Alani Golanski
@alanigolanski.bsky.social
Philosophy @ Graduate Center CUNY, James Kent Scholar @ ColumbiaLaw, Ghanaian drumming @ CalArts -- Partner/Director @ Weitz & Luxenberg
Pinned
Alani Golanski
@alanigolanski.bsky.social
· Dec 29
WHY THE RULE OF LAW PROJECT DEMANDS EXTRALEGAL CHANGE | Published in Capital University Law Review
By Alani Golanski. This article explores whether the rule of law project can evaluate conditions in society distinct from attributes of the legal system or sources rooted in power.
www.capitallawreview.org
By valuing capabilities to assert rights and defenses, coordinate opposition to arbitrary authority, and participate in democratic governance, the rule of law unexpectedly & subversively demands social & economic conditions that foster those capabilities.
www.capitallawreview.org/article/1278...
www.capitallawreview.org/article/1278...
A commitment to equal freedom is not a compromise between freedom and equality. What 'equality' does in that formula is to pin down the form of our commitment to freedom; and what 'freedom' does is to indicate what it is that we are concerned to equalize.
-- Jeremy Waldron
-- Jeremy Waldron
November 18, 2025 at 9:10 PM
A commitment to equal freedom is not a compromise between freedom and equality. What 'equality' does in that formula is to pin down the form of our commitment to freedom; and what 'freedom' does is to indicate what it is that we are concerned to equalize.
-- Jeremy Waldron
-- Jeremy Waldron
Reposted by Alani Golanski
One of the things I often see in scholarship on public law, or at least in criminal procedure, is what you might call The Reference Problem.
The author wants more of Right X, but needs to root the argument for more X in something beyond the author's preference.
(Thread.)
The author wants more of Right X, but needs to root the argument for more X in something beyond the author's preference.
(Thread.)
November 18, 2025 at 7:50 PM
One of the things I often see in scholarship on public law, or at least in criminal procedure, is what you might call The Reference Problem.
The author wants more of Right X, but needs to root the argument for more X in something beyond the author's preference.
(Thread.)
The author wants more of Right X, but needs to root the argument for more X in something beyond the author's preference.
(Thread.)
Link to today's ruling by Mag Judge Fitzpatrick within, marshaling a series of likely improprieties by the Admin, including the likely impossibility that Halligan actually presented the final indictment to the grand jury - all of which "may justify" dismissal.
www.nytimes.com/2025/11/17/u...
www.nytimes.com/2025/11/17/u...
Judge Says Justice Dept. May Have Committed Misconduct in Comey Case
www.nytimes.com
November 17, 2025 at 7:48 PM
Link to today's ruling by Mag Judge Fitzpatrick within, marshaling a series of likely improprieties by the Admin, including the likely impossibility that Halligan actually presented the final indictment to the grand jury - all of which "may justify" dismissal.
www.nytimes.com/2025/11/17/u...
www.nytimes.com/2025/11/17/u...
Great open access issue of the Canadian Journal of Law & Jurisprudence, inc Richard Stillman's disagreement with Dworkin on theoretical disagreement, John Oberdiek on the rule of law, Ernest Weinrib on internal morality specific to legal relationships.
www.cambridge.org/core/journal...
www.cambridge.org/core/journal...
Canadian Journal of Law & Jurisprudence | Cambridge Core
Canadian Journal of Law & Jurisprudence - Margaret Martin, Zoë Sinel
www.cambridge.org
November 16, 2025 at 10:59 PM
Great open access issue of the Canadian Journal of Law & Jurisprudence, inc Richard Stillman's disagreement with Dworkin on theoretical disagreement, John Oberdiek on the rule of law, Ernest Weinrib on internal morality specific to legal relationships.
www.cambridge.org/core/journal...
www.cambridge.org/core/journal...
If one believes with Gramsci that an intellectual vocation is socially possible as well as desirable, then it's self-contradictory to rest analyses of historical experience on an exclusionary axiom that only a group's members can understand that group's experience.
-- Edward Said
-- Edward Said
November 16, 2025 at 8:30 PM
If one believes with Gramsci that an intellectual vocation is socially possible as well as desirable, then it's self-contradictory to rest analyses of historical experience on an exclusionary axiom that only a group's members can understand that group's experience.
-- Edward Said
-- Edward Said
Amartya Sen credited, among others, John Stuart Mill, John Rawls, Jürgen Habermas, Ronald Dworkin, and Seyla Benhabib, for harnessing the notion of public reasoning in service of a view of democracy broadened from that of public balloting toward one of "government by discussion."
November 15, 2025 at 5:29 PM
Amartya Sen credited, among others, John Stuart Mill, John Rawls, Jürgen Habermas, Ronald Dworkin, and Seyla Benhabib, for harnessing the notion of public reasoning in service of a view of democracy broadened from that of public balloting toward one of "government by discussion."
At least by HLA Hart's lights, Ronald Dworkin and Hans Kelsen held oddly similar views on the position of judges, for RD legal rights being those held against judges to the correct legal decision, for HK laws being commands made on judges and directing that they impose sanctions.
November 14, 2025 at 12:50 PM
At least by HLA Hart's lights, Ronald Dworkin and Hans Kelsen held oddly similar views on the position of judges, for RD legal rights being those held against judges to the correct legal decision, for HK laws being commands made on judges and directing that they impose sanctions.
Reposted by Alani Golanski
On the blog: In approving Trump's transphobic policy of listing sex assigned at birth on passports, SCOTUS said govt was "merely attesting to a historical fact," thus echoing the obtuseness of Plessy v Ferguson's statement that Black folks were only choosing to see segregation as white supremacy. 👇
SCOTUS Echoes Plessy v Ferguson in Greenlighting Trump's Transphobic Passport Policy
Repeating a pattern that has become all too familiar, late last week the Roberts Court issued a per curiam order staying a lower court rulin...
www.dorfonlaw.org
November 10, 2025 at 12:27 PM
On the blog: In approving Trump's transphobic policy of listing sex assigned at birth on passports, SCOTUS said govt was "merely attesting to a historical fact," thus echoing the obtuseness of Plessy v Ferguson's statement that Black folks were only choosing to see segregation as white supremacy. 👇
📸 Gauri Gill -- Mira Nair et fils Zohran
November 13, 2025 at 8:27 PM
📸 Gauri Gill -- Mira Nair et fils Zohran
Andrei Marmor's critique of anti-positivist logic:
1) some facts about legal validity are moral;
2) moral facts aren't fully grounded in beliefs;
3) so mistaken moral beliefs are possible;
4) so comprehensive errors about legal validity are possible,
2 & 3 are plausible, but not 4.
1) some facts about legal validity are moral;
2) moral facts aren't fully grounded in beliefs;
3) so mistaken moral beliefs are possible;
4) so comprehensive errors about legal validity are possible,
2 & 3 are plausible, but not 4.
November 13, 2025 at 5:56 PM
Andrei Marmor's critique of anti-positivist logic:
1) some facts about legal validity are moral;
2) moral facts aren't fully grounded in beliefs;
3) so mistaken moral beliefs are possible;
4) so comprehensive errors about legal validity are possible,
2 & 3 are plausible, but not 4.
1) some facts about legal validity are moral;
2) moral facts aren't fully grounded in beliefs;
3) so mistaken moral beliefs are possible;
4) so comprehensive errors about legal validity are possible,
2 & 3 are plausible, but not 4.
Ronald Dworkin's admittedly stripped-down construal of Paul Grice's view: Speaker's meaning is determined by what the speaker expects the hearer to understand the speaker as intending him to understand.
November 12, 2025 at 7:19 PM
Ronald Dworkin's admittedly stripped-down construal of Paul Grice's view: Speaker's meaning is determined by what the speaker expects the hearer to understand the speaker as intending him to understand.
This changes everything
November 12, 2025 at 3:19 PM
This changes everything
I think that analytic philosophy was a defence to fascism's claims. It punctured claims that the state was really enforcing the real will of its citizens, and therefore they must obey, and that they are obeying themselves.
-- HLA Hart, commenting on his reply to Bodenheimer
-- HLA Hart, commenting on his reply to Bodenheimer
November 11, 2025 at 4:01 PM
I think that analytic philosophy was a defence to fascism's claims. It punctured claims that the state was really enforcing the real will of its citizens, and therefore they must obey, and that they are obeying themselves.
-- HLA Hart, commenting on his reply to Bodenheimer
-- HLA Hart, commenting on his reply to Bodenheimer
One of the central problems of late-capitalist societies lies in their viewing public life from a legalistic-juridical perspective alone, while the vision of a community of needs and solidarity is ignored and rendered irrelevant.
-- Seyla Benhabib
-- Seyla Benhabib
November 10, 2025 at 7:58 PM
One of the central problems of late-capitalist societies lies in their viewing public life from a legalistic-juridical perspective alone, while the vision of a community of needs and solidarity is ignored and rendered irrelevant.
-- Seyla Benhabib
-- Seyla Benhabib
A gem that might have escaped notice
November 10, 2025 at 7:46 PM
A gem that might have escaped notice
The eminent political theorist Norberto Bobbio penned the preface for these early 1990s memoirs, each by self-taught writers: Macagno, a Turin mechanic and Resistance fighter; Malgaroli, retired worker who'd been confined in the Mauthausen concentration camp; Ruju, Sardinian-born partisan.
November 10, 2025 at 7:34 PM
The eminent political theorist Norberto Bobbio penned the preface for these early 1990s memoirs, each by self-taught writers: Macagno, a Turin mechanic and Resistance fighter; Malgaroli, retired worker who'd been confined in the Mauthausen concentration camp; Ruju, Sardinian-born partisan.
Informative global labor history volume (2017), the IWW (Wobblies) promoted pro-worker ideals that found purchase internationally, eventually gaining members in at least twenty countries on six continents.
November 10, 2025 at 5:21 PM
Informative global labor history volume (2017), the IWW (Wobblies) promoted pro-worker ideals that found purchase internationally, eventually gaining members in at least twenty countries on six continents.
Reposted by Alani Golanski
My new essay on the New Right and its relationship to historical fascism has been published at the Ideas Letter @lbenardo.bsky.social www.theideasletter.org/essay/the-ge...
Misunderstood Radicals - The Ideas Letter
Adam Knowles maps how the Swiss philosopher Armin Mohler—a post-WWII apologist of fascism and self-styled theorist of the “Conservative Revolution”—helped launder fascist-adjacent thinkers into respec...
www.theideasletter.org
November 4, 2025 at 12:04 PM
My new essay on the New Right and its relationship to historical fascism has been published at the Ideas Letter @lbenardo.bsky.social www.theideasletter.org/essay/the-ge...
When lawyers are asked to define what they do, they string together long sentences in which they unfailingly use the adjective "legal" to qualify everything they say, without troubling to define it further, without even realizing that they are caught up in a tautology!
-- Bruno Latour
-- Bruno Latour
November 9, 2025 at 4:42 PM
When lawyers are asked to define what they do, they string together long sentences in which they unfailingly use the adjective "legal" to qualify everything they say, without troubling to define it further, without even realizing that they are caught up in a tautology!
-- Bruno Latour
-- Bruno Latour
Thomas Hobbes didn't tolerate a profession or position in an institution, which would have exercised authority over his intellect, so instead chose the life of a multi-task servant within aristocratic households, with freedom to read, write, travel.
November 8, 2025 at 6:26 PM
Thomas Hobbes didn't tolerate a profession or position in an institution, which would have exercised authority over his intellect, so instead chose the life of a multi-task servant within aristocratic households, with freedom to read, write, travel.
It might seem optimistic perspectives that hope for far-reaching transformations of human life are more epistemically chancy than pessimistic ones. But, Charles Taylor wrote, pessimism tragically errs when it aborts positive change from the beginning by refusal to believe in it.
November 8, 2025 at 5:29 PM
It might seem optimistic perspectives that hope for far-reaching transformations of human life are more epistemically chancy than pessimistic ones. But, Charles Taylor wrote, pessimism tragically errs when it aborts positive change from the beginning by refusal to believe in it.
In the aftermath of the 1970 Kent State shooting, "his conservative family and neighbors pressured him to say nothing critical about the guardsmen who had shot him and 12 others."
www.nytimes.com/2025/11/07/u...
www.nytimes.com/2025/11/07/u...
John Cleary, Wounded in Kent State Shooting, Dies at 74
www.nytimes.com
November 8, 2025 at 4:07 PM
In the aftermath of the 1970 Kent State shooting, "his conservative family and neighbors pressured him to say nothing critical about the guardsmen who had shot him and 12 others."
www.nytimes.com/2025/11/07/u...
www.nytimes.com/2025/11/07/u...
Jules Coleman: It's a conceptual truth about law that officials must coordinate their behavior w/ one another..
Ronald Dworkin: Some American judges hope to reverse decades of constitutional law, while others firmly oppose. Judges are more divided than united by their ambitions.
Ronald Dworkin: Some American judges hope to reverse decades of constitutional law, while others firmly oppose. Judges are more divided than united by their ambitions.
November 7, 2025 at 8:03 PM
Jules Coleman: It's a conceptual truth about law that officials must coordinate their behavior w/ one another..
Ronald Dworkin: Some American judges hope to reverse decades of constitutional law, while others firmly oppose. Judges are more divided than united by their ambitions.
Ronald Dworkin: Some American judges hope to reverse decades of constitutional law, while others firmly oppose. Judges are more divided than united by their ambitions.
When the Voice said goodbye to Lindsay's progressivism 1973
November 7, 2025 at 2:28 PM
When the Voice said goodbye to Lindsay's progressivism 1973
HLA Hart lauded and followed von Jhering & Holmes in identifying as "the fundamental intellectual error about the nature of legal concepts" the idea that these are fixed prior to their application in concrete cases such that legal reasoning merely unfolds what's "already there."
November 7, 2025 at 3:24 AM
HLA Hart lauded and followed von Jhering & Holmes in identifying as "the fundamental intellectual error about the nature of legal concepts" the idea that these are fixed prior to their application in concrete cases such that legal reasoning merely unfolds what's "already there."