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Who thinks that they can subdue Leviathan? Strength resides in its neck; dismay goes before it. It is without fear. It looks down on all who are haughty; it is king over all who are proud. These words inspired PJ Wehry to create Chasing Leviathan. Chasing Leviathan was born out of two ideals: that truth is worth pursuing but will never be subjugated, and the discipline of listening is one of the most important habits anyone can develop. Every episode is a dialogue, a journey into the depths of a meaningful question explored through the lens of personal experience or professional expertise.
PJ Wehry (00:02.568)
Hello and welcome to Chasing the Viathan. I'm your host, PJ Weary, and I'm here today with Dr. Nicholas Cornell, professor of law at the University of Michigan. And we're talking about his book, Wrongs and Rights Come Apart. Dr. Cornell, wonderful to have you on today.
Nico Cornell (00:17.39)
Thank you for having me. I'm excited to be here and talk with you.
PJ Wehry (00:21.696)
So tell me, Dr. Cornell, why this book?
Nico Cornell (00:26.072)
Well, this book is a project I've been working on for a very long time. It's something I got interested in at the very beginning of graduate school. So basically it was a project like 20 years in the making. And it kind of, I worked on some issues related to this for my dissertation and then published some papers after finishing graduate school related to it. And the book just sort of sat.
was a project that I wanted to complete, but I felt so unsure about various pieces of it that I kind of kept sitting on it and not finishing. And eventually it got to the point where I was like, no, I really need to get this out into the world as a book. So it feels like it's a long time coming, but that's why. It's the thing that's stuck in my head since graduate school, basically.
PJ Wehry (01:22.46)
And so when you talk about wrongs and rights coming apart, I love the two examples you give at the beginning. One, it's great to have a real life example against a literary example. But if you could talk about what does it mean for wrongs and rights to come apart?
Nico Cornell (01:41.07)
Sure. So the basic idea that I started getting worried about was inference between concepts that I saw people making both in philosophy and in legal argument, and I guess also in everyday life sometimes, between sort of two different kinds of what I thought of as two different kinds of concepts, but they
seem to think of as basically flip sides of the same coin. So I start the book with a very famous legal case called Paul's graph versus Long Island railroad, which is the real life example. The facts of the case are a man was rushing to catch a train and the train employees sort of shoved him onto the train. And in the process of this, the package that he was carrying falls onto the railroad tracks.
It was carrying fireworks. The fireworks go off and there's commotion. A metal scale for weighing things falls onto a woman who was standing on the, on the train platform waiting for a different train and she is injured and she sues the, the railroad company for alleging that their employees were negligent in how they treated this passenger. And in
very famous opinion that probably almost every first year law student reads, Benjamin Cardozo, one of the great American jurists says, well, she can't have been wronged because no rights of hers were violated. Maybe the train company treated this other passenger with a package negligently, but not her. It wasn't her rights that were violated. So it couldn't be that she was wrong, even though she may have
and injured, just hurt, but not wrong. And obviously wrong there is playing a sort of important technical term. think we'll probably want to talk more about what exactly do we mean when we say that. But there's clearly something that Cardozo thought was being said there, that she could have no legal claim, no legal complaint. But I kind of just intuitively, when I first encountered this, felt like, no, I don't
PJ Wehry (03:48.359)
Yes.
Nico Cornell (04:06.078)
that doesn't feel like an inference one should be able to make. And so then the other example that I start the book with is from Tolstoy. And there's a lot of literature in the book. I quite like using literary examples. feel like when one's doing good moral philosophy, one's really kind of getting at the nuances of
emotional and interpersonal life and I think, you know, richer examples that one can get from literature or real life stories, legal cases are valuable. And the Tolstoy example from War and Peace involves an engagement between two of the characters and where one
The character says, we'll wait to get married for a year. We won't be promised to each other to give it time. And during that year, woman, you know, runs off with a scoundrel, basically. An adventurer, I think is how it's described. And for much of the rest of the novel, if this was a mistake, she realizes it quickly.
But at that point, their relationship is sort of ruined. And so for much of the rest of novel, there's this sort of relationship between them, not a romantic relationship, where it's understood between them that she has not only hurt him, but in some sense wronged him, and that there's a rupture in their relationship that she wants to atone for, and that he struggles to try to forgive her, but really feels like he almost can't forgive her for this running off.
even though he had very explicitly said, you know, I have no right to your hand. So there's an example where it seems like Tolstoy is imagining this like, you know, deep emotional reparative relationship between the characters, even though they are very explicit in saying we don't, there's no rights at play here. And so it's sort of the inverse, I think, of the Cardozo. And so that's the sort of
Nico Cornell (06:31.296)
what I use to set the stage. And I can say more about like what I think is being meant by rights and wrongs, but it seems like, you know, in the Cardozo there's an inference being drawn between them. And then in the Tolstoy there's a sense that there's a gap between them.
PJ Wehry (06:53.342)
And
Maybe I'm headed the wrong way. If I am, that's fine. Feel free to just be like, that's a bad question. When we talk about, is there something about being translated from Russian to English that causes some of that? And is there something about Russian culture and perhaps even law that goes on with, and I understand you're not a literary critic. So I don't know if there's a jump there. I do immediately.
I've been reading German history and their ideas of responsibility and obligation and community are so different. There is something really, I find myself favoring what you're arguing for. I feel like lot of it is just like American culture is pretty weird. And then, know, when we live in it, we don't realize it.
Nico Cornell (07:49.87)
Yeah, I haven't really dug into this question. don't... So I do... I mean, there's something I think right... I don't know about whether it's a question of the language, the actual issues around Russian. And I would expect that German actually still has... I mean, we get the Rekt from German. So our rights talk in a way...
PJ Wehry (07:57.042)
That's what I... yeah.
Nico Cornell (08:16.47)
descends from that tradition. But I do think you're on to something in that like American culture is barely, very immersed in the sort of rights language. And that is part of what I am pushing back on. And so there are people out there who are just skeptical of rights in general. think, you know, it's an unhealthy individualistic concept and we should abandon
you know, all our rights talk. And I'm not a rights skeptic. think rights play really important roles in our lives. But I also think it can be a kind of imperialistic concept where like, once you start talking about rights, it can kind of suck up all the energy in the room. And that may be the way that American discourse has kind of gone a little bit. And so part of the thought is that they look
rights are doing one important thing, but they're not doing everything in our moral life. And I do think that's maybe something you're picking up on in American culture. And maybe, you know, maybe it's certainly possible that Russian culture was just a little bit less prone to that. You know, exaggerated rights talk. Yeah.
PJ Wehry (09:37.212)
Yeah, I realized that it's not like you're using illustratively, not expecting you to like throw out like literary scholarship. I wasn't sure. I just thought I would take a stab at it. So you kind of mentioned you're talking about your own thoughts on what rights and wrongs are. Can you kind of give what rights, what you think rights are doing in our moral life versus what wrongs are doing in our moral life and how
Why do think it's important that they are kept separate?
Nico Cornell (10:10.092)
Yeah, I mean, one of things that's very hard about working in this space is that these are words that get thrown around in all used in all sorts of different ways. And it's easy to get caught up in logical debates that seem not very fruitful, right? So, you know, in a way, I don't I don't want to stipulate how we should
use the word rights or use the word wronging. But what I'm interested in is what I take to be a kind of package of two different packages of ways of relating or practices associated with those ways of relating. So I think of rights as being associated with a kind of strong
PJ Wehry (10:39.848)
Ha
Nico Cornell (11:06.68)
duty on the other side. So when I have a right that you not kill me, you have reasons of a special sort not to kill me. It's not just that it's like, it would be good if you didn't kill me, but it's something more than that. It's you owe it to me not to kill me. And that means it in some sense overrides other things. Like even if you could make some money off of killing me, my right not to be killed just
obviates that right sometimes philosophers talk about exclusionary reasons it's just excluded right you don't even consider it i think another thing that we often associate with rights is sort of anti-aggregation idea which is to say my my the fact that i have a right to something means that you can't sacrifice you can't sacrifice it for for some greater good right if you could
do something for a million people, give little benefit to a million people by sacrificing my life. Well, the fact that I have a right serves as a side constraint on that, as no other put it. So there's this sort of sense that rights play this, I put in, you know, describe it as ex ante, but it sort of guides our deliberation and structures our relationship and saying there's a kind of strong prohibition on what you
you can do to me with respect to the subject of the right. And then when I describe as wronging, although again, I don't want to get too bogged down in the language, but there's a sort of, again, package of ways of relating where it's not just that one does something bad, but that it's associated with, if you wrong me, I might resent you.
in a way that some other third party who can just look at what you did and say, he did something bad, that's different than the standing of someone who can resent or make a complaint. And you might feel guilty to me, not just sort of guilty at large. And then there's a sort of set of practices that we might engage in. You might apologize to me, and I might forgive you.
Nico Cornell (13:35.736)
try and make some sort of compensatory or reparative action with respect to me. So we're connected in a sort of relational way. And so that package of things is what I think of as kind of marking out where there's been a wrong. And again, we could just sort of stipulate, well, wronging just means that a right has been violated. And that would be perfectly fine way of talking. But then there would still be an interesting question.
Well, can we resent things that aren't rights violations? Can we apologize for things that aren't rights violations and so on? And that's really what the book
PJ Wehry (14:07.782)
What's this other thing? Yes.
PJ Wehry (14:15.432)
Yeah.
PJ Wehry (14:20.77)
you've kind of mentioned here a little bit, you got a little bit into the characteristics. One of the characteristics I find interesting is you're drawing on phenomenology. so for the characteristics of rights, they have a special phenomenology. think if I'm quoting that right, I wrote it down. So it's very, I could have written it wrong. and then for wrongs, you have a special phenomenology.
for the victim and for the perpetrator, which I think if I'm not mistaken, it's part of reason why you draw on literature because literature, I could be wrong here, but it feels like literature gives us details or it is a detailed example without getting in the way, right? Like people will feel the need to really get into the details and argue about the details in a real life case, which gives it weight.
And that's important. literature allows you to you understand that the details aren't important. What's important is kind of the spirit of it. But it also sometimes thought experiments by philosophers can be a little too, the trolley. The trolley can be what's the trolley experiment? I can't remember what they call it. then, you know, that one you're like, there's a lot of missing factors here. I think about when you talk about non aggregation for rights.
one of the reasons we feel that we need this kind of against aggregation for rights is that people there too easily give up on taking care of individuals for the rights of the many. And what it does is it forces creativity. like, oh, actually we didn't have to like take away your home. We could have just like built around it. It wasn't that big a deal, right? Whatever it is. So, and I got a little, sorry, I a little sidetracked, but
As we talk about the phenomenology of it, is that one, part of reason why you delved in so much into literature? And two, what do you think is the value of having that phenomenological side to both rights and wrongs?
Nico Cornell (16:36.354)
Yeah, that's a great question. So I do think you're right in seeing these things as being connected. So I sort of said there's a sort of package and in the book I kind of list as though there's like these separate things, but they're all kind of intertwined with each other, right? And so I think you're right in thinking, well, part of the reason why Wright seemed to have this anti-aggregation structure is
It's all well and good to say, well, just do the thing that's the greatest aggregate good. But then when you're looking someone in the eye that you're about to sacrifice for the greater good, you might think, no, this is a person with their own individual life, not just a vessel for manipulating into the aggregate value. So the phenomenology, I think, is really connected up with the
the other points as well. The point about literature is a nice one. I think you're right in saying sometimes literature in a way can abstract at just the right level. So it's not so abstract that it's just a sort of thought experiment, but it's also designed to get at some sort of emotional or interpersonal truth.
PJ Wehry (17:53.053)
Yes.
Nico Cornell (18:03.854)
in a valuable way. I am, as far as philosophers go, a very bottom-up thinker. And part of the reason why I like the law is because, you know, so much of the law operates through these cases where it's just like a story from the real world, and then the judges have to figure out how to work it out. I think literature also has this, you know, rich
richness that you don't get in like trolley problems. And I am the kind of philosopher who can enjoy some good trolley problems. I do like that kind of case based way of thinking, but I also really appreciate the sort of richness that you get not in those thought experiments, but actually in literary cases or real world cases. And part of the
reason for that, I guess, is again connected to what I think you were saying about the phenomenology that I take it a big part of the task of philosophy is to help us undo mistakes that we get into in our like, theorizing. So it's easy for you know, someone to say, just do the greatest good for the greatest number, right? And then, in a way, part of the task is to say like, well, that
PJ Wehry (19:20.542)
Mmm.
Nico Cornell (19:31.47)
you got there by a sort of simple theoretical construct, like, realize what it's like to look someone in the eye, right? And that's what the literature can do for us so well to remind us of the human experience and what these relationships are actually like. And so that's, think, part of the reason why I draw on it so much, yeah.
PJ Wehry (19:58.59)
So when you talk about the mistakes we can make in theorizing, do you see a bottom-up approach as being, and this might be a terrible way to frame it, and so feel free to break the framing.
Is the bottom-up approach more polemical or do you see it as more essential and kind of an integral part of philosophizing? Like, is it a corrective or is it something that is necessary for proper philosophy?
Nico Cornell (20:33.006)
Right, great. I mean, partly what I meant to be commenting on. Yeah, right. You're just gonna make me do the like, meta philosophy, like... I meant to be mostly commenting on my own strengths and weaknesses. And it's probably good that there are people of both sorts. got to...
PJ Wehry (20:36.69)
We ask easy questions on this show.
Nico Cornell (21:01.022)
have dinner with my, graduate advisor this past year. And someone at the dinner table was like, you can tell us some stories about the ways in which, you know, Nico was a problem as a student. And, she very generously said, you know, no, no, but it was fun meeting with him and talking with him because, he's such a bottom up thinker and I'm such a top down thinker. So when we talk, it would always be, be interesting. And I really appreciated that because I, was how I experienced.
things too. And I guess I think it's good for philosophy to have both kind of orientations. I mean, take it this is in a way what Rawls is describing and talking about reflective equilibrium, right? You want the interplay between trying to find general principles that can structure our thought or our theorizing.
and then testing them against first order cases or first order intuitions. And then there's a kind of back and forth between these two. you know, for whatever it's worth, I might be better off on the testing, the testing, the bottom part. And there are other people who are better at the top part. But, and I don't know that one is more corrective than the other. think both can play a kind of corrective, corrective role. Yeah.
PJ Wehry (22:31.016)
You you hemmed in hot and talked about it being a difficult question, but I thought you answered it great. So thank you. That was, I even got a new, I, you know, I haven't read Rawls. I've seen the name around. And so now I have yet another book to put on my shelf and not read. No, I want to read someday, but that's a, the to be read list keeps getting bigger. It's a hazard of the hazard of the job. So.
Nico Cornell (22:36.319)
Okay.
PJ Wehry (22:58.748)
If you don't mind, can we talk a little bit about the characteristics of rights and just kind of walk through those? So we've talked about some of them. We've talked about the phenomenology part. We talked to, think you've mentioned a little bit about how it trumps things. And I think this is really, and use the term side constraints and use that kind of in parallel, maybe synonymous with Trump.
Can you explain what you mean by side constraints?
Nico Cornell (23:30.51)
sure. It's a, it's a term that comes from Robert Nozick. And the idea is that, I mean, I'm not sure that it's a term that I, I totally love, but it's, the idea is, we may in general be interested in trying to pursue the good, the overall welfare or, whatever the good consists in, but there are certain boundaries.
side constraints on our pursuit of the good. So there are some things that we just can't do, even if they would be good. you probably, I mean, everyone sort of thought about these different thought experiments that people have come up to get at this point. The first little Le Guin story, the ones who walk away from O'Male, even if it was made society great, we wouldn't leave someone tortured in a basement because it's just not.
an okay way to get there. And so that's the sort of thought. And I think it's one of the things that appeals to people who want to find a place for rights in moral and political theorizing.
PJ Wehry (24:44.302)
I think as a real life example, I know you said there were several, but immediately I've had some people on to talk about medical ethics and we have learned a ton from 20th and 19th century medical experimentation that we have then said, we're not going to do that anymore. Right? That stuff like, I mean, literally stuff in like Nazi camps that were like, well, we know that now and we are never going to do that again.
Nico Cornell (25:03.756)
Right.
PJ Wehry (25:12.752)
Right? that's, you know, and there's like, well, there's some further questions. It's like, no, this is like, yes, that would be good for future, but that is just a, that is a boundary that we should not be crossing.
Nico Cornell (25:24.3)
Right, no, that's a great example. That's a very nice example.
I could say one thing the book is partially motivated by is in there's a sort of long standing debate in philosophy about the nature of rights, where there's these two competing theories about what rights are. One is often characterized as the will theory. And the idea there is that what it is to have a right to be in control in some sense. So
The fact that I can consent to something Or that you can only do something to me with my consent Seems to mark out the fact that it's not just that you have a duty, but it's a duty that I control my sort of sovereign sphere and There's been various ways that this has been tried tried to be developed it has some familiar objections and the alternative view what's gets known as the interest theory is basically that
there's duties to protect some interests of the right holder or are grounded in the interests of the right holder. So the reason why you have a duty is to protect my interests, in bodily integrity. And that too seems like it has something going for it, but also is subject to some familiar objections. And, you know,
One of the things that certainly got me interested in this project you sent me down, it was a sense that, and other people have expressed this, the same thought, that that debate felt like both camps were onto something, but also kind of talking past each other and that the debate was kind of at a standstill. And the sort of side constraint type picture that could be part and parcel with either of those.
PJ Wehry (27:03.87)
Thanks for watching!
Nico Cornell (27:29.324)
views, right? But it's probably especially associated with the will theory. This is just, you can't do this to me without my consent. That's just a constraint.
PJ Wehry (27:39.516)
I'm reminded, I think it was Hank Green was talking about, there was a big debate among astronomers in a past century before they had built better telescopes. And they were arguing about whether these blurs they were seeing on their telescopes were clouds of gas or just so many stars together that it was blurry. Are you familiar with the story? Okay. So they build better telescopes and what they discover is
Nico Cornell (28:01.902)
No, I don't know the story.
PJ Wehry (28:08.85)
Like got very heated. They were constantly fighting. you know, I mean, it's, think it's like the 17th, 16th century. So people were probably punching each other, you know, instead of like saying nasty things in journals. They build better telescopes and they see the, you know, the different objects, blurry objects. And some of them were clouds of gas. And some of them were groups of stars that were so clustered together that before they were blurry. So the truth was they were.
both right, right? Like that's, it's one those things that like, when people get really heated about this stuff, it's like, it's like, there is you're like, you're both right, it's a bigger picture. So I don't know, that seems like a, I, but we're hoping is happening, right? Like, we don't want people with like, the reason that people get heated about things like a will or interest is like, are you saying my moral intuition is wrong? Like, that's, that's not a fun thing to say to somebody.
Nico Cornell (28:37.998)
I that, yeah.
Nico Cornell (29:05.644)
Right, Yeah, no, and there's a sort of humility involved in being able to say, are some of the greatest thinkers who have approached this topic. Like, are you saying they're just all wrong? Like, there's gotta be something right in what they were claiming here, even if they weren't getting the whole picture. Yeah.
PJ Wehry (29:33.694)
So we have this side constraint and thank you for explaining that. And then the ability to wave by their holders and that seems to be, I could be wrong here, is that specifically tied to the will theory or can that show up in the interest theory as well?
Nico Cornell (29:51.15)
I mean that really is a kind of I mean the will theory is at least often characterized as like that's the essential feature and then there are criticisms of saying that that's the essential feature and as you probably noticed in the book I I don't offer anything like essential features but rather I say something looser which is there are these features that writes typically have and it's
I think waiver or the possibility of waiver is something that rights typically have, although of course we're familiar with things that are inalienable that we still want to call rights. And we're also familiar with the thought that some individuals who aren't in a position to waive are capable of waiving rights. And so it would be a mistake to say there can only be rights when, if and only if
someone at that moment can waive the relevant duty. But I do think it's a kind of good marker in general that rights typically have because if you think of rights as describing a kind of ex ante entitlement.
PJ Wehry (31:08.134)
And for me, and you talk about this being a very kind of landmark case with Benjamin Cardoza, the core of the book that you're arguing for is that the lady just minding her own business at a train station who gets hurt in a way that, I mean, you said, I think she struggles with her speech afterwards. I mean, it's permanently alters her life.
Even if we can't enumerate a right, your response is we shouldn't go looking for another right. Like, somehow we'll create some exhaustive list of rights. It's that no, she was wronged. Even if we can't find the right that it corresponds to, we should be able to talk about her being wronged and her like, there should be some legal recompense of some sort. Is that kind of the heart of it?
Nico Cornell (32:00.93)
Yeah, that is the heart of it. mean, like third party kinds of cases, which the Paul Scraff cases of example of really are what first got me into the problem. they, you know, they make up the after the introduction, the sort of first chapter. And so when I'm explaining the view in sort of two sentence form, I usually will say like, I think if you, if you kill me,
you will wrong my mother who loves me. But you won't have violated a right of hers. You will have violated my rights, but not hers. And there I'm trying to tap in.
PJ Wehry (32:32.381)
Mm.
PJ Wehry (32:42.846)
I'm a huge fan of extreme examples. Thank you. I just really...
Nico Cornell (32:47.822)
Yeah, you're welcome. I know. I already got you murdering me. So, but people who, so I'm here, I'm tapping into a sort of intuitive sense that like, would be perfectly apt for my mom to resent you. And it would make sense that you might try to apologize and she could potentially forgive you, right? All these sort of packages. Now, one response,
PJ Wehry (32:54.515)
Yeah.
Nico Cornell (33:17.58)
someone might have is, well, actually, maybe she does have a right. Right? Why not just add in more rights? Same thing from Paul's graph. If we think that she deserves some compensation for the injury that was done to her by the railroad company, why not just say she had a right to violate her right not to be injured in this way?
And that's a sort of common move. again, here the language can be tricky because we could just say we have a right that our children not be killed. And by that we might just mean, it might just sort of be a placeholder for you stand to be wrong. It would be out for you to raise that. But I don't think it would play the same kind of role.
of being a sort of ex ante entitlement. you know, one way I used to sort of like, draw out this intuition is, you know, if you were in a position where you had to put, you'd been, you'd been negligent, and you were going to put at risk my life, or the life of an orphan with no family members who loved them. I don't think that the fact that I
PJ Wehry (34:16.453)
Yeah.
Nico Cornell (34:46.21)
have a loving mother should matter there. These are two lives. And my mother has no extra claim, no extra right there, or I would say no right at all, though she does stand to be wrong. And so that's, again, trying to get at the sense in which we shouldn't posit more rights because they wouldn't be doing the kind of action-guiding work that get, I think, rights do do.
PJ Wehry (35:14.974)
I don't think we run into this with just, if I could say rules in general is if we're constantly, the endless list of rights, the endless list of rules eventually become burdensome in a way that they're no longer practically applicable, right? Like the list of rights that you have should be relatively,
intuitive and short. if you have like, mean, if the list of rights ends up being like several thousand pages long, and you're having to look at it just doesn't and that's what like, instead of playing whack-a-mole and trying to find like, well, this seems like the wrong there must be a corresponding right. And we're like trying to hunt legally for this and constantly sending up for opinions. And it
instead just disconnecting and being like that that's a wrong you've overstepped you know like this is where the language comes tricky overstep the boundary right or something like you you have wronged this person is that is that part of it as well
Nico Cornell (36:28.076)
Yeah, I mean, I there is this sort of worry about just sort of like over over proliferation, where it becomes unwieldy, although I'm not sure if it's just the sort of the sheer number that would become unwieldy. But I think part of why I think it becomes unwieldy is because I think rights mean something for us. And so when we start positing more rights, that
PJ Wehry (36:47.91)
Yes, okay.
Nico Cornell (36:56.234)
immediately carries with it a kind of meaning about burdens that are being imposed on other people. So like towards the end of the book, I have a little, it's really not part of the main argument, but I sort of give the example of this, you know, debates that happened around microaggressions. And, you know, people who found the discussion of microaggressions like exaggerated, there can't be a right not to be offended.
PJ Wehry (37:01.736)
Yes.
Nico Cornell (37:26.37)
Right? And you can see why if you're really wedded to this thought that like, well, if there's a wrong, then there must be a right. And if there's a right not to be offended, that's burdening my ability to speak and be free. It does start to feel kind of very incumberant. And I mean, I think this is all kind of mistaken, but it's not so much just the sort of proliferation, but it's the proliferation plus the fact that rights are
meaningful sort of heavy artillery, yeah.
PJ Wehry (37:55.218)
The-
So, and maybe, I think I might be missing the mark here, but I think it'll help with clarification. There's a big difference between, forgive me, I can't remember her name, but the lady standing on the train station and a reasonable expectation of safety not being attacked by flying metal or falling metal of some kind. But if she has a right to safety, then she can go to the train employees and
demand that they keep her safe. And that's a different thing. Does that?
Nico Cornell (38:33.228)
Right. So this is, think, the key idea is, so one of my colleagues who teaches torts and teaches this case will draw out the thought that Mrs. Paul's graph, Helen Paul's graph doesn't have a right, as you kind of really try and picture the situation.
as there are this man hustling to catch the train and they're kind of jostling him or jostling his package, you know, and if you imagine Helen Paul's graph at that moment saying, Hey, watch out for me. Right. It like it doesn't make sense, right? That's not the relevant concern. And so if you think, well, rights involve that kind of, you're supposed to be playing a role in the deliberation and there's no sense in which.
PJ Wehry (39:13.243)
It's weird, yeah.
Nico Cornell (39:27.188)
At that moment, the trade employees should be like watching out for her standing over there on the platform. That, I mean, I think that's, that's right that there, there isn't, that's correct. There isn't a right of that sort here. Now the question is, should we infer from that, that ex ante, she's not playing this role in the deliberation to the conclusion that afterwards the train company
and her don't stand in this, you know, relevant package of relations where she can resent the training company in a way that a bystander, ordinary bystander can't, and the training company can forgive or, you know, the training company can apologize, she could forgive, they could pay compensation, and so on. Or should we think, well, she wasn't a right holder, shows she's a mere, a mere bystander, a mere outsider who can't relate to one of these morally...
substantial ways.
PJ Wehry (40:30.718)
So, forgive me, again, I might be barking up the wrong tree, but it seems to me that some of this...
Nico Cornell (40:37.28)
I'll just flag that. I just want to flag how often you're saying, forgive me, please preemptively, which I really appreciate.
PJ Wehry (40:42.878)
Yeah, he does.
I have no idea if this is gonna work. I know, no, it's so true. do this every time. like, I don't know this is gonna be a good question not, but sometimes it is, sometimes it isn't. So I'll start by begging your pardon. I'll start using that. It's very Gandalf. No, no, it's very Bilbo. Sorry, I gotta get right. Do you think that some of this movement and some of this confusion comes from the Enlightenment?
Nico Cornell (40:59.672)
No.
Nico Cornell (41:05.55)
Hahaha
PJ Wehry (41:15.676)
with the idea of an ideal observer or like this kind of transcendental perfect. And what you're talking about is a finite observer, is exactly, you know, bottom up thinking, but also real life thinking because the, the ideal observer would know that she's part of the discussion, right? Like she would deliberate about her, but no.
reasonable person would, I mean again we're talking about the ideal observer there, but no reasonable person would try and include her in the deliberation. They would be thinking about what's happening ex-ante but post-ante because she is now part of the relevant information. Is that some of what we're targeting here? Because I think we are working through some of these enlightenment, this enlightenment inheritance.
Nico Cornell (42:11.584)
Yeah, I I think that's certainly right. I mean, undoubtedly. And as I sort of alluded to, I do think the book has a bit of a spirit of, I think at one point I even use Iris Murdoch's term of like, return, that it's trying to kind of pull us back from what I take to be sort of over theorized picture.
And I mean, obviously I come out of philosophy training that's from the Enlightenment tradition. think there's tons of value. But it is a process of trying to kind of create a scientific way of looking at things, which means heavy theorizing and in trying to impose order on the very complex features of interpersonal life.
I think we've gotten a little too wedded to one idea that where there's more than one thing going on.
PJ Wehry (43:22.558)
So I want to be respectful of your time. Kind of as we end here, besides reading your book, besides buying and reading your excellent book, what is something that you would recommend to our audience who has listened through this full hour, 45 minutes we're entering on now? What would you say to them to either say or, well,
or do or think about over the next week after listening to this.
Nico Cornell (43:56.686)
That's interesting. So.
Nico Cornell (44:05.43)
Yeah, we, that's the place where it's putting it.
One, I guess, way of thinking about it is if you catch yourself, so the minimal thing is if you catch yourself thinking in terms of, am I entitled to this? Or, is this other person entitled to this from me? Like, pause for a moment and wonder, is that the right sort of frame to be using here?
Or might it be the case that although they weren't entitled to my treating them in such and such a way, I may still owe them an apology for having not. Or there may still be a meaningful bit of moral repair that needs to happen here. so that's the sort of minimal thing.
Yeah, I guess I also, you in the book, I talk about some of these other examples that we haven't really talked about, like preemptive forgiving, where I think it's a great practice. So I love I love how frequently you engage in it. But it's something that's only really possible if you can, I always argue if you see these things as kind of coming apart, because it's different than granting permission, right?
preemptively forgiving someone isn't saying, it's okay. And yet it's a rich and valuable practice. I think like, you know, the book there's a chapter about exploitative relationships. And this is an example. Two is something that, you know, if you get too stuck in a simple way of looking at it, you may not see the kind of complexity of where there might be
Nico Cornell (46:09.038)
wronging is happening that you should be aware that you may be participating in. And without having to fit that into the kind of rights picture. And then at the meta-philosophy level, I guess I'd say, you know, go read some good, you know, good literature and think about what's going on morally. I I draw the book, obviously, in a lot of especially 19th century literature. I kind of love
that because I think it really tends to prompt these sort of moral questions in ways that are just good for human thinking.
PJ Wehry (46:51.31)
I said that was the last question, but I do have to do a follow-up here with the I didn't ask for forgiveness of time. No the No, you talk about exploitative relationships
Nico Cornell (46:58.988)
Yeah
PJ Wehry (47:05.935)
It's like for our audience, part of that be, even for people who are giving up their rights, they could still be being wronged. Is that like, and I think that could, like people understand that.
Nico Cornell (47:19.438)
That's the thought. Yeah, that's exactly the thought. think people, right, people pre-theoretically do understand that. But...
PJ Wehry (47:30.014)
through manipulation, through an abuse of authority.
Nico Cornell (47:34.254)
Well, So manipulation or coercion, we might be able to say, oh, well, there wasn't really consent, right? There wasn't really valid consent. And that's one way of approaching the topic. But I think it seems unsatisfying when you think about it. sometimes that might be the right thing to say, but it can also be very paternalizing to say, oh, this person, were too poor to be able to give valid consent.
PJ Wehry (47:40.548)
Right, right, right.
Nico Cornell (48:04.278)
like that's not the right way I Right, well, I mean, it should. Rather the thing to say is there is consent. There was a, you know, a waiver of rights, but it doesn't obviate the wrong that might happen in the relationship. And I think that's actually a quite common structure, unfortunately, in
PJ Wehry (48:05.456)
Sorry, that just made me involuntarily cringe.
Yes.
Nico Cornell (48:33.518)
especially our economic lives these days.
PJ Wehry (48:38.302)
Dr. Cornell, wonderful way to end, great answers. Thank you so much for talking to me today. It's been an absolute pleasure.
Nico Cornell (48:47.242)
It's been a real pleasure talking to you too. And yeah, I'll do it again sometime.
PJ Wehry (48:55.368)
think my mouse just died. That's okay, we'll cut it there. This has been so exciting from a... man, anyways.
Nico Cornell (48:59.246)
You