1
00:00:01,000 --> 00:00:03,730
I want to talk about your most 
recent work, a book called when 

2
00:00:03,740 --> 00:00:07,710
all else fails, the ethics of 
resistance to state injustice. 

3
00:00:07,900 --> 00:00:12,580
What is the moral parity thesis?
Good, Sadia, the moral parity 

4
00:00:12,590 --> 00:00:16,160
thesis is the claim that the 
conditions under which. 

5
00:00:16,910 --> 00:00:20,180
You are able to resist. 
Injustice conducted by a 

6
00:00:20,190 --> 00:00:23,620
government official, even one 
acting in the capacity of their 

7
00:00:23,630 --> 00:00:26,360
office, are exactly the same as 
the conditions under which 

8
00:00:26,370 --> 00:00:30,040
you're allowed to resist me. 
So basically, there's one set of

9
00:00:30,050 --> 00:00:32,740
rules of self-defense and one 
set of rules for when you're 

10
00:00:32,750 --> 00:00:36,100
allowed to use violence or 
subterfuge or deceit or other 

11
00:00:36,110 --> 00:00:39,240
things to defend other people 
from injustice. 

12
00:00:39,310 --> 00:00:41,780
And that same set of rules 
applies to government agents as 

13
00:00:41,790 --> 00:00:43,560
it does to defendants against 
civilians. 

14
00:00:43,570 --> 00:00:46,800
They are one in the same, so 
government agents are not owed. 

15
00:00:46,900 --> 00:00:48,590
Any greater? 
Uh, they. 

16
00:00:48,630 --> 00:00:51,310
So the reverse. 
That thesis I think I'm arguing 

17
00:00:51,320 --> 00:00:53,590
against is what you might call 
the special immunity clear 

18
00:00:53,630 --> 00:00:57,580
thesis, which says that 
government agents, either when 

19
00:00:57,590 --> 00:00:59,740
they're working within their 
office or not, or maybe just 

20
00:00:59,750 --> 00:01:03,450
democratic government agents. 
But some government agents enjoy

21
00:01:03,460 --> 00:01:07,050
a kind of special immunity 
against resistance and actions 

22
00:01:07,060 --> 00:01:10,480
to resist their injustice. 
So in that, like, if I were to 

23
00:01:10,490 --> 00:01:12,690
try to kill you right now just 
for the hell of it, because I'm 

24
00:01:12,700 --> 00:01:15,180
having a bad day and I'm 
misbehaving, everyone thinks you

25
00:01:15,190 --> 00:01:17,390
be allowed to defend yourself 
against me and that other people

26
00:01:17,400 --> 00:01:19,650
be allowed to intervene to 
defend you against me. 

27
00:01:19,740 --> 00:01:22,730
But most people think that if a 
police officer has a bad day and

28
00:01:22,740 --> 00:01:25,210
starts beating the crap out of 
somebody, that you just have to 

29
00:01:25,220 --> 00:01:27,950
stop and let them do it. 
You can complain later. 

30
00:01:27,960 --> 00:01:30,010
You can file, maybe you should 
get there should be a formal 

31
00:01:30,020 --> 00:01:33,250
investigation, but you're not 
permitted to an intervene 

32
00:01:33,290 --> 00:01:35,110
violently. 
You're not permitted to lie to 

33
00:01:35,120 --> 00:01:38,070
the government, you're not 
permitted to resist them except 

34
00:01:38,080 --> 00:01:40,190
under really extreme 
circumstances. 

35
00:01:40,440 --> 00:01:42,450
And so the book, the simple 
claim is just. 

36
00:01:43,240 --> 00:01:45,410
Whatever you can do in 
self-defense or defense of 

37
00:01:45,420 --> 00:01:48,290
others against anything that I, 
Jay Brennan, do you can do 

38
00:01:48,300 --> 00:01:53,180
against the US president's race.
So Bernie Sanders was actually 

39
00:01:53,190 --> 00:01:55,220
asked about, you know, what do 
you think about all this 

40
00:01:55,230 --> 00:01:58,340
excessive force that we see 
because of people with cell 

41
00:01:58,350 --> 00:02:01,620
phones and whatnot? 
And he says that we need to 

42
00:02:01,630 --> 00:02:04,180
peacefully. 
His general response was we need

43
00:02:04,190 --> 00:02:08,580
to act peacefully through the 
judicial system and we also need

44
00:02:08,590 --> 00:02:11,240
to make sure we have training 
for the officers. 

45
00:02:11,290 --> 00:02:14,340
So why? 
So maybe we shouldn't talk about

46
00:02:14,350 --> 00:02:17,140
resisting, we should talk about 
these other mechanisms for 

47
00:02:17,150 --> 00:02:19,010
change. 
How does a professor, Brendan 

48
00:02:19,020 --> 00:02:21,240
respond to that? 
I mean I wish if I were. 

49
00:02:21,310 --> 00:02:24,060
Faster my feet. 
I'd change my guitar amplifier 

50
00:02:24,070 --> 00:02:26,310
background to that meme that has
like, little girl going. 

51
00:02:26,320 --> 00:02:28,350
Why not both? 
And everyone picks her up. 

52
00:02:29,600 --> 00:02:31,900
Because I think it's important 
we disambiguate 2 questions 

53
00:02:31,910 --> 00:02:34,140
here. 
One is what's the best mechanism

54
00:02:34,150 --> 00:02:36,040
for stopping a systematic 
problem? 

55
00:02:36,090 --> 00:02:38,600
And the other is what's the 
mechanism for stopping this 

56
00:02:38,610 --> 00:02:42,470
particular problem right now. 
So imagine you take the case of,

57
00:02:42,480 --> 00:02:45,470
like, there's evidence to say 
college fraternities have an 

58
00:02:45,480 --> 00:02:48,900
unusually bad drinking culture 
that leads to an excess of of 

59
00:02:48,910 --> 00:02:50,840
date rape. 
And then imagine a guy is about 

60
00:02:50,850 --> 00:02:54,540
to, like, date rape a girl and 
she thinks about violently 

61
00:02:54,550 --> 00:02:56,900
resisting him because he's using
violence against him. 

62
00:02:56,950 --> 00:02:58,480
And then imagine Bernie Sanders 
shows up. 

63
00:02:58,490 --> 00:02:59,670
I'm not saying he would say 
this, but. 

64
00:02:59,780 --> 00:03:03,150
G shows up and says, hold on. 
You know, there's this whole 

65
00:03:03,160 --> 00:03:06,390
problem of rape culture and date
rape culture and a systematic 

66
00:03:07,080 --> 00:03:09,710
explanation for why these sorts 
of behaviors take place. 

67
00:03:09,780 --> 00:03:13,230
If we wanna fix fraternity 
culture, you punching this guy 

68
00:03:13,240 --> 00:03:14,740
and running away isn't gonna fix
that. 

69
00:03:14,750 --> 00:03:17,440
What's gonna it's gonna do is 
like maybe make him more violent

70
00:03:17,450 --> 00:03:20,570
in the future for perhaps. 
And and what we really need to 

71
00:03:20,580 --> 00:03:22,810
do is like shut down 
fraternities or reform them or 

72
00:03:22,820 --> 00:03:25,530
have better education and have a
better kind of civic culture 

73
00:03:25,540 --> 00:03:28,500
that eliminates rape culture. 
He could say all that stuff and 

74
00:03:28,510 --> 00:03:30,900
he's talking about what does it 
take to fix the system. 

75
00:03:30,970 --> 00:03:32,990
Ethnic problem. 
It will require probably 

76
00:03:33,000 --> 00:03:36,930
systematic changes, but that 
doesn't mean that you have to 

77
00:03:36,940 --> 00:03:39,450
suffer the injustice at that 
moment, or that you have to 

78
00:03:39,460 --> 00:03:41,310
permit someone else to suffer 
that injustice. 

79
00:03:41,360 --> 00:03:44,470
Like if a police. 
If you wanna fix police officers

80
00:03:44,760 --> 00:03:47,700
like as a whole, then shooting 
this particular police officers 

81
00:03:47,710 --> 00:03:50,890
are unlikely to do that. 
But you're not obligated to 

82
00:03:50,900 --> 00:03:53,550
suffer the consequences or 
permit someone from committing 

83
00:03:53,560 --> 00:03:56,350
an injustice just because it 
won't fix the systematic 

84
00:03:56,360 --> 00:03:58,150
problem. 
She would be justified in 

85
00:03:58,160 --> 00:03:59,890
resisting rape. 
You would be justified in 

86
00:03:59,900 --> 00:04:02,230
resisting arrest. 
Or resisting the excess of 

87
00:04:02,240 --> 00:04:03,640
violence, or whatever else it 
might be. 

88
00:04:05,230 --> 00:04:09,320
No. 
Yeah, no. 

89
00:04:12,960 --> 00:04:19,170
Oh, oh. 
You're free, yeah. 

90
00:04:24,450 --> 00:04:31,090
Will be good. 
OK, OK, help me. 

91
00:04:31,100 --> 00:04:35,200
Please call me. 
Ohh. 

92
00:04:37,270 --> 00:04:37,660
No.