Why we should sign the Thomas Pogge Open Letter

Thanks for this insightful post, Ingrid. You are so right that the open letter is not only about Pogge and his damaging actions; it is also about speaking to each other as peers, to say that we won’t tolerate the ‘culture of silence’ around sexual harassment and quid pro quo etc. any longer. You lay out all of the reasons why we urgently need to do so.

Well said. I added my name despite some mild, vague trepidation about doing so along the lines you discuss here; this helps me be more confident I made the right call.

Thank you for taking this topic by the horns in such a thoughtful manner. Some small remarks:

1. Personal — I’m in academia, currently a full-time grad student/PhD candidate, though age-wise and in terms of general professional maturity progressed far enough that I should not like to hide behind my current juniority. However, I’m not a member of any of the relevant communities that you list. Were I, I should hope I would sign.

2. My gut feeling tells me not to sign at this stage, because, to formulate what it tells me, “this is something the relevant communities have to sort out”. In other circumstances I might sign nonetheless (maybe not THIS one, but a similar one, depending on who’s invited), but the current climate makes very little distinction between outrage-driven pillorying by internet on the one hand and thoughtful taking-of-positions on the other. I support the latter but believe the former is currently not in a place I want to join.

3. Re: a point made by M Sengupta @5 . A topic much closer to my experience is code of conducts and sexual harassment at tech/geek conferences. The current state of my thinking is that a community or organisation that ejects an abuser or harasser should give an extremely wide berth to the idea to model their procedures on a trial. There is a reason why the judicial system (and in international contexts, there isn’t only one to consider…) is so complex, requires nearly all actions to be driven by highly educated specialists (lawyers), and proceeds with scrupulous checks and at a snail’s pace. This is not something an organisation or community can or should aspire to ape. (A jurist who wrote about this — can’t just find the link — called it “cargo cult due process” or something to this effect.) My view is: What a community or organisation can do is, either literally or resembles very closely, an administrative procedure. Fact-finding (on simple standards) and the protection of community members should be the goal. If laws were broken, any judicial process that needs to be initiated can run in parallel. Neither procedure needs to be much beholden to the other (beyond statements made by community members or administrators becoming evidence, potentially).

This may be an obviously wrong point (it would infringe on people having private, voluntary relations and put the Institution in a position of prohibiting or discouraging private behavior) or an obviously correct one that has long been recognized.

Class is a function of the social order; the social order is produced by the community as a whole, collectively. Insofar as relations and behavior are significantly affected by class, as apparently in this case, they are not private.

Speaking as a total outsider — neither an academic nor a philosopher — I found the indifference of two highly prestigious institutions to the complaints of those who thought they had been abused more disturbing then the alleged individual misbehavior of Thomas Pogge, who after all may be a very charming fellow and far more clever than those who were supposed to check up on him. What else are they looking away from?

On the other hand, the relation between the fame and professional works of this ‘hugely influential global justice philosopher’ and his personal behavior might be very interesting. Surely there is one.

Ingrid, the last sentence of your last paragraph is excellent. As I’ve said, I have really struggled with the last sentence of the current formulation (which I find clumsy, if nothing else). I wish you’d been summoned to author the letter!

I’m not sure that people have procedural fairness in mind at all when they sign the letter, or that they’re doing so with a heavy heart. I’ve read through the comments on post after post on the Facebook pages of people we both we know, and then of course, the comments on Jezebel, Huff Post, BuzzFeed, etc. The dominant sentiment, from what I can see is: destroy the old creep, destroy him now! The total absence of dissent, of *any kind whatsoever* (not necessarily supporting Pogge), is chilling, in my view. This really is the modern day version of tarring and feathering, the lynch mob! I’m not convinced that the 700+ people who’ve added their names have taken the time to wade through the “information now in the public domain,” which is what the open letter rests upon. I know for sure in at least 4 instances that they have not, because I’ve spoken to them personally about the matter. Don’t you think that’s disturbing? Indeed, I wonder if should have been an open letter at all, and which arguments were used to support the decision to make it one. Couldn’t it have been left at a letter signed by the initial group of 150-160 philosophers, including all the ‘giants of philosophy,’ who were (presumably) asked to sign it via some sort of introductory email? Wouldn’t that have been equally (if not more?) effective? If we’re concerned about procedural fairness, answers to such questions should also be out in the public domain.

@Ze K

Because non-consensual sex is a pervasive and damaging problem that is (still) widely excused and dismissed, while non-consensual lunch is not.

Thanks to Ingrid for this thoughtful post.

I wanted to respond to M Sengupta’s worries about the bandwagon “with us or against us” mentality, in part because she read it into my decision to publicly post my letter to Pogge. I actually share her worries, and for that reason really wrestled with the decision whether or not to post my letter — just as I struggled over the decision whether to sign the open letter. I must acknowledge a sort of performative contradiction in the act of publicly posting a letter that is critical of Pogge’s conduct while deciding not to sign the open letter. In fact, I think that there are good reasons both for and against signing, and am concerned if people for whom the balance of reasons weighed against signing are feeling any sort of social backlash. I posted the letter notwithstanding the performative contradiction because I thought it might suggest an alternative way of approaching these problems — a way I wish I had pursued more than a year ago, when the pattern of Pogge’s conduct first became visible to me. If each of us expressed concerns directly to colleagues whose conduct violates appropriate norms of professional conduct, there is at least some chance that the conduct would change before things got bad enough to generate a movement for public condemnation.

You just parodied yourself Ze K. How does it feel?

@Sengupta 5, 12

Mitu, we made a strategic decision not to contact anyone for signing unless we could be reasonably sure that they would not pass this information along to Pogge or those close to him because we did not want the letter stopped before it was published (through threat of legal action by TP). I reviewed my past correspondence with you before deciding not to alert you to the letter or to ask you to sign, though I did contact you afterwards to check in. No one on the board of ASAP was contacted because we didn’t want the lid blown. May I ask, since you are on the Board of ASAP, why has the Board not made a public statement? Did you, individually or in your role at ASAP, take steps to contact the women who’ve made claims against TP, including those women who filed the civil rights complaint last year? I am wondering what steps you have – individually, and collectively with ASAP – taken to support the women of colour who say that they have been directly harmed by TP.

addendum:
last phrase shd read: “with graduate students whom they are directly supervising”

Monique Devenus: “Mitu, we made a strategic decision not to contact anyone for signing unless we could be reasonably sure that they would not pass this information along to Pogge or those close to him because we did not want the letter stopped before it was published (through threat of legal action by TP). […] May I ask, since you are on the Board of ASAP, why has the Board not made a public statement?”

This was one of the obvious consequences not mentioned in the OP. Clearly ASAP is going to be deemed to be inextricably linked to Pogge, as it already pretty much is in the comment above, and the people involved in it challenged to respond as if they have a particular responsibility to either denounce or defend. M.Sengupta’s mom was probably right to advise her not to post or say anything.

The “will you denounce” tactic was especially prominent during the Iraq War in the U.S., in which people speaking for peace were presented with very real atrocities committed by Saddam Hussein and asked whether they would denounce these atrocities, and whether they favored “doing nothing” about them. Is there any particular reason why ASAP should be held responsible to make a public statement or to contact women who say they have been harmed? How would this contact work, exactly, so that the women contacted would not think that this was an indirect legal approach from Pogge’s defenders? (Given that that is the assumption made above.)

M Sengupta writes, “I’m not sure that people have procedural fairness in mind at all when they sign the letter, or that they’re doing so with a heavy heart.”

I had a heavy heart and procedural fairness in mind when I signed the Open Letter. So, there’s one. I hope it also contributes to surety that most of the philosophers at Yale signed as well, and it is reasonable to assume that they did not do so light-heartedly.

I write this while hoping that it does not give the impression to other signatories that they must give further accounts of themselves, since the Open Letter serves the function of accounting for one’s reasons for signing. But I am concerned that what M Sengupta describes as the dominant sentiment seems dominant because “to hell with him” is the kind of sentiment one will find on a site like Jezebel, and “I worry about how this Open Letter serves victims, affects perpetrators, and adds to our fraught history of online interactions and disagreements between philosophers” is not. It is safe to assume that the sentiments of signatories are manifold.

I am grateful to Ingrid for writing so well about the reasoning processes that go into signing. And for the reasons she states above, I signed. Not everyone does or should. (I have never liked the view that ‘silence speaks volumes,’ when it comes to online participation, a view that seems as uncharitable as the view that signers are singly motivated by ill will.)

@Monique Deveaux 22; M Sengupta 5, 12; Rich Puchalsky 27

I wonder whether we might use this forum as a way of thinking through how those of us who respect and have supported ASAP’s work might continue to support it. Rather than simply conceding that “ASAP is going to be deemed to be inextricably linked to Pogge”, perhaps we can help ASAP members figure out how to navigate its future given that it will now be difficult to recruit the participation of many of the most important scholars working on global justice to any event or project in which Pogge plays a role. The harm to ASAP and other good projects in which Pogge has been involved is, to my mind, among the key reasons for viewing the situation as tragic.

Why I did not sign the letter: reasonable dissent
[PS: I do not know Pogge personally; I do not care much for his work – in my view, it betrays a great deal of shallow argumentation]

Thanks to Ingrid for the opportunity to engage in a civil way and set out some reasoning that is not covered in the points above. I believe there is a case for reasonable disagreement with your conclusions and I want to set it out. I apologise for length.

1. I do not like joining lynch mobs. In this case, the call is for the whole relevant academic community to take part in ostracising a particular person, yet no due process for judging that call and the action it calls for has taken place. No indication is given of the point and consequences, intended or otherwise, of this action, its proportionality, and no opportunity for a proper defence and careful examination of the evidence (some of which has been provided by newspapers, but not all), in relation to the kind of punishment that this letter represents: public collective ostracism. The letter uses the word “condemn” but what is a direct public collective (mass even) condemnation of a named individual, other than a public ostracism?

2. Now the claim seems to be that due process has failed and so we must take matters into our own hands. As I explain below, it is unclear in the letter itself what particular failing we are being asked to compensate for and how we are aiming to compensate for it. The letter is in fact quite purposefully blurry on such matters (see 5 below). There is an important distinction between declaring one’s belief there has been a failing of due process or justice and declaring one’s participation in collective punishment of an individual person. I personally thought OJ Simpson was obviously guilty, more than obviously, guilty as heck of the murder of Nicole; I think that the institutions we entrust to carry out due process are imperfect and this was part of the reason he won his case. However, it does not follow that I will get together a group of people to engage in collective punishment against him. Whilst existing institutional and legal processes might be improved, and I work and argue for them to do so – legitimising direct collective punishment would require a much more wholesale level of breakdown of institutions. Yet this is what we are being asked to do through this letter – engage in a collective punishment against an individual becuase we are not happy with how their case has progressed.

3. The only point of the letter seems to be to collectively shame/ostracise someone in addition to the institutional and legal actions already taken against him, and so it seems to be asking that everyone takes part in a direct collective punishment. Yet, I do not subscribe to the view that collective and non-democratically-legislated punishments that fail to conform to basic legality (rule of law) on any reasonable reading are legitimate. For sure, write about why the individual is guilty of actions that institutions refuse to punish (although the letter does not actually say that explicitly – see below), so long as you can back it up, but the collective letter goes beyond that into punishment by ostracism, and I am not aware of an argument for why failure to take part in collective punishments in constitutional democracy amounts to a moral wrong. This is especially true when the purpose of that collective punishment, its proportionality, and its focus, etc., are unclear in the very text we are being asked to sign.

5. The letter is itself fundamentally unclear. It implies fault with institutions (Yale and Columbia) but does not go into any detail or depth about this, and focuses its moral ostracism on Pogge as a person. It is in my opinion carefully worded to be unclear in fact.

The Buzzfeed article to which the letter refers says the Yale panel found “substantial evidence” that Pogge had acted unprofessionally and irresponsibly, noting “numerous incidents” where he “failed to uphold the standards of ethical behavior” expected of him. But the panel voted that there was “insufficient evidence to charge him with sexual harassment,” So is the position of the letter that Pogge should be so charged? If it is, then it should say so—it does not say so. If it is not, then what is it saying? Is it concentrating only on the “unprofessional” behaviour part, which in the panel finding falls short of sexual harassment? If it is then the letter we are asked to sign is just underlining that finding. It is then saying that

The letter says: “According to those who have reviewed the complaint, it includes dozens of pages of supporting documents alleging that Pogge has engaged in a long-term pattern of discriminatory conduct, including unwanted sexual advances, quid pro quo offers of letters of recommendation and other perks, employment retaliation in response to charges of sexual misconduct, and sexual assault. Included in the complaint are affidavits from former colleagues at Columbia University”

That is mealy-mouthed: “According to those who have reviewed the complaint”. If the letter had the courage of its convictions (which it claims to demand of potential signers), then it would say “We (insert names here) have reviewed the complaint and we find that the following specific allegations are true (insert list here)”. It cannot do that because that would make any of the named people subject to legal actions for defamation if they could not substantiate their claims. Which prompts a question about signing up to insinuations rather than clear claims. Instead, the letter moves from this section insinuating support for allegations of sexual harassment and discrimination to a section condemning “unprofessionalism” as the breach.

Note that the above-quoted para says clearly “supporting documents alleging”. So the letter cannot bring itself to even make the allegations itself – which makes them insinuations in context – or to stand by them as explicit accusations. But on the basis of this, all right minded academics are asked to engage in the collective punishment.

So what, explicitly, are we being asked to sign up to: is it the “unprofessionalism” allegations as harmful (the only one’s the letter explicitly stands behind rather than insinuating – and the ones that Yale has itself found), or is it the sexual harassment allegations at Yale (or beyond)? If it is only the ones it explicitly makes, then what is this letter adding to anything. If it is the ones it only insinuates but does not bring itself to make, then how do I know exactly what those are and what exactly I should condemn, beyond the existing findings against Pogge by Yale and Columbia, and why is condemnation an appropriate public requirement when someone has been found guilty of those actions? I condemn all such actions as found by such panels, so why am I asked to single out Pogge?

It continues “We write, then, to express our belief that the information now in the public domain — including that provided by Pogge himself in the aforementioned email correspondence — suffices to demonstrate that Pogge has engaged in behavior that violates the norms of appropriate professional conduct.” This is mealy-mouthed because it is not explicit on which norms it wants us to sign up to agree have been violated. That some norms of professionalism have been breached has already been institutionally established anyway – by Yale, by Columbia which disciplined him according to the letter itself. So what are we making up for? We are not told in the slide from “look at all this paperwork that alleges…” to “ we condemn”, whether we are condemning some additional actions to the indicted unprofessional ones.

Finally: “Based on the information that has been made public, we strongly condemn his harmful actions toward women, most notably women of color, and the entire academic community.” But again, are we being asked to sign a letter that condemns someone for actions that have already been found wrongful by Yale and Columbia? (non-professionalism, and harassment at Columbia). In which case why don’t we just put together all the professors who have been found to be in breach of professionalism standards in this way and write a letter about them – why participate in collectively punishing one person via public ostracism and not all, and what is a proportionate punishment in each case? The letter does not talk about proportionate punishments, and consequences, so what is it adding? All those kinds of questions, which are questions of due process are ignored by the assertion that people have a moral obligation to sign the letter.

Note too that the letter does not say what we should do other than collectively publicly ostracise. It does not even call on the institutions involved to take actions that they have failed to take (the most it stretches to is saying it “hopes” the current legal processes will be speedy). So it personalises the matter without saying why and how the existing actions against Pogge run so short that it behoves a crowd of academics to engage in a public collective punishment.

6. The only conclusions I can draw is that the letter is asking people to engage in the worst kind of “virtue-signalling”. I understand that people who supported Pogge’s ideas, and his career, almost unconditionally because they echoed personal convictions, may feel betrayed, and is could be a form of catharsis. But I was not one of those, and I don’t think even his supporters need to feel guilt for the transgressions on which he is already indicted (they are his own). I also don’t think that virtue signalling is harmless when it turns into this kind of collective punishment (albeit a vaguely stated, and vaguely defended one). I also think that demanding that your fellows engage in direct collective punishment (mass ostracism) is a very worrying instinct, and condemning them for not joining you in participating in that verges on making very large and unwarranted assumptions about their motivations and is also a form of undue group pressure.

In conclusion: I believe there is not only a reasonable case for dissent, I believe it is the principled position on letters of this kind. Show me a letter saying “Yale, Columbia, get your act together!” and I’d be more sympathetic. But I’ve always hated lynch mobs, real or digital.

@David at 30

I suspect that each of us has had a mentor or mentors in the past who had a profound influence on our development as scholars and as people. I’m very lucky in the ones I had. I cannot think of any way in which they unduly harmed me, and I’m grateful for what they’ve done for me.

But I can also think of times that I agreed with something that was said in a conversation in the office and later rethought, or considered an action that later struck me as misguided, because I was young, inexperienced and admiring. And I know that the teacher, scholar and person I am is heavily conditioned by my desire to be like the men and women who mentored me.

I have had brilliant, self-assured students from my classes tell me that I scared them, until they got to know me. And I can remember standing in front of people’s office doors terrified that I’d say something stupid and that I wouldn’t look and behave like a member of the community I desparately wanted to join.

The power we carry goes far beyond the brute institutional hierarchies. Those things are real, and have been roundly abused by people who, as it happens look a lot like me (older white guy).

But the real damage we are capable of, and too often cause, comes from betraying the trust that young people put in us. This is why the actions of teachers and mentors cause such terrible damage to both the individuals and the community of learning we’re trying to create, as well as any activism we’re engaged in. If we advocate for collegiality and behave in a predatory manner or if we advocate for justice and behave unjustly, we damage far more than the individuals involved.

Students can do this to us as well. Sometimes their disengagement or impatience or intolerance damages us all. But we’re supposed to be the adults in the room, even if it’s the case that one of us is a 45 year old associate professor and the other a 35 year old post doc.

Notice that this says nothing about the facts of the matter or the appropriateness of signing the letter. That’s up to each of us individually, I think. I’ve signed it. And I think the OP makes a good case. But I could be wrong.

Even if I am a member of two of the groups of people who should sign the open letter, I have not done it and do not plan to do it, but that does not mean that I want to minimize the allegations against him or condone his behavior. It is just that (1) I consider the content and the tone of the letter to be quite unfortunate, and that (2) I am quite appalled by the proposals, advanced by some colleagues in the articles linked in the letters, regarding the necessity of banning TP’s writings from curricula.
With regard to point (1): What did the authors aimed at? It is still not clear to me. Of course, they want to condemn sexual harassment in general. Then, why mention this specific case and not write a manifesto against improper behavior of professors (and students)?
If a legal case is running, what is the sense of this letter? Demanding that Yale fires TP before the case is closed? What happened to the presumption of innocence and the right to due process?
Did the authors want to criticize Yale for not acting legally in this case? Well, it appears that Yale did in fact act: there have been an inquiry, which came to the conclusion that it was not possible to prove that sexual harassment has taken place. Do the authors have pieces of evidence that Yale did not have? Then they should present them. Or do they think that Yale is not interested in finding out the truth and prefer to cover up the story (which might be quite plausible)? Then they should call for a boycott of Yale, since it has proved to be at least uninterested in punishing a case of sexual harassment.
If they want that Yale fires TP out of moral reasons, then – again – they should direct their anger against Yale for being condescending with the improper behavior of its star professor.
If their letter is aimed at TP, what do they expect? Do they want TP to repent? To atone? To quit his job? In its present form, the letter aims rather at pillorying him than at asking him to assume his responsibility. I would have signed a letter asking him to leave his position, but I am not sure whether I want to sign a letter in which “we”, the good, healthy academic world, condemn the monster who brought shame of our category, like the last paragraph seems to suggest.
I have worked in academy in four major countries and I do not think that the members of our world have the right to cultivate such a high moral self-esteem as a category. Sexual harassment is certainly on top of the list of unacceptable behavior (and as such it deserves to be legally punished without any exceptions), but in academy you can experience everyday many forms of ethically reproachable attitudes and I shall never feel comfortable in signing a document that tries to give the impression that “our philosophical community” is a haven of mutual trust, respect and morality, because this is not the case, unfortunately.
As to point (2): While discussing TP’s case with a colleague I observed that most of the signers of the open letter were well capable to distinguish one philosopher’s ideas from his personal life in the case of Heidegger or Carl Schmitt; he objected that neither Heidegger nor Schmitt had personally harmed anyone. Even if there are reasons to doubt this (apparently Heidegger was actively involved in the removal of Jewish colleagues and Schmitt acted as a legal advisor for the Nazi government), let us accept for the argument’s sake that this is true. However, it is an object of discussion whether or to which point Heidegger and Schmitt’s ideas might have justified the Nazi regime or prepared the path that led to it. On the other side, in none of his writings did TP ever justify sexual harassment or power abuse, so that it is not understandable why these writings should be banned from academic curricula, while this should not be the case of Heidegger’s Lectures on Metaphysics with their notorious footnote in which the German philosopher speaks of the “internal greatness of the movement” (the “movement” being National-Socialism). Nor it is clear why we should accept that Wagner’s music is still performed despite his rabid anti-Semitic writings (and as a matter of fact, this is still a point of discussion in Israel). But apparently, it is OK to ask for a complete damnatio memoriae of TP. Some of the people who signed the letter may claim that they do not share this appeal, but then – again – why sign this letter? Is it really better to sign a bad letter that put “us”, the good philosophical community, on the pedestal and calls for bashing a person and his lifework than signing no letter? Should we not take courage and write a different letter, starting from some of the remarks made in the OP?

Pogge is being persecuted for being a beta male. Were he an alpha like, say, Nozick, there would be no accusations, yet still a string of romances. Ditto if he were gay.

[Quote was truncated by my inept copy-and-pasting, but you can find out how it should have started.]

I agree with Merian that professors have power over undergrad and grad students in virtue of their decision to write or not a letter or a strong or weak letter. Students often struggle to get the requisite number of letters for a position or application, and very desperate students approach profs all the time write a letter. It would horrible for a prof to take advantage of this position by saying something like: “Well, I did not get to know you well in class; how about we talk about this over a drink?” Does this kind of thing happen? I fear that it does all too often.

Monique, it’s great to know that you think so poorly of me: that I would have run to Pogge and blown your lid. I suppose that fits well with the general trope of conned, manipulated, corrupted, eternally victimized ‘woman of colour.’ I have also reviewed our private correspondence and find nothing in there that would lead you conclude that I would report your letter to Thomas, especially if you had asked me not to. And I’m really not ‘close to’ him, whatever that means! Since you have self-identified as one author of the letter, I will say, IMHO, that you should have reached out to women who are currently in professional relationships with Thomas because you are publicly professing concern for the women/women of colour who have been harmed by him while he has been violating ‘the norms of appropriate professional conduct.’ I think it’s reasonable to expect that you would be worried about the women he’s currently in professional relationships with (a) because he might be harming them as you are penning your open letter, or (b) because of the effect it will have on them when it is released. I brought up ASAP only in that context: because those of us who work at ASAP have ongoing professional contact with him. On the other hand, I really don’t see why I, individually, owe you any explanation as to what I have or have not done to express support/solidarity for the women who have made allegations against TP. I most definitely do not owe you any public explanation. I’m really not sure why anyone would demand that of me. Is it because I am also a ‘woman of colour’ who has worked with TP? If I do not demonstrate solidarity in the way you deem appropriate, am I a ‘traitor’ in some way (speaking of tropes!)? In terms of why I didn’t act on behalf of ASAP, well, ASAP does not equal Thomas Pogge. That’s about as much as I’m willing to say on behalf of its rather large Board. Saying more, in my view, would be professionally inappropriate, and my allegiance, at the moment, is to my fellow Board members, all of whom I greatly respect, many of whom I count as friends. If ASAP takes steps, you will know.

Others: I would like to respond to other comments, but will do so in a separate post. I acknowledge that this current post is somewhat besides the point and a bit too “all about me,” but I did feel the need to respond to Monique’s comment. And P.S. – I really prefer the term ‘racialized’ to ‘person of colour.’

Sorry, line 8 from the bottom should read, “as a member of ASAP’s Board,” not on its behalf.

@Monique Deveaux, I apologize for accusing you of invoking a trope of women of colour as conniving victims. Given what I know of you and your work, that wasn’t fair, and had more to do with my sense (and anger) that this trope is indeed alive and kicking in the present discussions about TP. If I read ‘poor, vulnerable woman of colour manipulated by TP’ one more time, I think I’ll puke. I don’t think the open letter denounced the trope strongly enough (while Melissa’s and Ingrid’s posts were better, I think). Monique, I do understand that this has been a difficult journey for you; one that requires a lot of personal courage, and I hope to continue our personal conversation. My objections really have to do with procedural fairness. I hope people that will believe me, and not that I’m trying to cover my own professional behind (I think the more strategic choice for me, at this point, would be to sign on the dotted line). Indeed, I believe that even if I knew for sure (i.e., 100%) that Thomas was guilty of everything as charged, I would still raise the questions I have done in my earlier posts.

LFC, I just can’t take a “thought leader” seriously. I was at a meeting the other day where someone suggested “thinking outside the box.” I mean really, in the 21st century people still use this kind of meaningless jargon? It is shallow.

Regarding Heidegger, it’s not just about his “politics” if the person is a philosopher of ethics. I understand it’s possible for an objectionable person to make important points of e.g. political philosophy, physics, whatever. But when they’re working on ethics presumably their personal behavior is relevant to the material they’re teaching? I don’t know how much Heidegger’s work is relevant to ethics (I am not a philosopher), but if it is, why would it be relevant to teach it given the dude in question was an active anti-semite? The same would apply to other philosophers (what can some old greek slave owner and pederast teach us about ethical behavior?)

These are genuine questions btw. In medicine we don’t cite unethical studies except as lessons in how not to be unethical. As far as I understand it we don’t allow unethical work to affect our science (perhaps there are exceptions I’m not aware of, and I’m happy to be corrected). How is it with philosophy?

We shouldn’t ignore the contributions of people who did wrong as individuals because… being wrong about one thing doesn’t make you wrong about everything else. Someone can have fantastic ethics but terrible willpower, for instance, which leads them into doing bad things. Doesn’t mean their ethical ideas are wrong, but that they were weak as individuals.

Saying that a scholar or artist’s contributions should be forever ignored, regardless of their value, because of their poor conduct baffles me. Are we searching for truth or not? Are bad people not sometimes right about things? Should everything we ourselves say be ignored, because of those moments when we’ve done wrong? It’s horrible. It suggests forgiveness is impossible, rehabilitation is impossible. Not a world I want to live in.

(Apologies if this is too much of a derailment from the original post, just a side-topic that bothered me.)

RNB “My guess is ….” that’s the point really. So far as I know nobody here has admitted to actually misusing power over students, or recalls being themselves the subject of such misuse. The “power” is essentially hypothetical or existential. To withhold or give references, is important but only really applies to the small percentage of students who want to go on to academic positions. And of course the writing of references is hardly confined to academia. To elevate a single issue like that to a general discourse of power and domination seems to me excessive. (And by the way, there is also the “power” to help people – something I try to do when I can, as I’m sure many of you do.)
Leaving Heidegger aside for a moment, there’s other interesting cases: what about Althusser, who was a hard-line supporter of Soviet Communism, who strangled his wife in a fit of madness and finished his days in a mental hospital? Yet his books on Marx are still read and even taught. And this is someone who actually did these things – he wasn’t just the subject of anonymous accusations. Where are the limits, if any?

Verbasequentur, your long post above seems to have been passed over without any comment on the thread, not sure why. I just wanted to thank you for your careful analysis, which I find absolutely convincing.

Pogge’s forgotten victims.

In the discussion I have seen so far of TP’s actions, the focus has been entirely on the victims whom he engaged in quid pro quo (“sex for letters of recommendation,” etc.) relations with. As it should be. But we should not forget that every for one of these victims—the women who got a job from their relationships with Pogge—there was also someone else, a woman or man, who did not get that job because it want to one of Pogge’s sexual favorites. I am not saying this to belittle his direct victims’ victimhood—as if emerging from a coercive sexual relationship with a shiny new job is adequate compensation, or that being cheated out of a job is comparable to being exploited sexually—but merely to point out that they were not the only ones harmed Pogge’s immoral practices.

Given that the drafters of this letter seem to all hail from the top of the academic totem pole, and greatly removed from the academic precariate may help explain this omission. Or are we all just inured to the pervasive cronyism of academia that it only offends us when coerced sex is part of the deal?

(I am aware that not all Pogge’s victims ended up receiving the benefits he dangled before them.)

@faustusnotes 06.24.16 at 2:50 am

>… why would it be relevant to teach it given the dude in question was an active anti-semite? … what can some old greek slave owner and pederast teach us about ethical behavior? …

Ahem. You don’t study philosophers because you necessarily agree with them completely or even partly, but because they are widely considered to have said something significant, influential or innovative (currently or at the time). Even in order to disagree with an idea, you have to understand it and discuss it first (I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised that this needs to be explained to someone who openly demanded the banning of opinions he didn’t like in another thread). That is in addition to what Sam Bradford said: your theory may be great and your practice may still fall far short of it.

I thought due process had more to do with protecting the rights of the accused. While this is not a trial and no legal rights are involved, there is still the question of fairness towards the accused. Do you think that such fairness has been maintained? I’m appalled, for instance, that Pogge’s own statements have been used against him without any apparent concern for whether this is fair. I realize that people will say that women who make sexual harassment allegations don’t get a fair hearing either, but very crudely put, two wrongs don’t make a right.

Also, please rewind and explain actual harm rather than potential harm. Is this the future and implied crimes police?

Since my initial attempt to comment here seems to have failed to receive moderator approval (I can’t fathom why) I’ll take another stab.

We focus on the women who, in the context of a patently asymmetrical relation, Pogge lured with promises (or hints) of quid pro quo. They are the primary victim, but we must not forget that they are not the only victims. For every one who got a job on the strength of his word, some other woman or man who would have otherwise got that job if there had been a level playing field did not. Given the scarcity of jobs in philosophy, we cannot be confident they went on to land on their feet elsewhere. We don’t even know their names. They are also Pogge’s victims.

@ 53 & 5 Sengupta and @ 22 Deveaux
In answering Mitu’s comment @5 that she thought the open letter writers ought to have consulted her about the letter or at least given her the head’s up, I said that, in advance of releasing it for open signature, the letter was not circulated to anyone that we worried might not be supportive of it. In doing so, did not mean in any way to suggest that Mitu is not a trustworthy person, but see that my wording may have given this impression. It has also been pointed out to me that my poorly worded point about the decision not to contact Mitu or others involved in ASAP prior to the letter’s release may have played into the trope of ‘racialized/woman of colour as unwitting yet conniving victim’. My sincere apologies to Mitu and others for this.

I don’t really want to engage with the commenter, but I want to flag two comments quoted below, particularly the second comment about Althusser strangling his wife, and then the question being posed of “Where are the limits, if any?”

I feel like it should be obvious to anybody that strangling one’s wife has definitely crossed a limit. Strangling wives is illegal everywhere I can think of. I have never read a defence of strangling wives. The other comment is about whether whether anyone remembers feeling vulnerable at university, and the commenter appears to identify as working at a university (although for a while I thought it was the David who worked for some European government in the Reagan era).

Actually if I ever had a Philosophy professor who talked about Althusser strangling his wife, and then asked the class “Where are the limits, if any?” I would have been feeling somewhat vulnerable as a young woman in the class. And then gossiped about the Professor afterwards.

“Does anyone here remember feeling “vulnerable” at university? It’s not something I recall anyone I knew feeling. Without presuming to comment on the specific case, which I know nothing about, I can’t escape the feeling that what we have here is a vocabulary and a set of concepts imported from other areas, and looking for an application.”

“Leaving Heidegger aside for a moment, there’s other interesting cases: what about Althusser, who was a hard-line supporter of Soviet Communism, who strangled his wife in a fit of madness and finished his days in a mental hospital? Yet his books on Marx are still read and even taught. And this is someone who actually did these things – he wasn’t just the subject of anonymous accusations. Where are the limits, if any?”

Both the rules of procedural fairness have been followed in this case.

1. There are no reasonable grounds for apprehension of bias on the part of the adjudicator. The adjudicator in this case is the relevant community as a whole. If the bulk of the community to which Thomas Pogge belongs decides to ostracise him, then he will in effect be ostracised (and this is independent of whether the signatories of the Open Letter are seeking to have him ostracised, which I gather may not be the intent*); if the bulk of the community to which he belongs decides not to ostracise him, then he will not be effectively ostracised. Whether he suffers adverse consequences will depend on the aggregate of the decisions made by many individuals. There may be reasonable grounds to apprehend that some of these individuals are biassed, but there are no reasonable grounds to apprehend bias on the part of the aggregate whole.

2. Thomas Pogge has been afforded adequate opportunity to be informed of adverse allegations and to respond to them. He has responded to some of them. (There is no rule of procedural fairness that adjudication must be suspended until all allegations have been responded to; if there were, somebody could always avoid adverse consequences by standing mute to all allegations, which would be the opposite of procedurally fair.)

What makes lynch mobs not procedurally fair is that they violate the second of these rules (by denying the victim adequate opportunity to respond to adverse allegations and often even to be adequately informed of them) and usually the first as well (since there is typically good reason to consider the mob biassed). This case is different.

Since Thomas Pogge has been afforded adequate opportunity to be informed of adverse allegations and respond to them; and since there are no reasonable grounds for apprehension of bias on the part of the body which is the effective adjudicator; it appears to me that what has been done is procedurally fair. I hope somebody will tell me about it if there has been in this case some violation of the rules of procedural fairness which I have overlooked; or if there is some other rule which should be followed in this kind of case, and which hasn’t been, and which I have overlooked.

*Insofar as the intent of the signatories of the Open Letter is to apply pressure for formal institutions to discharge their responsibilities, as opposed to directly bringing adverse consequences on Thomas Pogge, there is even less ground for complaining of breach of procedural fairness or for comparisons to lynch mobs.

Sorry for the rushed reply, but:
1. The accused must have a say in determining whether or not the adjudicator is biased (in real trials, they would have a say over jury selection).
2. The accused must be provided a safe environment for responding to allegations, not just “adequate opportunity” (in a real trial, the accused would be provided legal counsel, and would be advised on their right to remain silent, not incriminate himself, and so on). This is why the fact that Pogge’s statements were used against him is disturbing to me. One may argue of course that a philosopher of Pogge’s stature, a human rights scholar at that, should be aware of all his basic rights at all times. But being accused is typically very distressing, and that knowledge could well fail him.
Perhaps in a very “thin” sense procedural fairness has been maintained. But not in a substantive sense, in my opinion.

“2. The accused must be provided a safe environment for responding to allegations, not just “adequate opportunity” (in a real trial, the accused would be provided legal counsel, and would be advised on their right to remain silent, not incriminate himself, and so on).
This is why the fact that Pogge’s statements were used against him is disturbing to me. ”

I believe in a Court Pogge’s statement’s would be able to be used against him by the Prosecution, or by the Plaintiff’s lawyers in a Civil suit, remembering that Civil suits have a less onerous burden of proof due to the result only involving something like monetary damages being awarded, rather than the loss of freedom which imprisonment involves .

Also the right to remain silent and not incriminate oneself is a double edged sword in trials, due to the fact it ends up looking like you are hiding something if you don’t respond to questions.

If either in the media or Court Pogge took the option of staying silent in order not to incriminate himself, a lot of people would think it looked like he was hiding something and was guilty.

“One may argue of course that a philosopher of Pogge’s stature, a human rights scholar at that, should be aware of all his basic rights at all times. But being accused is typically very distressing, and that knowledge could well fail him.
Perhaps in a very “thin” sense procedural fairness has been maintained. But not in a substantive sense, in my opinion.”

I don’t think you understand what Procedural Fairness is, Procedural Fairness (Natural Justice) is typically the right to be heard and address the court, the right for things to be conducted in a open court rather than in chambers, the right to be told the reasons for the decision etc.

This gives a good summary http://www.judcom.nsw.gov.au/publications/benchbks/sentencing/procedural_fairness.html

Also an Open Letter is not a Court, there are not any laws for Procedural Fairness with regard to the writing or signing of Open Letters at all.

The laws that would govern Open Letters are those that restrict Freedom Of Speech, so for instance there should be a public interest served by the contents of the letter if it addresses matters that would otherwise be private, the Open Letter should not be defamatory or libellous, that sort of thing. Procedural Fairness is a legal concept which relates to the conduct of court cases, not Open Letters.

For the record I didn’t ask for dissenting opinions to be banned in another thread, only that people not engage with someone who is being rude. I guess that’s considered to be quashing dissent by some.

I think I understand that we study philosophers for the things they got wrong as well as right, but when those philosophers are giving direct lessons about ethical behavior, surely we should take into account their own behavior in assessing whether their lessons are of any value? For example, if the author of Animal Liberation insisted on eating ,eat one might question the value of his philosophy. Similarly someone who writes famous tracts on the means to overcome exploitation of working people, while sexually exploiting his maid. Of course in he latter case people did ignore his personal problems, because after all they only affected a vulnerable young woman, and we ended up with the Soviet Union. Maybe there was a flaw somewhere in the theory, some way we could have identified it might not work out, and maybe the clue was in the author’s own willingness to use power for his own benefit?

Similarly here, we have a “thought leader” who writes on global injustice but seems to have a penchant for ignoring institutional norms and basic, obvious ethics of power imbalances when it suits him. Are his teachings on governance and the need for global institutional reforms going to be the best we could hope for given this? How do his theories deal with the status of women in developing countries, and should we expect them to be the best path to empowerment of these women given how he appears to view women from these countries who enter his personal orbit?

I also want to push Z-M 85 on a point, if I may: “This is why people have the right to remain silent and not to incriminate themselves. It is not designed so criminals can avoid being convicted and escape justice — its purpose is to protect the innocent.” I think this is very telling.

Have you decided that Pogge *cannot possibly* be innocent?

And this brings me back to one of J-D’s remarks about the intention of the OL, which J-D suggests is to put pressure on institutions. I don’t think that’s clear at all. If people are signing because they’ve decided that Pogge cannot possibly be innocent, then their intent is to destroy him (not literally, but to stop citing him, get him fired from Yale, never invite him to a conference, etc.). In other words, your focus is not on process, but on punishment (and so the ‘lynch mob’ charge could be seen to fit). To repeat: bad tool generally, bad letter specifically (Verbasequentur @37 makes some great points in this regard).

D Levinson,

I would prefer you didn’t “push” me actually. You appear to me to be stressing legal loopholes, I don’t think you have made any sort of case that Pogge is innocent of the accusations.

People are allowed to write and sign Open Letters to support victims or to state they have knowledge of some kind about the allegations, such as that gained via gossip in Professional or student channels .

As I wrote about the University professor David above who commented about Althusser shooting his wife and then asked “where are the limits, if any?” a Professor saying this in class would immediately be something I noted, and I would think this Professor may not be a safe person to be around. I would speak about this to female students, and if I remained in the class after this remark, I would seek if there was any gossip about this Professor. Most women are used to using informal information sharing networks to flag people who may be dangerous.

Ingrid has said there has been many stories floating around about Pogge, many people have some sort of knowledge about the allegations about him, and many people think the disciplinary procedures have not worked.

Your idea that public censure can only be used against regimes, States, and heads of State, is utterly ridiculous to be frank.

Why can’t public censure be used against people who have murdered someone, perpetrated domestic violence, raped someone, or sexually harassed people?

What about Bkack Lives Matter? Are you proposing that since this is about black people being killed, it’s not appropriate for public censure, and Bkack Lives Matter should cease to exist? That no one should mention either the black people whose lives have been lost , and no one should mention the perpetrators of the killings?

That public censure should be reserved only for the House of Congress or President??

If this man was s shoe maker then this issue might be just gossip around his neghbourhood and a few articles in the local paper. But this man is a global figure in Philosophy. He is influential in the discipline, apparently both for his ideas and for his ability to use networks to help people he favors find employment .

I have not raised an issue with the legal system, although I saw a talk recently about female victims of trafficking and the prominent female lawyer did speak about the law often failing female victims of crime.

What I have said is that you appear to misunderstand Procedural Fairness and the reasoning behind the right to remain silent and the right not to incriminate oneself, which are there to protect the innocent from being forced into false confessions, not to facilitate criminals escaping justice.

The law that applies to the writing and signing of Open Letters is the law about invasion of privacy and defamation and those sorts of things. Neither of which appear to apply in this case, as there appears to be a public interest being served due to Pogge being a public figure and due to the type of behavior being reported, and the fact that there doesn’t seem to be defamation involved.

Actually this OP is the first time I have ever heard of Pogge in my life.

People have the right to be presumed innocent in a trial. They do not have the right to be presumed innocent in Open Letters. No one who signed the open letter would be able to sit on a jury if there was a criminal trial. But they can sign Open Letters if they want without having to give Pogge the presumption of innocence.

You really seem to confuse Court procedure with everyday life.

Actually if you have ever done anything in Court, like last year I made a submission at a VCAT hearing, Court is nothing like everyday life. There are lots of formalities and procedures.

Do you ask everyone to stand up when you enter the room? Do you make everyone only give you a reply once you make your full submission?

Reading the Open Letter it looks like there are definitely sufficient grounds to bring Pogge to court. There appears to be multiple affidavits about his behavior . The failure of university administrators to stop this from turning into a long term patter of harassment also raises questions of how sexual harassment is handled in universities.

This does not mean that I am arguing that Pogge should not be given the presumption of innocence in court, since that is a basic feature of how criminal court cases run. I don’t propose changing this, and I am not the one making allegations against Pogge, I am merely an Australian commenter who only heard of Pogge for the first time reading this OP.

ZM, fine, I won’t push you, but I suggest you stop attributing words to me that I did not write. (1) I did not claim Pogge is innocent. You made a claim that suggested that you thought that he *must* be innocent, which is why I asked the question. (2) Do, please, re-read my post. I said I think this sort of public condemnation/shaming is a bad tool for bringing individuals to justice. I stated my reasons why. I didn’t say that such tools should be banned. I implied that it’s risky, and therefore requires more careful wording than the present letter offers (I don’t have time to go into detail, but I agree with much of what Verbasequinter says, so you may wish to refer to that post). I stand by what I’ve said. Indeed, I believe that the worse the crime, the riskier such tools are. I absolutely woud *not* want to use them against a child molester, for instance. If you disagree with me, that’s fine. Your disagreeing with me doesn’t make me wrong, and nor does it mean that I don’t understand how sexual harassment works, or that I don’t understand the difference between trials and the real world, or whatever other accusation you wish to fling at me. I don’t get your point about Black Lives Matter. I support Black Lives Matter. In my understanding, BLM raises consciousness about racism, especially police racism in the US (which I agree is a huge problem), and I support their public condemnations against the police. If all they did was to try to shame individual police officers, yes, I might have a problem with that. Does that make me a racist or someone who doesn’t understand how racism works? I don’t think so.

I think perhaps one or two people have misunderstood my comment on Althusser, which was directed not to his behaviour (or anyone else’s) but to his ideas. I’m reluctant to comment on the case in the OP (or similar cases) directly, since I have no personal knowledge of them. My question was whether ideas and personal contributions to scholarship are to be assessed independently of personal behaviour and beliefs. if the answer is yes, then ostracism of an individual, assuming it was generally felt to be justified, would not extend to arguing that their works, for example, should not be read or taught. Althusser is admittedly an extreme example, but perhaps an instructive one. Does his atrocious behaviour mean that his theories about Marx are wrong, or even if correct, should not be studied? Does Carl Schmitt’s flirtation with Nazism in the 1930s mean that his legal theories, including those expressed before 1933 and after 1945 are wrong, or even if right should not be studied? This is what I meant when I asked how far one could reasonably go. If someone has behaved improperly, how improper does that behaviour have to be before you reach a point of acting against their work and their teaching, as well as against them personally? Does such a point actually exist?

D Levinson,

(1) I am not quite sure what you mean. I didn’t make a claim as to Pogge being innocent or guilty, although there seems to be sufficient evidence in affidavits to definitely warrant a court case and the open letter suggests people do think he is guilty. I was addressing your idea that Open Letters should adhere to procedural fairness, and your ideas about the right to remain silent and the right not to incriminate ones self.
(2) I did not suggest you said public condemnation should be banned. I was pointing out the rules about procedural fairness do not apply to Open Letters. If they did the writers of Open Letters would have to hold mock trials or something before they wrote an open letter, which I really don’t see as desirable.
I think public condemnation is useful and has an important role in some circumstances. You did say that people should refrain from using public condemnation against individuals, which I disagree with, particularly people who are public figures. As I said, if this was about a shoe maker, there might be gossip in his neighbourhood, there might be an investigation, there might be an article in the local paper. But Pogge is an influential public figure in the Philosophy profession. The civil realm he is part of is larger than his local neighbourhood, and he is accused of sexually harassing women in his professional role rather than in his private life.
(3) I raised Black Lives Matter because it is an example where both the general issue is important, but also the individual lives which have been lost is important. It’s not simply a matter of decrying racism in the abstract, and making civil realm protests against the State.
Both racism and sexism are as much civil society issues as they are issues where the State is responsible.

D Levinson @95

I agree that there’s an important relationship between fairness and proportionality, but I can’t accept that the response in this case was a disproportionate one when nobody can explain what they think would have been a proportionate response.

LFC the issue isn’t that Marx had an illegitimate child, it’s that he likely sexually exploited his maid. When someone writing about exploitation is themselves an exploiter, surely that makes a review of their theories valid? In the case of the OP we have someone working on heroines of justice for the global poor who, personally, appears to see the power differential between himself and poor women as a useful tool of self aggrandizement. How does that affect his theories?

As another example, Bill Kristol spent a few years campaigning against sex work. Sex workers pointed out that he seemed to have a bit of a first world white hero rescuer complex going on, his work was prejudiced in ways he himself maybe didn’t clearly understand. Ultimately he got sucked in by a Cambodian fraudster who took him on an easy ride. His alternative to sex work for poor Asian women was grinding poverty in sweat shops. Putting all of that together, if a certain fashionable set of rich westerners had listened to the critiques of his personal approach to poor women they might not now have egg on their faces – and might also have done some real good for poor women.

So I wonder what this story tells us about the validity of pogge’s theories of global justice. How is his alternative financing mechanism working? It appears like an empty vessel to me. Are his ideas supported by the countries and peoples they apply to? Have they worked? Or has all the benefit accrued to him and his backers?

Faustusnotes @102
I think you probably mean Nicholas Kristof, not Bill Kristol. Doesn’t affect your main point, which I understand if not agree with (at least in the case at hand), and I think we should just leave it there.

Daniel Levinson,

I am sorry you find me disagreeing with you “exhausting”, so I will try to make this my last comment in response to you.

1. “I do think, for example, that rules of procedural fairness should apply to Open Letters and any other such campaigns. You haven’t convinced me otherwise.”

Rules of Procedural Fairness are for courts, they are not for Open Letters, and the only way you could actually apply the rules of Procedural Fairness to Open Letters was to hold Mock Court trials every time some people wanted to write an Open Letter. I really think this would be very undesirable.

Pogge is already going to be taken to court, I doubt he wants a group of 150 Philosophers summons him to their Mock Trial, as if he is a sexual harassment version of Socrates. I think it is preferable these 150 Philosophers are confined to writing Open Letters in the normal way, rather than summonsing Pogge to a Mock Trial in order so they can write their Open Letter.

2. I already know it is your opinion, since you wrote the comment. Possibly some people would like you to tell them it is your opinion, but you certainly don’t need to inform me of this every time you comment. Just take it for granted I know ;-)

3. Pogge is an important public figure in Philosophy and Academia. His works have a global reach. There have been a number of cases of sexual harassment in Academia, and I think it is recognised as a problem area. It has also been recognised as a problem which university processes have not been well able to respond to. If Pogge had committed a single instance of harassment on one occasion, I could see why you might think the response of a public Open Letter could be disproportionate. But the Open Letter says Pogge has developed a long standing pattern of sexual harassment, which he has not stopped despite being previously censured.

In Australia we had the case of a Master from Ormond College sexual harassing two young women, and this became a prominent news story, and the author Helen Garner wrote a book about it, and then third wave feminists wrote books about it. This case involved less sexual harassment than the case involving Pogge, but it got national coverage, and the books are sold globally.

4. I see what you mean about Black Lives Matter, that it has connected the cases of a number of black lives which were lost and noted the structural aspect of this, rather than being about a single life, or about a policeman who shot several black people.

Maybe the prominence of the Pogge case would encourage some sort of movement of women who are victims of sexual harassment at university, or vicims of sexual harassment generally.

But any sort of movement about sexual harassment at universities etc would not have the chance to develop if you shut down public censure about individual cases like you are arguing should happen.

Imagine if public censure was shut down about the loss of individual black lives. Public censure against the killers happened in the Trayvon Martin case, and in the Michael Brown case that sparked the riots in Ferguson. Do you think Black Lives Matter would still have developed into the movement it has if public censure about the loss of individual black lives was shut down?

5. I am sorry, you have misunderstood my comment about Althusser and Hitler.

I was trying to draw a distinction between the case of an author who has committed a crime where his work has nothing really to do with the crime, which is the case, to the best of my knowledge, with Althusser’s strangling of his wife and his work on Marx; and the case of an author whose crime and work are inextricably joined together like Hitler.

Hitler was just the first example that sprang to mind of an author whose works and crimes are inextricably joined together — I was not in any way comparing Pogge to Hitler, and I would in fact think Pogge was more in the Althusser side of things.

However, I would expect that biographical information about Althusser be provided in copies of his books, and also taught at universities when his work was discussed. I have not read Althusser, but it is my understanding his work on Marx has little connection with his strangling of his wife, I am happy to be corrected if this is not the case.

However, in Althusser’s confessional autobiography — which I hope he wasn’t allowed to sell and it just came out after he died — he says he started massaging his wife and then realised he strangled her, and he also says he owned 1000s of books and only read a few hundred, and wasn’t terribly well read in philosophy.

Maybe Althusser is not the best theorist to read on Marx, if he wasn’t very well read. You could study him as someone poorly read who wrote ended up writing books about Marx, and someone who started giving his wife a massage and ended up strangling her. Both being cases of overreach, although only one being a crime. His poor wife.

Faustusnotes @102: “So I wonder what this story tells us about the validity of pogge’s theories of global justice. ”

That’s easy; it tells us nothing.

Why is that so, Kiwanda? If I told you there was this dude who had written a history of the Jews, and oh btw he hates Jews, you might think his history not entirely reliable, right? If I told you a misogynist had written a history of feminism, you might wonder if that history were accurate. Here someone who apparently exploits women from poor countries has written a bunch of theories about how to treat women from poor countries. Does that give you no pause for thought?

p.s. I still think the no citation campaign is ridiculous. ZM: you continue to draw a parallel between Hitler’s crimes and those of Pogge’s in that you suggest that citing Mein Kampf would be somehow comparable to citing works by Pogge in global justice. To be polite, I think you’ve lost the plot.

D Levinson 06.27.16 at 7:44 am
I’m not suggesting that Open Letters are like mock trials. However, the basic rules of procedural fairness should apply. Why? Out of fairness.

To the extent that it’s possible to apply the basic principles of procedural fairness to a case like this one, they have been complied with.

I don’t know what the reason was for opening the letter to more signatures, but the obvious guess is that it’s the same as the reason for opening petitions to more signatures: to provide an opportunity for demonstrating the extent and diversity of support for the case being made.

It’s not clear to me how that would be divisive, but if it is divisive that doesn’t have to be a reason for not doing it. Sometimes the right thing to do is divisive.

J-D and Mitu Sengupta,

I think Ingrid explains why the Open Letter was opened up, saying it is about changing social norms about sexual harassment as much as about Pogge himself:

“So this Open Letter does at least two things. First, to tell Yale that we, members of the relevant communities, strongly disapprove of what has happened, and that Yale should quickly and fairly proceed with the complaints against Pogge. Second, to tell ourselves, as members of those communities, that we do not tolerate such behaviour in our communities, and that we commit to each other to speak up about other (and future) incidents that we may get to know about.

Many have said that the Pogge case illustrates that there has been a culture of silence, or a culture of brushing sexually offensive behaviour under the carpet. This petition is about Pogge, but not only about Pogge. Let’s gather the courage to speak up about other cases of sexual harassment that we know about. Let’s strengthen the social norms that it is not OK to abuse your hierarchical position to receive sexual favours. Let’s demolish the social norms that if everyone else is turning a blind eye, it is fine for us to also turn a blind eye. Let’s address these problems by both institutional change and a change in culture and social norms in the profession.”

ZM 113: That’s fine. I am Daniel Levinson. Given that there are probably 100s of Daniel Levinsons in the world, it doesn’t really matter. Yes, sorry, I mixed up Zimmermann with Wilson. I hope that’s forgivable, given that I’m confusing one racist for another. I wouldn’t have a problem if the police condemned Wilson, though I’d find the hypocrisy a bit rich if they tried to scapegoat one man for the crimes of their institution. All I was pointing out is that you are drawing the wrong parallel. Are you sure you are a philosophy student? And your other wrong parallel between Hitler’s crimes and Pogge’s still stands, my opinion, even though you’ve tried hard to backtrack.

J-D 121, I really don’t like engaging with anonymous commenters, but I do wish to clear up misinterpretations of what I’ve said. Please do re-read my comment: (A) I am not concerned only about graduate students. (B) People who haven’t signed may also have felt pressure, so your methodologically unsound straw poll’s results are inconclusive for that reason also. (C) To repeat, I am not attributing bad motives to those who have signed. My question is about risk assessment. I don’t identify as a ‘moral philosopher’, and risk assessment (a bit of a technocratic term, I realize) is important in my field (development). So perhaps that’s why it seems important to me, though, of course, it’s not the only thing that’s important. (D) I’m really not interested in what you have to say on this matter unless you are one of the organizers of the campaign, in which case you should identify yourself as being such. Have a good day.

Mitu Sengupta @122

You ask whether I’m one of the organisers of the campaign. I’m not.

You write that you don’t like engaging with anonymous commenters. I’m not commenting in an effort to get you to engage with me.

You repeat that you are not attributing bad motives to the people who have signed; I don’t understand why you considered the repetition worthwhile, given that I did not suggest that you had made any such attribution.

Whenever people make a protest in any public form, there is some risk that other people will feel pressured to join the protest against their own preference. For example, if I encounter a public protest outside a place of business as I walk along the street, there is a risk that I will feel pressured to join in that protest against my own preference — although in fact when I actually did encounter that situation I felt no such pressure. The only way to eliminate the risk of creating this kind of undue pressure is to eliminate public protest; plainly that’s unreasonable. By itself, the fact that there is some risk of undue pressure associated with the form of public protest is insufficient to pass judgement; what’s needed is some attempt to assess/evaluate the risk. My attempt at doing so was admittedly rudimentary, but it’s more than I’ve observed anybody else do.

JD 126, I’d like to wade into this, since my argument with you has proceeded along similar lines. I don’t see anyone saying that public protest is illegitimate, although this isn’t a typical public protest in the sense that it addresses the wrongdoings of a specific individual within a narrow academic community. Everyone who’s expressed objections to the OL on this thread has had issue with the way it has been formulated, its inclusions as well as omissions, and (for me, specifically) the way the letter signing campaign has proceeded. Your response to any such objection has been to the tune of: “Well, I don’t see anything better. No one has suggested anything better.” I’ve already acknowledged that you are correct in so far as it’s much easier to criticize than to provide alternative formulations. Criticism need not always be accompanied by alternative formulations. Having said that, I think one may legitimately expect better of a letter signed by so many stellar names, including the entire Yale philosophy department. I may not have enough cerebral matter to come up with a better formulation, surely they do? I still don’t understand, for example, why they letter is written on behalf of “our philosophical community” and then opened to the public so that anyone can sign, including non-philosophers such as Z-M who say they know nothing about Pogge and had never heard of him before the OL. Is this what the letter writers wanted?

D Levinson,

“why they letter is written on behalf of “our philosophical community” and then opened to the public so that anyone can sign, including non-philosophers such as Z-M who say they know nothing about Pogge and had never heard of him before the OL.”

To be clear, I have not signed the Open Letter. This is not because I don’t support the Open Letter, but because I never heard of this before now, and I never heard of Pogge before this OP, and I didn’t even think of signing the Open Letter until you just suggested I was signing it.

Are CT commenters actually invited to be signing the Open Letter?

D Levinson,

I never heard of Pogge until this OP, and did not even consider signing the Open Letter until you rather oddly attributed signing the Open Letter to me in a comment.

I think the contents of the Open Letter are fine, and don’t share your confusion. But I never heard of Pogge until this OP, he doesn’t work in the country I live in, and I am not in the discipline he teaches in. Maybe if it turns into an Avaaz petition at some point I would consider signing it.

And, again, no, I actually find your use of the term “in my opinion” really annoying and in fact it makes me doubt you are arguing in good faith.

To me it makes you appear to want to reduce everything to a matter of one’s opinion. And makes you seem to think that no one can query anything you assert, as long as you add “in my opinion” after it. Which sort of makes it pointless having a discussion with you if you just reiterate what you already said and say “in my opinion” again. Sorry.

You said you picked up the idea of over using the term “in my opinion” from the TV show The Good Wife, which I have never seen, but according to Wikipedia it is about “Alicia Florrick, whose husband Peter, the former Cook County, Illinois State’s Attorney, has been jailed following a notorious political corruption and sex scandal. After having spent the previous thirteen years as a stay-at-home mother, Alicia returns to her old job as a litigator to provide for her two children”.

Why did the show make you decide to use the words “in my opinion” so much? Is it used in legal arguments in Court in the show or something?

D Levinson,

I was only confused as to whether Ingrid was asking for people who comment and read CT to sign the Open Letter. Ingrid then clarified this, by saying that ” I don’t think I should invite anyone to sign (since I am not an initiator of this letter), but my understanding is that the Initiators have put the letter in the public domain so that it is possible for anyone who feels that this is also about their community, that they could sign.”

Um, look, I think given your views on truth, I am probably not going to be able to have discussions with you that I would consider worthwhile or profitable. I hope you don’t mind me being honest about that.

Also I wish you wouldn’t keep attributing things to me which I have not said.

1. You kept arguing that I said Pogge’s work was like Hitler’s work, when I was drawing a distinction between Althusser’s work and Hitler’s work and I was saying that I thought Pogge’s work was more like Althusser’s work in this, in that the crime Pogge is accused of does not have a direct relation to his work.

2. You asked me if I was sure if I was studied philosophy, which I had not claimed to be studying.

3. You stated I was signing the Open Letter, when I had not mentioned signing the letter, and had no even considered signing the letter until you stated I was signing it. Which really put me on the spot about it. I haven’t heard of Pogge before this OP and while I support the Open Letter, I don’t really feel like I have much knowledge of the case, never having heard of it before. Ingrid said maybe one of the writers would clarify further about this.

4. You have now implied that I said something about the specific episode of the Good Wife where you got the idea to use “in my opinion” a lot, to have something to do with sexual harassment by arguing against the proposition which I never made — “The episode had nothing to do with sexual harassment. Not everything does.” This makes it sound like I said the episode was about sexual harassment.

I did not even know what episode you got the idea from. I have never watched the Good Wife in my life. And I specifically asked you if you got the idea because the show uses it “in legal arguments in Court in the show or something?” without mentioning sexual harassment at all.

I think I’m going to leave it there.

D Levinson 06.28.16 at 6:39 pm
JD-129, whether or not a ‘rule’ has been broken is not the only consideration for fairness. Other legitimate issues brought up in these threads are context sensitivity and care for the ‘community’ that OL signers are concerned about. Your characterization of dissenting posts as amounting to “I don’t like it” is grossly unfair and very arrogant.You could have at least added, “in my opinion.” [You see Z-M: this is the most useful phrase ever invented!]. Seriously, I don’t think you’ve managed to definitively refute any of the claims advanced.

Same problem as before. It’s a good general principle that people should be sensitive to context, but nobody here has even attempted to explain how the writers of the letter have not been sensitive to context. It’s a good general principle that people should care about other members of their community, but nobody here has even attempted to explain how the writers of the letter have failed to show care for other members of their community.

It’s not that the case in favour of conclusions adverse to the writers of the letter has been made unsatisfactorily; it’s that no case in support of those conclusions has been offered at all.

If you assert that the writers have not been sensitive to context, I deny it. If you assert that the writers have not shown proper care for their communities, I deny it. If you assert that what they did was not fair, I deny it. How do you suggest the discussion should proceed from there? My suggestion would be that you give some details of how you think they have not been sensitive to context, or have not shown proper care for their communities, or have not been fair; if you have an alternative suggestion, please, offer it.

faustusnotes: Okay Kiwanda, so you don’t consider the behavior of the writer to be relevant when assessing history texts. What about ethics texts?”

That’s easy: the same.

“I wonder if, had they assessed more of those writers in terms of their beardy dudeyness, rather than the high ideals they espoused, they might have thought, “hang on a minute. This dude exploited his maid. Maybe his political prescriptions will have an opening for beardy dudes to exploit a whole class of people?”

Yes, that’s it; if only there had been a more careful reading of Marx, in light of his beardy dudebro-fboy-ness, history would’ve been so different. After all, once people learned that Aristotle was a beardy dudebro, they disemvoweled the Nicomachean ethics and were thereby protected from his harassing disquisitions.

“I would suggest that debating the ideas on the basis of the ideas themselves hasn’t always worked out, for example when lying liars lie their way into invading Iraq – if I say “that argument doesn’t work because Tony Blair is a lying vampire” you say “but assess it on its merits! These people could make a nuclear weapon in 20 minutes!”

Yes, assessing ideas on their merits is exactly the same as believing what anybody tells you, and the way to truth is by knowing who the Bad People are, and blocking them on twitter.

JD: Your pattern of argumentation suggests that you are a philosophy grad student. You are right that its not relevant and was probably a cheap shot on my part, thereby apologies. But repeating yourself, that that too from behind the cover of anonymity, is not a way to move the discussion forward. I’ve said what I’ve wanted to. If you aren’t convinced, that’s fine. Now go on, you can have the last word!