linking secularism to modernization has created the notion that religious countries cannot foster free and prosperous societies to the level of secular nations. To refute this view, this paper builds on Talal Asad’s critiques of the contemporary secular model as Eurocentric. Additionally, I expand on the policy overlap discussed in John Bowen’s article comparing the French and Indonesian judicial systems. I employ a comparative case study model to evaluate the legal frameworks surrounding religious practice in France (a secular state) and Bahrain (a Muslim state). Findings indicate that although the two countries differ in terms of religion’s place in government, significant overlap exists between their laws impacting religious practice. I argue that in certain cases, Bahrain exhibits a higher degree of tolerance for religious expression than France. I conclude that religious states can value religious identity more than a secular country, therefore enabling select religious nations to foster religious freedom to equal or higher levels than their secular counterparts. However, more comparative research needs to be done to fully evaluate the dimensions of religious freedom in secular and religious countries. Introduction In the 2022 French presidential elections, news coverage of far-right candidate Marine Le Pen’s outlined platform – titled 22 Measures for 2022 – highlighted the second goal on her list: “Eradicate Islamist ideologies and all of their national territory networks.” Le Pen closely tied this sentiment to laïcité (secularism), a French value developed during the Revolution that established the foundation for a formal separation of church and state. Le Pen’s rhetoric has brought forth discussion on the role of secularism in the government and the impact of secular policies on the French Muslim community (Ataman, 2022). Though initially a primarily Western ideology, a clause pertaining to secularism now appears in 71 countries’ constitutions (World Population Review, 2022). These nations, referred to as constitutionally secular countries, are typically associated with higher GDP (Ruck, Bentley & Lawson, 2018), more socially progressive policies, and increased freedom. However, the recent ban on burqas and niqabs in secular countries has brought into question the progressive nature of secularism. France, Switzerland, Belgium, and Bulgaria have fully banned burqas, while various other European countries have banned the burqa to differing degrees. This trend, which has been criticized for discriminating against Muslims, demonstrates the complicated relationship between secularism and minority religious groups. France, the first European country to ban the burqa via a law prohibiting facial coverings (Erlanger, 2011), has taken further steps to target the Muslim community, including fining women for wearing a “burkini”– a full body swimsuit for Muslim women, that, unlike a burqa, does not have a facial covering (The Guardian, 2016). Labeled as a tactic to fight extremism, the burqa ban is one of many laws regulating Muslim practices and expressions of Muslim identity, such as pressuring imams to sign a charter of republican values (Williamson, 2020). The targeting of the Muslim community in France challenges the idea that secularism entails socially progressive policies. If secularism suppresses religious freedom, then perhaps it is not as progressive as many Westerners believe. This paper seeks to refute the idea that a secular country is inherently more progressive than a religious nation. I will evaluate the legal frameworks of a secular state and a religious state, focusing specifically on areas of law that impact religious expression. This study will center on France, a vocal supporter of secular values, and Bahrain, a Muslim state that has placed emphasis on improving religious freedom over the past decade. Ultimately, this paper argues that the inclusion of a secular clause in a nation's constitution does not necessitate a higher degree of religious freedom. Theoretical Framework In 1870, the term “secularism” was coined by British writer George Holyoake to describe a moral code that exists independently from religious doctrine. Today, secularism is defined as “ the principle of separation of the state from religious institutions” (Oxford Languages), though the degree to which secular countries separate church and state varies widely . For example, while Indonesia is constitutionally secular, the Aceh region of the country is under Sharia law. The discrepancies in how secularism manifests in countries’ legal structures necessitates further exploration on how secularism has historically been conceptualized and defined. Though many scholars have addressed secularism, much of the discourse has been from a Western perspective, which led to significant bias in early secular theory. Max Weber and Emile Durkheim’s work hypothesized that secularism and modernity were tied (Cannell, 2010); the authors identified the decline of traditional religious belief in Europe as the result of technological advancements and economic growth. One notable criticism of this theory came from Talcott Parsons, who claimed that the patterns of religious participation in Europe should not serve as an indicator for global secular trends (Cannell, 2010). Parsons further argued that Weber’s essay, The Protestant Work Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism , exhibited a Eurocentric perspective (Cannell, 2010). Additionally, Protestant Ethic displayed sentiments of Western supremacy and presented capitalism as the ultimate economic system (Weber, 1905). Peter Berger is another critic of the theory that secularism is connected to modernization. He argued that traditional religious beliefs were not being abandoned and were instead evolving, and cited the development and upsurge of evangelism in the United States as evidence (Berger, 1999). Despite criticism, however, Weber and Durkheim’s theory remained prevalent for several decades (Cannell, 2010). This skewed academic perceptions of secularism and linked the concept to a Western and capitalist definition of progress. The absence of an internationally accepted definition of secularism, and varying religious, social, and governmental structures across the world further complicate how secularism is defined. However, newer discourse on secularism has reflected a more comprehensive view of the concept. In his 2003 book, Formations of the Secular, Talal Asad posited that the Western perception of secularism as progressive is inaccurate and underscored the Western European origins of contemporary secularism. Asad emphasized that liberal secularism should not apply to all societies and that it allows for the prohibition of certain religious practices; this paper adopts Asad’s stance and argues that the prohibition of religious practices legitimizes discriminatory policies. Further, Asad states that “the ideology of political representation in liberal democracies makes it difficult if not impossible to represent Muslims as Muslims … Because in theory the citizens who constitute a democratic state belong to a class that is defined only by what is common to all its members and its members only.” Using this lens, this paper asserts that French laws limiting religious practice in the public sphere further isolate religious minority groups. Asad’s contributions to secular discourse and his discussion on belonging and identity in a liberal democratic state lead to the question of whether constitutional secularism offers a higher degree of religious tolerance within a country when compared to a nation that has an established state religion. Through the collection and analysis of laws impacting religious practice in France and Bahrain, this paper seeks to support Asad’s conclusions and determine the degree to which constitutionally secular nations are able to promote religious freedom. Although previous comparative case studies on secular and Muslim countries are extremely limited, John Bowen’s article , Religious Discrimination and Religious Governance Across Secular and Islamic Countries: France and Indonesia as Limiting Cases (2010) offers a selection of preliminary findings and sheds light on areas in need of additional study. In the article, Bowen concluded that there is notable overlap in policy between France and Indonesia. Bowen argued that despite having different governmental structures and views on religion’s place in the public sphere, similar policies appeared in both countries. Additionally, Bowen called for further comparative study on the scope of this phenomenon to expand upon his research into other aspects and applications of secular policy. Building on observations on policy overlap between France and Indonesia, this paper explores the similarities and differences between France’s religious policies and those of Bahrain – a Muslim state. This comparison provides further insight into the legitimacy of the theory that secularism fosters higher levels of religious freedom. A. Measuring Religious Freedom The United Nations guarantees religious freedom in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR), the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), and the Declaration on the Elimination of All Forms of Intolerance and of Discrimination Based on Religion or Belief. The UDHR and ICCPR incorporate a number of components into their definition of religious freedom: the freedom to adopt, change, or renounce a religion, freedom from coercion, the right to manifest one’s religion, the freedom to worship, the ability to establish and maintain places of worship, the right to display religious symbols, the ability to observe holidays, and protection from discrimination on the basis of religion. While there is no single, defined approach to measuring religious freedom, the definition provided by the UDHR and ICCPR allows for guidance in evaluation. Additionally, multiple non-governmental organizations (NGOs) have used different metrics to measure religious freedom, which, when combined with international standards for defining religious freedom, aid in understanding how to accurately assess the subject. For example, the Pew Research Center (PRC) measures religious freedom by analyzing both social and governmental restrictions on religious action (2016). Since constitutional secularism exists within the confines of state law, this paper focuses solely on governmental policies surrounding religious expression. The social perception of other religions and religious freedom, while important, does not relate directly to the argument and would be best analyzed in further studies. A second way of measuring religious freedom is through the framework used in Freedom House’s annual freedom reports, which ranks countries on a scale of 1 to 4 (1 being the lowest possible score) in a number of categories, including freedom of religious expression. In its 2020 reports, Freedom House asks, “Are individuals free to practice and express their religious faith or nonbelief in public and private?” to determine the level of religious freedom in a country. This paper uses this question, the presence of governmental restriction on religious action (as outlined by the PRC), and the components of religious freedom listed by the UDHR and the ICCPR as a definition of what religious freedom looks like in practice and utilizes the definition for legal analysis. Though there are many laws governing religion in France and Bahrain, this paper focuses on laws that directly impact religious practice. The paper highlights seven categories of law as markers of religious freedom. The groups of law reflect a combination of the approaches used by the Pew Research Center and Freedom House, as well as relevant components of the UDHR and ICCPR’s definition of religious freedom; each section examines an aspect of government restriction imposed on free religious practice (apart from Constitutional Status, which offers critical context on the legal setting in the countries), and categories selected answer whether individuals are free to practice in public and private. III. Background France’s deeply entrenched notion of laïcité, which allows for extreme criticism of religion in the public sphere, is contrasted by Bahrain’s stringent anti-blasphemy policies that protect all registered religions from criticism. Each of these ideologies is rooted in the history and culture of the two nations. This difference in approaching public discourse is one of various examples where France and Bahrain diverge in their policies surrounding religion. To understand policy-making relating to religious practice in France and Bahrain, it is necessary to establish baseline knowledge on the histories of the nations. A. France Religious History and Laïcité — Before the French Revolution, Catholicism was the official religion of France. The conversion of Clovis I in the late 400s tied France to the papacy, and later monarchs enjoyed close relations with the Church. Hundreds of years of Catholic influence on the French monarchy and corruption within both institutions contributed to growing resentment towards the Church, which peaked during the early stages of the French Revolution and subsequent Reign of Terror. Demands for a secular government were followed by the persecution and murder of Catholic clergy members in the late 1700s. Though Napoleon Bonaparte reconciled with the Catholic Church in 1801, France did not reinstate Catholicism as the national religion. Over the next century, France continued to dechristianize the public sphere, culminating in the Loi du 9 décembre 1905 concernant la séparation des Églises et de l'État (1905 law on the separation of churches and state). Since the Revolution, France has developed a unique brand of secularism, laïcité, that goes beyond the separation of church and state, arguing that religious expression should remain outside the view of the public eye. This ideology has manifested itself in laws that prohibit the wearing of religious symbols in public schools and ban face coverings. The concept of laïcité has changed, however, since its original conception. As discussed by Eoin Daly (2012), secularism has moved beyond separating church and state and now acts as a justification to move differing religious identities into a private sphere and promote a French identity embedded in shared national values. A 2020 report by the French government offered clarification on the country’s reasoning surrounding laïcité: The freedom to express one’s religious convictions can be limited for the sake of public order, under conditions defined by the law. Freedom must, however, always be the rule, and the limitations the exception, in view of the constitutional principles enshrined in our Republic and France’s international commitments, with which such legal restrictions must be compatible. An additional outcome of laïcité is the prohibition of data collection pertaining to religious affiliation; this policy makes it somewhat difficult to gain a holistic picture of France’s religious landscape. The Religious Futures Project at the Pew Research Center (2016) estimates that 58.1% of the population is Christian, 8.3% is Muslim, and 31.9% is unaffiliated as of 2020. Notable trends include growth in France’s Muslim population (due to increased immigration from former French colonies in Africa), a consistent decrease in people identifying as Catholic, and increased growth in those identifying as unaffiliated. Of the 12 national holidays in France, 7 celebrate Catholic events, which seemingly contradicts France’s strict separation of national and religious affairs. France is currently scored as 3 out of 4 on freedom of religious expression by Freedom House (2020). Recent Events and Political Climate — Law surrounding religious practice in France has been heavily influenced by numerous terrorist attacks over the past decades. During the 1980s and 90s, France saw various attacks by numerous groups: Hezbollah, an integrist Catholic group, the Armed Islamist Group, and other non-religious groups like Action Directe (Shapiro & Suzan, 2003). The 2000s brought more deadly attacks, the majority of which had connections to Islamist groups. Following a series of bombings, shootings, and stabbings by various Islamist groups in 2014 and 2015, France enacted laws increasing government surveillance (Law Nº 2669, 2015) and anti-terrorism efforts (Law Nº 1353, 2014). Terrorist attacks led to a renewed emphasis on laïcité in the political sphere. Far-right isolationist parties led by politicians like Marine Le Pen incorporated anti-Muslim messaging in their campaigns, promising French voters safety from radical Islam (Fieschi, 2020). In this climate of frequent terror attacks and the rise of far-right parties, France created and amended legislation surrounding religious practice. B. Bahrain History — Bahrain, located off the coast of Saudi Arabia, fell under the control of various empires before declaring independence from the British in 1971 (Gardner, 2017). Known for its pearl beds and freshwater springs, the island was seen as highly desirable by political entities. This caused numerous changes in leadership. From the 1400-1800s, the territory of Bahrain was controlled by the Omanis, Portugal, Persia, the ‘Utub (a Sunni tribal confederation), and the United Kingdom (Gardner, 2017). Throughout the centuries of changing leadership, Bahrain developed a diverse population. The pearl trade brought merchants from all over the world, and the territory was exposed to many ideologies, religions, and cultures as a result of the various empires that had taken control of the island. Though small populations of Jewish, Hindu, and Christian people have lived in Bahrain over past centuries, Islam has been the predominant religion since its introduction to the indigenous population in the 640s (Gardner, 2017). The majority of Muslim Bahraini people identify as Shi’a. However, a smaller Sunni elite has ruled the country since the arrival of the Sunni al-Khalifa family, who came with the ‘Utub. Bahrain was declared a monarchy in 2002, headed by King Hamad bin Isa al-Khalifa, who remains in power today. According to the Religious Futures Project at the Pew Research Center (2016), 69.7% of the population is Muslim, and within that group, roughly 60% is Shi’a and 35-40% is Sunni; 14.1% of the population is Christian, 10.2% is Hindu, and 2% is unaffiliated as of 2020. Bahrain is currently scored as 1 out of 4 on freedom of religious expression by Freedom House (2020). Recent Events and Political Climate — In 2011, Bahrain served as a starting point for the Arab Spring in the Gulf countries. The country saw massive protests from the Shi’a community, who decried unfair treatment by the Sunni government. The government reacted by killing and arresting protestors, destroying Shi’a mosques, and dismantling the traffic circle that had served as the uprising’s epicenter. Following condemnation by the international community and human rights organizations, King Hamad launched an investigation and resolved to enforce policies to improve tensions between the Shi’a and Sunni groups (U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom Report on Bahrain, 2020). While the initial success of these policies was contested, the government has taken significant steps in the past decade to ameliorate the state of religious freedom in Bahrain (USCIRF, 2020). The government, which had rescinded the citizenships of 1000 Bahrainis (most of whom were Shi’a) due to alleged security threats, reinstated over half of their citizenships in 2020 (USCIRF, 2020). While typically met with government hostility, the Shi'a holiday Ashura remained largely peaceful in 2020 and 2021; discourse concerning Ashura between the Sunni government and Shi’a clerics has eased tensions between the parties to allow for the celebration of the holiday. However, despite improvement, tensions remain between the Sunni and Shi’a communities. In terms of relations with non-Muslim groups, the Bahraini government is notably tolerant of other religions. There are 19 recognized religions in the country, all of which are able to practice their respective beliefs freely. IV. Methodology A. Overview This study aimed to determine whether the legal framework of a secular state fosters higher degrees of religious freedom than that of a religious state. This paper uses a comparative case study approach to ensure a balanced review of France’s domestic policy concerning religious practice. Further, the comparative case study model offers critical insight into the caveats of secular policy when implemented on a national scale. Bahrain was chosen as a comparative subject because it is a Muslim state in which members of various other religious groups reside. The primary goal of data collection was to gain a deeper understanding of the laws impacting religious practice in both countries. To effectively compare the two countries, specific areas of policy were chosen (listed in Table I) following the combined framework of Freedom House and the Pew Research Center described in the Theoretical Framework section. Primary qualitative data concerning policy was taken from law databases published by the French government. Secondary qualitative data was extracted from reports on Bahrain and France by the United States Commission for Religious Freedom (USCIRF), the United States embassy, and Freedom House country reports. The search process yielded a number of pertinent laws surrounding religious practices in France and Bahrain. B. Comparing Policy on Domestic Religious Practice Information on France’s laws was sourced from the government. Translations were provided by the author unless indicated otherwise. The United States State Department reports informed general knowledge on the legal framework surrounding religious practice. Due to the general inaccessibility of translated laws from a Bahraini government source, information about religious laws in Bahrain was obtained from United States government reports. Recognizing the potential bias of the United States government, only objective data (such as the description of laws) was used in this paper. Areas of crucial law were chosen after general study on legal frameworks surrounding religious practice; the categories of policy listed in Table I were selected because they represent the most direct interaction between the government and religious groups and reflect international standards for religious freedom as expressed by UDHR and ICCPR documents. It was imperative that both countries had laws falling under each assigned category, otherwise, policies could not be compared. Laws were evaluated based on the level to which they promoted or inhibited freedom of religious expression, and a compare and contrast approach was used, reflecting the style of Bowen. Larger implications and enforcement of the laws were not considered, as the repercussions of policy were too far-reaching to effectively encompass in this comparative case study. Instead, analysis of laws consisted of identifying common themes and key similarities and differences between the legal frameworks of France and Bahrain. Other peripheral areas of law could be colored by religious or secular ideologies, such as marriage laws. However, to keep the scope of this study appropriately narrow, peripheral policies were not considered. V. Results: Analysis of Legal Frameworks of France and Bahrain A. Constitutional Status The constitutional statutes of France and Bahrain are, as discussed earlier, on opposite sides of the ideological spectrum. These religious designations are detailed below for context. (i) France Article 1 of the French constitution states “France shall be an indivisible, secular, democratic and social Republic.” (ii) Bahrain Article 2 of the Bahraini constitution states “The religion of the State is Islam. The Islamic Shari’a is a principal source for legislation.” B. Anti-Discrimination Laws (In Reference to Religion) Both France and Bahrain have clauses in their constitutions prohibiting discrimination against others on the basis of faith. Beyond their respective constitutions, both countries have enacted laws forbidding hiring and workplace discrimination in relation to religious affiliations, as listed below. (i) France [The internal regulation] may not contain provisions which would prejudice the employees because of their sex, morals, sexual orientation, age, family situation, origins, opinions, religious beliefs, physical appearance, name, or disability, when they have equal professional capacity capability (L. 122-35, 2008). (ii) Bahrain The labor law prohibits discrimination in the public sector on grounds of religion or faith. The law also stipulates recourse through a complaint process to the Ministry of Labor and Social Development to legal bodies in the event of discrimination or dismissal in the work place on the basis of religion (U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom, Bahrain, 2019). Analysis — The anti-discrimination clauses in both the countries’ constitutions have been further developed into active laws. The overlap of anti-discrimination policy in France and Bahrain shows that, in this case, a secular country and a religious state are able to promote religious freedom in the same capacity. C. Registration with the Government and Government Funding Both the French and Bahraini governments have registration processes in place for religious organizations. Recognition of a religious group by the respective governments allows for financial support, whether that comes in the form of subsidization or tax-exempt status. As government registration is tied to financial support in each country, the process allows the state to maintain relative control over the religious makeup of the nation; this is achieved to varying degrees in accordance with the requirements of the law. (i) France According to the 2019 USCIRF report on France: In France, religions are not required to register with the government. However, in order to receive official recognition, tax-exempt status or financial aid, religious groups must go through a number of processes. To receive tax-exempt status and official recognition as a religion, groups must apply as associations of worship, and to receive government funding, groups can apply as cultural associations. Religious organizations are able to qualify as both an association of worship and a cultural association, thus receiving tax-exempt status and government funding. It should be noted, however, that government funding is permitted only to go towards non-religious activities hosted by a religious group, such as educational programming. Despite Article 2 of the Law of 1905 Concerning the Separation of Church and State stating “ The Republic does not recognize, pay or subsidize any religion”, the French government owns and operates religious buildings built before 1905. Approximately 90% of Catholic buildings in France are subsidized by the government, while 12% of Protestant churches and 3% of Jewish temples are subsidized as a result of the law. There are no Buddhist or Muslim centers of worship subsidized by the government (French Senate report, 2015). (ii) Bahrain According to the 2019 USCIRF report on Bahrain: Bahrain’s government requires that religions register in accordance with their faith. Sunni and Shi’a organizations register with the Ministry of Justice and Islamic Affairs and Endowments and register further with the Sunni and Shi’a Waqfs to receive funding. Non-Muslim groups must register with the Ministry of Labor and Social Development, during which they must provide a number of details (including minutes from meetings, personal information on founders and the group’s bylaws). Religious groups (Muslim and non-Muslim) are not allowed to receive funding from foreign donors, and money collection is monitored by the government. Analysis — Bahrain’s laws surrounding the funding of religious groups and registration with the government are more stringent than France’s. However, while France does not require registration, restrictions from funding and tax-exempt status for non-registered groups act as significant incentives in pushing organizations to submit an application to the government. In both cases, the government seeks access to information on religious groups, though Bahrain attempts to monitor activities to a more extreme extent than France. While this does not necessarily infringe on the status of religious freedom, the laws in both countries allow significant room for discriminatory funding. An example of this was displayed in a 2015 French Senate report that noted the vast majority of France’s 2,500 mosques receive little to no public funding while Catholic institutions are almost entirely subsidized, but pointed to Muslims’ inability to organize and register with the government as the reason for funding inequality (2015 French Senate report, 23). As this claim is difficult to quantifiably prove, it allowed the government plausible deniability on the lack of funding for Muslim organizations. In Bahrain, disproportionate funding for Muslim organizations is enshrined in the country’s laws. While France’s legal framework surrounding registration is not as strict as Bahrain’s in this case, policies in both countries enable an unequal distribution of funding. D. Religion in the Public Sphere: Freedom of Speech and Religious Symbols The French and Bahraini approaches to religion in the public sphere offer vastly different interpretations of the promotion of religious freedom. Nevertheless, both countries are stringent in their application of the law. (i) France France has various laws protecting freedom of speech. In reference to religion, Article 10 of the 1789 Declaration of Human and Civic Rights states that “no one may be disturbed on account of his opinions, even religious ones, as long as the manifestation of such opinions does not interfere with the established Law and Order.” According to the 2019 USCIRF France report: In accordance with secular law, people employed by the government are not allowed to wear signs of religious affiliation in the workplace or in public spaces. A 2010 law prohibits face coverings in public places, including the wearing of a niqab or burqa; refusing to remove the face covering can result in a 150 euro fine. (ii)Bahrain Bahrain has anti-blasphemy laws that apply to all religions. The penal code calls for punishment of up to one year’s imprisonment or a fine of up to 100 dinars ($270) for offending one of the recognized religious groups or their practices, or for openly defaming a religious figure considered sacred to members of a particular group. The law stipulates fines or imprisonment for insulting an institution, announcing false or malicious news, spreading rumors, encouraging others to show contempt for a different religious denomination or sect, illegally gathering, and advocating for a change of government, among other offenses. The law prohibits anti-Islamic publications and broadcast media programs and mandates imprisonment of no less than six months for ‘exposing the state’s official religion to offense and criticism (USCIRF, Bahrain, 2019). Non-Muslims are not required to wear traditional Muslim clothing. The law allows non-Muslim places of worship to display religious symbols. Analysis — In summary, French law allows for extensive freedom of speech in reference to religion while Bahrain maintains strict laws on speech in reference to religion. Both of these policies purport to uphold religious equality; in France, one may critique any religion, while in Bahrain there is no tolerance for criticism of any religion. These laws are a clear example of where France and Bahrain diverge ideologically, but the difference in approach does not mean one policy is more effective than the other in promoting equal access to religious expression. In France, varying definitions of hate speech and the government’s high tolerance for criticism of religion can be exploited to target minority religions. In Bahrain, anti-blasphemy laws protect all religious groups from hate speech, but policy blatantly favors the interests of Muslim groups. While the laws in France and Bahrain are opposites in intention, they both result in bias towards the dominant religious group. When comparing the two countries, Bahrain allows for more freedom in expressing religious affiliation in public spaces. French laws prohibiting face coverings directly infringe on Muslim women’s abilities to fulfill religious duties, and the ban of ostentatious religious symbols in public settings does not allow citizens to express their religion freely. Religious dress is a significant aspect of many traditions, including Christianity, Islam, and Judaism. The prohibition of wearing religious garments violates an adherent’s beliefs and negates religious freedom. Bahrain does not have specific laws regarding religious dress, though it should be noted that societal norms dictate a culture of modesty. That being said, as this paper is reviewing formal law, Bahrain is significantly less stringent in the ruling of religious dress from a policy perspective. E. Religion in Education (i) France France’s attempts to keep religion out of the public sphere are clearly reflected in policies surrounding religion in the public school system. Public schools are secular. The law prohibits public school employees from wearing visible signs of religious affiliation and students from wearing “conspicuous religious symbols,” including the Muslim headscarf, Jewish skullcap, Sikh turban, and large Christian crosses (USCIRF, France, 2019). In terms of private education: By law, the government subsidizes private schools, including those affiliated with religious organizations. In 98 percent of private schools, in accordance with the law, the government pays the teachers’ salaries, provided the school accepts all children regardless of their religious affiliation. The law does not address the issue of religious instruction in government-subsidized private schools or whether students must be allowed to opt out of such instruction (USCIRF, France, 2019). (ii) Bahrain Because Bahrain is a Muslim state, religious instruction is heavily incorporated in the school system. The law regulates Islamic religious instruction at all levels of the education system. The government funds public schools for grades 1-12; Islamic studies are mandatory for all Muslim students and are optional for non-Muslims. Private schools must register with the government and, with a few exceptions (for example, a foreign funded and foreign operated school), are also required to provide Islamic religious education for Muslim students. Private schools wishing to provide non-Islamic religious education to non-Muslims must receive permission from the Ministry of Education (USCIRF, Bahrain, 2019). In terms of private education: The government also permits non-Muslim groups to offer religious instruction to their adherents in private schools (USCIRF, Bahrain, 2019). Analysis — While France maintains secularism within the educational system, the banning of religious symbols in schools infringes on religious freedom. As addressed earlier, the prohibition of religious garb violates the ability of an individual to freely practice their belief. Although Bahrain emphasizes Islam in education, the ability for non-Muslim students to opt out maintains religious freedom. Therefore, Bahrain allows for a higher degree of religious expression within the education system. F. Anti-Terrorism Policy The other sections of law described above have direct influence on the ability of religious adherents to practice their belief in the public and private spheres. Though anti-terrorism policy may not initially appear as an area of law that has an impact on religious freedom, both France and Bahrain have employed discriminatory practices labeled as tactics to fight extremism. (i) France The French perception of religion’s ties to terrorism is demonstrated by legislation that specifically targets religious institutions. Counterterrorism legislation grants prefects in each department the authority to close a place of worship for a maximum of six months if they find comments, writings, or activities in the place of worship “provoke violence, hatred or discrimination or the commission of acts of terrorism or praise such acts of terrorism.” The management of the place of worship has 48 hours to appeal the closure decision to an administrative court. Noncompliance with a closure decision carries a six-month prison sentence and a fine of 7,500 euros ($8,400) (USCIRF, France, 2019). In March 2021, a bill aimed at combating radicalism and separatism (titled Supporting Respect for the Principles of the Republic) was passed through the lower house of Parliament and went to the Senate. On April 13th, 2021, the Senate added stipulations to the bill that were viewed as harsher than the initial proposals (Woods, 2021). The original bill would, among other things, restrict people from home-schooling their children, crack down on polygamy and forced marriages, and make the sharing of someone’s private life and location illegal (N° 3649 rectifié, 2021). Excerpts from the edited bill are detailed below: If passed, the bill would, among other things, prohibit the wearing of the veil and other ostentatious religious symbols to persons accompanying school trips, allow the internal regulations of swimming pools and public bathing areas to prohibit the wearing of the burkini, and prevent the issuance and renewal of residence permits for individuals who are found to have expressed a rejection of the principles of the Republic (Loi confortant le respect des principes de la République, 2021). (ii) Bahrain There are penalties of up to five years in prison for encouraging or possessing materials that support “terrorist activities.” Bahrain imposed one round of sanctions against individuals and entities affiliated with the Iranian regime’s terror-support networks in the region. The government is also able to expel individuals who are suspected of terrorist activity (U.S. State Department, Report on Terrorism, Bahrain, 2019). In terms of reconciliation efforts between the Sunni and Shi’a communities: In coordination with the Supreme Council for Islamic Affairs, a team of Ministry of Education-appointed experts routinely reviews and develops the Islamic studies of the public school curriculum to emphasize shared Islamic values between different Sunni and Shi’a schools of thought, reject extremism, and promote tolerance and coexistence (USCIRF, Bahrain, 2019). Analysis — In both countries, many of the laws surrounding anti-terrorism efforts can be easily exploited to target specific groups of people. In France, the closing of worship centers has solely impacted mosques, while Bahrain’s expulsion policy has primarily impacted leaders of the Shi’a community. France’s new bill comes on the heels of a speech by President Macron condemning separatism in the country. While the legislative language does not name any religion directly, the explanatory statement preceding the bill states the following: An insidious but powerful communitarian entryism is slowly destroying the foundations of our society in certain areas. This entryism is essentially of Islamist inspiration. It is the manifestation of a conscious, theorized, politico-religious political project, the ambition of which is to make religious norms prevail over the common law that we have freely given ourselves (Loi nº 3649, 2021). Because the bill refers to Islamism as the reason for the legislation, much of the proposal is aimed directly at Muslim communities. The recently added stipulations show a harsher, more direct targeting of the Muslim community in France. Anti-terrorism policy in Bahrain targets members of the Shi’a community who are seen as causing separatism. This was prevalently displayed when the kingdom expelled a number of Shi’a individuals, who were eventually granted re-entry when no evidence of terrorist activity was found. In this sense, Bahrain and France are notably similar in their reasoning and justification for anti-extremist laws. VI. Discussion The results support the argument that a constitutionally secular country does not necessarily foster a higher degree of religious freedom than a religious state. Despite being ideologically opposed in reference to religion in government, France and Bahrain share overlaps in policy, as seen in the Anti-Discrimination Laws, Registration with Government and Government Funding, and Anti-Terrorism Policy sections of the analysis. Beyond policies that target or disproportionately impact a specific religious group, France and Bahrain employ inclusive anti-discrimination laws in their labor codes. In this case, both countries pledge to condemn religious discrimination in the hiring process or workplace. The countries employ similar registration policies for religious groups, directly tying legal access to practice and tax incentives to cooperation with state entities. A third overlap is in anti-terrorism efforts, often labeled as anti-extremist policies. France and Bahrain have enacted a number of alarming anti-extremism laws, often using vague wording (such as “terrorist activities” or “rejection to the principles of the Republic”) that hand significant power to the government’s interpretations of actions or words; the wording of laws allows for exploitation of the policies to fulfill specific agendas, as seen by Bahrain’s expulsion of Shi’a individuals and French policymakers’ justification for the “Supporting Respect for the Principles of the Republic” bill. While not all of the measures taken to combat extremism negatively impact specific religious communities, both countries have used anti-terrorism policies to target religious groups perceived as threatening to the state. A clear demonstration of the negative impacts of legislative rhetoric is reflected in the interchangeability of anti-terrorist and anti-extremist policies; in both countries, the targeted religious groups have become synonymous with terrorism. The similarities in the justifications and immediate outcomes of laws surrounding religious practice in France and Bahrain aid in showing that the label of “constitutionally secular” does not equate to increased levels of religious freedom, as both states are equally capable of implementing policies that positively and negatively impact religious expression. In the sections Religion in Education and Religion in the Public Sphere , France and Bahrain display significant differences in approach. In both cases, Bahrain exhibited higher degrees of tolerance for religious practice in public and for minority religious groups in general. France’s policies on wearing ostentatious religious symbols in public spaces disproportionately impact the Muslim and Jewish communities, all of whom have integrated religious garb into their belief systems. Further, while Bahrain emphasizes Islam in education, the country allows for non-Muslim students to opt out of those classes and does not prohibit students from wearing alternative religious symbols. France has yet to create laws around the ability of students to opt out of religious instruction at private schools, despite most private schools being funded by the government. France’s integration of discriminatory secular policy into the public sphere and the education system strengthens the argument that states with official religions, like Bahrain, can allow for higher levels of religious freedom in some areas of society. A potential explanation for this is how France and Bahrain approach religious identity. At its core, France’s secular ideology attempts to ignore religious identity altogether. Nonetheless, the rise of radical Islam in the country, a Christian-majority population, and the dynamics between France and Muslim-majority former colonial countries led to the French Muslim community becoming an easily-targeted scapegoat. In Bahrain, however, the historical presence of non-Muslim religions and a national understanding of the importance of spiritual affiliation have allowed for a legal framework cognizant of religious identity. This is not to say that Bahrain has created the ideal legal structure, but instead that the recognition of religious affiliation’s significance allows for development in the realm of religious freedom. France has shown regression in freedom of religious expression where Bahrain has displayed consistent progress; this trend further supports the theory that some religious states are appropriately situated to cultivate a society that offers higher degrees of religious freedom. The findings of this paper are consistent with Asad’s theory on secularism’s potential to be discriminatory and builds on Bowen’s observations of the French and Indonesian judicial systems. As showcased by secular laws in France disproportionately targeting and impacting Muslim individuals, the label of laïcité creates a wall of Western liberal ideology for policymakers to hide behind. Bowen argues that France and Indonesia, despite opposing views on the role of religion in the judicial system, adopt very similar policy positions. Bowen’s focus on how each of the countries deals with religious discrimination in the courts yields primarily positive observations, and he notes that the foundations of both systems attempt to promote fairness and equality. Bowen’s findings differ from the analysis of laws in this paper, which is likely because this paper focused on policy reaching beyond anti-discrimination laws and did not note the outcomes in judicial proceedings concerning religious discrimination. Even with the differences in tone between Bowen’s findings and the analyses in this paper, the outcomes of the study are in alignment with Bowen’s conclusion; despite being on different ends of the ideological spectrum, a secular state and a religious state bear significant resemblance to each other in terms of the legal framework. A. Addressing Inconsistencies with Freedom House The laws explored in this study paint a picture of France and Bahrain as both employing policies that negatively impact a specific religious group. In some instances, Bahrain displayed higher degrees of religious tolerance, despite the West’s view of secularism as more progressive. However, the findings of this paper are not reflected in Freedom House’s scoring of France and Bahrain on religious freedom in their respective 2020 reports. As discussed earlier, the NGO ranked France a 3 out of 4 and Bahrain a 1 out of 4 in response to the following question: “Are individuals free to practice and express their religious faith or nonbelief in public and private?” The laws discussed in the analysis portion of this paper display France’s various policies against public displays of religious affiliation; these laws blatantly interfere with expression of religious faith in public, implying that France should be scored lower than a 3 within the Freedom House framework. In the case of Bahrain, while there have been numerous infringements on religious freedom (specifically to target the Shi’a community), the report did not provide sufficient evidence to rank the country significantly below France. The report even notes that “non-Muslim minorities are generally free to practice their faiths.” Freedom House then discusses government discrimination against the Shi’a population by citing the events of the Arab Spring in 2011 (a reference that does not reflect the contemporary political atmosphere in Bahrain) and the arrest of Shi’a clerics accused of spreading messages of separatism. However, the report also states that “Shiite communities are free to carry out religious observances, such as the annual Ashura processions,” which exhibits a governmental commitment to religious freedom. Conversely, the 2020 French report describes current tensions saying, “Islamophobic rhetoric from prominent politicians and public figures on both the left and right is not uncommon. Multiple attacks at mosques throughout the country occurred in 2019.” After a review of the 2020 Freedom Reports for France and Bahrain, it appears that there is inconsistency in the way Freedom House scores religious freedom. While there are numerous valid criticisms of the state of religious freedom in both countries, Freedom House ignored many laws in both France and Bahrain when scoring, resulting in a potentially skewed and inaccurate representation of the legal frameworks that unjustifiably favors France. B. Limitations of Study This was a limited case study, so these findings are merely a reflection of the laws and policies addressing religious practice in France and Bahrain. While the framework used in this study could be applied to comparing religious freedom in other nations, other cases were not considered in this paper. Further limitations include the scope of the study, which consisted of governmental restrictions and focused on legal frameworks but did not address political rhetoric involvement in international treaties or agreements, or relations with secular and religious states. Further, this paper did not consider societal restrictions, which include the presence of anti-religious attacks, non-governmental groups that target religious communities, online rhetoric, and general hostility towards certain religious groups. Studies that explore these factors are necessary to gain a holistic understanding of the differing degrees of religious freedom in secular and religious countries. VII. Conclusion Comparing seven key areas of law within the French and Bahraini legal frameworks shows that there is significant overlap in legislation, intention, and policy outcomes. But how does this comparison link to the larger discussion around religious freedom and the validity of secularism? France, a country that prides itself on the value of laïcité, implements a number of discriminatory policies that predominantly impact Muslim citizens. In the public sphere, individuals who belong to faiths that utilize clothing as an expression of affiliation cannot practice their religions to the full extent. The idea of separating the religious self from the public self displays an understanding of religious belief as a secondary identity. For many, spiritual affiliation is a primary identity. Therefore, French laws surrounding religious practice are not applicable in a universal sense, nor do they foster a wide breadth of religious freedom for all faiths. Religious states, who are typically viewed as unable to foster high degrees of religious freedom, have equal opportunity to promote a religiously pluralistic society through legislation. While not all religious states choose to foster a space for minority religious groups, nations like Bahrain have made significant efforts to advance religious freedom. Though this study was limited to France and Bahrain, the countries are not outliers. While Bahrain deviates somewhat from other Gulf nations, Qatar, and to a lesser extent Oman, have legal frameworks in place to support spiritual pluralism and religious freedom. Other countries, such as Bhutan, Liechtenstein, Thailand, Andorra, and Brunei, are religious states viewed as fostering religious freedom. While there are religious states that suppress religious freedom, the analysis suggests that religious countries may be uniquely positioned to create legal frameworks inclusive of a population that views religious affiliation as a primary identity. Although Bahrain has not yet reached the point of fostering equal religious freedom for all groups, national policies show an understanding of the importance of ritual practice and religious identity. Beyond supporting the hypothesis, the findings of this paper suggest the need for a shift in thinking when evaluating secular and religious states. As displayed by the inconsistencies in scoring throughout the Freedom House annual reports on France and Bahrain, the West remains biased in favor of secular European systems of government. Moving forward, Western NGOs and government agencies should consider viewing religious affiliation as a primary identity when assessing legal frameworks and government policies instead of using a secular lens as the default perspective. Further research on the capacities of religious states to promote religious freedom is necessary to coherently refute the notion of inherently progressive secularism and change the Western interpretation of which ideologies possess the ability to foster a free and prosperous society. References Legal Sources Government of the French Republic Government of the French Republic. “Article L122-35 - Code Du Travail.” Legifrance.gouv.fr , 2008. https://www.legifrance.gouv.fr/codes/article_lc/LEGIARTI000006646821/2021-04-25/ . Government of the French Republic. Nationale, Assemblée. “Projet De Loi Nº 3649 Confortant Le Respect Des Principes De La République.” Assemblée nationale, 2020. https://www.assemblee-nationale.fr/dyn/15/textes/l15b3649_projet-loi . Government of the French Republic. “Declaration of the Rights of Man.” 1789. https://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/rightsof.asp . 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Cannabis Latent Effects of Cannabis Legalization: Racial Disproportionality and Disparity in Washington State Drug Convictions, 2000-2015 Kaid Ray-Tipton University of Washington Author Danai Benopoulou Matthew Dowling Bastien Ibri Shreya Raghunandan Editors Spring 2018 Understanding if racial disparities in drug convictions decreased post the implementation of cannabis legalization in Washington state. Introduction There has been a great amount of research analyzing racial disparities in drug arrests (Beckett, Nyrop, Pfingst and Bowen, 2005; Kutateladze, Andiloro, Johnson and Spohn, 2014). Findings show that black people have disproportionate arrest rates compared to Whites. In fact, “Blacks are 3.73 times more likely than Whites to be arrested for marijuana possession” (ACLU, 2013). These statistics are surprising given that Blacks and Whites use cannabis at a comparable rate (ACLU, 2013). Hispanic communities are also impacted. Racial disparities in drug crimes in this group are harder to measure quantitatively because some agencies group Hispanic or Latinos with Whites. This causes the White conviction rate to increase, thus deflating the racial disparity present. In New York City where Latino arrest rates are available, “Latinos are arrested at 2.5 times the rates of Whites for marijuana possession” (ACLU, 2013). Richard Nixon’s declaration for the “War on Drugs” that began in the 1970’s has had many negative latent effects on communities of color and has contributed greatly to racial disproportionality in mass incarceration (Sharp, 1994). For example, “arrest for marijuana possession… accounted for nearly 80 percent of the growth in drug arrest in the 1990s” (Alexander, 2010). Images within media have reinforced the link between people of color and their involvement with drugs (Bullock, Wyche and Williams, 2001). These socially constructed depictions have influenced prejudices and stereotypes which in turn create implicit biases. These biases have been shown to have profound effects on police enforcement tactics and decision making (Levinson, 2007). Currently, police across the nation have the discretion to stop and search people under “reasonable suspicion” that an individual may be in possession of illegal drugs (Yankah, 2011). These so called “Terry” stops allow police officers to use the notion of reasonable suspicion to stop and frisk individuals (Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1, 1968). Such inquiries frequently rely on police officers’ own intuition - an intuition often affected by the aforementioned implicit biases. Scholars have suggested that this policing is not evenly distributed among neighborhoods and across socioeconomic statuses. To be more specific, racially and ethnically diverse areas may be subject to over-policing while predominantly white neighborhoods may be more likely to be under-policed (Beckett, Nyrop and Pfingst, 2006). Therefore, more police enforcement in communities of color leads to more stops and searches among people of color. These outdoor drug busts may lead to a disproportionate increase in convictions for Blacks and Hispanics. Blacks are disproportionately convicted for cannabis related offenses, which disrupts many areas of life including family, employment opportunities, housing, and well-being (Massey, 2007). It is important to note that even stops and searches that yield no results for the police may lead to continued harassment and embarrassment for members of the community due to the “War or Drugs”. Recently, cannabis has been highly debated as a substance that could be legalized for medical and/or recreational purposes (Coulkins, Kilmer, Kleiman, MacCoun, Midgette, Oglesby, Paucula and Reuter, 2015). The federal government has yet to lift the national prohibition of cannabis but many states have begun to revise their laws regarding it. There are currently 23 states and the U.S. territories of Guam and Puerto Rico that have passed laws to legalize medical cannabis. There are only nine states and the District of Columbia that have legalized recreational use as well; these states include Alaska, California, Colorado, Oregon, Maine, Massachusetts, Nevada, Vermont, and Washington (Guttmannova, Lee, Kilmer, Fleming, Rhew, Kosterman and Larimer, 2016). Cannabis being decriminalized in these states may have profuse positive outcomes for people of color. Policing would be reduced for cannabis use and possession within these states. Blacks and Hispanics in these areas may be subject to fewer convictions by police because of the nature of the fledgling laws. In this paper, I will analyze latent outcomes of the legalization of cannabis. More specifically, I will examine racial disproportionality in drug conviction pre and post the legalization of cannabis for recreational use in King County and Washington State. I expect to find reductions in racial disproportionality in drug convictions post cannabis legalization at the county and state level. Background History of Cannabis in the United States and Its Links to Race/Ethnicity Scholars suggest that cannabis was first brought to the United States in the beginning of the 1600s. The Jamestown settlers primarily used this plant in hemp production and cultivation until around 1850 (Anderson, Hansen and Rees, 2013). The uses for hemp ranged from clothing and oil to edible nuts. Subsequently following the end of hemp cultivation was the use of hemp for medicinal purposes. The use of herbal medicine did not last very long. As the alcohol prohibition gained support in the 1850s, so did the movement to outlaw cannabis. The first prohibition of recreational cannabis use was passed in 1913 by California. By 1936, the rest of the 47 states decided to do the same (Anderson, Hansen and I. Rees, 2013). In the years to come, these policies led to immense consequences for the consumer, including the label of felon with a stigma that restricted occupational attainment, and included hefty incarceration time and large monetary sanctions. For instance, possessing one joint (cannabis cigarette) in Arizona could lead to up to 10 years in prison with a fine of $50,000 (Inciardi, 1981). Policies and laws such as these became monolithic because “those who have actively promoted these laws, the moral entrepreneurs of drug legislation, have relied on racial slurs and allusions to bolster their arguments for criminal controls” (Provine, 2007). In 1970, cannabis was classified as a Schedule I substance along with heroin and LSD. For a substance to be listed as a Schedule I drug, it must not be accepted for medical use, have a high potential for abuse, and be considered a dangerous drug that can cause psychological and physical dependence (United States Drug Enforcement Administration, 2015). As time moved on, groups began to consider cannabis for medicinal purposes. The Food and Drug Administration began to allow cannabis for medical use in 1978. The number of medical cannabis patients flourished and California eventually passed the Compassionate Use Act in 1996 to allow for personal use of the plant (N. Yankah, 2011). Two years after, Washington State passed Initiative 692 titled Washington State Medical Use of Marijuana Act (Washington State Medical Association). This allowed for the growing, possession, sale, and use of cannabis for medical patients. It is worth noting that this initial stance against cannabis did not necessarily happen out of fear of the potential negative effects of the drug, such as addictive, psychological, and physiological damage. Instead, the prohibition on cannabis developed as a result of anti-minority feeling (Bonnie and Whitebread, 1970). Inciardi (1981) conducted a social constructionist analysis of newspapers about cannabis published in the late 1800s and early 1900s and showed that headlines negatively linked cannabis with communities of color. For example, the New York Times published an article in 1972 titled “Mexican Family Go Insane”. This particular article detailed how a widow and her four children accidentally ate cannabis as part of their vegetables for dinner. In the neighbor’s account, they described hearing “crazed laughter” and rushed to the house to see the entire family “insane”. The doctors said that there would be no hope for the mother and children and that they would be insane for the rest of their lives. These early depictions linking race and drugs have lasting effects on media consumers. For example, results from a study done in 1995 asked respondents to imagine what a typical drug user looks like. Analysis indicates that 95% of the respondents thought of an African American person (Burston, Jones and Robertson-Saunders, 1995). The acceptability of illegal substance tended to rely on the social position of the consumers (H. Skolnick and Dombrink, 1978). The perceived deviance of cannabis intensified once linked with racial/ethnic minorities. Whites were seen as upper class and angelic. People of color were paired with a lower social class, at times considered non-human in the early 1900s. This helps explain the overstated deviance of cannabis. The deviance also increased when the effects were dramatized and exaggerated. In 1936, the American Journal of Nursing said that a cannabis user may “suddenly turn with murderous violence upon whomever is nearest to him. He will turn amuck with knife, axe, gun, or anything else that is close at hand, and will kill or maim without any reason" (Musto, 1991). Articles such as these from professionals are an example of the control around cannabis use and how it was perceived by the general public. Cannabis Laws in King County and Washington State and Implications for 2012 As Seattle is the most populated city in King County and thus Washington State, I will give emphasis to their policies and the city will have the most influence per this discussion. In 2003, Seattle, Washington voters passed the Marijuana Law Enforcement or “Initiative 75”. This initiative required all cannabis offenses for adult personal use to be the lowest priority for the Seattle Police Department (SPD) (Atherly and Baird, 2014). This change in the Seattle municipal code was a huge step towards decriminalization of cannabis in Washington State (Seattle, Washington Municipal code 12A.20.060). Subsequently, on November 6th 2012, Washington Initiative 502 was approved by a majority vote (Washington State Liquor and Cannabis Board, 2015). The cannabis reform had many different components that took over a year to be fully established. The passing of I 502 legalized the recreational use of cannabis for individuals 21 and older. A 21 year old may possess up to one ounce of usable cannabis, seven grams of cannabis concentrates/extracts, 16 ounces of cannabis infused in a solid form, up to 72 ounces of cannabis infused in liquid form, and also paraphernalia related to cannabis. Only cannabis producers, processors, and retailers with a license are permitted to distribute cannabis. Seattle’s massive drug market has been analyzed and researched during these years to learn if there are disparities among race and ethnicities in drug convictions. Katherine Beckett demonstrates that Seattle is unique in many ways. During the 2000s, Seattle was estimated to have the fourth largest drug market in the country. The predominantly white city has a white population of about 70% and 8% black population. Despite the low proportion of Blacks, during a 28-month investigation in Seattle, black people represented 51.1% of drug violation arrests (Beckett, Nyrop, Pfingst and Bowen, 2005). Beckett et. al (2005) attribute most of these arrests to the focus on crack cocaine by the SPD. This may be due to the fact that crack cocaine has been represented through media as a “Black” drug (Kutateladze, Andiloro, Johnson and Spohn, 2014). Another reason for the high number of arrests is explained by the location of the drug market. Beckett et. al suggest that the SPD tends to focus on racially diverse outdoor drug markets, such as Downtown Seattle, compared to indoor and/or outdoor White drug markets, such as a neighborhood named Capitol Hill (Beckett, Nyrop and Pfingst, 2006). Previous research on Seattle’s drug market indicates that Blacks and Hispanics do not necessarily use or sell at higher rates than Whites, and yet, the SPD tends to focus on people of color. These results of racial disparity are consistent with other states as well. New York data shows that there are not just disproportionate percentages in possession/delivery arrests, but that Blacks and Hispanics are also more likely than Whites to be arrested for smoking cannabis in public and cannabis misdemeanor sales. They are also likely to spend more time in jail or prison for these cannabis offenses (Golub, D. Johnson and Dunlap, 2007). Thus, it is clear that people of color—primarily Blacks and Hispanics—are being convicted disproportionately for drugs. Given that cannabis is legal in the state of Washington, I want to first investigate if the legalization has had a significant impact on the number of drug convictions for people of color. Second, I will examine how much of an impact a prior conviction has on one’s probability of being convicted of a drug offense for each race and ethnicity. This is done by first illustrating drug conviction rates and then examining drug convictions on the condition that the offender has a prior conviction. I also compare the results from King County to Washington as a whole. Lastly, I have computed multivariate logistic regressions to analyze the likelihood of being convicted of a drug offense in Washington State and King County. There have been reports that show cannabis-related arrests and convictions have decreased 81% between 2011 and 2014 (Drug Policy Alliance, 2015). There may be racial/ethnic differences, which I will attempt to contextualize. Subsequently, I will examine the association between the 2012 legalization of cannabis in Washington State and drug conviction rates between different racial/ethnic groups. Methods In the following analysis, I focus on racial/ethnic disproportionality and disparity in drug convictions in Washington State. Unfortunately, the data does not allow me to break out cannabis-related convictions from other types of drug convictions. I use the term disproportionate in convictions to refer to the overrepresentation of certain groups of defendants compared to their representation in the general population. I use the term disparity in convictions to refer to the portion of overrepresentation in convictions of one subgroup that can be explained by differences in the institutional processing of that specific racial/ethnic group as compared to other racial/ethnic groups. That is, racially motivated differences in processing and treatment explains disproportionate overrepresentation of certain groups in drug convictions. Data I examined all convictions within the state of Washington from January of 2000 to June of 2015 using data from the Database and Sentencing of Washington State Caseload Forecast Council Sentencing Data (Washington State Caseload Forecast Council, 2000-2015). My data includes 409,455 convictions of which 36,521 were drug convictions. Variables The dependent variable for analysis is drug conviction (1) or non-drug conviction (0). The primary independent variable of interest is the race/ethnicity of the convicted defendant. The racial/ethnic categories used are White (reference group), Black, Asian, Native American, and Hispanic. The control variables included in the analysis are year of conviction, 2000 (reference year) to 2015, sex (0=Female, 1=Male), county of conviction (King County is reference county), and whether the defendant had any prior convictions (0=no prior offense, 1=prior offense). Each of the control variables will be needed to test the robustness of the influence that the dependent variable has on the independent variable. The year of conviction is relevant because there are many fluctuations over the years in drug convictions. In 2012, Washington State legalized recreational cannabis usage for individuals over 21 years old. There are also gender differences in risk of arrest and convictions (Rodriguez, Curry and Lee, 2006). The counties of Washington State contain differing police practices and demographics. We predict that if a defendant had prior convictions, that might increase the likelihood of a subsequent conviction. These individuals may be targeted as the “usual suspects” (Kutateladze, Andiloro, Johnson and Spohn, 2014). Analytical Approach I compute several bivariate and multivariate logistic regression models. Model A includes all Washington State conviction cases, and Model B includes only convictions in King County, the largest county in this state. The full-state logistic bivariate regression is: The logistic multivariate regression for Washington will be computed as: The King County logistic bivariate regression is formulated as: The King County formula logistic regression is computed as follows: To test for significance of the data, I have conducted a two-tailed 95% confidence interval. When p-values are below a α level of .05, this will indicate that we reject the null hypothesis. The HO is as follows, there is no difference by race or ethnicity in the number of drug convictions when compared to whites (β=0). The HA can be understood as the number of drug convictions is different for each race or ethnicity when compared to whites (β≠0). Findings I will present the findings under three categories. I first examine the racial and ethnic disproportionality in drug conviction. I then discuss the relationship between prior drug convictions and new drug convictions. Finally, I discuss the racial and ethnic disparity in drug conviction. Table 1 presents the summarized statistics for the racial, ethnic, and gender characteristics of convicted defendants in Washington State and King County, averaged between the years 2000 and 2015. Comparing pie charts 1 and 2, and 3 and 4 above demonstrate clear disproportionate numbers when comparing Whites and Blacks in Washington, King County in particular. As the pie charts show, in the state of Washington, Whites comprise 80.7% of the population and 65.49% of drug convictions. Blacks make up a small percentage of the Washington population (4.1%), but an astonishing 5th of the drug convictions (20.08%) - clearly disproportionate. On the other hand, all the other races, i.e. Native Americans, Hispanics, and Asians all have drug convictions relative to or less than their population size in the state. Table 1: Variables and Summary Statistics for Washington State and King County Drug Convictions, 2000 - 2 Note: The median, mean and standard deviation are each the median value across all years (Washington State Caseload Forecast Council) Racial and Ethnic Disproportionality in Drug Convictions Figure 1 is a line graph showing the number of drug convictions by race and year in the whole state. In terms of aggregate numbers, Whites have a larger number of convictions than non-Whites. For most years, Whites remain above 1,300 drug convictions and display 464 convictions halfway through 2015. Native Americans and Asians are convicted at similar rates in Washington State, staying below 75 drug convictions every year. Native Americans hold 9 drug convictions and Asians have 20 for 2015. Hispanic drug convictions have been on a steady decline since 2000. 2015 shows that Hispanics have 69 drug convictions. Blacks peak with 758 drug convictions in 2000, slowly decrease over time hovering around the 500 line until 2010, and then are convicted of a drug offense 87 times in 2015. When first looking at Figure 1, there does not seem to be a significant disparity in drug convictions for Blacks. However, examination of the proportions of convictions suggest racial disproportionality in conviction rates. I will do this by analyzing the proportions of drug convictions regardless if there has been any prior conviction in Figure 2. Throughout all sixteen years, Whites in Washington are convicted well under their 2014 population size. In 2012, the year of legalization, and beyond, Blacks experience their all-time lows in conviction rates for drugs. However, despite their smallest percentage at 13% of the drug conviction rate in 2014 and 2015, it is still about double their population size of 6.7%. On the other hand, Asians, Native Americans, and Hispanics are convicted of a drug offense relative or under their population size. The story changes dramatically when we analyze King County. Figure 3 represents drug convictions in King County. Although Blacks only make up 6.7% of the population in King County, they still have up to about half of the drug convictions for most years. This shows immense disproportionality in conviction rates. On the other hand, other ethnic and racial groups are convicted at rates under or comparable to their population. Relationship Between Prior Drug Convictions and a New Drug Conviction Looking at the Washington drug convictions show that an individual with prior convictions has significantly higher chances of future conviction. Figure 5 illustrates that every year excluding 2015, Blacks with a prior conviction comprise 50% or more of drug convictions. Again, Blacks are 6.7% of the population in King County. Yet among drug convictions annually, Blacks with a prior conviction comprise up to 65% of those convicted of subsequent drug crimes. This data indicates that Blacks are being re-convicted at much higher rates if they have a prior offense than are Whites, who comprise a majority (70%) of the population. Figure 5 shows that the two lowest fractions for Blacks are in years after legalization. The data set shows an increase in 2013 (60%) but then lows in 2014 (50%) and 2015 (45%). Figures 4 and 5 suggest that convictions may have been influenced by the passing of Initiative 75 in King County. Both graphs show that in 2002, there were high proportions of Black people who were convicted of drug-related offenses, and the percentage decreases by a few percentage points in 2003. This could be the result of the de-emphasis of cannabis arrests in King County. This percentage drastically reduced after the passing of I-75, from 29% to 13% in Washington, and from 62% to 45% in King County. Racial and Ethnic Disparity in Drug Conviction Figures 6 and 7 present the odds ratios computed from the multivariate logistic regression. The model compares each racial and ethnic groups probability of being convicted of a drug offense in King County or Washington to Whites’ probability of being convicted. For example, a value of 1.00 means that a person of that race has the same probability of a White individual being convicted. This would mean that in the year 2000, the odds ratio of 2.68 means that Hispanics in Washington State had a 168% higher probability of being convicted of a drug offense than Whites. The Washington and King County multivariate logistic regressions are surprisingly different. Figure 6 presents findings for the likelihood of a drug conviction in Washington State. It shows that Hispanics hover above the odds ratio of 1.50 for every year except for 2006. These numbers show that Hispanics are consistently convicted at higher rates than Whites. Blacks also have higher conviction rates in Washington State. Post cannabis legalization, the likelihood of conviction for a drug offense has decreased for Blacks, bringing the rate to almost that of Whites. In recent years, Blacks’ likelihood of conviction has decreased to about 56% of their White counterparts’ likelihood of being convicted. Asians are convicted around the same rate as Whites, never showing disparity. Figure 7 presents findings for the likelihood of a drug conviction in King County. Asians are convicted at the lowest rates next to Native Americans. For the first ten of the sixteen years of data, Hispanic individuals have over 200% higher likelihood than their White counterparts of being convicted of drug offenses. In 2007, however, the higher likelihood was 673%. Similarly, for most years, Black individuals are 100% more likely to be convicted of a drug offense. However, comparable to the other racial and ethnic categories, post 2012 we see a decrease in the rates of disparity. The logistic regression shows that the probability of getting a drug conviction in King County if you are Black still ranges between 70% and 108% higher likelihood than Whites. Washington State data shows otherwise. Three of the lowest probability ratings come in 2012 and beyond. This data could potentially mean that legalization is having a continuing positive effect on Black communities in Washington. Fewer individuals may be subject to harassment and patrolling because of the nature of the new laws. I have also the statistical significance for each race indicator variable using the multivariate logistic regressions. I have conducted a two-tailed hypothesis test with a 95% confidence interval. Figure 8 shows the distribution of how many years each coefficient on race/ethnicity were statistically significant in Washington and King County. In Washington State, the race indicator for Blacks is statistically significant for 13 years out of 16. This means that the p-value of the observations is below the e α level of .05. Thus, one would not expect these observations to occur by chance more than 1 in 20 times. We fail to reject the null hypothesis for the years 2012, 2014 and 2015. It is noteworthy that these are all years during or post the legalization of cannabis. For every year in King County, the coefficient on a Black race indicator variable is statistically significant. In Washington, the race indicator variable for Hispanics is statistically significant every year. On the other hand, in King County, the race indicator variable is statistically significant for only five years. The variables associated with Asians and Native Americans have a lower frequency of statistical significance. For Native Americans, eleven out of the sixteen years in Washington State are statistically significant. Disparities seem to vanish for Blacks at the state level in 2012 and during the post-legalization period. Hispanics experience this same alleviation of inequality in King County post-legalization. The data shows that Asians are convicted of drug offenses significantly less than Whites. Conclusion The United States is currently facing a problem of mass incarceration. Jails and prisons are disproportionately populated with people of color. Prior research has shown that Blacks and Hispanics are convicted at higher rates for drug offenses. Some scholars have attributed this to the negative media portrayals of these communities. These biases may have been internalized by police departments and have created unequal enforcement regarding drugs. For example, crack cocaine is seen as more deviant and penalized much heavier than cocaine. The difference is that crack cocaine is associated with poor urban Blacks (Beckett, Nyrop, Pfingst and Bowen, 2005). In this paper, I conduct a longitudinal study of drug convictions in Washington State and King County. My findings suggest that drug convictions in Washington and King County have decreased over time. Further research should be conducted to understand if this decrease in drug convictions may be attributed to a decrease in cannabis convictions specifically. A major limitation of my data is that all drug convictions are grouped together. Different drugs are not penalized the same way by criminal justice systems. Racial and ethnic groups may also be convicted at different rates depending on the substance. Overall, the data shows that in Washington and especially in King County, there is a great deal of racial and ethnic disproportionality in drug conviction rates, and racial disparity in drug convictions. Whites have an extremely low probability of being convicted than Blacks and Hispanics. Figure 4 and 5 shows that there is a significant impact of having a prior conviction on the probability of being convicted for a drug offense. In King County every year, Blacks have the highest proportion of drug convictions with the condition of having a prior conviction. This supports prior research in New York City that indicates the likelihood of a conviction increases substantially with the number of prior arrests (Golub, D. Johnson and Dunlap, 2007). Further investigation is necessary to explore why Blacks with a prior offense are being convicted at such higher rates within King County than Whites. Despite the unequal conviction rates, post-legalization in King County does seem to alleviate the racial disparity in drug convictions. The high proportions of non-White individuals convicted for drug offenses in King County may indicate that the policing practices are much different than other counties in Washington. Individuals of color have historically been under heavy surveillance by law enforcement that have institutionalized racial inequality and is perpetuated in conviction after conviction. The effects of the legalization of cannabis may benefit communities of color. The legalization of cannabis may lead to a decrease in racial and ethnic disproportionality and disparities in criminal justice contact for communities of color. References American Civil Liberties Union. “The War on Marijuana in Black and White: Billions of Dollars Wasted on Racially Biased Arrests.” ACLU, 2013. (https://www.aclu.org/files/assets/aclu-thewaronmarijuana-rel2.pdf ) Alexander, Michelle. The New Jim Crow: Mass incarceration in the age of colorblindness. The New Press, 2010. Anderson, D. Mark, Benjamin Hansen and Daniel I. Rees. “Medical Marijuana Laws, Traffic Fatalities, and Alcohol Consumption.” Journal of Law and Economics Vol. 56(2): 333-369, 2013. Athlerley, Loren T., Mark Baird. “Public Possession of Legal Marijuana.” Seattle Police Publications, 2014. Bullock, H. E., Fraser Wyche, K., & Williams, W. R. “Media images of the poor.” Journal of Social Issues, 57(2), 229-246, 2001. Beckett, Katherine, Kris Nyrop, Lori Pfingst and Melissa Bowen. “Drug Use, Drug Possession Arrests, and the Question of Race: Lessons from Seattle.” Social Problems, Vol. 52(3), 2005: 419-441. Beckett, Katherine, Kris Nyrop and Lori Pfingst. “Race, Drugs and Policing: Understanding Disparities in Drug Delivery Arrests.” Criminology, Vol. 44(1), 2006: 105-137. Bonnie, R. J., & Whitebread, C. H. “The forbidden fruit and the tree of knowledge: an inquiry into the legal history of American marijuana prohibition.” Virginia Law Review, 1970: 971-1203. Burston, Betty Watson, Dionne Jones, and Pat Roberson-Saunders. “Drug Use and African Americans: Myth versus Reality.” Journal of Alcohol and Drug Education, 40, 1995:19-39. Caulkins, J. P., Kilmer, B., Kleiman, M. A., MacCoun, R. J., Midgette, G., Oglesby, P., & Reuter, P. H. “Considering marijuana legalization: insights for Vermont and other jurisdictions.” Rand Corporation, 2015. Census. “QuickFacts: King County, Washington.” 2015. Retrieved December. 7, 2015. (http://www.census.gov/quickfacts/table/POP060210/53033 ) Drug Policy Alliance. Marijuana Legalization in Washington After 1 Year of Retail Sales and 2.5 Years of Legal Possession. New York. 2015. Retrieved May. 14, 2016. (https://www.drugpolicy.org/sites/default/files/Drug_Policy_Alliance_Status_Report_Marijuana_Legalization_in_Washington_July2015.pdf ) Golub, Andrew, Bruce D. Johnson and Eloise Dunlap. “The Race/Ethnicity Disparity in Misdemeanor Marijuana Arrests in New York City.” National Development and Research Institutes, Vol. 6(1), 2007: 131-164. Guttmannova, K., Lee, C. M., Kilmer, J. R., Fleming, C. B., Rhew, I. C., Kosterman, R., & Larimer, M. E. “Impacts of Changing Marijuana Policies on Alcohol Use in the United States.” Alcoholism: Clinical and Experimental Research, 40(1), 2016: 33-46. H. Skolnick, Jerome and John Dombrink. “The Legalization of Deviance.” Criminology, Vol. 16(2), 1978: 193-207. Inciardi, James A. “Marijuana Decriminalization Research.” Criminology, Vol. 19(1), 1981: 145- 158. King County. Statistical Profile on 2000 Census. 2000. Retrieved on May. 13, 2016. (https://www.kingcounty.gov/exec/PSB/PerformMgmt/~/media/exec/PSB/documents/AGR/09AGR/KC_all/KC_prof09.ashx ) L. Kutateladze, Besiki, Nancy R. Andiloro, Briana D. Johnson and Cassia C. Spohn. “Cumulative Disadvantage: Examining Racial and Ethnic Disparity in Prosecution and Sentencing.” Criminology, Vol. 52(3), 2014, : 514-551. Levinson, J. D. “Forgotten Racial Equality: Implicit Bias, Decision making, and Misremembering.” Duke Law Journal, 57(2), 2007: 345–424. Massey, Douglas S. Categorically Unequal. New York: Russell Sage Foundation. Musto, D. F. (1991). Opium, cocaine and marijuana in American history. Scientific American, 265(1), 2007: 40-47. N. Yankah, Ekow . ( “A Paradox in Overcriminalization.” New Criminal Law Review, Vol. 14(1), 2011: 1-34. Rodriguez, S. F., Curry, T. R., & Lee, G. “Gender Differences in Criminal Sentencing: Do Effects Vary Across Violent, Property, and Drug Offenses?” Social Science Quarterly, 87(2), 2006: 318–339. Provine, D. M. Unequal under law: Race in the war on drugs. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2007. S. Crawford, Seth. “Estimating the Quasi- Underground: Oregon’s Informal Marijuana Economy.” Humboldt Journal of Social Relations, Vol. 36, 2014: 118-137. Seattle, Washington Municipal code 12A.20.060 Sharp, Elaine B. The Dilemma of Drug Policy in the United States. New York, NY: Harper Collins College Publishers, 1994. Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1. U.S. Supreme Court, 1968. United States Drug Enforcement Administration. Drug Scheduling. 2015. Retrieved Dec. 5, 2015 (http://www.dea.gov/druginfo/ds.shtml ) Washington State Caseload Forecast Council. 2016. Sentencing Data. Washington State Liquor and Cannabis Board. Frequently Asked Questions on I-502. 2015. Retrieved Dec. 7, 2015 (http://www.liq.wa.gov/mj2015/faqs_i-502 ) Washington State Medical Association. (n.d). Medical and Recreational Marijuana. 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*Feature* John R. Allen John R. Allen is a retired United States Marine Corps four-star general, and former commander of the NATO International Security Assistance Force and U.S. Forces - Afghanistan (USFOR-A). He was appointed by President Barack Obama as the special presidential envoy for the Global Coalition to Counter ISIL (Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant). He is currently the President of the Brookings Institution, and his most recent research addresses the effects of artificial intelligence in a variety of sectors. Allen’s piece in JPPE’s second issue explores the effects of artificial intelligence on the future of education. Fall 2018 Artificial intelligence (AI) and emerging technologies (ET) are poised to transform modern society in profound ways. As with electricity in the last century, AI is an enabling technology that will animate everyday products and communications, endowing everything from cars to cameras with the ability to interact with the world around them, and with each other. These developments are just the beginning, and as AI/ET matures, it will have sweeping impacts on our work, security, politics, and very lives. These technologies are already impacting the world around us, as Darrell West and I wrote in our April 2018 piece “How artificial intelligence is transforming the world ,” and I highly recommend that anyone just discovering the topic of AI policy read it thoroughly. There, Darrell and I describe several important implications related to AI/ET, but chief among them is that these technology developments are on the cusp of ushering in a true revolution in human affairs at an increasingly fast pace. As AI continues to influence and shape existing industries and allows new ones to take root, its macro-level impact, particularly in the realm of economics, will become more and more apparent. Control over the research and development of AI will become increasingly vital, and the winners of this upcoming AI-defined era in human history will be the countries and companies that can create the most powerful algorithms, assemble the most talent, collect the most data, and marshal the most computing power. This is the next great technology race of our generation and the stakes are high, particularly for the United States. If American society is to embrace the full range of the social and political changes that these technologies will introduce, then it is the education and training we provide our youth and workers that will fuel the engines of future AI, and therefore geopolitical success. I've studied and written extensively about the effects of AI/ET on the evolving character of war toward a concept I’ve called hyperwar – or, a new era of warfare in which, through AI, the speed of decision making is faster than anything that has come before. At a superficial level, this topic often devolves into a discussion of “killer robots,” or at the very least the impending use of AI in lethal autonomous weaponry. While those discussions are relevant and inextricably linked, they represent a narrow understanding of the greater issues at hand. The concern over AI’s potential or theoretical military applications must not distract us from how far-reaching the impact of AI will be in nearly all other policy domains. Health care, education, agriculture, energy, finance, and yes, national security, will all be reshaped in some way by AI – with education being the pivot point around which the future of the United States revolves. This is not solely a matter of social redress – which is by itself is extremely important – but in fact is a larger national security issue. The way we use education to prepare our next-generation of leaders will directly determine whether the US retains its leadership in critical fields of relevance in the emerging digital environment. Without a sufficiently educated population and workforce, the US likely will slip behind other states for whom AI/ET is not only means for improved social organization, but for strategic superiority, and potentially for digital and physical conquest. A future in which the United States is second in the race for AI technology would create a situation of national technological and digital/cyber inferiority, which could in turn result in national strategic subservience – something simply unimaginable in a world of growing strategic competition with systems of government very different from ours. Many Americans grew up with the understanding that the US’ capacity to fight and win a nuclear war was defined by its superiority in the Strategic Triad, the three legs of our strategic deterrence: our missile squadrons, our bomber fleet, and our ballistic missile submarines. Behind that dizzying array of hardware was the undisputed power of US intellectual and technical capabilities, and behind that was a near unlimited supply of talented engineers, each trained by a system of education undisputed in its excellence. That system was built from the ground up to produce crucial STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math) protégés in the quantities needed to ensure American strategic superiority, which contributed directly to the US and its allies prevailing in the Cold War. For the health of our American way of life, our competitive advantage, and the strategic security of our nation, the basis for tomorrow’s system of education must reflect a deliberately tuned and calibrated system that proactively emphasizes AI/ET, big data analytics, and super-computing. Unfortunately, in both relative and absolute terms, the US is falling behind in the race for superiority in these key technologies and AI. Where the US strategic advantage of the 20th Century was secured by American nuclear superiority, US superiority in the 21st Century will likely be preserved, safeguarded, and sustained through a system of education that envisages the changes necessary and is sufficient to embrace and apply relevant technologies. It will also be underwritten by educators who grasp the profound shifts in the pedagogical skills essential to the educational needs of the 21st Century. The need to adapt is great – and for this system to be fully embraced it must come in the form of a comprehensive and national US strategy for education in the digital age, to include the resources necessary to bring education into the digital classroom, and to educate and train entire generations of educators to be relevant in the 21st Century and beyond. The United States must at all costs preserve its position of primacy in AI, big data, and super-computing through leaders who understand these issues on a fundamental level and have the political will to develop and resource a comprehensive plan for reimagining our national education efforts. In thinking about the essence of a US national education strategy adapted to the digital age, several important questions arise pertaining to the way we think about education and develop the next generation of leaders: What will be the implications for how we educate, train, and develop teachers? A discussion on the impact of AI on education will point dramatically to those who facilitate the process in our schools. The very term “teacher” may be insufficient to adequately capture the role of this key individual in the educational experience. Teaching and learning requirements may be substantially re-ordered and the dynamic of learning versus teaching in an AI-based system of education will be very different. And while teachers today are in many ways the unsung and underappreciated heroes of the American workforce, the teachers of the digital age may define the future of America. This will raise important questions about requirements for teaching degrees and related certificates in this new environment, and the necessary adaptation of the science of pedagogy to these changes. Ultimately, the key question will be “are the teachers of today ready to develop the leaders we will need tomorrow?” A difficult question, to be sure, and the answer today is no. The national education strategy must focus on their development as it focuses on the students as well. What will the AI-based classroom look like? With AI, every aspect of the traditional learning environment is up for reimagining. Will classrooms continue to be physical spaces? Or instead, will it be a virtual "space" using networked augmented or virtual reality technologies? The answer is yes to both, and the student in tomorrow’s AI based educational experience will be exposed to an immersive, digital education heretofore unimaginable. The distributed, networked, virtual reality classroom is both enormously exciting, and at the same time frightening for the enormity of its potential. There are major challenges to measuring success in an AI-based educational process. For instance, if our students can become more deeply involved in the pathways of their own learning through AI, measurement will occur moment to moment, as well as the success of remediation. In the best-case scenario, we will know at the end of each student’s day if s/he is meeting academic requirements and quickly correct deficiencies as necessary to stay on track. In any case, there are profound moral questions to consider with a system such as this, and policymakers must understand the underlying dynamics of the technologies at play if they are to fully support society. What will this kind of system of education do to reduce inequalities in our society? One of the most profound aspects of education in the AI environment is that these technologies could unleash the potential and productivity of a huge sector of American and global society hitherto constrained by their educational experience and resulting lack of opportunity. Local governments, schools, and especially the private sector will need to routinely intersect to create synergy and symbiosis to enhance our educational processes. Through the AI-powered digital space, “opportunity for all” may become a reality for those who previously had little means of achieving their own piece of the American Dream. The profoundly limiting feature of these opportunities lies in internet and 4G and 5G penetration within the United States, and the sometimes appallingly scarce educational resources committed in some areas in America. There are large segments of the US where our education systems, and our youth, have limited-to-no access to the internet and to Wi-Fi. If we hope to achieve our digital potential, and to continue to maintain our lead in AI and other emerging technologies, a national program to bring Wi-Fi and the internet to all our citizens is absolutely essential, and will in any case help to close the sometimes yawning gaps created by racial and income inequality in the US. AI/ET promise to usher in a bold new era of human history, one where the machines we create will oftentimes be smarter, faster, and more powerful than those who created them. This reality has profound implications for the field of education and introduces complex ethical, legal, and societal implications that academics, policymakers, and average citizens alike will need to contend with as every aspect of society reshapes around them. Further, the United States risks strategic inferiority if it does not embrace a full reconsideration of education in the digital environment, to include a comprehensive strategy for reimagining our education system at the national level. Today, we are not training our young leaders with the tools required to be successful in the digital age, and that has deeply troubling implications for the future of American society. Nevertheless, just as the United States persevered through the Cold War through technological superiority, I am hopeful that the 21st Century will yet again be one defined by American leadership – with our best and brightest from across the entire society leading the charge in digital era.

Politics The European Union Trust Fund for Africa: Understanding the EU’s Securitization of Development Aid and its Implications Migena Satyal A Death Sentence Beyond Death Row: Helling v. McKinney and the Constitutionality of Solitary Confinement Hallie Sternblitz Featured Section Vol. VII | Issue I The Burden of Innocence: Arendt’s Understanding of Totalitarianism through its Victims Elena Muglia Rewriting the Antitrust Setlist: Examining the Live Nation-Ticketmaster Lawsuit and its Implications for Modern Antitrust Law Katya Tolunsky Vol. VI | Issue II Schedule F And The Future Of Civil Service Protections Sasha Bonkowsky Does Social Media Strategy Help Politicians Stay in Power? Comparing the Cases of Modi and Bolsonaro Wendy Wang How Political Instability Unravels Religious Commitment in the Face of Uncertainty Navigating Uncertainty in Political Instability and Religiosity in Post-Arab Spring Egypt and Tunisia Abanti Ahmed Politics Archives Vol. IV | Issue II Refuting the myth of progressive secularism An Analysis of the Legal Frameworks Surrounding Religious Practice in France and Bahrain Bridget McDonald Ronald Reagan and the Role of Humor in American movement conservatism Abie Rohrig Vol. IV | Issue I Predictive Algorithms in the Criminal Justice System Evaluating the Racial Bias Objection Rebecca Berman From Bowers to Obergefell The US Supreme Court’s Erratic, Yet Correct, Jurisprudence on Gay Rights Sydney White The Unchurching of Black Lives Matter The Evolving Role of Faith in The Fight for Racial Justice Anna Savo-Matthews Vol. III | Issue II Rural Despair and decline How Trump Won Michigan in 2016 Bess Markel Vol. III | Issue I We The Prisoners Considering the Anti Drug Act of 1986, the War on Drugs and Mass Incarceration in the United States Sophia Scaglion Vol. II | Issue II All Power to the Imagination Radical Student Groups and Coalition Building in France During May 1968 and the United States during the Vietnam War Calder McHugh The Life Cycle of the Responsibility to Protect The Ongoing Emergence of R2P as a Norm in the International Community Maxine Dehavenon PeaceFul Animals A Look into Black Pacifism and the Pedagogy of Civil Rights in American Public Education Jade Fabello Vol. II | Issue I Two Forms of Environmental-Political Imagination Germany, the United States, and the Clean Energy Transition Nathan S. Chael Oedipus and Ion as outsiders The Implications and Limitations of Genealogical Citizenship Claire Holland Partisan Gerrymandering Re-Establishing the Political Question Doctrine in Gill v. Whitford Connor Maag Vol. I | Issue II Transparency and compliance The Strength of EU Lobbying Regulations Abigail Borges Georgian-South Ossetian Conflict Is Secession a Viable Solution? Tathyana Mello Amaral Imagined Isle Irish Catholic Identity in the Restoration Era Nathan Mainster Vol. I | Issue I American Jews The Political Behavior of American Jews A Public Choice Approach to Israel-influenced Voting Jake Goodman Racial Capitalism Racial Capitalism in Post-Apartheid South Africa: Challenging the Fallacy of Black Entitlement under Service Delivery Protests. Olerato Mogomotsi A.S.e.a.n The Long Game: ASEAN, China’s Charm Offensive and the South China Sea Dispute Hisyam Takiudin

Frequently Asked Questions How often do you publish? The Brown Journal of Philosophy, Politics and Economics publishes twice a year. Once in the Fall, and once in the Spring. How do you decide what to publish? The JPPE looks for pieces that are well-written, original, well-argued, well-researched, and timely. Possible contributions include, but are not limited to, research papers, literature reviews, critical comments, interviews, theses, PhD summaries, and articles written independently or for a class. How long should my submission be? We do not specify lengths for submissions because we recognize that certain essays may require more or less space than others. We do, however, expect that the essay is concise and justifies its length in all cases. How do I know if my work qualifies for the journal? The JPPE is an interdisciplinary journal. We are flexible and encourage submissions from a variety of fields, as long as the work has relevance within the disciplines of philosophy, politics, and/or economics. Most importantly, the work should be timely and offer some insight into a question with philosophical, political, and/or economic implications. What are my chances of getting published? All submissions go through a rigorous name-blind review and referee process. If the work passes the process the piece will be published. I do not attend Brown University. Can I still submit my work? Yes! We accept submissions from authors all over the world.

Public Funds, Private Interest The Role of Private Companies in Shaping US Cybersecurity Policy Justin Katz Yale University Author Danai Benopoulou Graham Gonzales Hans Lei Marko Winedt Editors Fall 2018 This paper compares current cybersecurity policy with the Cold War military industrial complex to understand how links between the private cybersecurity industry and government impact federal policy. I. Introduction Collectively driven by increased awareness of cyber threats, fear of snooping by government agencies, and growth in intelligence budgets, the private cybersecurity industry has recently exploded. Global cybersecurity spending is predicted to hit $90 billion in 2018[1] and grow at an annual rate of above 20% to $232 billion by 2022.[2] Along with industry expansion, connections between private cybersecurity firms and the government have multiplied. Government intelligence agencies have enlisted the services of private companies for everything ranging from espionage operations[3] to the development of offensive capacities.[4] However, as government and industry deepen their ties, it becomes increasingly possible for misalignment between public and private interests to drive policy in the wrong direction. Given that US cybersecurity strategy is currently ill-defined and malleable, missteps could have impacts for decades. Nevertheless, collaboration between government and industry is also in its infancy, so the nature of public-private relations has yet to solidify. This means that is still time for the government to change course. This paper will analyze the evolving relationship between government agencies and private sector cybersecurity firms in four parts. The first will explore the forms of government contact with the broader cybersecurity marketplace. The second will consider historical connections between the defense establishment and private companies – the Cold War military-industrial complex and the use of private military contractors (PMCs) since the late-90s – as a template for potential policy risks associated with a modern alliance between defense and industry. The third will examine how that public-private cybersecurity connections are distinct from previous military-industrial linkages and analyze the policy implications of those distinctions. The last section will offer some ways to leverage the advantages of the private sector while minimizing harm. II. Government Contact with the Cybersecurity Industry Government agencies have developed ties with the cybersecurity industry in two main ways. First, agencies have spurred demand for information security technology both directly, through government contracts, and indirectly, by encouraging investment by the private sector. Second, a revolving door between government and the private sector has packed corporate boardrooms and staff ranks alike with former intelligence and defense personnel. With growing national security threats and opportunities in cyberspace, members of the defense and intelligence communities have emphasized the need to both secure US critical infrastructure and develop offensive cyber capacities. In response, Congress has approved growing budgets for cyber defense, allowing millions of dollars to go to contractors.[5] More recently, the Pentagon requested $8.5 billion for “cybersecurity-related activities,” while in the FY 2019 budget President Trump called for $15 billion in total cybersecurity spending, a 4% increase over fiscal year 2018 requests.[6] Growth in government demand for private cybersecurity services has directly fueled the industry’s expansion by causing the government to outsource a sizable share of its spending to private contractors.[7] Indeed, in DC, where most contractors are located, almost 24,000 new cybersecurity job openings were posted in 2015, about double that of the next highest region.[8] Government investment in cybersecurity has also indirectly led to market expansion. First, the shifting composition of federal budgets during the 8-year Obama administration in favor of cyber, encouraged large defense contractors to invest more in information security. Despite the overall shrinking of military spending, investment in cybersecurity significantly grew. In response, big tech-centered defense contractors like Boeing, Raytheon, and even consultancy Booz Allen Hamilton have created cybersecurity branches.[9] Seeking to win contracts with innovative new tools, these larger companies have continued to acquire boutique firms offering custom software with narrow applications.[10] Although the Trump administration won a substantial increase in defense spending as part of a February 2018 budget deal, those increases may be temporary, given that ten-year spending caps imposed by the 2011 Budget Control Act remain in place and could force steep cuts at the end of the decade.[11] Therefore, cybersecurity offers a more stable source of demand for contractors than traditional spending. Second, greater government interest in network defense suggests to private firms that cyber threats are widespread, meaning they should invest in their own cybersecurity capacities. While increasing their own cyber spending, federal agencies have published recommendations on how firms should bolster their defenses. For example, Obama’s 2013 executive order commissioning a framework for critical infrastructure protection stated that the government should “provide guidance” on which commercially-available cybersecurity services companies should buy.[12] The Trump administration has pursued continuity with Obama-era policies,[13] and in its 2017 National Security Strategy urged coordinated responses to major threats in both the private and public sectors.[14] Additionally, the intelligence community has invited private firms to attend classified briefings informing them about emerging cybersecurity threats. According to one NSA official, the meetings aim to “scare the bejeezus out of them.”[15] Frightened CEOs then turn to cybersecurity companies for help. The Chief Security Officer of Mandiant, a private security outfit, alleged that executives often buy the firm’s products after attending classified NSA briefings.[16] Federal policy decisions guide the industry’s scale and composition, so firms within the market have a clear profit interest in the government’s cyber strategy. That is not to say, however, that government officials are distorting the scale of cyber threats for private sector benefit. Scare tactics are often necessary to convince recalcitrant executives to make necessary upgrades. However, the outsized effect of federal policies on this industry risks creating real or perceived conflicts of interest. Many top cybersecurity firms are led by experts who once held high-level posts within law enforcement and intelligence agencies. Endgame, for example, sells zero day vulnerabilities and global maps of network weaknesses almost exclusively to government agencies.[17] Its board includes former NSA chief Kenneth Minihan and is chaired by Christopher Darby, the current CEO of the CIA’s venture capital arm.[18] CrowdStrike, a cyber forensics firm, boasts two former FBI officials as top executives – CEO Shawn Henry, former chief of worldwide cyber investigations, and the company’s general counsel, who served as the deputy head of cyber for the Bureau.[19] Many other senior administrators with experience in intelligence and defense sit on corporate boards or serve as executives at major cybersecurity firms.[20] The revolving door between government and the private sector exists for lower level employees as well. Some ex-hackers found their own companies. For example, Brendan Conlon, a Naval Academy graduate who worked as a hacker for both the NSA and CIA, recently founded Vahna, a firm that publicizes its employees’ time working for government agencies.[21] One former NSA official suggests that the best private security companies are founded by members of the “SIGINT” community, who apply the hacking skills they acquired during their time in government to assess system vulnerabilities and respond to breaches.[22] Large defense firms are especially interested in acquiring startups founded by former intelligence community members to secure contacts within the CIA, NSA, and the Pentagon. Knowing that big companies will scramble to buy their startup, government employees become more likely to move to the private sector. Lastly, even if government employees do not start their own company, they frequently move to the private sector with their training in hacking techniques. Though government agencies have taken pains to recruit technically skilled employees to work in their security and hacking divisions, the government lacks the resources to pay competitive salaries compared to the private sector. As a result, many military and intelligence personnel transition to industry work after receiving government training. The cycle has become so predictable that agencies now only plan to keep new hires for a few years.[23] Thus, almost all sectors of the cybersecurity industry have at least some form of contact with government. Private firms have an interest in shaping government cybersecurity policy for their benefit, and these firms may have a unique ability to do so based on these widespread connections. Of course, the revolving door between government and the private sector is not limited to the cybersecurity industry. However, this dynamic presents unique risks in the cyber sphere, given the differences between public and private interests in the cybersecurity industry and several unique characteristics of public-private relations on cybersecurity issues. The next two sections explore those concerns. III. The Cyber-Industrial Complex – Lessons from the Cold War and Private Military Contractors Relationships between the defense establishment and industries that seek government influence are hardly a new phenomenon. Throughout the Cold War, policymakers faced a military-industrial complex, where government demand for military goods and services propped up a lucrative defense contracting industry. In turn, this industry lobbied Congress and the Pentagon for ever-increasing levels of spending. More recently, during the 2003 invasion of Iraq, the Pentagon hired PMCs for operational support. Common challenges between those two episodes demonstrate how ties between the cybersecurity industry and government could negatively impact policymaking. A. Increasing Costs and Threat Inflation From the beginning of the Cold War, connections between private contractors and government encouraged policymakers to overstate Soviet threats and waste money on unnecessary military buildup. A classic example is Eisenhower’s attempt to downsize the B-70 bomber program during his first term. The bomber program involved contracts with thousands of private firms, with production so dispersed that a majority of congressmen had at least one important supplier in their districts.[24] Immediately after announcing the cuts, Eisenhower met fierce opposition from Congress, which accused him of jeopardizing American national security by letting the Soviets outpace American airpower. Eventually, Eisenhower caved and reinstated the program. Air Force officials later testified that claims of a “bomber gap” were invalid, since US capabilities far exceeded those of the USSR.[25] Private contracting had introduced new benefactors of military spending with considerable leverage over policymakers. To justify higher expenditures that kept contractors’ factories running, lawmakers manufactured exaggerated threats. The use of PMCs has also created the potential for overstating threats. Over 60 firms serviced contracts worth billions of dollars during the Iraq War, carrying out many crucial combat operations.[26] However, much of the stated pretense for the Iraqi invasion was unfounded – the Bush administration’s claims that Hussein helped plan 9/11 and that the Iraqi government was nearing the acquisition of nuclear weapons ultimately proved incorrect.[27] It is beyond the scope of this article to speculate on whether the connections between top officials and private beneficiaries of the war – most notably Dick Cheney and Halliburton – motivated the administration to distort the Iraqi threat for financial gain. However, the perception that those ties influenced the invasion undermined the administration’s credibility and damaged Bush’s Iraq policy.[28] These incidents suggest two related concerns for cybersecurity policy: cybersecurity industry players may encourage government officials to overstate the risk of cyber-attacks for private gain, or the public will perceive that they are doing so. There is already evidence that industry interests have outsized influence in national conversations. Former intelligence personnel with a financial stake in private contractors use their credentials as ex-government officials to support extensive cyber operations. After the Snowden disclosures, some of the most stalwart defenders of NSA snooping had both impressive government credentials and deep financial stakes in the agency’s contractors. Stewart Baker, former NSA general counsel who testified before Congress claiming that cutting back PATRIOT Act surveillance programs would help terrorists, now lobbies for NSA contractors including SAIC and the Computer Sciences Corporation.[29] Jack Keane, a former four-star general who defended the NSA’s programs on cable news, is also a board member of the NSA contractor General Dynamics. Retired General Wesley Clark emphasized the need for the PRISM program while simultaneously taking payments from a private equity firm with substantial financial stake in NSA contractors.[30] Of course, there is nothing wrong with former top brass opining about what they consider important defense issues. However, given that officials enjoy a privileged place in national security conversations, conflicts of interest potentially open up avenues for abuse and may cause speculation about corruption. Relationships between local governments and private firms may prevent elected officials from checking threat inflation. From Maryland to Texas, local and state governments have designed tax incentives and run advertising campaigns seeking to create a “cyber Silicon Valley.” Some have even used tax dollars for direct investment in startups.[31] If tech firms set up shop in regions desperate to keep the jobs they provide, then the congressional representatives from those areas will likely lobby extensively for greater government funds devoted to cybersecurity. Representatives of cybersecurity districts may warn of a B-70 bomber-style “cyber gap” as an excuse to spend more on firms with local power. The notion that the cybersecurity industry can influence public threat perception through multiple channels is worrying. Given current trends and cybersecurity’s rapid growth, there is a risk of creating even more problematic relationships in a poorly-understood industry. Besides leading to wasteful and unnecessary spending, an overemphasis on threats could prevent policymakers from properly assessing tradeoffs between security and other interests such as Internet freedom and governance. Even if private actors do not put pressure on policymakers to distort threats for personal gain, the appearance of close ties between industry and government can create perceived conflicts of interest. This might in turn lower trust in government and limit officials’ ability to craft constructive policy. However, despite similarities, the risks of malignant cyber threat inflation and massive government waste are lower than during the Cold War or the invasion of Iraq. First, apparent overstatement of cyber threats is at least partially due to the fact that many do not take threats seriously enough. Therefore, apparent threat inflation may be more indicative of attempts to increase stakeholder attention on an important issue than private sector manipulation of government policy. Second, powerful private interests have an incentive to counter the cybersecurity industry’s threat narrative. Large tech companies recognize that overstating the cyber threats may encourage Congress to mandate that companies meet certain cybersecurity baselines. Since those firms want to avoid burdensome regulation,[32] they have an incentive to lobby lawmakers and make cyber threats seem less severe. B. Inefficiency Even if public-private ties do not drive unnecessary spending, they can drive up costs and make it more difficult for governments to provide necessary services. Theoretically, private contracting lowers government costs by leveraging the competitive forces of the market. Federal agencies can allow firms to bid against each other and award the contract to the company that makes the best offer. However, when firms have government ties, it becomes easier to spend money by lobbying to win more lucrative contracts rather than offering the best one. During the Cold War, private contracts were the products of political negotiation, not competitive bidding, so the firms with the best lobbyists secured the most lucrative contracts. The Pentagon sometimes passed over firms offering the lowest price to grant awards to the firm whose “turn was next.”[33] That process both increased costs by granting contractors monopoly power and privileged firms that already had connections in the system.[34] The use of PMCs increased costs in other ways. By offering salaries that exceeded military pay, contractors lured talented soldiers into the private sector. Then, the contractors sold their services to the government at a higher per-soldier cost to cover their overhead.[35] It is possible that links between the cybersecurity industry and government could create similar inefficiencies. First, former government workers now working as contractors can leverage connections to negotiate deals, even if they do not offer the best package. Second, as traditional defense contractors pivot towards the cybersecurity market, they may use their status as trusted collaborators to win awards over more competitive firms. The fact that many of the biggest cybersecurity contractors are companies with longstanding connections to the intelligence community could raise suspicions that the most entrenched firms, and not necessarily the best, receive government funds. Also, cybersecurity contracts may require that companies have security clearance, limiting the pool of competitors to insiders.[36] Third, cybersecurity firms poach the best technical personnel from government. If federal agencies contract government-trained hackers at a higher cost, then the government ends up paying more for an identical service. Already, some agencies, unable to keep sufficiently skilled technicians away from the private sector, plan on contracting with cybersecurity firms who hire government-trained personnel.[37] Although the government should leverage its own monopoly power to bring down prices and maximize efficiency, current trends suggest that the influence of private firms will serve to increase their margins and waste federal funds. C. Differing Roles and Constraints Even when the government and the private sector carry out similar functions, they occupy different roles and face different constraints. Those distinctions become clear when examining the PMC industry. Private contractors are just that: private. This means they can perform tasks that governments are either legally or politically constrained from doing. Relying on PMCs to carry out combat operations reduces the danger faced by US service members, thereby lowering the political barriers to conflict. Additionally, PMCs are not subject to congressional constraints – for example, the Bush administration used PMCs to circumvent limitations on US military involvement in the Colombian civil war.[38] While the US has used PMCs to expand its operational flexibility, contractors are in no way beholden to American interests. PMCs have worked with dictatorships, drug smugglers, and al-Qaeda-linked terrorist organizations.[39] By increasing demand for PMCs, US operations in Iraq encouraged investment in startups and the expansion of existing firms. As operations in Iraq wind down, those firms need new customers – and there is no guarantee that Washington will like them. US demand for privately-produced cyber weapons and security products raises similar concerns. First, private tools can provide ways for governments to evade legal prohibitions on certain cyber techniques. For example, while CrowdStrike CEO Shawn Henry worked at the FBI, he developed technology to remotely monitor a target’s computer undetected. However, the FBI needed a court order to use the technology. At CrowdStrike, he uses a similar tool, but, as a private entity, he can deploy it without going to court.[40] In an attempt to indict WikiLeaks’ founder Julian Assange, the Justice Department organized a group of small cybersecurity firms, mostly tied to the public-sector security community, to dig up dirt. The group planned to launch an intimidation campaign against WikiLeaks’ followers and discredit the organization by tricking it into publishing fake documents.[41] If performed directly by part of the federal intelligence community, such tactics would spark outrage. While that operation failed, it suggests that, by unloading dirty work onto private companies, the government could skirt political and legal barriers. That may seem like an attractive option in the short run, but in the long run it risks eroding public trust and landing intelligence agencies in even greater legal trouble once laws catch up with technological innovation. Second, the US government has no guarantee that cyber weapons firms will not peddle their wares to countries that threaten American interests. For example, the Mubarak regime and the Bahraini government cracked down on political dissidents allegedly using software purchased from Gamma, a UK firm.[42] US-based Blue Coat has sold Deep Packet Inspection, a technology used to censor journalists and track down dissidents, to Syria, Myanmar, Egypt, Qatar, China, and Venezuela, all countries with spotty human rights records.[43] At first blush, given that the US government does not deal with these companies, it seems that US connections to the cybersecurity industry have no bearing on the development of a worldwide network of cyber mercenaries. While demand from authoritarian regimes for surveillance products would exist regardless, US reliance on private firms to build cyber weapons compounds the problem in two ways. First, demand from the US government increases the size of the market. This is an issue in the market for zero-day exploits, cyber-attacks that exploit previously-unknown technical vulnerabilities. When the US pays millions in government contracts for zero-day exploits, it encourages more companies to enter the business, some of which will inevitably sell to whoever wants to buy.[44] Second, by buying exploits from private companies, the US legitimizes an international cyber arms market. That makes adversaries more likely to brazenly seek out private firms to meet their intelligence needs. An unregulated international trade in cyber vulnerabilities leads to the proliferation of offensive capabilities, multiplying the threats that the US will face in the future. IV. Unique Characteristics While many challenges look similar to those arising from past public-private relationships, several unique characteristics of the cybersecurity industry create new dynamics. First, government dealings with the cybersecurity industry are subject to higher levels of secrecy than most other public-private relationships. The intelligence community hides its contracts behind a shroud of hyper secrecy. One of the documents in the Snowden dump emphasizes the importance of preventing any association between the NSA and one of its contractors, the Computer Sciences Corporation.[45] Similarly, in 2010, Endgame’s modus operandi relied on avoiding any mention in media at all, let alone in relation to the NSA.[46] In this context, intelligence contractors often have better knowledge of the government’s projects than lawmakers, meaning they can use their inside scoop to lobby Congress and win even more contracts.[47] As a result, it is difficult to conduct an appropriate cost-benefit analysis of the tradeoffs associated with existing ties. Second, the cybersecurity industry has other customers besides the government. While PMCs and defense contractors can only sell their services to government agencies, most cybersecurity firms can market and develop products for the private sector as well. Therefore, the size, scope, and composition of the cybersecurity industry is largely determined by factors outside the government’s control. On the one hand, that means the government may have trouble reversing any negative effects of the industry on policy. If a strong cybersecurity industry causes poor government policy, rather than the other way around, then improvements in protocol surrounding agencies’ relationships with industry will not have much of an effect. On the other hand, if firms are participants in a broader private cybersecurity industry, then they will have to adjust their behavior to market realities. For example, if firms encourage government to adopt policies that lead to artificial demand for cybersecurity products, then they risk creating a bubble[48] that would hurt them financially if it bursts. Therefore, firms either avoid extensive lobbying for unnecessarily favorable policies, reducing their distortionary effect, or they engage in such lobbying and weaken their influence in government in the long run once the bubble bursts. Additionally, companies may have less of an incentive to engage in the sorts of problematic rent-seeking behavior explored earlier. If they cannot win government contracts, instead of spending millions on lobbying campaigns, firms might just look for customers in the private sector.[49] Finally, contracting may stymie vital information sharing. During the Cold War and the Iraq invasion, the Department of Defense could hire a single contractor (or group of contractors) to complete a single product or mission. The intelligence and defense establishment have largely replicated this model – single firms produce discrete software tools that the agencies subsequently integrate into their operational doctrine. However, in doing so, agencies lose the ability to work collaboratively and share information to solve important security problems.[50] In fact, with most contractors in direct competition with one another, firms are likely to guard their methods as proprietary secrets. In the current system, the only way contractors can integrate their teams to work on a single project is if one firm buys out another. But that, in turn, reduces competition in the industry as a whole, which can also stifle innovation. While certain characteristics of the cybersecurity industry allow it to self-correct for some of the negative policy effects of public-private ties, the government must take additional steps to be able to eliminate them all. V. Ways to Mitigate the Threat The government benefits from contact with the private cybersecurity sector – contractors allow the intelligence community to tap into the industry’s innovative power and give agencies the flexibility to temporarily increase the size of its workforce for time-sensitive projects. Therefore, policymakers should make changes that retain those benefits while minimizing the costs. First, government agencies should rely less on contractors and more on public-private partnerships to develop new technologies. For example, after Google told the NSA that hackers in China breached their networks, the NSA drafted a “cooperative research and development agreement” where the government and a firm collaborate to develop a new product. The government fronts the R&D costs, while the company participates in the development phase and has the right to patent and build the product designed. In addition, the government can “use any information gained from the collaboration.”[51] This sort of agreement allows the government to access the productive capacities of the private sector, but reduces superfluous spending. While under a traditional contract, a firm gets paid so long as it produces a desired product, under a public-private partnership such as the one formed between the NSA and Google, the firm only profits if they produce a useful tool that someone is willing to buy. Therefore, under this less traditional agreement, firms have no incentive to engage in completely spurious projects without any commercial value. Additionally, all tax dollars go directly towards research and development, eliminating the increased costs resulting from the markup rate that firms would charge the government under a traditional contract. Lastly, a less reliable stream of payments reduces the incentives for big contractors to acquire smaller ones and develop monopoly power in the industry, increasing the number of competitors in the industry and encouraging innovation. Second, the government should try to bolster its in-house cybersecurity capacity. If it can provide more of the services it needs on its own, then it can limit the prevalence and influence of cybersecurity contractors on policy. To do so, all agencies should include a non-compete clause in their employment contracts that prevents former employees from being hired back in a contracting role for a certain period of time.[52] Moreover, agencies should consider adding incentives to stay in government. Additional compensation would be a start, but government needs to find an incentive that is unique from the private sector, such as the intangible benefits of public service or additional prestige. Third, when the US does need to use contractors, it should improve its protocol for awarding contracts. Agencies should implement mechanisms to fast track approval of security clearances to allow more firms to compete in the bidding process, allowing the government to drive down the cost of securing contracts. Fourth, the government should negotiate multilateral agreements to prevent the export of cyber weapons systems to countries on the arms export blacklist for NATO, the US, and the EU. The EU and the US have already banned the export of surveillance technology to Iran and Syria, but efforts should go further. However, such an initiative faces two challenges. First, “cyber weapons” are difficult to define, given the overlap between offense and defense in the cyber sphere. Second, it seems almost impossible to control the cross-border flow of software over the Internet. Despite these challenges, a ban would at least discourage large firms in Western countries from selling to rogue regimes. Since those companies likely offer the best products, a ban would succeed in limiting the proliferation of advanced cyber technologies to adversarial actors. Finally, public and private actors alike should make efforts to increase transparency. Expanding in-house capacity and reducing reliance on contracts should make intelligence and defense agencies more accountable to the public. However, the best way to hold agencies accountable is to subject them to greater scrutiny. When former government officials make statements, media outlets and lawmakers should investigate and report their financial conflicts of interest. Then, policymakers can evaluate whether the speaker’s testimony is biased, enabling nuanced debate on US cyber threats. When intelligence agencies or the Pentagon request more money for cybersecurity, they should disclose, at least to Congress, specific details about how that money will be spent. That disclosure should make it easier to identify unnecessary spending, parse out corporate interests, and prevent agency officials from awarding contracts based on connections instead of merit, making bidding processes more competitive. Of course, some aspects of intelligence ought to be kept secret. But it is impossible to make informed policy judgments without some understanding of where money goes. Endnotes [2] "Cybersecurity Market by Solution (IAM, Encryption, DLP, UTM, Antivirus/Anti-Malware, Firewall, IDS/IPS, Disaster Recovery, DDOS Mitigation, SIEM), Service, Security Type, Deployment Mode, Organization Size, Vertical, and Region - Global Forecast to 2022." Markets and Markets Research. July 2017. Accessed April 18, 2018. https://www.marketsandmarkets.com/Market-Reports/cyber-security-market-505.html. CAGR from author’s calculations. [3] Talbot, Daniel. "The Cyber Security Industrial Complex." MIT Technology Review. December 06, 2011. Accessed May 09, 2016. https://www.technologyreview.com/s/426285/the-cyber-security-industrial-complex/. [4] Robertson, Jordan, and Michael Riley. "US Contractors Scale Up Search for Heartbleed-Like Flaws." Bloomberg. May 2, 2014. Accessed May 08, 2016. http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2014-05-02/us-contractors-scale-up-search-for-heartbleed-like-flaws. [5] Bamford, James. "NSA Snooping Was Only the Beginning. Meet the Spy Chief Leading Us Into Cyberwar." Wired Magazine. June 13, 13. Accessed May 09, 2016. https://www.wired.com/2013/06/general-keith-alexander-cyberwar/. [6] United States. White House. Office of Management and Budget. Analytical Perspectives, Section 21: Cybersecurity Funding. Washington, DC: US Government Publishing Office, 2018. 273-87. [7] Fox-Brewster, Thomas. "Embracing The Awful Irony At A Huge Counter-Terrorism Fair In Paris Days After ISIS Attacks." Forbes. November 22, 2015. Accessed May 09, 2016. http://www.forbes.com/sites/thomasbrewster/2015/11/22/paris-hosts-milipol-homeland-defense-expo-after-isis-attacks/#7fc15fc97da6. [8] Sorcher, Sara. "The Race to Build the Silicon Valley of Cybersecurity." The Christian Science Monitor. December 2015. Accessed May 09, 2016. http://passcode.csmonitor.com/goldrush. [9] Bamford, “NSA Snooping.” [10] Byrt, Frank. "U.S. Defense Contractors Are Scrambling To Fill Massive Cyber Security Contracts." Business Insider. November 19, 2010. Accessed May 09, 2016. http://www.businessinsider.com/obama-is-spending-a-ton-on-defense-spending-in-cyber-security-2010-11. [11] O'Brien, Connor. "Military Hawks Win Big in Budget Deal — for Now." Politico, February 9, 2018. Accessed April 18, 2018. https://www.politico.com/story/2018/02/09/budget-deal-military-hawks-333128. [12] Exec. Order No. 13636, 3 C.F.R. (2013). [13] Fazzini, Kate. "Under Trump, Some Subtle Cybersecurity Changes." The Wall Street Journal, December 13, 2017. Accessed April 18, 2018. https://blogs.wsj.com/cio/2017/12/13/under-trump-some-subtle-cybersecurity-changes/. [14] United States. The White House. National Security Strategy of the United States of America. 2017. [15] Harris, Shane. War the Rise of the Military-Internet Complex. Boston, Mass.: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2014. 180. [16] Ibid, 180. [17] Harris, @War, 104. [18] Greenberg, Andy. "Inside Endgame: A Second Act For The Blackwater Of Hacking." Forbes. February 12, 2014. Accessed May 09, 2016. http://www.forbes.com/sites/andygreenberg/2014/02/12/inside-endgame-a-new-direction-for-the-blackwater-of-hacking/#5da8ea7a52d9. [19] Harris, @War, 109. [20] Benner, Katie. "Cybersecurity's Money Men." The Information. January 21, 2014. Accessed May 9, 2016. https://www.theinformation.com/cybersecuritys-money-men. [21] Harris, @War, 121. [22] Ibid, 120. [23] Ibid, 223. [24] York, Herbert. Race to Oblivion: A Participant's View of the Arms Race. Simon and Schuster, 1971. Accessed May 11, 2016, 53. http://www.learnworld.com/ZNW/LWText.York.Race.Ch03.html. [25] Brito, Jerry, and Tate Watkins. "Loving the Cyber Bomb? The Dangers of Threat Inflation in Cybersecurity Policy." Harvard National Security Journal 3 (2011): 39-84. Accessed May 11, 2016. HeinOnline. 66. [26] Singer, Peter. "Outsourcing War." Foreign Affairs 84, no. 2 (March/April 2005): 119-32. 122. [27] Brito and Watkins, "Loving the Cyber Bomb?,” 43. [28] Martha Minow, Outsourcing Power: How Privatizing Military Efforts Challenges Accountability, Professionalism, and Democracy, 46 B.C.L. Rev. 989 (2005), http://lawdigitalcommons.bc.edu/bclr/ vol46/iss5/2. [29] Fang, Lee. "Many of the NSA's Loudest Defenders Have Financial Ties to NSA Contractors." The Intercept. May 12, 2015. Accessed May 11, 2016. https://theintercept.com/2015/05/12/intelligence-industry-cash-flows-media-echo-chamber-defending-nsa-surveillance/. [30] Ibid. [31] Sorcher, “The Race to Build the Silicon Valley of Cybersecurity.” [32] Etzioni, Amitai. "The Private Sector: A Reluctant Partner in Cybersecurity." Institute for Communitarian Studies, December 19, 2014. https://icps.gwu.edu/private-sector-reluctant-partner-cybersecurity. [33] Markusen, Ann. "Defense Spending: A Successful Industrial Policy?" International Journal of Urban and Regional Research 10, no. 1 (1986): 105-22. Accessed May 11, 2016. http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-2427.1986.tb00007.x. [34] Adams, Walter. "The Military-Industrial Complex and the New Industrial State." The American Economic Review 58, no. 2 (May 1968): 652-65. 658. [35] Singer, “Outsourcing War,” 129. [36] Chesterman, Simon. "‘We Can't Spy …If We Can't Buy!’" European Journal of International Law 19, no. 5 (November 2008): 1055-071. [37] Harris, @War, 223. [38] Singer, “Outsourcing War,” 126. [39] Ibid, 125. [40] Seabrook, John. "Network Insecurity." The New Yorker. May 20, 2013. Accessed May 11, 2016. http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2013/05/20/network-insecurity. [41] Ibid, 115. The collaboration dissolved in 2011 when Anonymous hacked into one of the coordinators’ emails and released correspondences about the group’s plans. [42] Keating, Lucy. "Surveillance: A Thriving British Industry." The Bureau of Investigative Journalism. December 01, 2011. Accessed May 11, 2016. https://www.thebureauinvestigates.com/2011/12/01/surveillance-a-thriving-british-industry/. [43] Reporters without Borders. Enemies of the Internet. Publication. 2013. 7. [44] Bamford, “NSA Snooping Was Only the Beginning. Meet the Spy Chief Leading Us Into Cyberwar.” [45] Shorrock, "How Private Contractors Have Created a Shadow NSA." [46] Greenberg, “Inside Endgame.” [47] Chesterman, "‘We Can't Spy …If We Can't Buy!’" [48] Some commentators think government policies might create a bubble. See Harris, @War, 122; for evidence that the value of cybersecurity firms has declined in the last year, see King, “Under Pressure, Cybersecurity Ripe for M&A This Year.” [49] Naturally, none of those principles strictly hold – look no further than the success of IT lobbyists in recent years to win government money. See Brito and Watkins, "Loving the Cyber Bomb?,” 69. [50] Chesterman, “We Can’t Spy…If We Can’t Buy!” [51] Harris, @War, 175. [52] The CIA already does this: see Chesterman, “We Can’t Spy…If We Can’t Buy!” References Adams, Walter. "The Military-Industrial Complex and the New Industrial State." The American Economic Review 58, no. 2 (May 1968): 652-65. Bamford, James. "NSA Snooping Was Only the Beginning. Meet the Spy Chief Leading Us Into Cyberwar." Wired Magazine. June 13, 13. Accessed May 09, 2016. https://www.wired.com/2013/06/general-keith-alexander-cyberwar/ . Benner, Katie. "Cybersecurity's Money Men." The Information. January 21, 2014. Accessed May 9, 2016. https://www.theinformation.com/cybersecuritys-money-men . Byrt, Frank. "U.S. Defense Contractors Are Scrambling To Fill Massive Cyber Security Contracts." Business Insider. November 19, 2010. Accessed May 09, 2016. http://www.businessinsider.com/obama-is-spending-a-ton-on-defense-spending-in-cyber-security-2010-11 . Chesterman, Simon. "‘We Can't Spy …If We Can't Buy!’: The Privatization of Intelligence and the Limits of Outsourcing ‘Inherently Governmental Functions’." European Journal of International Law 19, no. 5 (November 2008): 1055-071. Chief Financial Officer, Office of the Undersecretary of Defense (Comptroller). Defense Budget Overview: US Department of Defense Fiscal Year 2017 Budget Request. Washington, D.C.: Department of Defense, 2016. "Cybersecurity Market by Solution (IAM, Encryption, DLP, UTM, Antivirus/Anti-Malware, Firewall, IDS/IPS, Disaster Recovery, DDOS Mitigation, SIEM), Service, Security Type, Deployment Mode, Organization Size, Vertical, and Region - Global Forecast to 2022." Markets and Markets Research. July 2017. Accessed April 18, 2018. https://www.marketsandmarkets.com/Market-Reports/cyber-security-market-505.html. Etzioni, Amitai. "The Private Sector: A Reluctant Partner in Cybersecurity." Institute for Communitarian Studies, December 19, 2014. https://icps.gwu.edu/private-sector-reluctant-partner-cybersecurity . Exec. Order No. 13636, 3 C.F.R. (2013). Fang, Lee. "Many of the NSA's Loudest Defenders Have Financial Ties to NSA Contractors." The Intercept. May 12, 2015. Accessed May 11, 2016. https://theintercept.com/2015/05/12/intelligence-industry-cash-flows-media-echo-chamber-defending-nsa-surveillance/ . Fazzini, Kate. "Under Trump, Some Subtle Cybersecurity Changes." The Wall Street Journal, December 13, 2017. Accessed April 18, 2018. https://blogs.wsj.com/cio/2017/12/13/under-trump-some-subtle-cybersecurity-changes/. Fox-Brewster, Thomas. "Embracing The Awful Irony At A Huge Counter-Terrorism Fair In Paris Days After ISIS Attacks." Forbes. November 22, 2015. Accessed May 09, 2016. http://www.forbes.com/sites/thomasbrewster/2015/11/22/paris-hosts-milipol-homeland-defense-expo-after-isis-attacks/#7fc15fc97da6 . Greenberg, Andy. "Inside Endgame: A Second Act For The Blackwater Of Hacking." Forbes. February 12, 2014. Accessed May 09, 2016. http://www.forbes.com/sites/andygreenberg/2014/02/12/inside-endgame-a-new-direction-for-the-blackwater-of-hacking/#5da8ea7a52d9 . Harris, Shane. War the Rise of the Military-Internet Complex. Boston, Mass.: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2014. Keating, Lucy. "Surveillance: A Thriving British Industry." The Bureau of Investigative Journalism. December 01, 2011. Accessed May 11, 2016. https://www.thebureauinvestigates.com/2011/12/01/surveillance-a-thriving-british-industry/ . King, Rachel. "Under Pressure, Cybersecurity Market Is Ripe for M&A in 2016." The Wall Street Journal. February 29, 2016. Accessed May 08, 2016. http://blogs.wsj.com/cio/2016/02/29/under-pressure-cybersecurity-market-is-ripe-for-ma-in-2016/ . Markusen, Ann. "Defense Spending: A Successful Industrial Policy?" International Journal of Urban and Regional Research 10, no. 1 (1986): 105-22. Accessed May 11, 2016. http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-2427.1986.tb00007.x . Martha Minow, Outsourcing Power: How Privatizing Military Efforts Challenges Accountability, Professionalism, and Democracy, 46 B.C.L. Rev. 989 (2005), http://lawdigitalcommons.bc.edu/bclr/ vol46/iss5/2. O'Brien, Connor. "Military Hawks Win Big in Budget Deal — for Now." Politico, February 9, 2018. Accessed April 18, 2018. https://www.politico.com/story/2018/02/09/budget-deal-military-hawks-333128. 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The Panacea Problem The Panacea Problem: Indifference, Servility, and Kantian Beneficence Benjamin Eneman Georgetown University April 2021 Kant’s account of the duty of beneficence as a wide, imperfect duty initially seems at odds with our intuitive belief that helping others is, at least in some cases, morally obligatory. Various Kantian philosophical accounts have constructed different ways to address this problem. In this paper, I adopt and expand on Karen Stohr’s account of the duty of beneficence as a two-part duty composed by a wide duty to help others and a narrow duty to avoid indifference. After observing that merely adopting this view seems to result in over-stringency, I then argue that perfect and imperfect duties to others and the self act as counterarguments to claims of indifference. We have obligations to help others. That fact seems almost universally intuitive; it appears quite clear that, at least in some instances, we are somehow morally deficient if we fail to help other people. What is often less clear is the source of such strong obligations, and what sorts of concerns have the capacity to limit them. In this paper, I aim to construct a system of Kantian obligations that define and adequately bound our duty to help others, then consider the implications that system of obligations has on everyday life. I will argue that we should adopt Karen Stohr’s model of beneficence as a two-part duty where the duty to avoid indifference towards others in their role as end-setters is bounded and framed within duties to oneself, particularly duties to avoid servility and to respect one’s own status as a setter of ends. I will briefly summarize Kant’s view before proceeding. Kant divides duties into perfect and imperfect, as well as wide and narrow, categories. Taking Kant’s universal law formulation, if the maxim of a particular action’s very conception cannot be universalized without inherent contradiction, it violates a perfect duty; if the maxim results not in contradiction in conception but rather in contradiction of the will, it violates an imperfect duty. For example, making a false promise to a friend to repay a loan violates a perfect duty, because the concept of lying is only coherent when truth is assumed, and universalizing the maxim that “one ought to lie to a friend in order to get money” would result in a world where that assumption would deteriorate, making the concept of lying incoherent. Alternatively, under Kant’s humanity formulation, perfect duties are violated when someone treats another person as a mere means (fails to show respect for humanity as a negative end), while imperfect duties involve obligations to value and show respect for humanity as setters of ends. Perfect duties are always narrow—they are stringent, and we have an obligation to follow them at all times. Imperfect duties, however, can be broader or narrower, depending on the degree and kinds of latitude afforded to them. Generally speaking, broader duties allow for more variation than narrower duties in how they are achieved and the degree to which they are pursued at any given time. Wide duties leave “playroom (latitudo) for free choice in following the law” and “cannot specify precisely in what way one is to act and how much one is to do by the action,” Kant says, but cautions that they don’t grant carte blanche to “make exceptions to the maxim of actions but only as permission to limit one’s maxim of duty by another.” Consequently, “Fulfillment of [imperfect duties] is merit = +a, but failure to fulfill them is not in itself culpability = -a, but rather mere deficiency in moral worth = 0, unless the subject should make it his principle not to comply with such duties.” In other words, people are standardly praiseworthy for taking actions that fulfill imperfect duties, but are not standardly blameworthy for failing to do so on any particular occasion. At first glance, then, it might seem as if Kantian moral theory does not adequately address the scope of duties of beneficence—obligations to help others. The duty of beneficence is imperfect, since violating it stems from a contradiction in the will. We can conceive of a world in which nobody helps anyone else or adopts others’ ends as their own, but such a world would ultimately result in the frustration of our own ends, and therefore cannot be rationally willed, since one cannot rationally will the frustration or denial of one’s own ends (as doing so would mean willing against what one wills). Because the duty of beneficence is a wide, imperfect duty—one that affords real latitude in the manner and extent to which it is met—it seems difficult to square with intuitive judgements about situations in which one is truly obligated to help another person. For example, in cases of easy rescue (say, a child drowning in a bathtub a foot away from someone able to help) it seems like anyone who does not perform the rescue is displaying immoral behavior rather than simply not displaying moral behavior. It seems like not only do they have a particularly strong sort of obligation to others to help, but also that they are standardly blameworthy for failing to do so even if they do not make it a principle to fail to help in those sorts of instances. If, by some bizarre set of circumstances, I encounter five different children drowning in shallow water in one day, I could not justify not saving the fifth by pointing to the other four I had saved that day to show that it was clearly not my principle to avoid helping drowning children (or people in general). Such an attempted justification would seem absurd for instances similar to this. This is a real problem for proponents of Kantian ethics—it seems as if Kantian moral philosophy is not demanding enough in cases like these. Cases of easy rescue pose a strong (though, I contend, not insurmountable) challenge to latitudinarian accounts of the duty of beneficence (accounts that argue that the duty of beneficence inherently grants latitude in terms of the means by and extent to which it is pursued). Broadly, there seem to be three different approaches one could take when confronted with this problem, and while I only aim to pursue one, it seems worthwhile to at least sketch out the others and briefly address the reasons they fall short. First, one could accept the problem itself as reason enough to reject Kantianism in general. Because I contend that the problem, while significant, is not insurmountable, this approach seems to me to fall short. Second, one could bite the bullet and simply say our intuition is wrong in those cases of easy rescue, but it seems quite implausible that our intuitions surrounding these cases are wrong, so a solution that is able to account for them without abandoning the ethical framework we want to preserve would be better. Third, one could abandon, alter, or expand upon the latitudinarian account of beneficence specifically. This is the approach I will utilize. There have been a few different proposed Kantian solutions surrounding the latitudinarian account of beneficence: by finding a more rigorist interpretation of duties of beneficence (while still being constrained by perfect duties) as David Cummiskey does, by appealing to “true needs'' as opposed to “wants” as Barbara Herman does, and by arguing that the wide duty of beneficence is framed in part by a narrow duty to avoid indifference to others as Karen Stohr does. I will argue for Stohr’s approach, then modulate it in the face of a serious concern. For Stohr, what we ordinarily construe as a single duty of beneficence is really comprised of two parts: “a wide duty to perform helping actions on occasion and a narrow duty to avoid an attitude of indifference towards others as end-setters.” On many occasions, we can be non-indifferent without actively helping another person. To illustrate, Stohr gives the example of wishing someone luck before they go out in the rain to get a ticket to a concert they really want to see or congratulating them when they return with a ticket. However, this is not always the case—in the cases of easy rescue I have been discussing, the only way to avoid indifference is to rescue the person, since anything short of helping them constitutes a wanton display of indifference. The duty to avoid indifference as constructed by Stohr is imperfect (since it stems from a requirement to adopt a maxim rather than perform or abstain from a particular action, and violations result in a contradiction of the will rather than a contradiction in conception inherent to universalizations of indifference), but the sort of latitude it allows is only in the manner in which it is achieved and not the extent to which it is achieved, because displaying indifference towards a person involves not adopting “the attitude that her ends carry moral significance insofar as they are her ends,” and displaying indifference therefore shows a lack of acknowledgement for her “status as a setter of ends.” Therefore, because the duty of non-indifference is narrow in this particular sort of way, we owe non-indifference to others at all times, so actions that show indifference are never permissible—unless avoiding indifference would necessarily result in the violation of a perfect duty—and cases of easy rescue, for example, always necessitate action, since helping is the only way to avoid violating the stringent imperfect duty of non-indifference as constructed by Stohr. I will illustrate this distinction with an example from the superhero web serial Worm, in which a character named Panacea has the power to quickly heal any disease or injury. This power has also given her a sense of obligation that has dominated her life—she gained the power when she was a young teenager, and ever since then, she has felt that every moment she takes to herself is horrendously selfish since she could be, for example, visiting a hospital to cure every cancer patient there instead. Suppose Panacea walks past a large hospital on her way to see a movie with her sister Victoria. Of course, she knows there are almost certainly dozens if not hundreds of people who stand a very real chance of dying if she doesn’t help them immediately. Since all it costs her to save dozens of lives is that she postpone or cancel movie night with her sister, it might seem as if choosing to see the movie over saving lives is necessarily a display of indifference, no matter how many people she saved earlier that day—much as walking past a drowning child one could easily save at effectively zero cost to oneself results in a display of indifference no matter how many drowning children one has helped so far that day. Panacea also cannot just wish the patients well or pursue some other non-helping action to satisfy the constraint of non-indifference, since any well-wishes or non-helping action would seem horrendously insincere—she could have actually cured their illnesses and injuries but chose not to due to a more or less insignificant cost to herself. So, under a plain reading of Stohr’s model, Panacea would seem to be expressing indifference whenever she decided to go see a movie with her sister instead of saving hundreds of lives, and since non-indifference is owed to others at all times, she can never permissibly see a movie with her sister, since she will never reach a point where nobody is in need of her help. But it seems difficult to square that result with our own intuition. While there are obviously no Panaceas in the real world, some trained medical professionals might feel the same sort of burden. Take one of the permutations of Stohr’s example about a doctor “performing life-saving surgery on impoverished people in developing countries.” Suppose that the doctor plans on taking a flight home in an hour (not to attend to any particularly urgent crisis at home, simply because they want to go back), but someone appears in their waiting room in urgent need of such a surgery, which will take two hours. It seems to be a display of indifference to ever prioritize not delaying one’s flight over another person’s life. However, it seems intuitive that a moral theory ought not require them to stay indefinitely if they are helping in such a region. Resultantly, it seems like something is missing from the account that simply argues that we have a narrow imperfect duty to avoid indifference—it seems to be, in some cases, too stringent. It now seems that a Kantian approach has to be able to thread the needle between never requiring a particular act of aid and being over-demanding (e.g., requiring the surgeon to stay indefinitely). I contend that, in some cases, the only way to effectively do this from a Kantian lens is to appeal to certain duties to oneself—a perfect duty to refrain from servility, and imperfect duties that stem from the duty to respect one’s own autonomy—and use them to bound or frame duties to help others. First, let’s consider possible duties to others that might allow the surgeon to leave, both intuitively and within a Kantian framework. It is simply the case that any sort of perfect duty one has to another “trumps” the narrow, imperfect duty of non-indifference if the two are ever reasonably in conflict—that’s a fundamental quality of perfect duties. But certain sorts of urgent, narrow, imperfect duties can act to allow the surgeon to leave as well. Suppose the surgeon has a son at home who was just critically injured in a car crash, and needs to leave as soon as they can to be there for him. At this point, the sort of familial obligations the surgeon has can serve as a justification for leaving even if a patient has just come to the waiting room in need of assistance, because we can imagine the surgeon justifying their decision to the patient with something along the lines of “of course, I don’t want to leave you in the lurch, and it hurts me deeply that I can’t help you, but I have to go see my son.” The patient almost certainly won’t like this, but they cannot reasonably see the surgeon as displaying indifference through that action. So it is possible that some obligations to others can act as a sort of counter to any claim another might make that they are displaying indifference—exactly what sorts of obligations can function that way depends largely on the circumstances. Since certain important obligations the surgeon has to others can allow them to leave, it seems as if they aren’t trapped after all. But something important is missing in this solution. It is always possible to include in the construction of our scenario that there is no other obligation to others that is sufficient to act as a counter to claims of indifference. For example, if the obligation for a family member is sufficient to counter claims of indifference, we can simply stipulate that the surgeon has no family, and we can continue doing this for any given condition. Ideally, our solution would include a broad account of the sorts of duties that are sufficient to counter claims of indifference. In sum, appealing to certain obligations to others to counter the overly-stringent demand of non-indifference seems to fall short of an adequate solution. We are in need of a different kind of solution. In addition to obligations we owe to others, Kant also argues that we have duties to ourselves that are no less deliberatively impactful than our duties to others. I will argue that the surgeon can justify flying home by appealing to such duties to the self rather than duties to another person, duties which are (as before) divided into perfect and imperfect duties. One such duty to oneself is the perfect duty to avoid servility. Thomas Hill, a modern Kantian moral philosopher, defines servility as a “kind of deferential attitude towards others resulting from ignorance or misunderstanding of one’s moral rights” or, when aware and educated on those rights, “a willingness to disavow one’s moral status, publicly and systematically, in the absence of any strong reason to do so.” On face value, it seems strange that avoiding servility would be a perfect duty. It has been established that adopting the ends of others as your own is an imperfect duty, after all. But upon reflection, avoiding servility is a perfect duty since abnegation of one’s own ends to satisfy the ends of others creates a contradiction if universalized: completely subsuming one’s own ends to the ends of others results in an individual whose only actual ends are the ends of others, and if universalized, nobody has any ends for anyone else to achieve. Here is why. If I adopt a servile attitude, I am taking up an attitude that I matter less than others from a moral standpoint, and that therefore my ends have no real deliberative weight or moral value compared to the ends of (at least some) others. Consequently, I cannot really be said to put any significant moral stock in my own ends, instead subsuming them to the ends of others, and therefore do not really hold my own ends, since holding an end means believing it carries some real normative weight. If this attitude of servility is thus universalized, nobody really values or holds their own ends in any meaningful way, so servility, which relies on others holding ends, is an incoherent concept. Servility results in a contradiction in conception rather than a contradiction in the will. Alternatively, this can be framed in terms of the humanity formulation, which contends that since to be servile is to treat yourself as a means to the ends of others, someone who is servile fails to show respect for their own humanity as a negative end and therefore violates a perfect duty. In our example, a doctor choosing to stay indefinitely would necessarily be abandoning large swathes, if not the entirety, of the ends that they genuinely hold—they would be treating the ends of their patients, at least those ends that represent true needs, as lexicographically (i.e., weighted categorically) more important than other ends the doctor might have—to watch terrible science fiction movies, or enjoy the Washington, D.C. cherry blossoms, or any other number of possible personal ends—since staying indefinitely seems to mean taking up the attitude that those ends don’t deliberatively matter at all and ought to be completely abnegated in the presence of the ends of the patients. It’s clear that this sort of systematic disavowal of their own ends constitutes the sort of deferential attitude that indicates servility and results in the doctor not showing respect for their own humanity as a negative end and viewing themselves as a mere means to the ends of others. As stated earlier, perfect duties trump imperfect ones, so if the doctor remaining (or continuing to perform any beneficent act) constitutes servility which would entail violating a perfect duty, then the doctor ought not remain, and it seems that the doctor remaining does constitute servility. One possible objection is that the doctor remaining is not necessarily servile, since the doctor could be seeing to the ends of others as an extension of their genuine autonomous decision to do so. This objection does not seem to work. The doctor pictured in the objection would be holding attitudes with certain limited parallels to Hill’s “Deferential Wife,” a hypothetical person holding particular attitudes towards herself. The Deferential Wife believes that, while women are fundamentally mentally and physically equal to men, “the proper role for a woman is to serve her family” and who resultantly chooses to act deferentially to her husband in every instance. As Hill argues, this is sufficient to bar the concept of legitimate consent, because “if she believes that she has a duty to defer to her husband, then, whatever she may say, she cannot fully understand that she has a right not to defer to him.” If someone thinks exercising a right would be an offense, they cannot “really understand what it is to have and freely give up” that right. Just like the Deferential Wife, it seems here that the doctor does not believe in any sort of inferiority for themselves but rather simply believes that, for doctors in their position, it is their proper role to stay and see to the needs of those in need. Moreover, the potentially horrific consequences of leaving (viz., the death of patients who could be saved) seem very likely to create an incredible amount of social pressure and fear of later guilt that have the potential to crowd out the capacity for a genuinely autonomous decision to stay. This does get complicated by the fact that staying is in accordance with the wide duty of helping on occasion and the narrow duty to avoid indifference to others. Taking into account all these moral psychological factors, the doctor’s understanding of what it means for them to have a right to leave is likely occluded at best. The doctor doesn’t really know what it means for them to have a right to leave, and so does not value themselves as a moral agent with the right to choose to leave, falling into the same sort of servility as Hill’s Deferential Wife, or the defendant who believes they have an obligation to not exercise their right to a trial by jury of their peers with a competent defense attorney since they believe doing so would be rude. One who does not understand their rights does not understand their moral worth, and one who does not comprehend one’s moral worth and as a result subsumes one’s ends under the ends of others is servile. Here, the doctor does not understand their rights and, by extension, their moral worth, since feelings of obligation and social/psychological pressure crowd out their capacity to understand that they have a choice. As a result, the doctor has an obligation to themselves to leave, since remaining violates a perfect duty to avoid servility. Admittedly, one might argue that if the doctor becomes legitimately aware of their own moral rights, they are not being servile even if they continue to display the same sorts of “marks of deference” by staying indefinitely. Here, the doctor is neither ignorant of their rights nor acting as if they were insignificant; rather, they are pursuing a task with a cost to themselves after weighing and considering their options. Here, staying would no longer necessitate violating a perfect duty to themselves, and leaving would therefore not be strictly obligatory. Still, even in this case, I would argue that the doctor has certain imperfect duties to themselves that act (much as imperfect duties to others do) as a counterargument against claims of indifference. Kant’s standard imperfect duties to the self as laid out in The Metaphysics of Morals are to cultivate one’s own talents (“Natural Perfection” for a “pragmatic purpose”) and to cultivate one’s own moral capacity (“for a moral purpose only”). The duty to develop one’s own talents is a wide imperfect duty in both quality (the means and methods one uses to pursue a duty) and degree (the extent to which one pursues that duty), since it stems from a duty to take up a general maxim, and violation of the duty results only in a contradiction of the will and not a contradiction in conception. The duty to cultivate one’s own moral capacity is “narrow and perfect in terms of quality” but “wide and imperfect in terms of degree,” since it is a perfect duty to strive for moral perfection, but our own human limitations prevent us from actually achieving it. Both of these duties, I contend, stem from, and are crucial to achieving, a duty to promote and cultivate one’s own autonomy. Here I mean autonomy in the Kantian sense as truly free capacity to choose to act in accordance with moral law and not just nominally free choice. Both the applicability of talents and moral capacity depend crucially on our capacity for autonomy, since autonomy is necessary for moral agency. In addition, fulfilling self-duties framed by the Humanity Formulation (i.e., respecting one’s own status as a setter of ends) necessarily entails cultivating the capacity to set those ends, which is an act of cultivating autonomy. We all have the capacity for autonomy as human beings, but such capacities are often limited by factors both outside and within our control. For example, I have panic disorder, and frequently have panic attacks that both prevent me from making autonomous decisions while having them, and result in other conditions—physical, mental, and emotional exhaustion, anxieties, etc.—that all act to limit my autonomy. In order to cultivate my talents, my moral capacity, and autonomy, I have a wide duty to take actions that mitigate these effects—a class of things like seeing a psychiatrist, taking medication, finding and pursuing outlets for dealing with stress or emotional catharsis, and so on. In sum, I have a wide duty to myself to pursue self-care. Likewise, even neurotypical folks have a bevy of social pressures, stressful conditions, feelings of obligation to others, and levels of mental, physical, and emotional harms that are autonomy-limiting, and resultantly also have duties of self-care. Another important duty that stems from that cluster of duties to oneself to cultivate, promote, and respect one’s own autonomy is a duty to the self to live one’s life in a genuine, authentic manner—that is, to live life in accordance with one’s own permissible ends and the moral law, free as much as is psychologically possible from pressures that limit one from doing so. This has a justification similar to our duty to promote our own autonomy and cultivate our talents, which parallels obligations to one’s own ends that are also duties as laid out in Kant’s Doctrine of Virtue. In staying indefinitely despite wanting to leave, the doctor cannot fulfill duties of self-care and duties to pursue and promote their own autonomy. To be clear, so long as the doctor avoids servility (i.e., genuinely understands that they have a right to leave and stays despite so understanding), staying is probably permissible since those unfulfilled duties are imperfect duties that do not have the trumping feature of the perfect duty to avoid servility discussed earlier. But nonetheless, these sorts of imperfect duties can serve as a counterargument against claims of indifference. We can imagine the doctor speaking to a hypothetical patient and saying something like: “Look, it legitimately pains me to go before I can fully help you, but I have to live my own, genuinely autonomous life pursuing my own ends, so I have to pursue the sorts of things that allow me to live in such a way, and that means I have to leave.” This certainly seems weaker than the argument made before (about leaving to be with a critically-injured son) since the duties used as a counterargument are broader and seem less urgent, at least for any given occasion, since most single actions do not in and of themselves prevent someone from living their own life. But, I would contend, they are sufficient grounds for rendering the act of leaving permissible, since they act as counterarguments against claims of indifference, meaning that the doctor can leave without violating that duty. And, of course, if the doctor genuinely regards their commitment to helping their patients as what their life is about, and reaches that conclusion autonomously with full understanding that they are free to choose other permissible ends and is therefore not displaying servility in doing so, staying is also permissible. Neither of these two cases (a perfect duty to leave that stems from the perfect duty to avoid servility and a set of imperfect duties to respect, cultivate, and promote one’s own autonomy) erase one’s obligations to avoid indifference to others. Rather, the first case acts as a trump when the two are in conflict, and both act as arguments against claims that the doctor is violating a duty of non-indifference in leaving—the first case because it is a stringent duty that would leave no room for permissibly staying, the second because a doctor who has to leave to respect, cultivate, and promote their own autonomy could plausibly argue that they really do value the people they’re leaving behind but cannot stay indefinitely without indefinitely violating an important if imperfect duty to themselves. In this manner, imperfect duties to the self act in a similar way to imperfect duties to others (e.g., an imperfect duty to be there for one’s children if they become critically injured) in terms of their function as a counterargument to claims of indifference. These sorts of arguments, and the case for the permissibility of leaving, are strengthened the more the doctor does to show non-indifference. The doctor has an obligation to set a departure date ahead of time and stick to it as best as possible—otherwise, the time they do leave risks being or seeming arbitrary. If possible, the doctor ought to attempt to find a replacement so that nobody dies or suffers greatly because of their departure; failing that, they ought to help with passing on basic, vital skills to those in the country while there. Further, they continue to have obligations once they get home to continue to show that they do care—to financially and socially support institutions that bring physicians to impoverished nations to do medical work, to work to erase the conditions that cause poverty in general, and so on. This list is not exhaustive, obviously, but rather a broad sketch of the sorts of things they probably ought to do to further solidify the permissibility of leaving, where the permissibility of leaving is dependent on avoiding showing indifference to others. Most of us are not highly-trained doctors in far-flung nations helping solve life-or-death crises. But, given how interconnected the world is, it can seem like others are constantly in need of the sort of help we can provide—whether financially, through social and political advocacy, or some other means. And, I would argue, we do have a duty to help them, stemming from concerns about indifference as well as duties to help others. It is still incumbent on us to avoid feeling indifferent (numb, jaded, or otherwise) towards people. But we cannot devalue ourselves entirely. Beyond utilitarian sorts of concerns for psychological well-being, we have to see ourselves as autonomous members of a moral community with incalculable value. Panacea cannot be indifferent to the suffering of the sick, but she is not morally bankrupt for spending time with her family or alone enjoying nature. We have obligations to others, obligations to avoid indifference that we all too often shirk—we turn away refugees, paint homeless people as junkies to justify not helping them, become jaded and callous in the face of anti-Semitic, Islamophobic, and other forms of bigoted violence, and fall victim to countless other pitfalls of indifference. But we must also take care not to erase ourselves from the picture, abdicating our place in the great project of humanity. To close with a story from the Jewish tradition, Rabbi Simcha Bunim took to the habit of carrying two slips of paper, one in each pocket. One read “V’anochi afar v’efer”—I am but dust and ashes. The other read “Bishvili nivra ha-olam”—the world was created for my sake. He used to look at one or the other when he needed to throughout the day. We must remember that we are but dust and ashes, and live a life dedicated to important causes and projects, not turning away from the suffering of others, but we also need to remember our place as moral agents and as ends in ourselves. And as such, we have to take care of and be gentle with not only others but also ourselves. REFERENCES Buber, Martin. Tales of the Hasidim, Vol. 2: The Later Masters. Translated by Olga Marx. Schocken Books. Hill, Thomas E. Jr. “Servility and Self Respect.” The Monist, Oxford University Press, Vol. 57, No. 1, January 1973, pp. 87-104. Kant, Immanuel. The Metaphysics of Morals. Translated by Mary Gregor. Cambridge University Press. McCrae, John C. Worm. Wordpress, 2011-2013. Stohr, Karen. “Kantian Beneficence and the Problem of Obligatory Aid.” Journal of Moral Philosophy vol. 8 (2011), pp. 45-67. Williams, Bernard. “A Critique of Utilitarianism.” Ethics, 6th ed., edited by Steven M Cahn and Peter Markie, Oxford University Press, 2016, pp. 544-560. Thanks also to Dr. Karen Stohr for advising and helping guide me through this paper, my peers for questions and comments which helped me clarify and strengthen my case, and family members for listening to me work through the early stages of thinking about this topic.

Transcendental Self Reconceptualizing the Idea of the Self within Western Philosophy: The Existence-Reason Binary and the Nonrational Transcendental Self Jennifer Kim Pomona College Author Ebba Brunnstrom Grace Engelman Alan Garcia-Ramos Fengyi Wan Editors Spring 2018 In order to overcome the existence-reason binary present in philosophy, I propose the notion of nonrational transcendental self. In philosophy, the ontological question asks, “How might a self understand its own being?” Views on the self were initially dominated by the rationalists, who argue that reason, rather than sense experience, reveals the true nature of things. In response, a subsequent movement called existentialism critiques rationalism for mistaking the human being as a stagnant thinker. Existentialists argue that human beings are not merely rational beings, but also dynamic subjects who experience and change. From the existentialist viewpoint, reason by itself is wholly incapable of capturing the subject’s lived experience. In my observation, the rationalist-existentialist debate gave rise to a conceptual binary, where existence and reason are mutually exclusive. It is my view that this binary hinders the revolutionary potential of existentialist philosophy. The binary is problematic because it disallows an alternative understanding of the self outside of reason and existence. There are complexities in our nature that occur outside the binary, such as our nonrational selves. If we continue to approach ontology without breaking the binary, we can never accurately or sufficiently answer the basic question of how to understand our own being. My answer to resolving the binary is to propose a rethinking of the self as nonrational and transcendental. First, I will induct nonrationality as an alternative to the binary that neither rejects nor is wholly subsumed under reason or its counterpart, existence. I begin by exploring examples of the transcendental self as exemplified in the Kantian subjects of moral and aesthetic judgments. I then introduce the notion of a nonrational transcendental self, which is the self that experiences and knows, but does not judge. Finally, I show that the nonrational transcendental self truly exists within us and reveals itself most clearly when we experience life alongside the question of suicide and when we experience a moment of beauty. The need to convey the nonrational transcendental self transpires from the restrictions of the binary. Therefore, I shall first identify the emergence of the reason-existence binary by tracing the use of reason and existence in historical ontological debates. The rationalist view of the self begins with Descartes, who articulates that rational self-reflection reveals the true nature of the human being as the thinking self, the eternal mind (Descartes – Translation: Haldane, 1991). Hegel, likewise, perceives reason as the proper lenses through which to discover the human being’s true nature and place in the world. In Hegelian philosophy, history is the linear unfolding of reason and all of our individual subjectivities are merely subsumed under this hyper-rational unfolding (Hegel – Translation: Hartman, 1953). Such extreme rationalism is challenged by the Kantian philosophy of transcendental idealism, which curtails the overreach of pure reason by designating it to a regulatory rule (Kant – Translation: Guyer and Wood, 1998). According to transcendental idealism, we are limited to knowing and perceiving phenomena (i.e. things as they appear in time and space). We do not have access to noumena (“things-as-they-are-in-themselves”) (Kant – Translation: Guyer and Wood, 1998). Reason, as our structural framework, can help us decide upon the truth of phenomena, but it cannot conclude anything substantial about noumena. As we are incapable of perceiving our noumenal selves, it is an illegitimate use of reason to attempt to rationally discover our true selves (Kant – Translation: Guyer and Wood, 1998). Consequently, Kant reintroduces the question of the self-understanding its own being, allowing existentialists to arrive on the scene and offer a viewpoint opposing the rationalists. Existentialism emerges with Kierkegaard’s publication of Either/Or in 1843. Kierkegaard points out that our singular viewpoint to life is our existing and subjective self. Objective truth only has meaning in relation to a knower, who is subjective and dynamic. Thus, Kierkegaard criticizes Descartes for mistakenly substituting the human being as an “infinitely indifferent” knower and explicitly rejects Cartesian rationalism as “a mirage [where] everything is and nothing becomes” (Kierkegaard – Translation: Hong and Hong, 1978). For Kierkegaard, reason, either as some ultimate methodology towards truth or as a priori structures of cognition and understanding, fails to account for our fundamental nature as those who experience. After Kierkegaard, existentialist thinker Heidegger published Being and Time in 1927. Being and Time reorients the ontological approach by introducing the concept dasein, which translates to being-in-the-world (Heidegger – Translation: Macquarrie and Robinson, 1962). In contrast to the rationalists who believe that true human nature can only be understood when abstracted away from experience, Heidegger argues that human beings are dasein and can know themselves only as they exist in the world. All philosophical inquiry on human nature must acknowledge our essential condition as dasein if it is to be accurate and effective. By contrast, ontology, which claims to understand human nature independent of its being-in-the-world, is illegitimate. Then, in 1943, another existentialist named Sartre published Being and Nothingness. Echoing Kantian thought, Sartre argues that we cannot ask what the nature of the human being in itself is. When we try to answer ontologically about our noumenal selves, we immediately establish a duality (between “I” as the subject and “I” as the referred-to object) that is essentially at odds with the oneness of self that we associate with the ‘true self’ (Sartre – Translation: Barnes, 1956). Instead of asking what being is, Sartre recommends that we ask how being is. In other words, what are our modes of being? Sartre states that the human being is a factical self, which refers to our physical being grounded in concrete circumstances (Sartre – Translation: Barnes, 1956). The human being is also a transcendent self, which means that we are not only our factical self, but also all of our negations and possibilities. For example, the seemingly insignificant waiter at a restaurant is not merely a waiter. That is, as a human being, the waiter’s existence does not depend on his or her being waiter. The waiter may be countless other things apart from a waiter and is still yet to be many things in the future. Sartre’s point is that our existence as human beings cannot be fully captured by the roles our factical selves play. For Sartre, the human being is essentially fluid and full of possibility (Sartre – Translation: Barnes, 1956). Therefore, Sartre considers that reason as logical form, which accepts negation and exclusion as definitive, cannot sufficiently account for the human being. My purpose in explicating the ontological debate between rationalists and existentialists is to show that within the philosophical tradition, there is a shift from understanding the human being as a stagnant thinker to an experiencing subject. I argue that the debate which motivated this shift in thinking also unintentionally produced a conceptual binary between reason and existence. Existentialism presents itself as a purposeful critique of rationalism. The language of the existentialists is intentionally contrasted to the language of the rationalists. The existentialists describe the true nature of the human being as subjective, dynamic, temporal, fluid, and grounded; rationalists, as objective, unchanging, eternal, and abstract. In reading existentialists’ work, the reader would think that the human being is essentially a dynamic subject in place of a stagnant thinker, but never both. Similarly, truth for the human being is seen as either subjective or objective, but not both. With such emphasized contrast, ‘existence’ becomes a concept that stands as a symbolic counterpoint to reason. This is the reason-existence binary. The reason-existence binary is undesirable and stunts the progress existentialism might make in answering the basic ontological question. The existentialists intended to reclaim the dynamic aspect of the human being in an effort to balance out the extreme rationalism preceding them. However, by presenting existence in contrast to, rather than alongside, reason, existentialism merely designated the human being to another extreme. The existentialists’ failure of a balancing act reveals itself as an issue within their own systems of thought. Kierkegaard, Heidegger, and Sartre all grapple with tensions resulting from the binary within their own philosophies. Part I: Limitations of the Binary Manifested as Existentialist Tensions Kierkegaard’s Unintended Inverse Hegelianism When Kierkegaard states that “subjectivity is truth”, he effectively turns Hegel (who saw objectivity as the one legitimate truth) on his head (Kierkegaard – Translation: Hong and Hong 1978). Kierkegaard rejects the hyper-objective, linear, rational, and systematic nature of Hegelianism and purposefully aims to be anti-systematic and anti-rationalist. However, Kierkegaard himself proposes that an individual must go through three stages (the aesthetic, the ethical, and the religious) in order to encounter a true self (Kierkegaard – Translation: Hong and Hong, 1978). These are the stages that an individual encounters when turning inward in his or her own subjectivity. The final stage climaxes in paradox and culminates in a person of faith. So then, it seems that Kierkegaard’s philosophy does entail a system that we must acknowledge in order to understand our own being. The irony is that by protesting objectivity with subjectivity, Kierkegaard unwittingly creates his own dialectical system and becomes the mirror image of the systematic and idealistic Hegelianism that he intended to counter. Theodor W. Adorno calls Kierkegaard’s philosophy “inverse Hegelianism” since the historical dialectic of objective ‘Reason’ in Hegelian philosophy is parallel to Kierkegaard’s inward dialectic of the subject’s subjectivity. Whereas the Hegelian subject must look further and further outwards to discover truth and the authentic self, the Kierkegaardian subject must turn deeper and deeper inwards to discover truth and the faithful self (Adorno – Translation: Hullot-Kentor, 1989). Thus, whereas Hegel’s setting and subject is all of history, Kierkegaard’s “objective inwardness strictly excludes objective history”, so that “history vanishes” in Kierkegaard (Adorno – Translation: Hullot-Kentor, 1989). However, without any sense of history, what is left in Kierkegaard’s philosophy is the abstract self posed against the abstract universal, interacting in a subject-object dialectic that Adorno calls “Hegel [inverted and interiorized]” (Adorno – Translation: Hullot-Kentor, 1989). That is, Kierkegaard neither avoids systematizing the process of the self understanding its own being nor refrains from abstracting (i.e. a self without a concrete history is an abstract self). In short, Kierkegaard fails to fully account for the existing subject and only manages to postulate it against the thinking subject. Heidegger’s Absurd Waiting Heidegger’s dasein is both being-in-the-world and being-not-of-this-world. That is, we cannot seek to understand our being as existing separate from the world we exist in and yet, there is the curious truth that we are born into and pass away from the world. We “come from” and “go away to” someplace not of this world. From this, Heidegger concludes that the significance and uniqueness of our time in this world are due to our temporality. As finite beings, every moment in time is unique. Our specific time also defines each of us as a unique being traveling different paths and encountering different ontological possibilities which become available to us by virtue of our specific past and present (Heidegger – Translation: Macquarrie and Robinson, 1962). Time is therefore responsible for determining the significance of all the opportunities we might have in this world. But since the importance of time itself is that it represents our sudden arrival and departure from this world from who knows where, then meaning itself also comes from who knows where. Heidegger wrote Being and Time in the 1920s and 1930s, directly after the First World War. Like the famous Lost Generation, Heidegger also addresses an era when the traditional ideologies and frameworks that gave us social identities and gave our actions meaning were quickly fading out. (Preceding Heidegger, Nietzsche defines that era as an era in which “God is dead” in contrast to previous generations which offered “God” and by extension, Christian morals, tradition, etc (Nietzsche – Translation: Nauckhoff, 2001). God and the institution of religion and tradition provided frameworks of significance which dasein could attach itself to find significance.) The era bore a sense of decay. The hollowness of a hollow man was no longer an individual problem, but an indicator of a lack of possibilities in the world of that generation. If the world shines through an authentic dasein (being-in-the-world), but the world itself is decaying, then an authentic dasein would decay instead of thrive. Heidegger recognizes this issue and offers the solution of reorienting dasein in order to increase its receptivity of meaning. Essentially, Heidegger states that if there is less meaning in the world, then we should be more receptive to it so that we can get more of it. If dasein is taken solely as a being in time, an increase in receptivity simply means a more anxious waiting for meaning to come. This is because meaning only comes from that “other world” where we came from to be born and where we go once we die. But Heidegger does not give any deadline for how long dasein must wait for meaning to appear. Indeed, he cannot even guarantee that meaning will ever come back. But if we are headed towards a meaningless world, we would be waiting forever. In Samuel Beckett’s “Waiting for Godot”, two individuals “actively” wait in a wasteland for “Godot”, an unknown figure who promises meaning, but cannot promise when, where, or how. This uncertain, but hopeful waiting depicts the issue that Heidegger’s solution runs into. In terms of time, Heidegger’s solution becomes a rather paradoxical (and apparently, parody-able) form of “active” waiting. Heidegger tries to reclaim our being from abstraction by positing dasein, but his philosophy is affected by the binary which separates existing from knowing. Ultimately, he ends up in a strange position of hopeful absurdism. In this position, he relies on a vague abstraction that renders even the being-in-the-world altogether hazy and opaque. Thus, despite Heidegger’s intent to have dasein reconquer itself as a grounded being, we arrive at a point where the absence of a metaphysical quality of dasein results, once again, in abstraction Sartre’s Difficulty with Dualism When Sartre introduces the factical self and the transcendent self to the reader, he explicitly states that this division exists only because they are necessary to parse out the modes of being. Sartre does not intend to propose a metaphysical dualism, where the factical and transcendent self are truly two different selves or beings. Although Sartre posits a disclaimer of his dualism, there is still ultimately a tension in saying that being-in-itself and being-for-itself are mutually exclusive and yet every human being is somehow both. Sartre’s preoccupation with being as always more than it appears in a given situation sits in direct contrast to reason, which only applies to appearances. This contrast motivates Sartre to depict human beings as half factual knowers and half fluid, illogical beings. This is an uncomfortable division both because our rational and existing selves do not exist unequivocally separate from each other and because we also have a nonrational self. Sartre himself identifies this issue as the “identity nihilation” or “internal negation” issue, stating that his view renders the self in a perpetually unstable equability where identity as absolute cohesion rejects diversity and unity can only be a synthesis of multiplicity (Sartre – Translation: Barnes, 1956). The self, as both whole and diverse, is never quite captured due to the oppositional nature between existence and reason that Sartre assumes. *** The binary itself is not easily grasped, but its effects are discernible. The tensions that emerge from the binary reveal that if the assumptions which underlie the argument are extreme and unfounded, the content itself is affected and distorted. To understand this in a more general sense, it is often what we consider possible, rather than the reality of the situation, which dictates the outcome. If we never venture down certain pathways because we never consider their existence, then those avenues of thought will never open to us, not because they cannot exist, but because we consider them unable to exist. The philosopher Derrida speaks to the violence of writing, of naming things, and of defining spectrums and hierarchies through names (Derrida, 1976). Writing separates, and it is within those separations that battles are fought. Writers always write in the context of previous thought, and so even though their intentions are to break cycles of thought, the methodology of writing itself binds them to reiterate the same structural violence that previous writers have also engaged in. In short, modern philosophers often end up writing within the dialogue set up by previous philosophers and find it difficult, if not impossible, to break out of that dialogue and introduce new possibilities. If the possibilities of the conversation are predetermined by restrictions on expression, the historical limitations will stunt the conversation and block the creation of new pathways of thought. While Kierkegaard provides an illuminating analysis of how Hegelianism neglected essential considerations for how the existing subject should come to understand itself, at the same time, Kierkegaard’s reactionary philosophy proves detrimental to the originality of his own philosophy. The content is simply turned on its head, but the ultimate goal of understanding remains out of reach. Heidegger’s concept of dasein reorients ontology into a humbler form, reminding us that we do not experience Being except as being-in-the-world and as being-towards-death. He criticizes the philosophical tradition of forgetting that our existence is wholly about being present-in-the-world. However, Heidegger falls prey to his own criticism when he separates human existence from whatever truth or meaning there was to be found in our existence. To Sartre’s credit, Sartre identifies and denounces the binary from the very beginning. Yet, despite this awareness, his own philosophy ends up depending on conceptual divisions born from the binary. What all of these philosophers point out but struggle to prove within their own philosophies is that the human being is always the meeting ground for both reason and existence. By imposing this binary, we become stuck with a mentality that cannot imagine outside of you are either this or that. There is no space for a new beginning because violence has already been done unto the space of possibility. While one side can point out the defects of the other, unfortunately, the inverse of a structure does not overturn the system nor introduce anything new, and so it cannot successfully escape the faults or solve the problems of the original structure. Inversion and rejection are still confined to the original sphere of thought and that influence is impossible to hide, even though the rest of the content may be revolutionary and inspiring. That is why the existence-reason binary limits existentialists’ answer to the ontological question of the self knowing its own being. Part II: Rethinking the Transcendental Self In light of the existence-reason binary, I offer an interpretation of a self that is transcendental and nonrational. The nonrational transcendental self is a transcendental self because it allows for a shift in perspective without loss of identity. It is nonrational because the shift is unconcerned with justifications. There is no categorizing or narrating the experience for a greater purpose. There is no expectation of ‘what ought to happen’. There is no need to prioritize anything within the experience. The nonrational transcendental self is the self that experiences its own being without having to focus or impose on it. It is the self that exists alongside the constant question of suicide and it is the self that arises when we experience moments of beauty. *** Section A: The Question of Suicide Camus famously said, “There is only one really serious philosophical problem and that is suicide. Deciding whether or not life is worth living is to answer the fundamental question in philosophy” (Camus – Translation: O’Brien, 1991). Camus’ infamous line was already preceded by a long line of thinkers grappling with the morality and rationality of suicide. St. Augustine, inspired by Plato and followed by Aquinas, states the Christian prohibition on suicide. When intolerable evils descend upon us, the truly pious withstand the onslaught and prove their virtue, whereas those who escape by suicide have sullied God’s gift of life to us (Saint Augustine – Translation: Paolucci, 1962). Suicide was seen as the ultimate unrepentable sin. St. Augustine also considers suicide irrational, pointing out that if suicide is meant to preserve happiness or escape unhappiness by avoiding pain, then that is foolishness for there is no happiness to be found in either giving up in the midst of fighting evil or in knowing that you can commit suicide (Saint Augustine – Translation: Paolucci, 1962). Then, David Hume famously wrote a defense of suicide as a rational act, stating, “suicide is no transgression of our duty to God” (Hume, 1783). God granted all beings and things with their proper functions and powers (Hume, 1783). A river has the power to stop man because God willed it. Yet, if man is able to create machinery that utilizes energy from a river or can divert a river from its course, this interaction causes no discord in the creation and would not be a crime in the eyes of God (Hume, 1783). God has given us the ability to judge and enact such behavior. Likewise, Hume asserts that there is no crime of “turning a few ounces of blood from their natural channels” (Hume, 1783). In this case, God has given us the ability to judge and enact suicide. Furthermore, just as the river turns according to the laws of matter and motion, so does the human body react according to the laws of nature as set by God (Hume, 1783). Hume offers several situations in which suicide might be consistent with our self-interest (e.g. age, sickness, and misfortune), but is also quick to state, “no man ever threw away life, while it was worth keeping… for such is our natural horror of death” (Hume, 1783). Thus, if someone ultimately judges that he or she is in a situation so haunted by suffering that it cannot be relieved except through death, then not only is committing suicide not a moral transgression, but it is also a perfectly rational act. Richard Brandt furthers Hume’s argument that suicide can be rational by way of a utilitarian argument. Brandt argues that a rational agent can make a sufficiently informed comparison about the likely utility between the two possible futures of survival and suicide and make an intelligible and rational choice from there. However, in response to Brandt, Christopher Cowley suggests that the concept of rationality does not apply to suicide. Judgements about suicide, such as those espoused by Brandt, are certainly intelligible (Cowley, 2006). However, these judgments are “third-person descriptions… implicitly assuming rationality” and “[maintaining] a clinical detachment” so that we end up “talking about the victim rather than to or with the victim” (Cowley, 2006). Cowley thus points out that asking the rational question of “what would anyone do in this situation” is more an abstract hypothesis and less about the agent and the agent’s act of suicide (Cowley, 2006). Furthermore, debating the rationality of suicide misses a major point, that rationality is essentially future-oriented. We call an act rational or irrational by presupposing a future in which we will have to face the consequences of that act (Cowley, 2006). Therefore, while we might consider someone’s reason for suicide rational or irrational, suicide itself cannot be properly judged by rationality because it is the erasure of the future that is a precondition of judging an act as rational or irrational. Thus, Cowley “rejects the exhaustive dichotomy between rational and irrational” because both concepts “run out” and fail to provide a language that sufficiently accounts for a discussion on suicide (Cowley, 2006). Rationality presumes justification, which not only assumes a future but also abstracts from the subject’s experience. However, if Cowley’s point stands, then how are we to approach the question of suicide? Who is the agent in question, if not a rational agent? Insofar as suicide is a human question, the answer relies heavily on how we understand the human being. Here, I hope that my notion of the nonrational transcendental self will help articulate our experience with the issue of suicide. Notice this: Although Camus and others have posed the question of suicide intellectually, we actually experience this question at every moment of our conscious lives. We do not necessarily confront the question (in that we do not feel compelled to justify our existences to ourselves every passing second), but simply by virtue of living, we exist alongside it. The rational self often resists; justifications often mean “this despite that.” But the nonrational self simply exists, without justification, and therefore, without resistance. It does not strive to endure because it is not about life, it is simply living. When a wind passes through the grass, we do not think the grass “resists.” Instead, it simply exists in its swaying along with the wind. Afterwards, we reason that the wind made the grass sway, and while this is very much true, this is a justification after the initial experience, where reason serves as a convenient framework with which to understand and recognize our experiences. Thus, the nonrational transcendental self settles the anxiety of needing a reason to live in an arbitrary world by accepting that it simply is, outside of want and reason. As the question of suicide is reborn every moment, so this self co-exists alongside that question. Returning to Camus’ question, I realize that suicide is not simply a grand philosophical issue, but an ever-present question. Of course, as Cowley admits, suicide can be discussed in terms of rationality. I think that this makes sense. After all, suicide has a widespread effect, and it is only natural that we abstract from the agent and act itself in an attempt to more deeply understand why such tragic events happen. However, the question of suicide also exists separate from our reasons to live or die. We know this because we have all witnessed that the reality of suicide exists beyond rationality. Sadly, many people who have every reason to live also die. We, as survivors, turn to religion and philosophy and literature, searching for reasons that might explain why they had to go when clearly, they had so much to live for. But regardless of the many arguments we might construct to justify a longer life, the insurmountable fact is that they have passed out of this shared world. As such, suicide is neither rational nor irrational. It is nonrational, which means that although existence can be rationalized, existence is or is not despite the rationalization. Suicide, not as an act to be judged, but as a constant question hand-in-hand with living, illuminates this aspect of the self. The nonrational self is also transcendental. The common understanding of transcendental is “a noumenal realm above”, but the nonrational transcendental self in this situation is a “settling.” The self that transcends life-or-death is not a self that rises above existence, but a self that is simply situated in one’s own being. Even facing the question of suicide, the nonrational transcendental self does not reach towards immorality nor does it turn within itself. There is no extortion and no resistance. It simply exists as it is. It is the mind before the mind is filled with thoughts. It is the state of existence that occupies the middle ground between wanting to live and wanting to die. This middle ground is what often allows people to survive depression, which sometimes manifests as an indifference to life and inability to hope. Think about the reverse situation. Many people who feel they have no reason to live continue to live. Whether it is because we are depressed or uncertain or have simply never seriously entertained the question, we can exist without a reason to live. While Hume and Brandt rightfully argue that we can make value judgments about what sort of life is worth living, the rational argument does not account for the actual state of our existence. Why not? This is because for human beings, the absence of reason to live is not a reason to die. Therefore, to discuss suicide as though it aligns with a linear spectrum of rationality is to collapse this inequality and equate the absence of reason to live with a reason to die. This discounts the struggle that many depressed and/or suicidal people struggle through. But intuitively, we all understand this inequality and we recognize the significance of the inequality. It is why we feel that there is no reason sufficient enough to justify suicide. However, for this intuitive truth to be true, we must grant that the human being exists and sees itself capable of existing outside the reason-existence binary and occupying the middle ground of the nonrational transcendental self. Section B: The Moral and Aesthetic Judgment Before I further explain the notion of a nonrational transcendental self, I wish to reference other types of judgments that are nonrational. Since the kinds of judgments we make portray the kind of being we are, I think this will help us to imagine concepts of the self outside the existence-reason binary. *** After his Critique of Pure Reason, Kant pursued other capacities of self-representation and self-understanding in the Second and Third Critiques, respectively. The Critique of Practical Reason contains Kant’s moral philosophy, which is premised on the principle that we must understand ourselves as we appear to ourselves. In other words, even if reason postulates a phenomenal determinism in the physical world, since we appear to ourselves as moral beings and morality implies agency, we must also take ourselves to be agents capable of affect. The reasoning here is practical: Given how we appear to ourselves, we must believe the necessary condition which allows for this appearance. Specifically, given that we appear to ourselves as moral agents, we must necessarily take ourselves to be free agents (Kant – Translation: Beck, 1956). This differs from the pure reason of Kant’s First Critique, which was discussed as a cognitive capacity functioning largely to structure our experience through concepts and categories. However, the Kantian self that engages in practical reason and which makes the moral judgment is inequivalent to a nonrational transcendental self. The nonrational transcendental self is not concerned with its own appearance or with self-justifications. Kant’s moral judgment is nonetheless a rational judgment, only it has to do with practical reasoning, which is bottom-top because it reasons from appearance whereas pure reasoning, which structures based on a priori conditions of cognition and pure categories of laws and structures, works top-down. To translate this back into our discussion of suicide, saying that the nonrational transcendental self exists alongside the ever-present question of suicide is inequivalent to saying that a person has a moral incentive to live. The moral incentive often appears as a justification, supplying a ‘despite’ in an intellectual, but not necessarily existential problem. Kant’s Third Critique, the Critique of Judgment conveys the aesthetic judgment (i.e. a judgment of beauty). The aesthetic judgment employs the individual’s capacities of imagination and understanding to enter into the mental state of freeplay (Kant – Translation: Walkter, 1963). While both imagination and understanding draw inspiration from the manifold of intuition, they are pure faculties or free faculties. Imagination is the synthesis of a manifold of intuition, and the synthesis is not totally predetermined by the content of the manifold. For example, in imagination, the intuitions of a horse and a horn can be freely synthesized into a unicorn. Understanding is the realm of pure categories (in contrast to concepts which require and apply to specific objects). In understanding, there are unifying laws (e.g. causation) that shape our experience of phenomena without discriminating between empirical details. Then, for freeplay to be the interaction of two pure mental capacities means that the aesthetic judgment is “merely subjective” (Kant – Translation: Walkter, 1963). That is, freeplay occurs only when the subject has removed him/herself from the world (i.e. become a disinterested subject) and re-presented an object that is no longer in front of him/her to him/herself. The aesthetic judgment deals only with this re-presentation. So, an aesthetic judgment does not apply to the object itself the way concepts do. The aesthetic judgment is thus another judgment different from a purely rational judgment. However, there is a quirk in the aesthetic judgment: Despite being completely subjective, our aesthetic judgment necessitates an ought; that is, everyone else ought to agree with our judgment of what is beautiful. Although an aesthetic judgment cannot claim logical universal validity (since it does not refer to a concept), we present our judgments of beauty with a universal voice (Kant – Translation: Walkter, 1963). Thus, the aesthetic judgment “must involve a claim to subjective universality” (Kant – Translation: Walkter, 1963). For Kant, the aesthetic judgment, in bringing together subjectivity and universality, allows us to re-imagine or re-present the human as a being whose sociability and individuality are seamless. In this way, the aesthetic judgment offers an alternative to the existence-reason binary because freeplay, the pure categories of reason, is communicable. However, it is worth noting that there is something a bit sinister about the ‘ought.’ Imagine that in your encounter with the question of suicide, someone comes up to you and tells you that you ought to live. It is a patronizing remark on behalf of the speaker. Hence, this ‘ought’ which is essential in rendering a statement into a judgment and initially seems to prove the human capacity for freeplay and sociability, actually betrays that the aesthetic judgment is not only about subjective appreciation and value, but also assumes an objective universal validity. While the Kantian subject of the aesthetic judgment offers an alternative to the self shuttling back and forth within the reason-existence binary, it is also not quite equivalent to the nonrational transcendental self. The nonrational transcendental self has no reason to prescribe an “ought” to anyone else. Since it is free from reason or desire, it has no need to prove itself or to display its faculties by way of judgments. As we shall see, the nonrational transcendental self appears less in a judgment of beauty and more in a moment of beauty. Section C: From a Judgment of Beauty to a Moment of Beauty The meeting ground of reason and existence and the full-fledged appearance of the nonrational transcendental self occur in a moment of beauty. The novel The Elegance of the Hedgehog illustrates the reveal of the nonrational transcendental self in a moment of beauty. In the story, we meet a young girl named Paloma who very rationally comes to the conclusion that life is not worth staying for and that suicide is the best option (Barbery, 2006). At the end of the novel, Paloma rescinds this decision of suicide, not because she finds some rational reason that justifies her life or tells her that things are bound to get better, but because Paloma discovers for herself that what makes life worthwhile is the inexplicable and nonrational moments of beauty that one encounters amidst, alongside, and even within the suffering that seems to be most of life. Paloma’s life seems to take a turn for the better when she meets Madame Michel, the concierge, and Kakuro Ozu, a new occupant of one of the luxury apartments. But then, without any particular cause and certainly without a satisfying rational justification (i.e. a mad man’s dance is no reason for someone to die), Madame Michel is hit by an automobile and dies. Paloma feels then what it might mean to die, what it really means to face a “never again” (Barbery, 2006). In essence, she suddenly acquires a newfound awareness of her own experiencing. Then, Paloma experiences a moment of beauty. As she and Kakuro Ozu pass through a courtyard, both of them solemn with grief at Madame Michel’s passing, they hear music drifting down from above. Paloma “stopped short… took a deep breath and let the sun warm [her face while she] listened to the music drifting down from above” and she felt that: “There’s a lot of despair, but also the odd moment of beauty… It’s as if those strains of music created a sort of interlude in time, something suspended, an elsewhere that had come to us, an always within never… Beauty, in this world.” (Barbery, 2006) To explain why Paloma’s moment of beauty was transcendent, first we must consider how human beings are frequently obsessed with playing the heroes and heroines of our own lives, sometimes to the point of playing our own villains. We impose ourselves onto events and other people to try to fit them into our narratives, which we use to self-justify and to explain ourselves to other people. Recognition is important to us. We often have this deep-rooted fear that we will not exist unless we define ourselves, but these definitions do not seem to be authentic unless others acknowledge them. So, we attempt to paste certain labels onto ourselves to garner attention from others. In this way, rationalism (as justification of narratives and labels) is our long-valued method of proving to ourselves and others that we exist at all. Reason has suddenly gained the illusive quality of being necessary to exist. But whether it is the rationalists attaching existence to what is considered “objective” and “immortal” or the existentialists equating the self with subjectivity, the one thing that remains when all else is stripped away from us is a response to the same fear. The question of how the self might understand its being has long been motivated by the anxiety that our existence may not truly be an opportunity for narrative or significance. Thus, philosophy has a natural habit of referring the human being to things they consider visible and indispensable in the hopes that we, too, must be so. However, when Paloma experiences the beauty of music, residing in one ephemeral but suspended moment, her newfound awareness allows for a shift in perspective. With her mind settled from a deeper understanding of life, the beauty of the music enters and shifts her perspective so that in that moment, she is no longer concerned with proving, justifying, or defining her own existence. In that moment, she is no longer obsessed with playing the hero. Paloma assumes the role of passerby, allowing and enjoying the music that is taking center stage in her experience. Thus, our encounter with a moment of beauty allows us to relinquish our need to prove our own existences without threatening our identities and we re-situate ourselves into the existence of a passerby or watcher without considering it a degradation or loss of self, but as the self taking a deep breath and for a moment, just settling into itself. To step away from the need to justify ourselves and re-affirm ourselves is to experience our own being as transcendent and our energy as nonrational (i.e. directionless and not aiming to be applied to anything). In more casual terms, you just are and you are enough to appreciate the moment for what it is. This is why Kant’s moral self is not the nonrational transcendental self. Kant’s moral self arises from a need to understand ourselves given how we appear to ourselves, but the nonrational transcendental self, which is what we are when we encounter moments of beauty or when we live alongside suicide, is not concerned with how we appear to ourselves. Paloma describes the moment of beauty as a moment of “time suspension.” It is the “always within never.” This is interesting because time is one of the Kantian transcendental conditions. So, if we are in a realm of suspended time when we encounter a moment of beauty, then experiencing beauty is not a type of ‘knowing.’ Time and space are simultaneously extended and absorbed and the vanity of the self connected with these determinations fades away. To describe Paloma as “standing where the music is” is normally a confusion of terms that fails to define her, but it is the realm of the nonrational and transcendental, which is the same realm as the middle ground between the absence of a reason to live and a reason to die. Pure experience, which involves both existence and reason but is not confined by either, is an open realm where all things that ground us may shift with no threat to our existence. Furthermore, if Paloma’s experience happens in time suspension, then we cannot expect it to happen or try to prolong it. With time suspension, possibility and actuality exist only insofar as they exist in each other. But without expectation, there can be no prescription. Thus, the nonrational transcendental self which appears in a moment of beauty differs from the Kantian subject making an aesthetic judgment in that the former is not considered with universal recommendations. The nonrational transcendental self is the middle ground devoid of the three cornerstones that inevitably create binaries: expectation, justification, and definition. Another character in The Elegance of the Hedgehog is Jean Arthens, who is the son of the previous resident of Monsieur Ozu’s apartment. When we first encounter Jean Arthens, Renee describes him as “a drug addict, a sad wreck, … no more than a tortured body staggering through life on a razor’s edge” (Barbery, 2006). Through her encounter with him, Renee sadly recognizes that as human beings “we all must fall” at some point and that even before the fall, nobody quite knows “what [this war is that] we are waging, when defeat is so certain… Step by step we clear the path toward our mournful doom” (Barbery, 2006). But then, weeks later, Jean reappears as a far healthier person, somebody who, “once so very close to the abyss, has visibly opted for rebirth” (Barbery, 2006). Renee wonders at his transformation, asking herself, “How is one reborn after a fall?” (Barbery, 2006). Jean tells Renee that what “practically saved his life” was none other than the “pretty little red and white flowers” that Renee had planted (Barbery, 2006). He explains that although “[he did not] know why”, he “used to think about those flowers all the time… and it did [him] good” (Barbery, 2006). Renee is amazed that a “camellia can change fate” (Barbery, 2006). Renee could not have reasonably known that Jean would have viewed her flowers in such a miraculous manner. Jean himself could not have reasonably anticipated his reaction. But the why was unimportant. The flowers were beautiful to him and in that moment of beauty, the nonrational transcendental self came forth. After her encounter with Jean, Renee asks herself those unanswerable questions of life: “Did he see [the pathways of hell]? How is one reborn after a fall? What new pupils restore sight to scorched eyes? Where does war begin, where does combat end?” Her answer is: “Thus, a camellia” (Barbery, 2006). Renee’s answer does not make any rational sense. It is nonrational, and in a beautiful way, it is transcendental. Paloma’s music in the sunlight despite Madame Michel’s death and Jean Arthens’ camellias after a close shave with the abyss… For both Paloma and Jean, it was a moment of beauty that allowed them, not to somehow overcome their grief once and for all or even to be inspired to grit their teeth and endure, but to let go and excuse themselves from always having to save somebody else or save themselves. They no longer had to grapple with “why.” When the self sees its own transcendental non-rational being, it realizes that it is all things already. Conclusion I do not think that my reimagining of the self would escape Derrida’s wrath. As he rightly predicts, my attempt at explaining a nonrational transcendental self also succumbs to the same binary of worldly existence and reason that I critique in the first part of this thesis. In explaining why things are not some way, I find myself relying on the traits of that one way to explain my counterpoint. As Derrida points out, each new term we create in response to previous binaries is yet another appeasement for our constant need to commit violence against ourselves in the form of new justifications and differentiations, in service of so-called systematic thought. However, I believe that there are still important takeaways from my proposition of a nonrational transcendental self. First, while the nonrational transcendental self can express the binary, it is not merely the binary. It is whatever was before the binary existed. The importance of this first point is that we can open our minds to the fact that the binary did not always exist and is therefore not a necessary or restraining metaphysical truth of philosophy. In fact, I think we can come to see that up until the very point prior to the existence-reason binary, either existence or reason could have theoretically functioned like nonrationality. This binary was an arbitrary creation, which took its meaning from the circumstances it arose from (in this case, the existentialist push-back against rationalism). It is a useful binary in that it gives us a language in which to express our thoughts about two important aspects of the human being, but the danger of its arbitrariness is that we may slip into confusing its applicability into a metaphysical and necessary truth. So long as we can understand things existing beyond the binary, we shift ever closer to creating a theory which speaks true to both our experience and knowledge and are better able to step away from the temptation of fitting experience into theory. Likewise, the nonrational transcendental self, as revealed in its experience of a moment of beauty, challenges the strict distinction between the abstract and actual. Return for a moment to Kantian aesthetics. The Kantian subject of the aesthetic judgment is not identical with the nonrational transcendental self that experiences a moment of beauty for the former is defined by its capacities while the latter is unconcerned with its capacities and more engaged with the experience of beauty in that very moment. However, the Kantian notion of aesthetics is highly relevant because it illustrates the subject as able to merge abstraction and experience in the process of “freeplay.” This is significant because it illustrates that we do not have to sacrifice abstraction and conceptualization in order to experience actuality. In their efforts to reject rationalism, the existentialists try to do away with abstraction and conceptualization. However, anti-conceptualization only reinvents, rather than resolves, fundamental tensions. We see this clearly in Kierkegaard’s inverse Hegelianism. Even on the everyday level, it is plain that abandoning the abstract does not lead to freedom. Taking away all methods of conceptualizing and imagining possibilities forces a person to submit to his circumstances. His existence, in becoming only ‘actual’, is no longer connected to what is possible. In contrast, the experience of the nonrational transcendental self embraces abstraction so that a person’s subjectivity can extend beyond actuality into a more moving experience, where unrealized possibilities support the actuality of the present moment. The nonrational transcendental self is the grounds upon which object and subject experience each other as existentially inseparable (e.g. Paloma stands where the music is) as possibility and actuality shift into one another. When we experience the question of life and death (at every moment) or a moment of beauty, all conditions of an existing self are fulfilled without having to give a strict definition of its existence and capabilities. The nonrational transcendent self shows that the human being does not depend on rejecting rationality or proving its own subjectivity in order to exist as it is. Without asking for definition, the nonrational transcendental self appears to us in moments of life and beauty, demanding nothing of us except to pass through with an open mind. This is the aspect of the self that I believe became lost amidst the tensions of the existence-rationalism binary and is now reclaimed through the reimagining of the self. Footnotes 19 The "hollowness of a hollow man" is in reference to T.S. Eliot, The Hollow Men. (London: Oxford University Press, 1951). 20 This summary of Richard Brandt’s argument was quoted from: Christopher Cowley, “Suicide is Neither Rational nor Irrational” in Ethical Theory and Moral Practice. Vol. 9, No.5 (2006): p. 495. 21 I realize that transcendence is a highly loaded term. However, I specifically chose a term with a lot of baggage from the existence-reason binary in order to show that the word can be used outside of the binary. The more obvious term that I might use is “reorientational” or “resituational”. 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