Ethics Bowl Cases Tryout case (#8) Samuel Foulkes

Ethical Considerations: -A parent's right to raise/educated their children (What are the possible contours of such a right?) -One nation usurping legal power (or the legitimacy of Law) from another (the U.S. Granting asylum over a petty issue and denying the German courts their proper activity) -The broader value of public education (is public education, in fact, desirable over other forms of education?) -The German law, itself (was the U.S. Action correct? If so, the problem would seem to lie with German law) Position: -intervention is only justifiable when the violation of universal Law is committed on an institutional scale and perpetuated through the political system, itself. This position is drawn from Kantian grounds, namely the two principles of 1.) the Universal law (right action) and 2.) treating no one person as a mere means to an end not their own. Here we must consider all societies as 'societies of individuals'. That is to say, one's rights, etc. may be regulated only inasmuch as is necessary for individuals to live together in a society wherein they can exercise reason and in such a way that regulation itself is commensurable with such rationality1. Thus, all regulatory prohibitions must be commensurable with 1. - they are only justifiable if they are reasonable that is to say: a moral agent with unimpeded reason would, if presented with the decision, choose X. Therefore X. is a function of the universal Law and as such is a permissible prohibition. In the case of homeschooling, evidence would seem to suggest that the bulk of homeschooling functions as a means to raise children in accordance with a given custom which runs counter to society. Another way of phrasing the point may be to say that homeschooling persists almost solely with the purpose of instilling a radically specific (as opposed to universal, the larger 'universally held' positions of the society. From a Kantian standpoint, the act of not prohibiting homeschooling is seen as the attempt to directly universalizing the exception, itself. In all ways, this runs counter to the founding principle that one ought not perform act X if act X is not universalizable. In this case, the allowing of homeschooling is a direct attempt to universalize such an exception to realize a paradox. For Kant, this gesture would simply appear as insane (the very inverse of the properly rational decision). The fundamental Kantian antagonism is how the particular can realize its universal element (in this case, such aspects of humanity which force us to be counted as one 'humanity' or society).
1. Here I rest on three assumptions: 1. human beings understand the law of non-contradiction (an object cannot simultaneously possess characteristics X and ~X), 2. each human being 'pursues interests' in accordance with their own existential project, and 3. political systems are games of regulating human activity in such a way as to maximize the pursuit of such projects while minimizing or eliminating harms done to and by individuals while in pursuit.

Other views considered: Hobbes would likely disagree here, as this might be seen to impose on the natural right of a rational human being to exercise their will in accordance with their reason. A Hobbesian position would likely support the U.S. Actions along with the 'natural right' of the Romeike family to raise their children without state unreasonable state intervention. It is unclear which of the parties Rousseau's positions would be most applicable or relevant to. Likely, however, the position of the social contract in society would hold in similar fashion between sovereigns or governments. The German law prohibiting homeschooling might be seen to violate the social contract by imposing unnecessary limitations on citizens. However, in Germany in particular, the history of ideological extremism may serve as proper justification for imposing such prohibitions. In any case, the US gesture of granting asylum would be a usurpation of the political legitimacy of Germany's social contract and thus its political system as a whole. Locke would fall into vaguely the same camp as Hobbes. In a system where liberal 'natural and personal liberty' are inalienable, etc. then government-imposed prohibitions on citizens' private lives is justifiable only when individuals' pursuits do themselves violate the natural rights and liberty are directly threatened. While the propensity of homeschooling to serve as a means of raising children in an ideologically extreme context might be seen as a possible indirect harm to the liberty and natural rights of other private citizens, this is unclear and the data do not directly support such claims. Policy Recommendation: -Under the Kantian framework here applied, the Romeike's should be deported to Germany where they must be prosecuted under German law. The United States acted incorrectly (parties harmed: the Romeike's, the German people, the American People, etc.). The German law does not violate the Kantian universal Law, and as such must be followed to the letter by all citizens who fall under it. Not only is the German law permissible, but here permissible, universalizable, and one's duty are logically equivalent. A law of the same cast as the German prohibition should be adopted in all cases.