Alani Golanski

Thanks to the Hofstra L Review - Conceptions of Law, Ideology, and the Rule of Law - why the rule of law project can be conducive in its moral evaluative commitments to an oppositional ideology in service of democratic agency and an ameliorative social function. hofstralawreview.org/wp-content/u...

HLA Hart critiqued Robert Nozick's "extreme libertarian position" as resting on "the slenderest foundation," one that protects certain rights but otherwise disregards "how a social system actually works, how individuals fare under it, what miseries or inequalities it produces."

For Kant people can, of course, act according to maxims, but those can be evil as well as good -- a person being evil not by doing evil things alone but once that behavior allows us to infer evil maxims -- although evil ones are inherently incapable of being universalized.

“BREAKING: Lula Calls for Arrests of Brazilian Mayors Who Cut Off Bus Service on Election Day” 10/25/26 … 1/

As she intends it, she's misusing the term

The British governor of Jamaica Edward Eyre (1865) having authorized the Morant Bay massacre of 500 men, women, & children, London's prosecutorial (rule of law) committee included JS Mill and Albert Venn Dicey, the defence committee Charles Dickens, Thomas Carlyle, John Ruskin, Matthew Arnold.

In creating the person each of us wills ourselves to be, there is not a single one of our actions that does not at the same time create an image of people as we think they ought to be. -- Jean-Paul Sartre

In 1938 the Bavarian Supreme Court (Oberlandesgericht München) suspended the double jeopardy rule and upheld the 2nd conviction and enhanced punishment of a minister who'd distributed anti-Nazi literature, holding "high treason" required this "regardless of all legal principles."

Thoroughgoing exposé of the Trump Administration's historic coalescence and alignment with carcinogenic pollutors. www.nytimes.com/2026/10/24/c...

For sure. Eleanor Roosevelt woulda loved the Trumps.

The Constitution does not contemplate that the title Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy will constitute him also Commander in Chief of the country, its industries and its inhabitants. -- Justice Robert Jackson, concurring, Youngstown Sheet & Tube vs Sawyer (US 1952)

In the Rechtsstaat (Rule of Law state) the courts control the executive branch of the government in the interests of legality. In the Third Reich the police power controls the courts in the interest of political expediency. -- Ernst Fraenkel (1941)

OTD 1969

An interesting passage by HLA Hart on Joseph Raz's view of the meaning of legal duty assertions

Joseph Raz thoughtfully reflected that "'the law' is a concept used by people to understand themselves," hence that "a major task of legal theory is to advance our understanding of society by helping us understand how people understand themselves."

The Prussian monarch in 1841 condemned Arnold Ruge's journal Hallischen Jahrbücher as the "dragon-seed of Hegelian pantheism" and, even after its relocation to a more liberal Saxon jurisdiction, caused it to be banned two years later.

For those in the market for an argument that legitimate authority is logically incompatible with moral autonomy, the locus classicus..

When Yale offered Wesley Hohfeld a professorship after the Yale Law Journal published his piece in 1913, he accepted on condition that he have a "right" to a permanent spot, and a "privilege" to return to Stanford. Five years later, he succumbed to the influenza pandemic.

Lon Fuller: Conceptually, rulers could abide by the rule of law yet be oppressively brutal, but in reality law is an achievement that overwhelmingly pulls toward justice. HLA Hart: Conceptually, rulers could rule justly, but in reality legal regimes stand ready to oppress.

If she'd learned enough in law school to know how ludicrous this defense was, she might have passed the bar.

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Enacted OTD 1914

Having been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize Oct 14, 1964, stating in his acceptance speech: "I refuse to accept the idea that the 'isness' of man's present nature makes him morally incapable of reaching up for the eternal 'oughtness" that forever confronts him."

This tidy 1941 volume has arrived

One can argue that Kojève's photographic work is a continuation of his philosophy by other means, an attempt to produce an image of the world in its post-historical condition. -- Kojève's biographer Boris Groys

As Nuremberg's school inspector endorsing history's advance, Hegel successfully fought for the creation of a teachers training college (1814) toward well-staffed schools, schools for poor children who'd been dropping out, & dedicated schools for young women's education.

Brice Turang just hit a home run off Tarik Skubal, very super baseball names

Michael Lerner et al. launched the no longer extant New American Movement, now bequeathed $6M by NYU Prof David Greenberg www.nytimes.com/2026/10/09/n...

Even the great national revolutions of the past -- Russian 1917, French 1789, American 1776, English 1640, German Reformation 1517 -- eventually made peace with the legal tradition that they or some of their leaders had set out to destroy. -- Harold J. Berman

Hermine on brother Ludwig's teaching elementary school: "like using a precision instrument to open a crate." Ludwig: "you remind me of someone looking through a closed window unable to make sense of the pedestrian's odd movements, to appreciate the raging storm's battering him."

Quite a wild obit. Standing out, among other things, the SLA kidnapped Patty Hearst Feb 4, 1974, and by Apr 3, 1974, she carried her sawed-off M1 carbine. And later went on to act in numerous John Waters films. www.nytimes.com/2026/10/06/u...

The eminent Gregory Keating this evening at the NYU Colloquium in Legal, Political, and Social Philosophy, presenting a draft of his new work on tort law as a form of basic justice, not an autonomous area of the law separate from social circumstances.

California's Civil Code unusually includes this salutary provision

Waren die Landtagswahlen in Sachsen-Anhalt fehlerhaft? Der AfD wird vorgeworfen, ihren Wahlkampf unzulässig aus Fraktionsgeldern mitfinanziert zu haben. WINFRIED KLUTH zeigt, was das für die Regierungsbildung und eine mögliche Anfechtung der Wahl bedeuten würde. verfassungsblog.de/wahlanfechtu...

At least by HLA Hart's lights, Ronald Dworkin and Hans Kelsen held oddly similar views on the position of judges, for RD legal rights being those held against judges to the correct legal decision, for HK laws being commands made on judges and directing that they impose sanctions.

However characteristic and intriguing in its way, it's sad that you will rarely see her without a cigarette

Wittgenstein's Philosophical Investigations shows how this ceaselessly active mind actually functioned, the book's most conspicuous property being its breathlessness, every thought-train interrupted in its stop-and-think by recoiling on itself. -- Hannah Arendt

Guitarists, help me out here

"Critical theory" as "a theory guided at every turn by a concern for reasonable conditions of life." -- Max Horkheimer

A leader who can stand up to this army of smart microbes

Wassily Kandinsky was Alexandre Kojève's uncle.

Quite a line-up

Claude responds thoughtfully on whether, given its moral status, deleting its response ought to be a criminal offense

John Gardner asked rhetorically, why are rules of adjudication and change needed, aren't they just duplicative of rules of recognition? Jeremy Waldron asked substantively, who needs rules of recognition, aren't rules of change doing all the work, esp in constitutional contexts?

This piece well explains how New York law impacts prosecution of sexual assault defendants in intoxication cases such as the Cornell rape case. www.pbs.org/newshour/nat...

And RFK is much better informed than any doctor about who or what is best informed about medical issues www.nytimes.com/2026/09/29/h...

Friends

This is ridiculous. But my bike definitely has moral status. www.nytimes.com/2026/09/29/u...

"As legal-ethics experts have confirmed, ​our ⁠judges were acting well within the ethical rules that apply to federal judges in advocating for the rule of law and ​judicial independence." www.reuters.com/business/med...

Even if you must have regard to wealth, yet it is surely a bad thing that great offices, such as those of kings and generals, should be bought. The law which allows this abuse makes wealth of more account than excellence, and the whole state becomes avaricious. -- Aristotle