bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
It’s Like Its Own City
Authors: Gibson-Light Michael 
Published: November 2022

Abstract
This chapter draws on eighteen months of observations behind bars to offer a tour of a medium-security American prison. Through rich ethnographic description, it illuminates the many workplaces where incarcerated men labor today. It then marshals accounts from the imprisoned themselves for insights into what factors are desired—or derided—across diverse prison jobs. These ethnographic and interview data inform a typology of prison jobs. This sets the stage for future chapters to examine how penal laborers navigate the hierarchical prison employment system. Finally, the author details the primary motivations of this research: to unpack the lived experience of contemporary penal labor, to document the factors that influence prison job assignments, and to uncover how inequalities at work behind bars may shape experiences and outlooks for the hundreds of thousands who perform such labor.
Capitals and Punishment
Authors: Gibson-Light Michael 
Published: November 2022

Abstract
This chapter documents various sorting mechanisms through which the prison classifies working prisoners and assigns jobs. It unpacks how individuals with certain arrangements of capital—including prior work experiences, knowledge of labor market conventions, educational certifications, valued presentation styles, and ties to influential others—are privileged in the pursuit of desirable, higher-paying jobs. Groups possessing valued characteristics, knowledge, and resources experience greater mobility in the carceral employment system. Conversely, those lacking in such areas may face additional hurdles to ascending the labor hierarchy behind bars. The chapter thus examines how procedures and practices in the prison job search contribute to social reproduction.
I Owe My Soul to the Commissary Store
Authors: Gibson-Light Michael 
Published: November 2022

Abstract
This chapter examines material disparities resulting from unequal prison labor sorting. It describes the formal economy—centered on the commissary store and institutional services—and the informal economy—comprised of black-market stores, shadow labor, and its own informal currency—within the prison. Across these internal marketplaces, those atop the status hierarchy of prison jobs are often better positioned to provide for themselves, avoid additional scrutiny from security staff, and potentially prepare for their eventual release. Those in less privileged positions, on the other hand, frequently struggle against additional hardships in the face of cost-shifting and other predatory practices. Labor processes thus impact carceral experiences in several overlapping ways.
Conclusion
Authors: Gibson-Light Michael 
Published: November 2022

Abstract
In this concluding chapter, the author extends out from ground-level ethnographic insights to situate the prison fieldsite, Sunbelt State Penitentiary, in its broader political-economic context. It describes historical evolutions in American penology from the old penology of emphasizing crime control through the new penology of prioritizing population control, culminating in the present day’s neoliberal approach to penal punishment and labor. Finally, the chapter presents three possible changes to address issues in contemporary punishment institutions. The prescriptions for change offered here are guided by the insights of imprisoned workers themselves. These range from incremental reform-based approaches to pathways toward more radical transformation.
Toward Nature
Authors: Dews Peter 
Published: November 2022

Abstract
This chapter begins by examining the background to Schelling’s early work in Kant and Fichte. The key influence on a whole generation, Fichte seeks to makes Kant’s approach consistent, by deriving the conditions of experience simply from the self-positing “I.” However, his early philosophy is troubled by the problem of the relation between “transcendental idealism” and “empirical realism.” Fichte cannot decide whether the transcendental standpoint has metaphysical priority over the standpoint of life or is merely an explanatory device. Schelling’s early work seeks to resolve this oscillation, arguing that the structure of being and the structure of knowing must be identical, regarded absolutely. Correspondingly, in his emerging philosophy of nature, he shows, against Kant, that nature must be objectively teleological. Schelling’s “twin-track” conception, in which transcendental philosophy and the philosophy of nature are complementary, leads to a conflict with Fichte, which is fought out in their correspondence around the turn of the century. The two philosophers make valid criticisms of one another, which will influence their subsequent thinking.
Freedom
Authors: Dews Peter 
Published: November 2022

Abstract
In his Philosophical Investigations into the Essence of Human Freedom, published in 1809, Schelling outlines a new approach in which freedom and necessity, and the experiential and the rational, are seen as locked in a relation of productive conflict. He still strives to resolve the conflict, but the concept he ultimately deploys to do so, the “un-ground,” remains problematic. In response, in The Ages of the World (1811–1815), Schelling reconfigures the relation between the a priori logic of modes of being and the temporal world in a quasi-mythological mode and begins to develop a new conception of freedom as “liberation” (Befreyung). However, this conception results in the subjectivity at the heart of the world process becoming trapped in a compulsive “rotary movement.” In his Erlangen lectures of the early 1820s, Schelling seeks to overcome this problem by elaborating a radically transcendent conception of freedom. Eventually he grasps that the move from mythological compulsion to divine or transcendent freedom in his thinking in fact replicates what was originally a world-historical shift in human consciousness, thereby anticipating Karl Jaspers’ notion of an “Axial Age” in world history.
Thinking and Being
Authors: Dews Peter 
Published: November 2022

Abstract
The late stage of Schelling’s philosophy begins toward the end of the 1820s, when he starts to draw a distinction between “positive” and “negative” philosophy. This chapter begins by reviewing Schelling’s historical account of the relation between positive and negative philosophy, from Plato and Aristotle to Kant. It then examines how Schelling theorizes the beginning of the process of a priori thinking, which he terms “negative philosophy.” This leads to a comparison of Schelling’s conception of being, non-being, and nothing with Hegel’s account of the relation between being and nothing at the beginning of his Science of Logic. In contrast to Hegel, Schelling avoids the regress produced when one understands the beginning of pure thinking as an act of radical abstraction, yet must also abstract from the abstraction to establish a positive starting point. The chapter concludes by exploring the basic dialectic of potentialities which provides the framework for Schelling’s late philosophy, showing how this dialectic is generated from the concept of “being-ness” as such.
Mythological Consciousness
Authors: Dews Peter 
Published: November 2022

Abstract
This chapter begins with a philosophical exploration of what Schelling means by “God-positing consciousness.” It then explains his theory of the “mythological process” which emerges from it. This process, which consists in the dynamic interaction of Schelling’s potentialities, or principles of being, unfolds in the human mind in a compulsive and dream-like manner. Schelling’s theory of mythology clearly anticipates psychoanalytic accounts of the child’s separation from an initial state of merger with the caregiver, and its consequences. The inner dynamic of the mythological process in Schelling also reveals analogues to neurotic mechanisms, and some of these are explored. The stages of the mythological process, and the systems which it establishes, are explained, with reference to Schelling’s interpretation of ancient Greek and other world mythologies. The chapter concludes with his account of the Eleusinian Mysteries of ancient Athens. For Schelling, the Mysteries are the point at which mythological consciousness becomes reflexive: it does so in a mythological mode, which nonetheless points beyond itself, toward a future “absolute monotheism” or belief in a world-transcendent, spiritual God.
History as Liberation
Authors: Dews Peter 
Published: November 2022

Abstract
This chapter focuses primarily of the “paradox of autonomy” in the thought of Hegel and Schelling. The paradox arises from Kant’s conception of freedom as rational self-legislation, because it is unclear in what sense the decision to legislate rationally for oneself can itself be rational or free. One way Hegel seeks to resolve this problem is by treating the question of agency, in the last instance, at the level of world history. However, the paradox emerges again in his theorization of the historical process. Similarly, as passages from Hegel’s Logic and the Philosophy of Right show, his effort to eliminate the paradox by suppressing the practical dimension of philosophy are unsuccessful. In contrast, Schelling, in his late philosophy, theorizes what he calls “absolute spirit” as characterized by a duality which reflects the paradox of autonomy, rather than seeking straightforwardly to resolve it. His own interpretation of the history of human consciousness, and the methodology of his interpretation, are then explained as grounded in this conception. The chapter concludes with a discussion of developments in theology and the sociology of religion since the period of German Idealism.
Stories
Authors: Nolan Cathal J. 
Published: November 2022

Abstract
This chapter begins with an account of the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022. It introduces the concept of moral harm to perpetrators of war crimes and others who decline to show mercy to the enemy or civilians. It discusses war stories that arise from propaganda, nationalist literature, heroic myths masquerading as memories, and personal tales told by veterans about uncommon combat experiences. The chapter utilizes stories drawn from diaries and memoirs, interviews, and more casual reminiscences by ordinary people whose humanity was tested in war. The war stories here are about private acts of profound mercy and conscience, especially when no one was looking.
Heroes
Authors: Nolan Cathal J. 
Published: November 2022

Abstract
War heroes thrive in all cultures. Stories about warrior heroism date at least to Babylonian and Akkadian tablet tales of the great warrior king Gilgamesh and to tomb cults in Iron Age Greece in the 8th century bce. Writers crafted world literature around tales of war heroes that are still read centuries after their cultures died. The chapter explains how war is presented in warping and wrenching classic works, even when its heroes are tragically flawed characters. It highlights how the warrior is upheld as an ultimate exemplar of heroic idealism, seamlessly virtuous even in childhood and destined for greatness. It cites Homer’s morally damaged hero Ulysses as an exemplar that calls to readers across millennia to watch him do great deeds of war, a model replicated across world cultures.
Killers
Authors: Nolan Cathal J. 
Published: November 2022

Abstract
This chapter considers killer-heroes celebrated in every culture, who are upheld to inspire emulation by novice fighters and admiration by civilians. The most acclaimed heroes were also the best killers in classical epics from ancient Greece, Pharaonic Egypt, medieval India, Ming China, and pre-Meiji Japan. Killer-heroes populate heroic poetry, sprawling novels, and now feature films. The chapter reviews the reputation for killing prowess that serves as a feared model to be imitated by ordinary soldiers and is said to represent moral as well as physical courage and superiority. Hero stories about great killers raise morale, or the willingness to fight, in every prideful culture and each flagging nation.
Medics
Authors: Nolan Cathal J. 
Published: November 2022

Abstract
Before the 17th century most wounded soldiers received little medical care beyond that provided by fellow soldiers or women traveling with the baggage train or orders of nursing monks. Ming armies and Ottoman Janissaries were notable exceptions: they built dedicated military hospitals. The chapter highlights the first military hospitals in Europe, which did not replace barebones monasteries and a few charitable hospices until several decades after the Thirty Years War: Les Invalides in Paris in 1676 and Chelsea in London in 1682. French armies pioneered modern military medicine during the wars of Louis XIV. They were the first to utilize mobile field hospitals and “flying ambulances” during the Wars of the French Revolution. France also set up the first corps of modern medics, soldiers minimally trained in battlefield medicine and set up the first female nursing orders. Military medicine expanded immensely in the 20th century, keeping pace with the general expansion of war. That meant female nurses and doctors moved closer to the front while male medics moved directly into combat. Their stories form the bulk of the chapter.
Stealth
Authors: Nolan Cathal J. 
Published: November 2022

Abstract
Most naval experts before 1914 smugly predicted that no country would ever use such a vicious and petty form of warfare as the submarine. Yet, over the next few years war stories in Scientific American about submarine sinkings, chases, and technology proved among the most popular. Some U-boat captains lusted for kills, sinking passenger liners and illuminated hospital ships and machine-gunning survivors and lifeboats in the water. War from under the sea seemed utterly merciless, cruel, and immoral as submarine war evolved. World War II started the same way from the first day. This time everyone did it: Germans, British, and Americans all practiced sink-on-sight and unrestricted submarine warfare in pursuit of the goal of blockade and starvation of their enemies. Total war, little mercy.
Wings
Authors: Nolan Cathal J. 
Published: November 2022

Abstract
War in the air hardly seems to allow for mercy as fighting reduces to machine versus machine, today using fire-and-forget missiles that streak miles beyond human control. Similarly with bombing. Compared to infantry aiming a rifle, it is much harder to engage empathy for ant-like figures below who scurry over an orangish target grid. It is much closer to long-range artillery, which also kills out of sight and direct moral awareness. This chapter points to rough moral and psychological equations that lower empathy as distance or as altitude and distance increase from bomber to target. It discusses how air war presents in popular media an almost antiseptic violence wherein machines only kill other machines, and the ground explosions are so massive that they obliterate all obscenity. Yet, it also provides examples of moral exceptions from the two world wars that show even in air war, acts of mercy are still possible. It closes with consideration of the moral implications of using drones in targeted killings, and the moral harm inflicted on operators.
The Idea of the Rule of Law
Authors: Postema Gerald J. 
Published: November 2022

Abstract
This chapter uncovers the core idea lying at the center of the rule-of-law ideal, the deep concern that motivates its partisans and gives life to the demands it places on institutions and individuals. It shows that, in a wide variety of political circumstances and cultures over the ages, writers who have thought about conditions necessary for the survival and flourishing of their political communities frequently appealed to a set of interrelated ideas concerning the constitution of and constraints on social and political power. The core idea that emerges is that the rule of law promises protection and recourse against the arbitrary exercise of power through the law’s distinctive tools and modes of operation. The rule of law provides a bulwark of protection against those who seek to impose their will on others, bridle on the powerful, and a bond constituting and holding together the polity. It defines a politically demanding mode of governance and gives public expression to a morally compelling ideal of association. The chapter concludes with a sketch of the components of the coherent conception of the rule of law that will be elaborated over the next seven chapters.
Power, Accountability, and Law’s Toolbox
Authors: Postema Gerald J. 
Published: November 2022

Abstract
This chapter elaborates in detail the key concepts that populate our proposed understanding of the core aim of the rule of law: to provide protection and recourse against the arbitrary exercise of power, through the law’s distinctive tools. The relevant power is power of one party over another in relationships characterized by dependency and inequality. This power is arbitrarily exercised when its exercise is unilateral and not subject to accountability. The rule of law is concerned with private as well as public governing power, within the boundaries of nations and beyond them, including newly emerging power of digital platforms. The law’s available tools include its positive, directive, deliberative, systematic, rights-defining and protecting, and constitutive dimensions. With these tools, the rule of law seeks to temper rather than disable governing power, to discipline it in its distinctive ways, and thereby provide protection and recourse against its abuse. A key to the success of law’s rule lies in the existence of effective mechanisms by which those who wield power are held accountable for its exercise.
Sovereignty, Equality, and Fidelity
Authors: Postema Gerald J. 
Published: November 2022

Abstract
Three fundamental questions about law’s ruling arise: Who are bound and in what ways are they bound? Who benefits? and How is it possible for law to rule? This chapter answers these questions. It articulates and defends three principles that immediately follow from the core idea of the rule of law: sovereignty of law, equality in the eyes of law, and fidelity. Sovereignty demands that those who exercise ruling power govern with law (legality), that law governs those who govern with it (reflexivity), and that only acts that are ordained by law are legitimate (exclusivity). Equality in the eyes of the law requires that law’s protection and recourse is available on an equal basis for all who are also bound by it. Fidelity requires that all members of the political community, lay members and as well as the legal or ruling elite, take responsibility for holding each other, and especially law’s officials, accountable under the law. Fidelity is rooted in a community-wide ethos that provides the animating spirit of the rule of law.
Democracy, Rights, and Justice
Authors: Postema Gerald J. 
Published: November 2022

Abstract
This chapter focuses on the relationship between the rule of law and two other fundamental concerns of political morality: democracy and respect for fundamental human rights. These three are distinct values, issuing distinct normative demands; nevertheless they are complementary and intertwined. Fundamental human rights can adequately serve vital interests of human beings only with the assistance of law; and the law and its administration, conforming to the demands of the rule of law, serve their grounding values only when the law adequately recognizes and protects these fundamental rights. Strictly speaking, a legal system can meet rule-of-law principles and standards and yet fail to protect against systematic violations of basic human rights. However, the government’s commitment to the values served by the rule of law would be fundamentally compromised, if this were so. Similarly, democracy and the rule of law exist in a unique relationship of interdependence. The rule of law supplies the necessary infrastructure of democracy, while democracy is the natural completion of the ambitions that motivate the rule of law.
Realizing Law’s Rule
Authors: Postema Gerald J. 
Published: November 2022

Abstract
This chapter articulates and illustrates important design principles for the necessary institutional realization of the rule of law. The rule of law makes specific demands on the law itself (formal conditions of legality), on institutions for the application and enforcement of the law (principles of procedural fairness, access to justice), and on institutions that constitute, constrain, and sanction the exercise of ruling power. The latter institutions include separation of powers and a network of mechanisms of horizontal accountability. To realize law’s rule in the modern state, a quasi-fractal separation of powers between and internal to the separated branches is needed. Informal constitutional norms underwrite these formal and informal institutions. They delineate and enforce the autonomy of the agencies while defining modes and limits of accountability. The rule of law also requires extragovernmental organizations and practices rooted in civil society and protected by law. They provide necessary means of vertical accountability. Finally, a robust legal profession that understands and is deeply committed to the rule of law is essential for its realization. Lawyers are conservators of the law and guardians of its integrity. They play a crucial role in tempering ruling power and are essential intermediaries between law, citizens, and the institutions and officials of government.
Conditions and Limits
Authors: Postema Gerald J. 
Published: November 2022

Abstract
This chapter explores the conditions and limits of the rule of law. The institutions and practices that realize the rule of law depend for their meaning and efficacy on the specific material, cultural, and legal conditions of those communities. Because these conditions are variable, rule-of-law institutions may take a variety of forms to take advantage of distinctive resources and answer the distinctive challenges that this variability offers. Sometimes the weakness of rule-of-law institutions lies not in their design but in their underlying cultural conditions. Due to their dependence on background practices and culture, rule-of-law institutions are vulnerable to serious threats. There are also normative limits to the rule of law’s demands. The rule of law is only one concern of political morality among others. Its place in the web of moral values fixes the boundaries of its proper scope. In some circumstances, the rule of law may have to give way to more pressing demands of justice. In addition, the rule of law is limited because the proper reach of the law is limited. In some contexts, law is off limits, because its intrusion is too costly.
Threats to Law’s Rule
Authors: Postema Gerald J. 
Published: November 2022

Abstract
This chapter concludes the work of Part I to articulate and defend a conception of the rule of law, identifying its core aim, fundamental principles, varieties of institutional realization, and circumstantial and normative limits. This chapter identifies the kinds of threats to achieving or maintaining a robust presence of the rule of law in our political communities to which the rule of law is most vulnerable. The chapter argues that law’s rule is threatened in a political community (1) when its institutions are weak or unable to respond flexibly to changes in domestic or global circumstances; (2) when political actors seek to subvert the formal institutions that realize the rule of law or the norms and practices that animate them; (3) when responses to attempts at subversion lack vigor and conviction; and (4) when the moral culture in which the ethos of fidelity exists is corrupted and public spaces in which accountability can flourish shrink. However, these threats need not succeed. The chapter explores avenues of response to subversion of norms and ways to counter erosion of a nation’s rule-of-law ethos.