Issue Twelve

TexasPhilosophical.wordpress.com

Publisher/Editor: Eli Kanon

Reviewers: Vaughn Baltzly, Anthony Cross, Ivan Marquez, Russell Moses, Lon Olsen, Burkay Ozturk, Rebecca Rapheal, Nevitt Reesor, Ellen Stansell and LiJun Yuan.

Essays:

Ron Stockdreher, Graduate Student, Texas State University, Broadening the notion of autonomy: Can a relational perspective on autonomy benefit dementia care?

Lauren Dotson, Trinity University, Plato and Fascism: How Platonic Ideas of Justice in his Ideal City Appears to Presage Fascism

Colton H. Fontenot, Southern Methodist University, The Moral View of Artificial Intelligence: Affording Robots Moral Consideration from a New Perspective

Tristan J. Sosa, Texas State University, Lawyer Cat v. Lawyer Dog: A Forensic Linguistic Analysis of State of Louisiana v. Warren Demesme

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Broadening the notion of autonomy: Can a relational perspective on autonomy benefit dementia care?

Ronald A. Stockdreher, Graduate Student, Texas State University

Introduction

            The perspective on autonomy as derived from classic philosophical works by Kant and others creates the perception of a rational, self-actualized person who is in control of their destiny, or at least much of it. This idea of autonomy is the basis for significant moral theories and ethical guidance such as that used in biomedical ethics. This paper will show that this may be too narrow a view for use in dementia care. First, the classic view of autonomy and how it is employed in dementia care is presented, followed by a list of some problems that this narrow view creates. Then, the paper outlines a broader relational perspective for considering the nature of autonomy drawing on a feminist viewpoint. Next, the paper will outline an answer to a concern that this relational perspective on autonomy threatens the nature of autonomy. Lastly, how a relational perspective can enhance dementia care is briefly sketched followed by concluding remarks. What then is the basis for our view of autonomy?

Autonomy as Currently Viewed

            Autonomy, and particularly the autonomy of humans, is considered by Kant to be the highest principle of morality and the driving principle for all moral laws and the duties that correspond to those laws. This principle threads through the four versions of his Categorical Imperative, and it is clearly expressed in the formula that states that it is the “‘principle of each human will as a will that is legislating universally through all of its maxims’ (G 4:432)”. (Kleingeld, 2018, p. 219) Additionally, Kant refers to autonomy as a property of human will and independent of any authority outside of human will itself. This powerful notion of autonomy has found its way into our formulations for ethical guidance within the field of medicine in the form of the four moral principles approach of biomedical ethics which guides the medical decision-making of health professionals. These four moral principles are autonomy, beneficence, non-maleficence, and justice. When faced with an ethical dilemma, a health practitioner should weigh each one of these principles against the other to balance their decision with respect to the patient’s autonomy and the health care practitioner’s responsibility for the care of their patient. These principles are also the most used guide for ethical analysis when treating people living with dementia (PLWD) and generally in long-term care. (Grigorovich, 2018, p. 220)

Problems with Autonomy and Dementia Care

            Aside from being based firmly on traditional ethical grounds, there is an appeal and ease of use found with the current approach to biomedical ethics. It narrows the complexity in which ethical situations are often embroiled. Each of these four concise principles can be evaluated and balanced to arrive at a reasoned decision that can be documented through forms, affidavits of consent, etc. and through this documentation, studies and compliance audits can be readily accomplished. However, its very simplicity can lead inadvertently to its becoming reductive and inflexible. Pia Kontos and others, drawing from a feminist philosophical viewpoint, have noted that an alternative ethical framework might better suit care in the context of dementia and aging. This may also be more broadly applicable but that will not be discussed in this paper.

            According to Girgorovich and Kontos, feminist philosophers have argued that ethical reasoning should not be reduced to a set of abstract and universal rules such as those found in current biomedical ethics. The reason for this is that it does not “sufficiently attend to context and to issues of power or consider how individual experiences and circumstances influence both practitioners’ and patients’ decision-making and choices.” (Grigorovich, 2018, p. 222) They have also noted that the current form of biomedical ethics and, to broaden the scope, deontological ethics in general, emphasize “qualities of mind [such] as rationality, self-sovereignty, and impartiality” (Shildrick, 2005, p. 3), while neglecting to consider how the performative, embodied, and relational nature of care provision supports ethical reasoning (Hamington, 2015; Held, 2005).” (Grigorovich, 2018, p. 222) This focus, and simplistic application of the principle of autonomy, creates a false pseudo-ethical concept that there can be an “all or nothing global competence” (Grigorovich, 2018, p. 221) established for patients and particularly PLWD.

            Considering that the progressive and unrelenting deterioration of cognition is a hallmark of dementia, meaning that the reasoning capacity of PLWD is diminished, those individuals will all eventually fail to meet the criteria for an ethical autonomous agent. This action, driven by the Kantian concept of autonomy and implemented by our current biomedical ethics system is too rigid, too simplistic, and it drives ethical decision-making to err on the side of duty to intervene over the individual’s right for freedom of expression. It fails to consider that autonomy is not only on a broad continuum but is wholly relational in nature.

An Alternative View of Autonomy

            Let us briefly view the four major ethical theories through the lens of autonomy. Deontology’s focus is on duty as expressed by a rational autonomous individual and completely unconcerned with the results of any action taken as long as the choice to act followed the established categorical imperatives. As such, its focus is on the autonomous (as defined by Kant) individual and not the act, the context, or the results. Consequentialism as laid out by Bentham relies also on the rational autonomous individual and has them do a calculus to determine the most “good” and pursue that end. Consequentialism therefore focuses on the end result and not what leads to that result nor the context, nor the specific acts that are done. Virtue ethics has its focus on the individual’s virtuous choices, desiring them to be balanced between poverty of virtue and excess. The rational autonomous individual is led toward these choices through emulation of what a virtuous person might do.

            There is no consensus about how these different notions of autonomy should be deployed within society. (Mackenzie and Stoljar, 2000, pg. 5) In bioethics, autonomy’s main focus is informed consent. Rational Choice Theory holds that autonomy is often linked with voluntary, rational choice. Liberal political theory considers autonomy as an individual right and libertarians view autonomy “as a negative liberty, a right of the individual to freedom from undue interference in the exercise of choice (moral, political, personal, and religious) and in the satisfaction of individual preferences.” (Mackenzie and Stoljar, 2000, pg. 5) Rawlsian liberals though, view autonomy in Kantian terms as the capacity for rational self-legislation and Rawlsians hold autonomy to be “the defining feature of persons.” (Mackenzie and Stoljar, 2000, pg. 5) Therefore the link between these different uses of the notion of autonomy is focused on the “idea of self-determination or self-government, which is taken to be the defining characteristic of free moral agents.” (Mackenzie and Stoljar, 2000, pg. 5) The prominence of an independent rational actor unaffected by any outside ties is stressed by this concept of autonomy. This, however, is not the case. Autonomy is anything but independent and expressions of autonomous behavior do not need to be rational, solely in the cognitive sense of the word. (Keller, 1997, pg. 154)

            Given the context of human life and its inescapable communal nature, how can the concept of autonomy be considered without that same context? First, is the context of human life inescapably communal? Consider this, after conception by two other humans (naturally or in vitro), a human being is born of a mother and raised within a family or a communal care setting until mature. Left alone, the human child would perish. After maturity, every human being exists within a network and community of other human beings, through their education, their work life, and eventually their death. This occurs in each society and location on this planet we call Earth. It is true that we can exist isolated from other human beings for a time, but even then, we are connected. We are connected by the sustenance we require and by the clothing we wear for warmth and protection. If we grow our own food and make our own clothes, we are still connected for the means of doing so had to be taught to us in some fashion. Any action we choose to make, we make in the same context of relationships with other human beings and these actions are tempered and formed with that knowledge. While each of us makes decisions independently, those decisions are all formed through a variety of communal lenses. It would be impossible to do otherwise. This is the inevitable role that relatedness has for a human being’s self-conceptions and their deliberative acts and reasoning. (Christman, 2020)

            A relational perspective on autonomy, according to many care ethicists holds that our “plans, projects, and purposes are inseparable from and hugely influenced by those around us” (Collins, 2015, pg. 83) and the context for our ethical concerns are comprised of “complex webs of relationships between fragile, embodied human beings.” (Collins, 2015, pg. 83) Care ethicists emphasize that whether young or old we cannot live if not connected to others and for some this interdependence is constant, for example in the relationships that exist within a care facility for PLWD or those having extensive disability. A fitting characterization of human beings, then when viewed through this interpretation of autonomy, is one that is “‘relational and interdependent,’ not as ‘self-sufficient,’ ‘self-interested,’ or ‘independent’” (Collins, 2015, pg. 92) “These perspectives are premised on a shared conviction, the conviction that persons are socially embedded and that agents’ identities are formed within the context of social relationships and shaped by a complex of intersecting social determinants, such as race, class, gender, and ethnicity.” (Mackenzie and Stoljar, 2000, pg. 4) Expanding the concept of autonomy relationally broadens and recognizes the value that our shared dependency and ubiquitous levels of interconnection bring to our concept of being and personhood.

            A valid question concerning this approach is why, specifically such relations can be deemed important or fundamental to autonomy rather than contributing to it? This question can be viewed as being the difference between a dynamic and a static form of autonomy. A dynamic form promotes an enhanced sense of self, while the static form promotes skills that are typically pursued in the interests of “domination, denied connectedness, and defensive separateness.” (Mackenzie and Stoljar, 2000, pg. 10) A relational perspective on autonomy promotes “…a sense of agency in a world of ‘interacting and interpersonal agents’ and a sense of other’ as subjects with whom one shares enough to allow for a recognition of their independent interests and feelings —in short for a recognition of them as other subjects.’” (Mackenzie and Stoljar, 2000, pg. 10). Static autonomy follows from seeing others as a threat to one’s own autonomy either through one’s own insecurity about themselves or through fears of dependency or loss of self-control. This view of autonomy is too narrow and constricted. It does not provide room for the rich, dynamic enrichment of one’s personhood that a relational view of autonomy provides. (Mackenzie and Stoljar, 2000, pg. 10)

            A relational perspective on autonomy also allows for a deeper conception of how one can express their autonomy. It is not always simply expressed through a cognitive expression that is often verbal in nature. According to Kontos, “… autonomous behavior can be expressed in a myriad of ways on a broad continuum from the cognitive action required by an individual to sign a legally binding contract to the nuanced rejection of a disliked vegetable by a PLWD in the late stages of the disease.” (Grigorovich, 2018, p. 222) Relational autonomy along with a fuller appreciation of how autonomy can be expressed provides an important tool in designing effective care for PLWD.

The Dissolution of Autonomy?

Approaching autonomy through relationality threatens to breakdown “the conception of autonomy as self-governance, the ability to exercise control over one’s life through the choices one makes.” (Keller, 1997, pg. 158) What self-governance requires is the capacity to reflect critically on one’s reasons for acting and then act in accordance with one’s deliberations. The focus on others “jeopardizes the caregivers’ autonomy…because it allows little or no room for the caregiver to exercise her moral judgement…” (Keller, 1997, pg. 159) and thus subordinates her autonomy to the other. From a care perspective, the caregiver must ensure that her autonomous actions and choices guide the care choices she provides and are not overwhelmed by the other. Caring actions are guided by the caregiver’s consideration of her own self-respect and, in keeping with the Kantian perspective, self-respect is gained through a sense of one’s autonomy. (Keller, 1997, pg. 160)

Self-respect is a skill that grows over time as one approaches and makes decisions over the course of one’s life. It too is not done in isolation, but in a relational environment. Keller notes that “we frequently turn to a friend to help us envisage a variety of solutions to the problem at and to imagine the likely results of carrying them out, for we are aware of the limits of our own thinking.”  (Keller, 1997, pg. 161) This action builds our sense of self-respect and our network of integrated relations. “This dialogical understanding of autonomy … explains how a person can be very much connected to others and still be autonomous.” (Keller, 1997, pg. 161) This idea of self-respect holds for both the caregiver and the cared-for as each benefit from the other’s strength, perspective, and abilities.

Relational Autonomy and Dementia Care

            There is a growing consensus that dementia care should be person-centered and allow for greater acknowledgment of the individual and to promote the autonomy of PLWD for as long as possible, considering the nature of the disease. The narrower, non-relational conception of autonomy places an extremely high value on cognition as an integral aspect of an individual’s personhood and dignity. It reinforces the equating of loss of cognition in dementia with loss of dignity and of personhood. Also, as the foundation for most medical ethics it creates a culture in healthcare that fosters “prescribed interventions aimed at managing, correcting and transcending what are perceived as personal and biological weaknesses and defects.” (Mitchell et al.,2020, pg. 2) This narrow view should be replaced with a relational view of autonomy focused on interdependence, reciprocity, and the promise of mutual flourishing as individuals and as a community regardless of our capacities. (Mitchell et al.,2020, pg. 2)

            Kontos holds that “[t]he psychosocial origins of person-centered dementia care are linked to the central premise that attaining a state of well-being (which is equated with the maintenance of personhood), regardless of cognitive status, is dependent upon fulfilling various psychological needs – a sense of identity, attachment, psychological comfort, occupation, and inclusion in groups.” (Kontos, 2005, pg. 556) Within the context of dementia, personhood and its autonomous expression are often accessed through the medium of the body. In other words, selfhood, which would otherwise be accessed through the articulation of thought and corresponding action, is now accessed through the medium of the body which is “an active, communicative agent, imbued with its own wisdom, intentionality, and purposefulness, separate and distinct from cognition.” (Kontos, 2005, pg. 558) This agency therefore provides “a foundational structure for selfhood and thus the body itself must be understood as a fundamental source of selfhood [and therefore autonomy] that does not derive its agency from cognition. (Kontos, 2005, pg. 558)

            The broader understanding of autonomy that the relational perspective can provide also brings along a broader means of expression. Our most common autonomous expressions are for simple things such as the biological urge to seek food, or shelter, or a mate. All persons, and therefore also PLWD, make these choices for autonomous action independently of others as an expression of their personhood. These choices reflect our emotional responses and choices in the context of others, and they need not always be expressed verbally or in a written fashion. For everyone, and in particular PLWD, our ability to decide, as well as the way those decisions are expressed is dynamic in nature and can change significantly based on the nature and depth of our relationships with others. (Grigorovich, 2018, p. 222)

Concluding Remarks

            This paper has shown that a relational view of autonomy can benefit dementia care by providing a firm basis for an expanded view of personhood in dementia care. Dementia care requires and will continue to require innovative practices and, to do so, there needs to be a new paradigm that builds and considers the character of PLWD as “embodied beings deserving of dignity and worth.” (Kontos, 2005, pg. 565) Doing so requires that we abandon the thought that bodies are not part of a person’s agency and acknowledge that a person’s agency is inexorably connected to others within that person’s sphere. Through education and training, care providers should be provided the means to understand the importance of the personhood and relational autonomy of those under their care and the tools to support the personhood of their care recipients. (Kontos, 2005, pg. 566)

Works Cited:

Christman, J. (2020, Jun 29). Autonomy in Moral and Political Philosophy. Retrieved from Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/autonomy-moral/#AutRelationalAut.

Collins, S. (2015). The Core of Care Ethics. New York: Palgrave MacMillan.

Grigorovich, A. a. (2018). Advancing an Ethic of Embodied Relational Sexuality to Guide Decision-Making in Dementia Care. The Gerontologist, 219 – 225.

Keller, J. (1997). Autonomy, Relationality, and Feminist Ethics. Hypatia, 12(2), 152-164

Kleingeld, P. (2018). Chapter four – The Principle of Autonomy in Kant’s Moral Theory: Its Rise and Fall. In E. Watkins, Kant on Persons and Agency (pp. 61 – 79). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Kontos, P. (2005). Embodied selfhood in Alzheimer’s disease Rethinking person-centred care, dementia. Sage Publications, 4(4), 553-570.

Mackenzie, C. a. (2000). Relational Autonomy: Feminist Perspectives on Autonomy, Agency, and the Social Self. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Mitchell, Gail S. L.-S. (2020). Disrupting dehumanising and intersecting patterns of modernity with a relational ethic of caring. 2020 International Practice Development Journal 10 (1) [2], 10(1).

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Plato and Fascism: How Platonic Ideas of Justice in his Ideal City Appears to Presage Fascism 

Lauren Dotson, Trinity University

Introduction

            Plato’s ideal city in the Republic is one based in, authoritarian principles and seemingly fascist claims for supremacy. The ideas offered by Plato, as stated by Popper, are inexplicably similar to totalitarian states like the Nazi State.  The hierarchical organization of government, utilization of myths to control societal thought, censorship of creative liberty and blatant disregard for people’s will and rational thoughts appears to place Plato’s ideal city in the same realm of authoritarianism. To prove the incredibility of Plato’s thought, using Popper’s analysis, I will examine how Plato’s conception of the ideal city, with his understanding of justice, prima facie suggests comparable fabrication of a fascist state devoid of personal political freedom; however, upon closer inspection, the ideal city is heavily reliant on rationalism and objectivism—positions rejected by fascism—making Plato’s city less incompatible with fascism.

Traits of Fascism

            Fascism is often cited as the violent reaction to extreme progressive uprisings seen in early nineteenth century European countries; the contrarian’s consummate beliefs following popular patronage of social radicalism and secular liberalism. Characterized often by racist or antisemitic aims, fascist papers called for a return to ‘purity’ to bring prosperity. Survival of the fittest, strict hierarchies, and warrior imperialism were the values extolled. Writers such as Lagarde, Treitschke, Nietzsche, Sorel and Chamberlain all clamored for these principles in government, often urging their supporters to spread their ideology across Europe. Fascist thought only found grounding during tumultuous economic periods occurred; specifically, economic threats from minority groups in a classically homogenous society like the Nazi State. When people were faced with threats of starvation and deep, negative, change in lifestyle, the fear of change influenced communities to take up radical ideas like fascism. An example of such radical embracement of quite totalitarian ideals is, once again, the Nazi State. (Soucy, fascism).

Fascism is the fundamental system of government and thought which hinges on the subjection of the masses to authority in order to create an ideal political state. That is, fascism aims to create the most supreme state where the greatest good is the benefit of the society. Personal happiness and satisfaction of the individual is secondary to the state’s wellbeing and the people are expected to push away personal desires for the good of the state (Bambrough, 41). It is important to note that there are facets to this as the good of the state can also be translated to the good of the leader. That is, whatever the leader deems to be the good of the nation is the good of the nation making the leader the establisher of law and morality in right or wrong. The establishment of myths for this society is thus crucial in enforcing the ruler or state’s ideas of truth and morals. This is not, however, to be confused with utilitarianism which finds its roots in the best good for the most people by doing calculations. Fascism is devoid of the idea of ‘good of the most people’; fascist thought often dictates that humanitarian efforts are undignified as they focus on limiting effort and pain (Bambrough, 39).

The five traits of fascism are identified by Popper when he notes the principles of fascist thought as follows: following irrationalism and relativist thought, emphasis on myth, rejection of individualism and emphasis on military values. The fascist state focuses on irrationalism because the school of thought re-establishes the importance of listening to the ‘leader’ or state despite what rational thought may otherwise say (Popper, 106-7).  For example, irrationalism would make acts normally condemned, like murder and fervent incitement of war, acceptable despite rational thought being against this type of reasoning. For example, when Hitler created concentration camps; normally, such an act of vehement terror would not be allowed, however because of popular irrationist beliefs, concentration camps became acceptable. (Soucy, Opposition to Marxism)

Relativism is also important to fascist ideology because it further ingrains the idea that morality, knowledge, and truth are contingent on cultural-political circumstances which erases rational consensus. Relativist thought culturally justifies ideals of instead of subscribing to universal principles. This can be expounded by the Nazi State example again; that is, when the Nazi State waged war on Jewish persons. Many of the German people who massacred Jewish persons claimed to be doing this ‘work’ as a transformative process to become a “new man”; by killing innocent Jewish persons the “new man” followed his moral duty to become the best warrior for his state. (Soucy, The “new man”). Furthermore, the moral code of love and forbearance, a fortiori—a utilitarian moral code—was replaced by a fascist doctrines which centered nationalism and militarism; the rational given to snub the code of love was that it was ‘unbiological’ (Bambrough, 42). The emphasis on myth thus connects with irrationalism and relativism to establish mass thought as dictated by the leader or state. The most famous example of widespread propaganda—myth—is Leni Riefenstahl’s “Triumph of the Will” which is a film which depicts Hitler, and thus the Nazi State’s work, as divine, beautiful, and necessary. The film pictures the Nazi State as being righteous through its exultant, choreographed, depictions of Nazi State leaders which paid excessive homage to the Nazi State goal. Through this use of media, the film’s myths of the Nazi State as a righteous figure in history was able to spread easily across the nation. (Riefenstahl). State Relativism and myths can thus be understood in the context of tradition as, for example, revered elders, like venerated films, can reinforce myth-based values further ingraining lies into the masses as truth.

Rejection of individualism is to protect against thought that could lead to the development of democracy. That is, one’s individual rights above that of the community encouraged divisiveness which was against core fascist principles: the community over the individual and the ruler above all (Soucy, Opposition to political and cultural liberalism).   Democratic ideals are in direct opposition to fascist thought; allowing individualism can often lead to conflict. Fascism primarily relies on decision making by one head of state (or leader) with centralized power and authority to create morals and law. Hitler even stated that democracy was in direct opposition to the natural order of people—a hierarchy were ruling elites were the top—the proper order (Soucy, Opposition to parliamentary democracy). Individualism allots too much power to the masses in the form of free thinking which could incite rational thought instead of irrationalism. With rational thought comes the desire for representation which may lead to democracy which centers on compromise and political freedom in choice as well as ideology.  

The emphasis on military values is often connected with fascist thought. Military values are equated with bravery, undying loyalty, unquestionable obedience, endurance and so forth. For example, the Hitler Youth movement preached these loyalist ideas to emerging adults to indoctrinate the young (Soucy, Totalitarian ambitions). These values are associated with a code of honor which is substituted for nationalism. In famous fascist states (like the Nazi State) persons with strict military virtues were heavily rewarded (Bambrough, 41-42). Heavy rewards for the Nazi State often came to SS personnel in the form of privileged status over commoners, a marginal amount of decisive power, and material goods (SS). All the great traits of a partisan who follow his leader’s values without qualms of the moral nature.

Thus, fascism is a state that regards the body of the ruler and his teachings to the highest degree while the bodies of the masses are mere tools devoid of any political or moral aptitude. The subjects are to follow all the ruler’s wishes including moral laws without critical thought. Now, that fascism has been examined it is important to introduce Plato’s work in juxtaposition.

Plato’s Ideal of a Just Society

The Republic by Plato is a quite outstanding work. It has seemingly everything in it, for example, an ideal city with definitions of justice and virtue. To begin, Plato’s Republic introduces a highly stratified community that displays an early version of a hierarchical government. The city features a guardian class, auxiliary class, and working class. The guardian class is to rule, auxiliary class to protect, and working class to produce all necessary items for the city. These classes were not to interact with each other and therefore could not intermix to produce diverse offspring. Plato made sure that this would not occur through the introduction of myths. Myths were also used to cover up any information Plato deemed unsatisfactory or dangerous like poetry. Thus, creativity in the city was also stunted due to Plato deeming it dangerous as it was akin to propaganda that instills negative values. Plato asserted that the people of the Republic must be watched to make sure that narratives Plato deemed false could not gain traction and lead to popular disillusionment (386b). Yet, the rulers of the city can spew lies at whim as long as it is rationalized as for the good of the city (389b). Further, Plato, the original creator of the city, asserts he will erase the negative pieces of myths—like Theseus’s and Peirithous’s attempted rapes—to mold the stories to be Plato’s perfect examples All people were to believe these modified myths no matter their age or class (391c-e).

To look at his conception of justice more acutely, what is just is the well-functioning order of the soul and its virtues. The soul has three parts: the appetitive, the spirted and the rational. The appetitive part runs wild fulfilling all desires no matter how wicked or lacking in self-control they are. The spirited part is the part harboring most of the emotions and is seen the passionate side of the soul. The rational part of the soul is the side that essentially does all the moral decision-making and understands what is best for the person. These parts of the soul must also be aligned with all the virtues being: wisdom, moderation, and courage. One must have a balance of these to be considered just as having the extreme of any of these virtues can lead to injustice. (559a-e). For example, excess courage can be perceived as brashness which is egregious because it entails the person is not acting with reason. When all three of these are working in tandem, a person can be perceived as just. Justice, thus, requires that all parts of the soul work together and that all of the other virtues are also established.

Through the emphasis on myth and heavy disregard for self-actualization or individual exploration, platonic ideals seem to align with fascist ideals. That is, Plato denies the general populace of the Republic the ability to have command of their own rational being. For example, for Plato, the Gods were incapable of committing any wrong, so any person who believed otherwise was spreading lies (391c-e). Yet, how is it that Plato is definitively correct about this statement, how does he know that the Gods commit no wrong; by withholding the idea that Gods could be wrong, Plato is forcing his personal narrative on the people of the Republic and not allowing them to decide what truth is for themselves. From this synopsis, platonic ideals align with fascist suppression of information through emphasis of myth.

Further, platonic ideals include a lot of the same diction and nearly identical concepts and organizations of government when compared to totalitarian states, like the Nazi State; Plato’s ideals appear aligned. The Nazi State also saw a lack of individual thought with most of the Nazi sympathizers following their ruler like cattle without critical thought to their actions. Many of the same propaganda tactics were utilized such as myths surrounding the origin of the war and people, they deemed undesirable (most notably Jewish people) (Bambrough, 40). Moreover, there was a clear expectation of the masses to follow the highly stratified rule of government as it was deemed ‘morally correct’. This is clear; however, I am particularly interested in how the platonic conception of justice perpetuates these fascist ideals leading to totalitarian states.

Justice as we see it in the Republic is defined as what the good of the city is. That is, what is just for the city is just for the individual. In this conception of justice, Plato equates the virtues of the city to essentially within the individual, placing the good of the community on a pedestal instead of an individualistic sense of justice first. This is not to bash on Plato, however, merely to point out his desire to center the community in place of the individual juxtaposing traditional democratic ideals, thus the fascist standpoint mirrors Plato. This is because the community is placed before the individual similar to fascism where the fascist ruler or the state are also centered before the people; to focus on the individual is seen as selfish. Popper claims that, justice, for Plato, is “that which is in the best interest of the state”. (Popper, 107)

Democratic ideals are appalling to Plato due to its intrinsic selfishness. The democratic man, to Plato, is one obsessed with material gain rather than the good of his neighbors and community. Plato fears that the life of a democracy instills values that focus on the appetitive part of the soul and hold no order or priority. (561c-e). In contrast, Plato values authoritarianism for its ability to have rulers that will instill virtuousness and selfness while leading the people. Plato believes that democracy will ultimately lead to tyranny if used. (562a-e).c

Plato Foreshadowed Fascism

To examine and understand the similarities between Plato’s Republic and fascism we must first look at Plato’s conception of origin: Plato’s forms. The forms are Plato’s idealistic way of viewing the world so that all things are essentially mere replications of a divine ‘first’. That is to say that there are original divine versions of all created objects. The commonly used example of this would be the chair which has a divine version and all other copies of it. For example, the carpenter’s copy and the painter’s copy of a chair, which are considered “children” of the original divine. Each new form becomes once more removed from the original divine version. From the forms, Popper asserts that we can contextualize Plato’s philosophies to Greek beliefs and history (Popper, 19). From here we can relate the forms to Plato’s social expectations for his ideal community. As the forms have an idealized divine first version, so does Plato’s idea of a people and a city.

Plato’s commitment to ideal forms illuminates his classism as he believed in the idea of a master class which was the “superior race”, and this is reflected in the Republic. The master class in the Republic is known as the guardians or philosopher kings who rule over the working classes. This guardian class is to remain “pure” by not mixing with the other classes and Plato attempts to justify this by pointing to how animals are bred to have the best offspring (415b, 460c, 547a-c). If animals are put in a position to have the best of the best Plato believes this same argument can be compared to humans (Popper, 58). Further, the platonic attempt to categorize humans as superior or inferior due to their idiosyncratic traits such as physical ability or mental aptitude is in correlation with fascist veneration for militaristic values. Fascism heavily adulates militaristic values in its people for how it allows people to become partisans of the state, following orders without individual thought which means that the state is able to pursue any kind of venture without mutiny.  Thus, by Plato choosing certain traits for certain classes and having a standard that each class should strive for, a part of Plato’s philosophy can be comparable to fascist thought. This, further, coincides with his conception of justice by asserting what is good for the community is to have the best of the best in every way. (460a-d).

Plato’s forms, according to Popper, also heavily foreshadow his thought in the Republic by revealing how he wished to recreate history as closely as possible. Thus, Plato’s use of myth to create the Myth of Metals and other fabricated stories were to ensure the people’s sanctity (414c).  Thus, Plato’s beliefs of an initial perfect form and consequent devolution from initial perfection influenced his desire to recreate current history by utilizing myth. Further, Plato believed that by recreating history, thereby utilizing myth, to preach ideas of the most ideal, would put people the Republic closer to the idea of perfection as possible. This considerably lends and rationalizes his conception of a master class as then keeping people from ‘mixing [their] metals’ would be a necessary evil to get closer to the platonic ‘ideal’ of utopia. (415a-b).

It is important to note, however, that although this idea of returning back to the ideal based on history is made, it is unclear what exactly that ideal was and how Plato knows for sure of this. He does give some hint on how to discover the idea by claiming, in the Republic Book VI, that philosopher kings study order and divinity closely making them the best judgements of the concept. (500c). This thus makes them the closest to divinity, but this of course is all subjective and rather related to fascism. That is, myth is related to fascism in that Plato asserts that what his philosopher kings’ study are order and divinity, yet the masses have no way of ascertaining that order and divinity are in fact what they are studying. So, the people are expected to follow these philosopher kings without question or thought without certain they are not being led astray. Thus, this would makePlato sympathetic to fascist thought as what he suggests coincides with the fundamental idea of fascism: myth.

Popper further elaborates on this point by pointing to how the philosopher kings while supposing to be the closest to order and divinity are curiously lacking in originality or initiative. Plato expected his philosopher kings to have absent thoughts about change and goals. Plato wanted these kings to be above all following his ideals of a city and rejecting relativism. To do this he would make sure to perpetuate many myths that all people were to believe and to make sure kings were people at the precipice of old age to make sure that their constitutions were already heavily ingrained. Popper offers reason for this lack of independence, for the people who are supposed to be philosophers of their own thought, are because Plato has a deeply entrenched fear of change and falls prey to the leader principle (Popper, 134). The leader principle being as defined by Popper, explains the problem of selecting and cultivating a future leader by making sure they have all the necessary values like bodily courage and physical initiative—traits commonly venerated in militaristic communities. However, this is self-contradictory because having intellectual excellence cannot be selected for, it is having intellectual independence and the freedom to make decisions without a hovering mentor which allows for the cultivation of intellectual excellence.  (Popper, 135).

This relates back to and contradicts Plato’s conception of justice as these philosopher kings with their lack of courage for the will to change do not live up to their virtues and thus are not just. Plato seemingly takes the mantel of an opportunist as by spreading the Myth of Metals as truth in the Republic Plato’s “political opportunism sweeps all other feelings aside”. (Popper, 143). Other feelings being religious justifications for the myths in juxtaposition to his political agenda. Then Plato desires that these kings live up to his expectations of a ruler. By the guardians being obedient to him, Plato does not want them to lead or make independent decisions; thus, stunting the philosopher kings’ moral growth; this is an example of the failure of fascism as described by Popper. The ruler wants to make sure all subjects are obedient to him, but when it comes time for a successor, none can rule. This is the paradox Plato’s conception of justice produces. (Popper, 134-135).

Popper also mentions how Plato would strive to mold the minds of the youth through the utilization of myth, falsifying information to further his own ‘ideas’. Censorship of creative liberty is also taken. Plato’s conception of justice here is twisted to support his ideas of what is crucial, bypassing individual freedom to explore thought. This is in direct correlation with fascism as it completely censors’ individuals’ ability to express themselves through creative platforms enforcing the ruler’s ideas of ‘good’; good being whatever Plato defines as it as through his myths and laws (Bambrough, 42). Popper concludes that Plato’s justice must be built on equalitarianism’s weak point, where naturalism is not the most persuasive idea (Popper, 92-93, 95). This theory is known as the natural privilege principle, and it illuminated how Plato believed in natural rights for rulers and his adversity to impartiality in law (Popper, 95). This is not to say that Plato did not believe the people as equal as he saw people as being brethren but of different social castes. This idea is quite appealing as the notion that certain individuals are naturally superior, and inferior introduces a way for people to be ‘ahead’ in wealth, status or other forms of greed, which prey on the appetitive part of the soul (Popper, 100). Thus, Plato’s conception justice plays on people’s own desire to be superior making ideas like the stratification of society and myths that much more attractive. It makes authority that much more bearable.

Furthermore, Popper also analyzes how the principle of holism and collectivism affects Plato’s theory of justice. As mentioned above, Plato ardently believes in the collective vs. the individual, theories of holism which reflect ‘togetherness’ and parts being absolutely essential to the whole also influence platonic justice. This, of course, being heavily interconnected with the duty of the citizen to the state, holism can be described as the individual being born to work for the whole rather than the whole working for the sake of the individuals. It is in this way that Popper investigates how because Plato fervently believes in the whole his justice becomes a full-on attack and rebuke of any individualistic tendencies. This lends to a fascist structure as in Plato’s attack of any and all individualistic concepts he erases the individual’s ability to rationally pursue truth or wisdom leaving the soul to be without true enlightenment—the soul will be devoid of the virtue of wisdom leading to an unjust soul. Yes, the person may help contribute to the group wellbeing by following actions deemed correct, but if the reasoning behind these actions is based in wanting to appease a ruler than the soul is not being temperate or moderate and therefore not just. This is unjust because the soul is no longer in balance with its three parts. (Popper, 98).

Moreover, when myths are introduced the concept of lying and how that affects rational thought is also introduced. How are the guardians to make the most rational decisions when their lives are also based off lies? As philosophers are supposed to seek truth, Plato’s virtue of wisdom is also left unfulfilled. The introduction of myth to help the people be more just ironically leads the people and the guardians to be unjust because of the lack truth and virtue of wisdom.

What Differentiates Plato from Fascism

Not all of the Republic is just a foreshadowing of fascist ideals, however, platonic thought is lacking in irrationalism and relativism as well as emphasis on wartime efforts. Plato did not believe in war, although he was not a pacifist and saw war as a necessary evil, he believed in peace and mutual good. Moreover, Plato was not a relativist as he believed that the virtues were objective and not subject to change based on whim. Although his methodology appears to be relativistic in its claims for guardians to make the rules, in its ideals Plato’s work does not include this facet of fascist ideology (Bambrough, 43).

It may also be argued that Plato is not an extreme totalitarian nor a fascist because The Republic’s conception of justice calls for the individual to nurture and bare an innate justice which would facilitate the creation of a harmonious soul—of the individual—as argued by Taylor and later Kierstead. Further, Plato’s true goal was to have individuals burgeon this sense of justice as the primary component of the Republic was to have a compatible community. A compatible community could only thrive if individuals were able to maintain this core sense of justice themselves. Thus, Plato’s justice was only salient for the community if individuals possessed innate justice (Kierstead, 14). Therefore, to claim that Plato’s justice was simply for the community would be a grave mistake as Plato does plan that the people would be harboring some kind of an individual justice.

Also, Plato did believe in the community being happy which is quite opposite to fascist ideology which cares only for the will of the state or ruler. It is crucial to note that Plato desired eudaimonia for his subjects, he, however, did not believe the people could obtain, eudaimonia or the Good, by themselves (Taylor, 290). While important, he inclusion of eudaimonia does not separate Plato from fascism because what is valued is eudaimonia for the entire not for the individual. This indicates that Plato still desires the state above others and indicates a fascist leaning. This coupled with the rest of his analogous ideas reflect fascist thought with his conception of justice giving rise to this sort of system.

In response to the comparison of irrationalism and platonic thought it is crucial to mention the interest of the state is the most poignant of ethical and rational interest for irrationalism; any action that endangers the state is cut-and-dry seen as immoral, any action made to further the state is moral. Thus, given that the leaders directly decide what is good for the state, any disobedience towards the leaders is seen as immoral.  So, despite what rational thought may otherwise say people were to maintain their jobs without consideration of the morality of their actions. Popper insists that platonic ideals wholly reject an individual as having consideration in the broad scope of the empire; the individual was seen as completely inferior as its own separate piece from the collective (Popper, 106). Thus, as individual citizens are not seen as moral agents, they supposedly fit into irrationalism rhetoric; however, because Plato clarifies that Good—and thus morality—can be found through intelligence then it can be understood that the people of the Republic, as rational beings, will be able to derive Good (Bambrough, 43). Therefore, platonic ideals will reject irrationalism as the standards of morality are not contingent on the capricious interests of the state as would be apparent in a fascist state.

Plato’s Republic is More Fascist than Not

            As the examples above have shown, where platonic thought and thus his city fails is its initial birthing of justice. Justice is not viewed in the humanitarian sense in order to level the playing field and provide equality for all citizens but to stratify in attempt to best suit community needs. Efficiency is centered rather than equality or independence in thought. How can justice happen for individual people when the people are put into positions where their superiority can be exploited? It is crucial to note that Plato did try to get around the fact that the guardians may be tempted to exploit the people.

To make sure this did not happen Plato made sure that the guardian class derived no wealth or material gain from their positions. However, this is not a sufficient enough of a work around as power can exploit no matter the material gains. Coupled with the lack of developed rational thought due to being obedient to platonic ideals and not being in a position to make their own moral decisions, the guardians appear to not have exact rationality. This can be related to the allegory of the cave where once one leaves the cave, they gain knowledge of the outside world which illuminates them and allows them to truly see. (464b). Although, Plato advocates for this knowledge and leaving the cave, his ideal city is one in the cave of Plato’s own production. Popper elaborates on this by sharing Plato’s blatant disregard for truth and knowledge as juxtaposing the true nature of the philosopher which is to find truth and knowledge (Popper, 134-135).

            Thus, the political dimension of freedom for citizens in the Republic is quite nonexistent. As can be derived from rationalizing above, the idea of freedom for the people of the Republic was not apparent. The lives of the subjects were structured so they were always pursuing the best job for their class and for them. The individual’s life was based on how they could benefit and further the community in some way. Platonic justice being a way to further instill values of community over self. This would not be a bad conception if it did not leave the citizen devoid of the ability to think and do for themselves. All of their ideas were curated by the states and guardians’ ideas of moral and there was no room for experimentation. Moreover, citizens were not expected to be able to actively participate in political discussion. Strict places were made for all individuals and if you were not present in the guardian class then there was no room to discuss your political thoughts (if you had any). (414c-417b).

            Justice as it can be understood by Plato is then a façade to propagate the idea that the people should at all costs benefit the community. Justice cannot be perceived in the humanitarian sense where equality is centered, and the leveled playing field is desired. This justice is seen as inaccurate to Plato for its similarity to democracy which he deems leads to tyranny.  The justice he promotes instead cultivates a mindlessness in the people that reflects fascism. It reveals how untrusting Plato is of the masses to not even allowing them the courtesy to make their own choices thus entrenching justice in skepticism rather than wisdom and other virtues.

This is not to assert that humanitarianism is the best concept available but to merely juxtapose Plato’s justice. When comparing the two, it becomes clear how seemingly identical fascist ideals are to Plato’s conception of justice. From the use of propaganda and myths to control mass thought and stratification of the classes to produce a society that is based on how others can benefit the whole, Plato’s justice is a trial in producing the best workers rather than the best thinkers. This is in direct opposition to the justice Plato initially describes regarding the soul and rationality as the people are not expected to rationally think further than following law. Justice would not be seeking truth and knowledge for the average citizen but instead how can I best follow the standard laws proposed to the best of my ability which exhibits a mindlessness that bodes more on the appetitive part of the soul. This is because the citizen strives to please the rulers by following their laws rather than critically examine the nature for which they exist (even if the laws proposed are ideally correct).

Then, Plato’s work is not inexplicably identical to fascism in its prescriptions for success. The Republic may have similar notions of handling the grouping of people which appears to equate the masses to mere cattle without essential philosophical ability; however, because Plato does not endorse either irrationalism or relativism and coupled by the fact that the military is not overly glorified, Plato’s Republic does not perpetuate fascism. Popper’s work may enforce the idea that the Republic makes identical claims to fascism by introducing context and historicism, and critically analyzing the connection justice has to totalitarian structures, but Popper completely ignores the fact that Plato still endorses the happiness and good of the people—in direct opposition to fascism. However, Popper does make the well-founded point that the Republic is more fascist than not by analyzing the juxtaposition between equalitarian structures, the initial description of the soul and justice, holism and collectivism, and the subjection of the individual to the state. Thus, fascist ideals considerably reflect Plato’s ideal city and conceptions of justice created in the Republic.

Works Cited

Bambrough, Ranford. Plato, Popper, and Politics: Some Contributions to a Modern Controversy. Cambridge: W. Heffer and Sons Limited, 1967.

C. Reeve and Plato. “Republic.” Readings in Ancient Greek Philosophy: From Thales to Aristotle, edited by S. Cohen et al., 5th ed. Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company, Inc., 2016, pp. 448–797.

Kierstead, James. “Karl Popper’s ‘the Open Society and Its Enemies’, and Its Enemies.” 2019. Journal of New Zealand Studies, no. 28, Victoria University of Wellington, 2019, pp. 2–28, https://search.informit.org/doi/10.3316/informit.536747074880295.

Popper, K.R. The Open Society and Its Enemies. 4th ed. Vol 1. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1963.

Riefenstahl, Leni. “Der Triumph Des Willens (Triumph of the Will).” MoMA Learning, The Museum of Modern Art, http://www.moma.org/learn/moma_learning/leni-riefenstahl-der-triumph-des-willens-triumph-of-the-will-1936/.

Soucy, Robert. “Fascism: Intellectual Origins.” Encyclopædia Britannica, Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc., 24 May 2022, http://www.britannica.com/topic/fascism/Intellectual-origins.  

“SS.” Edited by The Editors of Britannica, Encyclopædia Britannica, Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc., 13 Oct. 2020, http://www.britannica.com/topic/SS.

Taylor, C.C.W. “Plato’s Totalitarianism.” Plato 2, Ethics, Politics, Religion, and the Soul. Ed. Gail Fine. Vol. 2. New York: Oxford University Press, 1999.

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The Moral View of Artificial Intelligence: Affording Robots Moral Consideration from a New Perspective

Colton H. Fontenot, Southern Methodist University

In the 1968 novel, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? by Phillip K. Dick,Rick Deckard works as a bounty hunter who “retires” old androids who escape from their jobs on off-world colonies to live like any other person on Earth. In Deckard’s world, androids are virtually indistinguishable from humans. They walk, talk, act, and all-around behave as a human would. The way Deckard and other bounty hunters discern who is a robot and who is not is by administering the Voigt-Kampff Test. The test examines whether the test-taker has an innate sense of empathy. If the test-taker fails, the individual is deemed to be an android. The thought is that androids do not care about other androids or humans. Therefore, their failure to exhibit empathy towards other robots as a human reflects their difference from mankind.

            Questions of artificial intelligence and robot rights¹ have historically been centered around developing heuristics not all that dissimilar from the Voigt-Kampff Test. The traditional line of reasoning is that before we can grant AI moral consideration we must be able to detect the presence of specific traits deemed necessary for it. Similarly, there has also been a significant inquiry as to which of these traits themselves should be valued. Should we probe for the capacity to feel pain or pleasure? What about belief states or intentionality? Consciousness has been a common criterion despite definitional issues associated with it. Perhaps Dick was right and we should be focusing on empathy instead. Whether or not any of these individual conditions must be satisfied, or a combination of them, this line of reasoning assumes that we are able to uncover their presence in the subject we are testing. This approach is what I will refer to as “the ontological view.” The ontological view holds that certain underlying characteristics underwrite moral consideration towards an object and those characteristics must be detected before moral consideration is granted. Although this is the conventional approach to AI ethics, there are serious concerns associated with it. I will begin this paper by highlighting these concerns in order to motivate a new approach that has recently emerged: the moral view. The moral view asserts that whether or not certain ontological markers are present in AI is irrelevant. Instead, proponants argue that moral consideration should precede ontological understanding of an object (Gunkel, 159). The goal of this paper is to codify the main arguments present within the moral view, while also exploring their soundness. By doing so, I aim to demonstrate that there are four main arguments present in the moral view, each with its own unique criticisms that are strong enough to cause us to reject it.

            Proponents of the moral view state that the ontological view must be rejected because it contains serious epistemic problems. The most obvious of these is the inability to penetrate the mental states of AI. Thomas Nagel explained that we will never be able to fully comprehend the subjective experiences of different creatures. Our imaginations are limited because they spring from our own phenomenal characteristics (Nagel, 441-442). Additionally, this is why robots in particular pose a unique dilemma. While to some extent we can understand an animal’s mental states if their brain is sufficiently similar to ours, AI is made up of completely different material. Although one might point out that we can actually come to know what it’s like to be an AI because we are the ones who created them, this is a false equivalency for two reasons. The first is that just because we create something or even have access to its algorithms does not mean we can fully comprehend what it’s like to be the thing which is the summation of those lines of code. We are able to study an AI’s code, functional machinery, its algorithms, yet what it is like to be an AI still evades us. The second reason is that even if we could fully ascertain what it is like to be an AI by reviewing the algorithms which it operates on, the internal nature of AI often evades us. Classical programming methods have been increasingly discarded for the flexibility deep learning has provided. A drawback is that the creators of facial recognition software or translation bots are unaware of how the AI actually reached its outputs (Marcus and Davis, 57). This black box problem further obscures our ability to comprehend the internal experiences of AI. Furthermore, an artificial general or super intelligence would be so advanced that it would be able to rewrite its own code, potentially becoming unrecognizable from its original form.

            For some supporters of the ontological view, their theories of consciousness, for example, do not have these epistemological problems. Functionalists like Hillary Putnam held that sufficiently intelligent AI and humans could be “psychologically isomorphic” given that mental states are merely the interaction of physical brain states, environmental inputs, and behavioral outputs (Putnam, 677). Functionalist theories like this hold that consciousness can be explained as long as the internal machinery of an AI is sufficiently advanced enough to simulate complex mental states. However, even Putnam admitted that just because an AI appears functionally similar to a human, this does not mean they are necessarily conscious. He even advocated for a solution similar to the moral view, “Robots may indeed have (or lack) properties unknown to physics and undetectable by us; but not the slightest reason has been offered to show that they do… It is reasonable, then, to conclude that the question… calls for a decision and not for a discovery” (Putnam, 691).

Another issue proponents of the moral view take with the ontological approach is the fact that consciousness, as previously mentioned, is sometimes not the only property deemed necessary for moral consideration. Intentionality and the ability to feel pain are commonly cited qualities as well; yet, are we to consider all three of these necessary? Only two? Both these epistemic and definitional difficulties associated with the ontological view have caused recent observers to grow frustrated with this approach. They have begun to ask another question: assuming we are never able to solve the difficulties associated with the ontological view, what other way can we determine if moral consideration should be afforded to AI? The answer to this question has coalesced into the moral view. This alternative to measuring the inherent qualities present in AI aims to focus on how we feel about it. Specifically, the moral view posits that there is a moral criterion for granting moral consideration that does not rely on intrinsic features of the thing being afforded that consideration. This manifests itself in a variety of different arguments that are focused on the effect that granting or not granting robots moral consideration has on us. By turning the focus onto us, the moral view attempts to argue that it is in our best interest to grant robots moral consideration regardless of their status as moral agents. The proponents of the moral view’s motivations differ and so do the arguments they advance. I will break down four popular arguments proponents of this view frequently employ and evaluate each on their soundness. In doing so, I will highlight the motivations and lines of reasoning behind each one, while also discussing the challenges which undermine this view.

            Humans were differentiated from androids in the Voigt-Kampff Test because they cared for androids. When the pupil of a test subject dilated in response to an android pet being hurt, it affirmed their humanness. This analysis of empathy underscores the significance of moral emotions in interacting with certain objects. We, for some reason or another, feel an inherent sense of compassion towards animal or human-like things. The first argument in the moral view holds that this intuition is a sign of the moral worth of an object. In 2015, Boston Dynamics, a robotics company, introduced their newest creation “Spot.” Spot was a robot that resembled a dog but lacked important properties you would normally associate with a canine-like a tail or a head. That being said, its four legs, torso, and relatively smooth walking ability caused anyone who watched it for only a few seconds to associate it with a dog. However, it was not the remarkable mechanics of the robot dog which attracted the attention of the public. Rather, it was the act of a member of the Boston Dynamics team kicking the dog. Spot’s legs wobbled, it stumbled a few feet back and then had to compose itself again. The outrage that followed was immense. People criticized humans for kicking such a helpless creature despite seeing for themselves the machinery which composed its body (Parke).

Kate Darling argues that stories like this demonstrate that the notion that we feel violence towards robots is wrong despite knowing logically that robots most likely do not feel anything themselves. It is this difference between our perception of robots like Spot and other abiotic things which necessitates the granting of some minimum protections to the robot itself. She writes, “Today, even with state-of-the-art technology like crude toys and biological inspired machines that are still only rough approximations of animal movement…violent behavior toward robotic objects feels wrong to us, even if we know that the ‘abused’ object can’t experience any of it” (Darling, 212). What Darling is getting at is the concept of moral emotions and the role they play in our ethical decision making. Emotions like shame, anger, gratitude, and empathy motivate us and those around us to act ethically. For the first argument in the moral view, moral emotions usually refer to the last of these. When we see something suffering, we feel empathy towards it because of the natural evolutionary benefit it has in encouraging good social behavior. If we are to break this argument down into premise-conclusion format, it would stand as follows:

1. We feel moral emotions towards robots.
2. We should afford things moral consideration that we feel moral emotions towards.
3. Therefore, we ought to grant robots whom we feel these moral emotions towards moral consideration.

Following this argument, the first premise looks easy to accept on its face. The reaction to Spot’s assault was moral outrage expressed through both empathy for the robot and anger at the roboticist. We ascribe strong emotions towards these robots that are usually reserved for living things. Darling highlights another example with a Japanese toy robot called a Pleo. The little dinosaur can react to sensory inputs by moving and making certain sounds. She tells a story of a friend holding it upside down, but it begins to cry out in distress, whimper, and squirm, “there was no reason for me to panic, and yet I couldn’t help myself…I knew exactly what the baby dinosaur robot was programmed to do when dangled in the air. Why was I feeling so agonized?” (Darling, 204). It is hard to imagine not following an instinctive moral response in stopping the behavior causing it distress. Not doing so would be rebelling against our biological dispositions.

Taking the argument’s implications to their logical conclusion also undermines the soundness of the second premise. We tend to feel moral emotions towards a variety of things that we would never afford moral consideration to. For example, if I stub my toe on the coffee table in my apartment, I might get angry at the table for a few seconds. Additionally, a mechanic attempting to fix a car’s engine but failing over and over might plead with the object to start, and then feel gratitude towards it when it finally does. However, there does not seem to be a debate concerning the moral consideration of coffee tables and cars. A proponent of the moral view would say that we should qualify moral emotions as those which are prolonged and profound. Although the fact that the argument itself might have a few odd implications does not inherently undermine it, the exercise reveals the definitional problem which plagues it. How deep should these moral emotions be in order for moral consideration to be afforded to the cause of them? How long must they exist for them to be considered more than a fleeting irrational reaction? What about an object that produces indignation but not compassion? The definitional issues of the ontological view that the moral view attempts to skirt around, namely the difficulty associated with recognizing and defining the inherent traits necessary for moral consideration, undo the moral emotions argument. Therefore, when all of its implications are considered, the moral emotions argument is a poor replacement for the ontological view.

            An extension of the previous argument based on moral emotions specifically concerns the agony we could feel by failing to treat AI in a morally sensitive manner. Consider the following:

1. Anything that causes enough people moral anguish is wrong.
2. Treating robots as if they have no moral worth will cause enough people moral anguish.
3. Treating robots as if they do have moral worth will not cause enough people moral anguish.
4. In order to ensure people treat robots as if they do have moral worth, they must be afforded moral consideration.
5. Therefore, we ought to afford robots moral consideration.

This posits that while it could very well be true that AI is not conscious and does not actually feel emotions as we do, continually treating something that looks, acts, walks, or talks like us in a terrible manner would be too much to bear. There seems to be some evolutionary need to treat anthropomorphic figures as moral agents. Denying this natural tendency would be akin to denying our own humanity. There are corollaries as to why we outlaw certain acts despite the fact that they do not harm anyone. For example, most would agree that we should prohibit computer-generated images of child pornography. This is because regardless of whether or not actual children are being exploited, allowing even these fake images to exist would cause us too much agony. Assuming that if we fail to locate ontological traits in AI, this argument posits that we should still grant AI moral consideration for our own sake.

That being said, even if we assume premise one is true, there seems to be insufficient evidence to support both premises two and three. As we spend more time interacting with AI, we will begin to become more knowledgeable about them. The evolutionary instinct to treat robots that look like us or AI which act like us as if they have moral worth is just that: instinctual. If one was to interact with advanced artificial intelligence, they might identify gaps present in its behavior in comparison to human behavior. So while we might initially feel moral anguish when an AI or robot is seemingly mistreated, this does not necessarily mean that we will continue to feel the same anguish after an extended period of time. If we hear the sound of a car backfiring, the instinctual response is to jump and become hyper-aware of our surroundings. It’s only after we observe that the sound came in the direction of a car, that the sound did not repeat itself, and that nobody or nothing seems harmed that we come to the conclusion it was a backfiring car and we calm down. This highlights a conflation between instinctual and logical responses to external stimuli the moral anguish argument makes.

            Although the moral anguish argument fails to make a case for granting moral consideration towards robots based on the internal, there is still a case to be made based on the external effects of doing so. David Levy posited such an argument that borrows from Kant’s concept of the indirect duties we owe to each other through the treatment of animals. The reasoning is that if robots are not afforded moral consideration, they will be abused by people. Even if AI cannot feel pain, the downstream effect would be degrading to our society, “if our children see it as acceptable behavior from their parents to scream and shout at a robot or to hit it, then, despite the fact that we can program robots to feel no such pain or unhappiness, our children might well come to accept that such behavior is acceptable in the treatment of human beings” (Levy, 214). Similarly, people who act out on their violent impulses against robots will be more likely to do so against other people (Levy, 215). The argument can be broken down as follows:

1. Without affording robots moral consideration, they will be treated as if they have no moral worth.
2. Treating robots as if they have no moral worth will always cause us to treat each other in worse ways.
3. We should avoid treating each other in worse ways.
4. Affording robots moral consideration will not lead to anything else we should avoid and to do so is not intrinsically impermissible.
5. Therefore, we ought to afford robots moral consideration.

This argument does away with the problem that ascribing moral emotions or the feeling of moral anguish will differ based on the individual. Premise one is based on the fact that we associate moral agency with moral consideration. Granting moral consideration is a sign of respecting an object’s moral worth. Not doing so leaves the option available for AI and robots to be abused since there are no protections in place against this abuse. However, robots are unique in that we do have these instinctual emotions towards them. Picking the petals of a flower, for example, does not have any effect on how we treat other humans. Because we react a certain way to things that behave like humans, treating those things as if they have no moral worth might cause this practice to spill over into the treatment of each other.

            That being said, it is at this point that there is some dispute. The argument is strikingly similar to the debate surrounding violent video games. Although we lack the empirical information necessary to determine whether abusing robots causes more aggressive behavior in other humans, the assertion that playing violent video games makes people more violent is disputed. Craig Anderson et al., conducted wide-ranging meta-analyses of violent video game studies and concluded that playing violent video games provided a strong causal indicator of decreased empathy and desensitization to violence (Anderson et al., 165). Meanwhile, Christopher Ferguson rejected this hypothesis after a different meta-analysis which controlled for effect sizes present between physical manifestations of aggressive behavior and verbal accounts (Ferguson, 351). Conversely, it is just as easy to argue the opposite even after accepting the first premise. Blay Whitby goes in this direction by saying that abusing a robot serves as a cathartic release, making people less likely to do the same to humans (Whitby, 328-330). Taken altogether, this issue is far from settled and lacks an empirical consensus.

Another complication stems from the relationship between moral consideration and this tenuous link between violence towards robots and violence towards humans. Without affording AI moral consideration, will people necessarily treat them in such a horrible way that the effects manifest themselves in other venues? We often do not afford moral consideration to animals like insects and there is not an epidemic of people torturing fruit flies. Similarly, the moral consideration we do grant animals is often meant to codify forms of abuse. We regulate the slaughter of livestock and the hunting of animals for game, yet farmers and rural hunters are not excessively violent. Thus, the first premise might also be faulty. The assumption that not affording something moral consideration will cause us to treat that thing badly is mistaken. Especially if we subscribe to the principle of the moral view which is that we naturally feel anguish when abusing robots and respond to them in ways we respond to humans. Although the indirect duties argument is not as blatantly problematic as the moral emotions and moral anguish arguments, there are still roadblocks within it that are hard to reconcile. However, this comparison of animals to robots is one that illustrates the fourth argument in the moral view.

            Animal cruelty laws exist to protect animals deemed sufficiently intelligent from abuse and serve as an interesting upshot for the debate of granting moral consideration to robots or not. Darling argues as much in her 2021 book, The New Breed (Darling, 203-210). Although Darling focuses more on the tendency of humans to anthropomorphize both animals and robots, there is an interesting line of reasoning at the center of this idea:

1. We afford some moral consideration to animals without knowing they have conscious states.
2. Robots will become increasingly intelligent and will eventually become indistinguishable from animals we afford moral consideration to with respect to morally relevant properties.
3. Anything that is indistinguishable from something else with respect to morally relevant properties that is already afforded moral consideration should be afforded that same consideration.
4. Therefore, robots should be afforded the same moral consideration that animals are.

This is perhaps the strongest argument from the moral view. That being said, two objections remain. The first is concerned with the relationship between the premises and the second is focused on the general presuppositions of the argument.

            On its surface, the third premise seems self-explanatory. It would not make sense to grant one of two identical objects moral consideration while not granting the other those same protections. However, opponents of this argument would contend that the indistinguishability criterion it presupposes is flawed. Although behaviorally, an AI and an animal might be indistinguishable, what does this actually tell us? Some animals react to stimuli as if they feel pain when in reality they do not. If an AI and an animal exhibit the same pain behavior, who is to say one of them is actually feeling it while the other is not. Behavior is limited in what it tells us. Additionally, these two things are built differently. An animal is composed of biological material while an AI or robot will be composed of mechanical and digital material. The difference in the way these two things are constructed should serve as a warning sign that similar behaviors might not represent similar subjective experiences.

            The discourse in the animal argument is based on the concept of “morally relevant properties.” Although the moral view attempts to correct the challenges present in the ontological view, it seems to presuppose and rely on the existence of ontological traits within robots and animals as a means of advocating for moral consideration towards robots. For an AI to be considered indistinguishable from an animal in terms of morally relevant properties, we must ascertain those properties that are inherent in both the AI and the animal. The same issues present in the ontological view emerge here, namely the epistemological hurdles associated with analyzing these inherent traits. If we are to be generous and reject that the animal argument presupposes these things, the alternative would be an AI being indistinguishable from an animal in terms of exhibiting the behavior related to those morally relevant properties. We would rely on observing the robot for a particular pain response, for example, which mimics that of a developed animal. The issue with this is that some morally relevant properties might not reveal themselves in a behavioral setting. Additionally, who is to say that ontologically, a robot and an animal actually do have indistinguishable morally relevant properties, but it’s the behavior exuded by each which leads us to distinguish between the two. Therefore, the animal argument, while apparently convincing, is only so because it presupposes the need for ontological traits in a framework of ethics.

            The moral view of AI ethics evolved out of the frustrations and endless debate associated with the traditional, ontological view. Although it challenges us to consider issues of ethics in a different light, there are serious obstacles that arise in certifying any particular moral view argument as sound. These range from definitional issues with the moral emotions and moral anguish arguments, to the empirical and relational complications in the indirect duties and animal arguments. Although the ontological view of AI ethics is troubled with internal disputes and epistemological hurdles, the moral view does not provide a replacement free of these problems.

End Note

¹Although most sources invoke the term “robot rights” or “AI rights,” this paper will frame the question along the broader lines of moral consideration.

Works Cited

Anderson, Craig A, et al. “Violent Video Game Effects on Aggression, Empathy, and Prosocial Behavior in Eastern and Western Countries: A Meta-Analytic Review.” Psychological Bulletin 136, no. 2 (2010): 151–73.

Darling, Kate. The New Breed : How to Think About Robots. London: Allen Lane, 2021.

Ferguson, Christopher J. “Research on the Effects of Violent Video Games: A Critical Analysis: Violent Video Game Effects.” Social and Personality Psychology Compass 3, no. 3 (2009): 351–64.

Marcus, Gary, and Ernest Davis. Rebooting AI: Building Artificial Intelligence We Can Trust. First edition. New York: Pantheon Books, 2019.

Gunkel, David J. Robot Rights. Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT Press, 2018.

Levy, David. “The Ethical Treatment of Artificially Conscious Robots.” International Journal of Social Robotics 1, no. 3 (2009): 209–216.

Nagel, Thomas. “What Is It Like to Be a Bat?” The Philosophical Review 83, no. 4 (1974): 435–50.

Parke, Phoebe. “Is It Cruel to Kick a Robot Dog?” CNN, February 13, 2015. https://edition.cnn.com/2015/02/13/tech/spot-robot-dog-google/index.html.

Putnam, Hilary. “Robots: Machines or Artificially Created Life?” The Journal of Philosophy 61, no. 21 (1964): 668-691

Whitby, Blay. “Sometimes It’s Hard to Be a Robot: A Call for Action on the Ethics of Abusing Artificial Agents.” Interacting with Computers 20, no. 3 (2008): 326–33.

Bibliography

Dennett, D. C. Consciousness Explained. 1st ed. Boston: Little, Brown and Co., 1991.

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Lawyer Cat v. Lawyer Dog: A Forensic Linguistic Analysis of State of Louisiana v. Warren Demesme

Tristan J. Sosa, Texas State University

Abstract

In this essay, I implement an analysis of language in and of the legal process and an analysis of language as evidence in an investigation of the merits of Louisiana State Supreme Court Justice Scott J. Crichton’s opinion that Warren Demesme was requesting a “lawyer dog.” In my analysis of language in and of the legal process, I focus on case law pertaining to Miranda Warnings, wherein insights from forensic linguists researching evidence collection and speech act theory are central to my methodology. Gathering insights from my analysis, I move to an examination of language as evidence in State of Louisiana v. Warren Demesme, wherein I conclude that Warren Demesme was not requesting a “lawyer dog” as Louisiana State Supreme Court Justice Scott J. Crichton suggests and that a “reasonable police officer in light of the circumstances…would have understood,” that Demesme was using an indirect impolite speech act when he said dawg and not dog in his statement. In my conclusion, I argue that Demesme’s request for an attorney was unambiguous and unequivocal.

Introduction

The COVID-19 pandemic came with numerous people shifting to remote work, and as video calls became a central occurrence for remote workers, so did “technical difficulties.” The challenges were highlighted in the 2021 viral “Zoom Cat Lawyer”—or “I am not a Cat”—video. (Zdanowicz) The central figure of the video was Texas lawyer Rod Ponton who appeared on zoom in the form of a cat. We have good reason to assume that the thing appearing in court was a human rather than a cat, even if our knowledge of Zoom filters were absent. Despite what public opinion or comic strips might proclaim concerning the nature or value of lawyers, all known lawyers are human. (MIT, Wilson) Further, no cat has yet to attend law school or speak English. With a bit of amusement, Judge Roy Ferguson allowed Mr. Ponton time to fix his screen before proceeding. Shortly after the hearing, Judge Ferguson posted the video along with a warning for others on Twitter. (Zdanowicz) After going viral, the video was hyperlinked under the “Getting Started with Zoom” section of the Texas Judicial Branch’s webpage for Electronic Hearings. (Texas Judicial Branch)

Oddly, the common knowledge that all lawyers are human is not commonly known amongst all judges, or at the minimum the common knowledge was not known to Louisiana State Supreme Court Justice Scott J. Crichton (hereinafter, Justice Crichton). If we accept that all known lawyers are human, then why would any “reasonable officer in light of the circumstances” interpret Warren Demesme’s statement—“If y’all, this is how I feel, if y’all think I did it, I know that I didn’t do it, so why don’t you just give me a lawyer dog cause this is not what’s up” (Louisiana v. Warren Demesme)—to be requesting a lawyer dog and not a request for a human lawyer as Justice Crichton argues in his concurring opinion in State of Louisiana v. Warren Demesme? (Louisiana v. Warren Demesme)

To discern an answer to the above question, I turn to an analysis of language in and of the legal process and an analysis of language as evidence. In my analysis of language in and of the legal process, I focus on case law pertaining to Miranda Warnings, wherein insights from forensic linguists researching evidence collection and speech act theory are central to my methodology. Gathering insights from my analysis, I move to an examination of language as evidence in State of Louisiana v. Warren Demesme, wherein I conclude that Warren Demesme was not requesting a “lawyer dog” as Justice Crichton suggests and that a “reasonable police officer in light of the circumstances,” i.e., a law enforcement officer working in New Orleans, “would have understood” that Demesme was using dawg and not dog. In my conclusion, I argue that Demesme’s request for an attorney was unambiguous and unequivocal.

Language of the Legal Process

Forensic linguistics is a subfield of applied linguistics concerned with the analysis of language in a legal context—be it the language of the legal process or language as evidence. Forensic linguists study language over a multitude of media forms. Central concerns of forensic linguistics are the language of legal documents, the language of law enforcement officers, interviews with children and vulnerable witnesses, courtroom interaction, linguistic evidence and expert witness testimony, authorship attribution, plagiarism, and forensic phonetics and speaker identification. (Coulthard & Johnson, 5) The media studied in my forensic linguistic analysis is limited to the textual transcription of Warren Demesme’s statement mentioned above and case law pertaining to Miranda Warnings. I am chiefly concerned with Demesme’s statement because of its status as evidence in Justice Crichton’s opinion concurring in the Louisiana Supreme Court’s denial of review. However, to articulate what is at stake with my primary concern, I must engage in an analysis of language in and of the legal process.

Your Right to a Lawyer

In the process of a criminal investigation, law enforcement officers interview people to identify witnesses and suspects. A crucial aspect of law enforcement officer interviews is that a suspect is Mirandized, i.e., they are informed that they have a right to silence and an attorney. The United States Supreme Court affirmed in Miranda v. Arizona that the rights to silence and an attorney could be invoked at any time during questioning, even if a suspect previously waived their rights. (Miranda v. Arizona, emphasis added) Further, concerning Edwards v. Arizona, the United States Supreme Court held that “[A]n accused…having expressed his desire to deal with the police only through counsel, is not subject to further interrogation until counsel has been made available to him,” and that any statements made after invoking the right in response to continued police questioning are inadmissible evidence. (Edwards v. Arizona)

The United States Supreme Court held that the only exception to their ruling in Edwards was that “the accused has himself initiated further communication, exchanges, or conversations with the police.” (Edwards v. Arizona) In Davis v. United States, 512 U.S. 452 (1994), the United States Supreme Court states, “The Edwards rule serves the prophylactic purpose of preventing officers from badgering a suspect into waiving his previously asserted Miranda rights.” (Edwards v. Arizona) This is meant to prevent suspects from providing confessions under duress. The United States Supreme Court also held in Davis, however, that a law enforcement officer may continue questioning a suspect who invokes their right to an attorney when, “[T]he suspect makes a reference to an attorney that is ambiguous or equivocal in that a reasonable police officer in light of the circumstances would have understood only that the suspect might be invoking his right to counsel.” (Davis v. United States, emphasis added)

The seemingly polite statement, “[m]aybe I should talk to a lawyer,” is central to the Davis decision.

Forensic Linguistics

As noted above, law enforcement officers must Mirandize suspects before questioning. The Miranda Warning states,

You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law. You have the right to an attorney. If you cannot afford an attorney, one will be provided for you. Do you understand the rights I have just read to you? With these rights in mind, do wish to speak to me?

(Miranda Warning Org.)

Per the United States Supreme Court, the purpose of the Miranda Warning is to inform suspects of their rights. However, the Miranda Warning does more than inform. The Miranda Warning performs an action, i.e., it is performative. What action does the Miranda Warning perform?

The Miranda Warning’s locutionary component is declarative, or information-giving, with reference to the genre of legal language. The illocutionary force of the Miranda Warning [1] inducts the suspect into the genre of legal language and [2] warns and advises the suspect of their rights and the possible implications of waiving those rights. The perlocutionary force of the Miranda Warning is context dependent. However, in the context of the legal system, the Miranda Warning produces a listener with an awareness of their rights.

J. L. Austin argued that performative sentences have appropriate conditions that must be met for them to be uttered felicitously. (Hornsby, 214) The appropriate conditions that make a sentence work in the context uttered are called felicity conditions. Case law shows that the Miranda Warning has felicity conditions for a successful speech act, conforming to the three felicity conditions categories. (Hornsby, 213-215) Those categories are:

A.

              (i)  There must be a conventional procedure having a conventional effect.

              (ii)  The circumstances and persons must be appropriate, as specified in the procedure.

B.  The procedure must be executed

              (i)  correctly and

              (ii) completely.

C.  Often

              (i) the person must have the requisite thoughts, feelings, and intentions, as specified in the procedure, and

              (ii) if consequent conduct is specified, then the relevant parties must so do. (Hornsby, 214-215)

Two types of violations of felicity conditions can occur. Per Austin, when A or B is violated, the result is a ‘misfire’ of the intended action. (Hornsby, 215) If, for example, a law enforcement officer was to utter the Miranda Warning in the absence of a suspect, then the speech act would misfire. Furthermore, if a law enforcement officer were to incorrectly or partially state the entire Miranda Warning, the speech act would misfire. Case law has typically concerned itself with violations of felicity condition B. When C is violated, the result is an ‘abuse.’ (Hornsby, 215) If, for example, a suspect requested an attorney and law enforcement officers continued to question the suspect, then an ‘abuse’ would occur. Lastly, the listener of a speech act, in our case, the suspect, must uptake the speech, i.e., appropriately respond to the speech delivered to them.

Returning to Davis, we see that despite United States Supreme Court Justice Souter’s remarks that a suspect does not need to “speak with the discrimination of an Oxford don,” the Davis decision requires that a lay person’s utterances be considered legal language. (Davis v. United States) In other words, a suspect’s utterance invoking their right to an attorney must linguistically conform to the legal system’s language genre. In effect, the burden of ensuring that the citizenries’ rights are respected shifts unto the citizens by stipulating felicity conditions for the invocation of their rights. The United States Supreme Court does this for the express purpose of not hindering criminal investigations. (Davis v. United States) If my claims are unappealing, then consider the following.

Forensic linguists studying the legal system’s process of converting speech into evidence have noted that,

While in many institutional interactions participants readily and positively submit to questions and authority (a job interview or a therapeutic session for example), in legal interaction, power and authority is continually negotiated, gained and lost, and much more is at stake: individual liberty, freedom, incarceration and categorization as a criminal or valuable witness, as aggressor or victim. The fleeting and often adversarial nature of the relationship is a constant element in talking, which needs to be dealt with in dynamic and fluctuating conditions.

(Coulthard & Johnson, 80)

The participants in a law enforcement interview are aware that the goal of the interview is “the collection and synthesis of evidence into a written statement for use in any subsequent court hearing.” (Coulthard & Johnson, 80) As evidenced by this essay and the above-cited court decisions, the transcription of a
“statement or interview…literally speak for the witness,” suspect, or police officer. (Coulthard & Johnson, 80) Further, once the content of an interview is “embodied in a statement it has been transformed into the voice of the institution and is ‘dialogic’ in that bears traces of the underlying dialogue.” (Coulthard & Johnson, 81) In other words, a statement’s language is converted into that of the legal genre.

This is not unique to legal interviews, as noted in the above blockquote. What is unique to a law enforcement interview is the asymmetry of the interaction. The written statements used in court, by and large, reflect the perspective of law enforcement officers. This causes interviews to become “an arena for the authorization of one version of the suspect’s alleged criminal conduct” and leads to “competing narratives” being “articulated in the course of the interview, but the statement only presents a single, if dialogized, version of events.” (Coulthard & Johnson, 81) This problem is further compounded by how law enforcement officers use language to guide the interview process toward desired outcomes.

For example, when Davis uttered, “maybe I should talk to a lawyer,” law enforcement officers suspended questioning but returned to clarify if it was the case that Davis was invoking his right to an attorney. (Davis v. United States) If it was the case that Davis was requesting an attorney, then the officer could not continue questioning Davis. As noted above, the United States Supreme Court effectively ruled that the utterance, “maybe I should talk to a lawyer,” did not meet felicity conditions. I think it can be reasonably speculated that Davis was requesting and that law enforcement officers suspected he was requesting an attorney precisely because they attempted to clarify that he was requesting, which Davis denied. After Davis denied that he was requesting, “they took a short break, he was reminded of his rights, and the interview continued for another hour, until he asked to have a lawyer present before saying anything more.” (Davis v. United States) But if the above comments regarding asymmetry are true, then it is probably the case that Davis attempted to engage in a polite speech act to mitigate his request being perceived as a face-threatening act. Davis’s denial and later restating in a direct speech act his desire for a lawyer does not undermine my analysis. Rather, it is supportive in that Davis’s shift in strategy in the face of adversity shows that he realized his initial speech act failed.

The face of a speech act pertains to the effect a speaker intends to have on a listener’s self- image, or face. (Katz, 49) Positive face generates appreciation or value in the listener. (Hornsby, 216) Negative face signifies to the listener the speaker’s desire to act unimpeded. (Hornsby, 216) The negative face of a listener is threatened when a speaker makes a request because the speaker is compelling the listener to act. As Mara Katz notes, politeness frameworks outline four strategies for mitigating the face threat caused by requests:

negative politeness, which acknowledges and downplays the magnitude of the imposition to show respect for the addressee’s negative face…positive politeness, which builds up the addressee’s positive face…and indirectness, which can give the speaker plausible deniability in case the addressee objects to the request…bald on record requests, that is, requests without any mitigating face work

(Katz, 49)

Politeness frameworks assume cooperative intent amongst interlocutors, which is not always present as many speakers are aware. Furthermore, assumptions of cooperative intent are undermined by the asymmetry of the interaction in a law enforcement interview. Impoliteness frameworks can account for a lack of cooperative intent with a set of impoliteness strategies:

bald on record impoliteness is used when the speaker wishes to make it obvious that he or she is threatening someone else’s face. Negative impoliteness intensifies a threat to the addressee’s negative face by associating him or her with an undesirable trait or simply cutting the addressee off to restrict his or her freedom to speak. Positive impoliteness…threatens an addressee’s positive face by making him or her feel excluded or unvalued, while indirect impoliteness is often achieved through insincere politeness, sarcasm, or simply not performing an expected polite speech act.

(Katz, 49)

The problem with Davis’s politeness strategy is that it might entail using an indirect speech act. As noted above, a suspect’s utterance invoking their right to an attorney must linguistically conform to the legal system’s language genre, which primarily consists of direct speech. Furthermore, the felicity conditions set up by the United States Supreme Court entail that requests for an attorney be spoken directly, i.e., unambiguously and unequivocally. Deciding the validity of this standard is not my purpose here, nor is it my purpose to decide whether the United States Supreme Court’s decisions impose standards of politeness. However, such purposes are fruitful grounds for further research.

Language As Evidence

In 2017 Justice Crichton wrote an opinion concurring with the Louisiana Supreme Court’s denial of review in State of Louisiana v. Warren Demesme. In his opinion, Justice Crichton states, “I believe the defendant ambiguously referenced a lawyer—prefacing that statement with “if y’all, this is how I feel, if y’all think I did it, I know that I didn’t do it so why don’t you just give me a lawyer dog cause this is not what’s up”…In my view, the defendant’s ambiguous and equivocal reference to a “lawyer dog” does not constitute an invocation of counsel that warrants termination of the interview and does not violate Edwards v. Arizona.” (Louisiana v. Warren Demesme) The opinion here is problematic for a variety of reasons. As mentioned in the introduction, we accept that all known attorneys are human. Suppose we lead with Justice Crichton’s written transcription of Demesme’s statement, and he agrees that all known attorneys are human. In that case, we have grounds to believe that Demesme’s speech act violated felicity conditions if and only if it is the case that Justice Crichton’s written transcription of Demesme’s statement is actually representative of what Demesme said.

In the above, I noted that competing narratives are articulated during an interview, but the final statement only presents a single, if dialogized, version of events. I also noted that the written transcription reflects the perspective of law enforcement officers. Lastly, I noted that the transcription process converts the language of a suspect’s speech act into the legal system’s language genre. I argue that the transcription used in Justice Crichton’s opinion is not representative of what Demesme said because the language of Demesme’s speech act lost essential meaning in the conversion to the legal system’s language genre.

As noted by Dennis Baron, “Demesme’s appeal was denied not because his words were ambiguous, but because he invoked his rights in Black English.” (Baron) I must admit that I do not have a recording of Demesme’s dialogue with law enforcement officers. Therefore, my ability to reconstruct and transcribe Demesme’s speech act with absolute fidelity is strained. However, on the question of whether any “reasonable officer in light of the circumstances” would interpret Demesme’s speech act to be a request for a “lawyer dog,” an answer is discernable. As a frequent means of address in non-standard English used by African American and non-African American English speakers, a “reasonable police officer in light of the circumstances,” i.e., a law enforcement officer working in New Orleans, “would have understood” that Demesme was using dawg and not dog.

Recall that a suspect does not need to “speak with the discrimination of an Oxford don.” (Davis v. United States) Suspects, therefore, can invoke their rights in any language. Dawg is a slang term. When used as a familiar form of address, it is synonymous with ‘man, dude, guy, pal, fella, buddy.’ (Merriam-Webster) Dawg can also be used facetiously. (Merriam-Webster) Dawg used in either form does not undermine Demesme’s request for an attorney. If we take Demesme’s legal claim—that he was requesting an attorney—seriously, then it follows that Demesme was using dawg in his statement and not dog as Justice Chrichton claims. Therefore, considering the above in toto, we have good reasons for not leading with Justice Chrichton’s written transcription of Demesme’s statement or his suggestion that a “reasonable police officer in light of the circumstances,” i.e., a law enforcement officer working in New Orleans, “would have understood” that Demesme was using dog.

Conclusion

In discerning my answer, I turned to an analysis of language in and of the legal process and an analysis of language as evidence. In my analysis of language in and of the legal process, I focused on case law pertaining to Miranda Warnings, wherein insights from forensic linguists researching evidence collection and speech act theory are central to my methodology. Gathering insights from my analysis, I moved to an examination of language as evidence in State of Louisiana v. Warren Demesme, wherein I concluded that Warren Demesme was not requesting a “lawyer dog” as Justice Crichton suggests and that a “reasonable police officer in light of the circumstances,” i.e., a law enforcement officer working in New Orleans, “would have understood” that Demesme was using dawg and not dog.

A further question alluded to but not clearly stated above is whether Demesme’s request met the felicity conditions the United States Supreme Court set up. In other words, is it the case that Demesme’s request for an attorney was unambiguous and unequivocal? Discerning a definitive answer without the audio recording is complicated but outlining a set of answers is conceivable. Recall that a successful request for an attorney, per the United States Supreme Court’s decision in Miranda, entails the conclusion of dialogue between a suspect and law enforcement officers until either the suspect reengages dialogue or a suspect’s attorney is present. Furthermore, note that Demesme’s statement indicates an unwillingness to cooperate with law enforcement officers, meaning that Demesme did not use dawg as a familiar form of address.

If we suppose that Demesme did intend to use dawg as a familiar form of address, then indirect impolite face is the only plausible face in Demesme’s speech act. However, this would entail that Demesme’s request failed to meet the felicity conditions set by the United States Supreme Court and contradicts Demesme’s legal claim. Therefore, the only form of dawg that supports Demeseme’s legal claim and meets the felicity condition set by the United States Supreme Court is the facetious form of dawg. The facetious form of dawg only leaves bald on record impoliteness and negative impoliteness as the remaining plausible facings in Demesme’s speech act. Considering Demesme’s legal claim and his statement signaling his unwillingness to cooperate with law enforcement officers, negative impoliteness is the more likely face of Demesme’s speech act. Nevertheless, in either case of face, Demesme’s request for an attorney was unambiguous and unequivocal.

Works Cited

Baron, D. (2017). Miranda and the Louisiana Lawyer Dog: a case of talking while black. The Web of Language. Retrieved from https://blogs.illinois.edu/view/25/574827

Coulthard, M., & Johnson, A. (2007). An Introduction to Forensic Linguistics: Language in evidence. New York, New York: Routledge.

Davis v. United States, 512 U.S. 452 (1994), 92-1949 (CERTIORARI TO THE UNITED STATES COURT OF MILITARY APPEALS June 24, 1994). Retrieved from https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/512/452/

Edwards v. Arizona, 451 U.S. 477 (1981), 79-5269 (Supreme Court May 18, 1981). Retrieved from https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/451/477/

Hornsby, D. (2014). Chapter 10 Pragmatics: saying what you mean. In D. Hornsby, Linguistics: A Complete Introduction (pp. 198-220). The McGraw-Hill Company, Inc.

Katz, M. (2015). Politeness theory and the classification of speech acts. Working Papers of the Linguistics Circle of the University of Victorie, 25(2), 45-55. Retrieved from https://journals.uvic.ca/index.php/WPLC/article/download/13575/5906

Merriam-Webster. (2022). Merriam-Webster Dictionary. Retrieved from Merriam-Webster Website : https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/dawg

Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U.S. 436 (1996), 759 (U.S. Supreme Court June 13, 1966). Retrieved from https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/384/436/

Miranda Warning Org. (n.d.). What Are Your Miranda Rights? Retrieved from Miranda Warning Org. Web site: http://www.mirandawarning.org/whatareyourmirandarights.html

MIT. Retrieved from http://www.mit.edu/people/dmredish/wwwMLRF/links/Humor/Lawyer_Jokes.html.

State of Louisiana v. Warren Demesme On Writ of Certiorari to The Court of Appeal, Fourth Circuit, Parish of Orleans, 2017-KK-0954 (Supreme Court of Louisiana October 27, 2017). Retrieved from https://www.lasc.org/opinions/2017/17KK0954.sjc.addconc.pdf

State of Texas Judicial Branch. (2020). Court Coronavirus Information. State of Texas Judicial Branch. Retrieved from https://www.txcourts.gov/court-coronavirus- information/electronic-hearings-zoom/

Wilson, Marina (2022, April 1). April Fools! Lawyer Jokes & Courtroom Funnies. Justia: Legal Marketing & Technology Blog. Retrieved from http://www.mit.edu/people/dmredish/wwwMLRF/links/Humor/Lawyer_Jokes.html.

Zdanowicz, Christina. (2021, February 10). Lawyer tells judge ‘I’m not a cat’ after a Zoom filter mishap in virtual court hearing. CNN. Retrieved from https://www.cnn.com/2021/02/09/us/cat-filter-lawyer-zoom-court-trnd/index.html.

Bibliography

Jackman, T. (2017). The suspect told police ‘give me a lawyer dog.’ The court says he wasn’t asking for a lawyer. The Washington Post. Retrieved from https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/true-crime/wp/2017/11/02/the-suspect-told- police-give-me-a-lawyer-dog-the-court-says-he-wasnt-asking-for-a-lawyer/

Kerr, O. (2017). The ‘lawyer dog’ decision isn’t obviously wrong. The Washington Post. Retrieved from https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh- conspiracy/wp/2017/11/03/the-lawyer-dog-decision-isnt-obviously-wrong/

Stern, M. J. (2017). Suspect Asks for “a Lawyer Dawg.” Judge Says He Asked for “a Lawyer Dog.”. Slate. Retrieved from https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2017/10/suspect-asks- for-a-lawyer-dawg-judge-says-he-asked-for-a-lawyer-dog.html.

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~ by texasphilosophical on July 22, 2022.