Essay on Modern Politics in Giorgio Agamben´s State of Exception

The proposition by Austin to reduce various types of law into a single form, as command of the Sovereign backed with sanctions had invited much criticism. One of the flaws in his proposition is that not every law is coercive in the way that it is backed with sanction. To view law as command backed by threats of sanction is to overlook a significant part of the legal system.

From being held as honorable and in high regards in ancient Greece, to being determined as unnecessary and violent by the younger generation during the Vietnam war, it is one trait of man that never fully rescinds into history. It has always been a part of our past, and as the Encyclopedia of National Security states about Clausewitz' suggestion in “On War”, “War is a purely rational act of state policy and a legitimate means to achieve a state's interests.” It can be looked at as a necessary evil, where even though it is not mandatory to achieve one's purpose, it certainly is a option, and tends to be a primary one when all else fails. After the 9/11 attacks, tension was countrywide as to how to combat those whose did this appalling act. Before declaring war, President George Bush demanded the Taliban not only give up Bin Laden, since they gave him sanctuary in Afghanistan, but to also to cease all terrorist training organizations. When both requests were denied, the President saw no other option, and declared war. There was praise and criticism heard everywhere, showing that though war is always an option, it is not a unanimous

Rosen portrays our society as completely exposed, giving up all privacy to join, and fit in with the “naked crowd”. Rosen claims that we willing give up all power of privacy in order to fit in with society and be accepted as someone that can be trusted through exposure. He claims that image is the key to establishing trust, not through a relationship or conversation. His thesis presents his views on the subject, “has led us to value exposure over privacy? Why, in short, are we so eager to become members of the Naked Crowd, in which we have the illusion of belonging only when we are exposed?”(Rosen) he states that we value exposure over privacy, and will give away privacy to fit in.

With new technology rolling out onto the market seemingly everyday, the privacy of many is disappearing and has even become nonexistent. With many scandals over the past few years, government agencies have been accused of using these new communication resources as means to keep a watchful eye over their citizens. This is the very topic discussed by Peter Singer in his essay “Visible Man: Ethics in a World without Secrets”. Singer discusses the benefits and pitfalls that have come from these communication innovations, going in depth on the tactics and resources used by civilians as well as governments to keep track of each other. Singer presents strong premises that argue for the conservation of the individual privacy rights while also arguing for governments to become more transparent, creating an overall controversial element to his essay, as he is only half invested in transparency as a whole between civilians and the body that governs them, that comes off as somewhat unconvincing as the two arguments contradict each other.

As a growing topic of discussion, privacy in our society has stirred quite some concern. With the increase of technology and social networking our standards for privacy have been altered and the boundary between privacy and government has been blurred. In the article, Visible Man: Ethics in a World Without Secrets, Peter Singer addresses the different aspects of privacy that are being affected through the use of technology. The role of privacy in a democratic society is a tricky endeavor, however, each individual has a right to privacy. In our society, surveillance undermines privacy and without privacy there can be no democracy.

As we invest our lives into the allurements of the Internet, our privacy has stowed itself into the relative anonymity of vast city populations. But these precious moments of privacy, hidden in the over abundance of lives and routines, will soon be threatened by facial recognition technology (Frey 2016). Any negative connotations surrounding surveillance is reciprocated by the Orwellian dystopia which is popular for its pessimistic perspective. Although these visions of a restrictive surveillance state are just fictional ambiguous representations, their concerns should not be easily dismissed (Richards 2013). Subconsciously, derived from Orwell’s ideas, we recognize privacy’s role in the effort to avoid dehumanizing a country, however, according to Neil Richards (2013, 1934), “we lack an understanding of what ‘privacy’ means in this context and why it matters”. It is most critical that we address these questions now as facial recognition technology becomes increasingly prominent in our everyday lives.

The idea of privacy has an unmistakable place in chronicled banters about and various insightful works. In the previous decade, nevertheless, the issue of protection climbed to the front line of social civil arguments, habitually fixating on the effect of innovation (the Internet, information mining, satellite perceptions), government reconnaissance, national security, and corporate interruptions into private lives. On the off chance that a working meaning of security alludes to the capacity of people or gatherings to safeguard a mysterious character, control the stream of data about themselves, and be unbound from baseless

In this essay, I will refute the claim that there is a natural duty to obey the law, even in reasonably decent democratic society in order to rescue others from the dangerous conditions of the state of nature.  To do this, I will explore the consequence of using the natural theory to explain a duty to obey the law as the best way to rescue others from the dangerous conditions in the state of nature. Next, I will explore the ambiguity in the natural theory to sufficiently justify a duty to obey the law simply because it is a law.  Through these analyses, I will address the more general question: under a recent decent democratic society, what kind of duty do we have to obey the law?

The 21st century had brought an infinite number of technological advancements whose purpose is to make the lives of new, developed world much more manageable. These digital technologies that have revolutionized our daily lives have also created minutely detailed records of those lives. As a society, we are not quite sure why surveillance is bad and why we should be wary of it. To an extent, the answer has to something to do with privacy, but we lack an understanding of what privacy really means in this context and why it matters. We have been able to live with this state of affairs, mostly because the threat of constant surveillance has been condemned to the idea as science fiction and a failed totalitarian state.

Berger’s goal is to express the cultural limitations that are imposed on legal tolerance, mainly in terms of ideologies of religious cultures, challenge the rule of law. Berger discusses that the obligation to obey the rule of law in Canada is a cultural commitment used to decide which religious beliefs are tolerable, and which are not. Since Canadians have a deep commitment to the rule of law it should be viewed as a cultural value for Canadians. In Canada rule of law always takes priority over religious beliefs. The rule of law is a cultural value that seeks to maintain its supremacy over other cultural values.

“It is not because men have made laws, that personality, liberty, and property exist. On the contrary, it is because personality, liberty, and property exist before- hand, that men make laws. What, then, is law? As I have said elsewhere, it is the collective organization of the individual right to lawful defense” (p. 2).

“Man, when perfected, is the best of animals, but when separated from law and justice, he is the worst of all,” quoted the renowned Greek philosopher Aristotle , giving birth to the notions of natural law; the theory that without law we would be reduced to an anarchical society. Because of this, some would argue that the purpose of law would be to instill in the members of society a set of moral codes, which further illustrates the belief laws save us from ourselves, or more appropriately our “true selves”. Yet this theoretical principle leads to many criticisms and further questions; for one, what would dictate a universal moral code? Furthermore, who gets to define what is right and what is not, since morality is a fairly subjective concept? With these questions in mind, the goal of this paper is to critique the theory of natural law using Holmes rhetoric, analyze the distinction between pragmatism and natural law, and give my personal take on what “is” the law and what “ought to be” the law.

In this paper, we will look at two philosophers discussing the existence, foundations and conditions of a legal system. The first philosopher we will look at is John Austin, who develops what is known as the command theory (Culver, 83). This theory argues that the law is a command that is given by a “sovereign,” with the threat of a penalty or consequence imposed if these laws are disobeyed (Culver, 83). He views the validity of a law by the source of the law and not the laws benefit to the citizens within a society. On the contrary, a philosopher we will look at who disagrees with John Austin on the foundations of a legal system is H.L.A Hart. Hart believes that acceptance plays a huge role when it comes to legal systems. He views a valid legal system as a union between primary and secondary rules (Culver 139).Hart believes the acceptance of officials is critical, and must include them adopting the internal point of view and citizens merely need to accept the law by obeying it.(Culver,

On the one hand, under ius in bello new nationalism and self-consciousness with “new moral clarity and courage” [is being born to] reassure [our way of] life to return to a state of normalcy” (Andersson,2006:5). Meaning that the legal exception is being transformed into new legal norm, so that all necessary precautions concerning “the dominant regime of science, technology and governmentality” (Cash,2009:88) will be secured for the future ‘war on terrorism’. On the other hand, ius in bello hinders the ‘security dilemma’ where the trade-off between human rights and security occurs. The more human rights become controlled by the state through ius in bello, the less democratic the government

Through the second section Agamben studies the “Paradox of Sovereignty” which describes the nature of sovereignty to be both inside and outside of juridical law. Furthermore, Agamben relies on Schmitt’s