Miserere. Aesthetics of Terror

I say: “Oh, what a beautiful surrealist picture!” With quite precise awareness: this páthos, these emotions of mine do not stem from our common sense. An aesthetic judgment is founded on an immediate subjective intuition: an emotion or a free feeling of a single subject towards an object. A universal sense, possibly. Some judgments of ours in ethics and in law are no different from our perceptions in front of art. It would be the same for a hypothetical sentence of the judge that concluded with these words: “I acquit Arsenio Lupin because of his magnificent handlebar moustache like that of Guy de Maupassant”. Everyone would think intuitively that it is an unfair sentence. Is there aesthetics of terror? The case that the article intends to examine is that of the famous kidnapping and murder of the Italian statesman Aldo Moro by the “Brigate Rosse” [Red Brigades] (1978). The method used here consists in studying the image of the kidnapping as iconic documentation of reality, and, above all, as an ethical-legal judgment about the terrorist crime. Moro was photographed during his kidnapping. There are at least two pictures. Both constitute an extraordinary source for a judgment on the basis of an image. In both of them, Aldo Moro is pictured in front of a Red Brigades banner during the captivity. In what sense do these pictures document an aesthetic judgment concerning the “case Moro”? The answer can be found in a remarkable iconic coincidence of these pictures with a masterpiece by Georges Rouault (Paris 1871-1958) devoted to the theme of the “Ecce Homo”. The Gospel in the “Ecce Homo” scene (John: 19, 4-5) narrates how Pontius Pilate wanted to arouse the compassion of the people with a scourging and the exposure of Jesus to the crowd. The plate under consideration is entitled “Qui ne se grime pas?” [Who does not have a painted face?] and is a key work in Rouault’s suite of prints Miserere, dated for 1923

Disegnare la realtà sociale. Un'introduzione/Drawing Social Reality. An Introduction

The image has a fundamental role in the construction of social reality. Three major functions can be traced. First of all, there is an alethic function. The image serves to prove the existence of something. It is the function, for example, of the photo on the passport, or the identification drawings of institutional entities such as banknotes, or even religious symbols to ascertain the belonging of individuals or associations to a religious creed. Then there is a deontic function. The images express principles, rules, commands that sometimes language could not otherwise formulate. There are a lot of cases: road signs, land use plans, comic contracts, creative commons licenses, cadastral maps, border maps. In short, it is the world of visual rules discussed in this special issue of TCRS. Finally, the image has an axiotic function. In the Policraticus (1159) John of Salisbury embodies the image of aequitas in the “princeps iudex”. The image does not simply aim to describe sovereign power, but to ideally represent justice to be celebrated and imitated. Imago aequitatis. It is, among other things, the extraordinary value of art. In these introductory pages, the poignant photo of Moro in the so-called “prison of people” (the photo was delivered on 19 March 1978 with the first terrorist com-muniqué) demonstrates it alongside the work Qui ne se grime pas? (1923) by Georges Rouault. The image here does not describe or order anything, but separates good from evil. Miserere mei, Domine

Threats to Constitutional Systems

Constitutional systems are constantly under threats. Their respective principles and basic contents are often compromised. Fundamental rights, division of powers, democratic freedoms in a state of emergency (such as healthcare, climate, migration flow, cyber security emergencies), territorial integrity and state independence, legitimate goods of technological progress at the mercy of new hegemony, the values of justice as a reaction to globalization, and peoples’ cultural differences are at risk. The section “Threats to Constitutional Systems” comprises the three following areas of investigation: (i) principles, (ii) threats, (iii) emergencies

Disegnare la realtà sociale/Drawing Social Reality

With the publication of John Searle’s famous book The Construction of Social Reality in 1995, a new philosophical discipline comes to life, although with roots that date back to Husserlian phenomenology (and, in particular, to Adolf Reinach and Czesław Znamierowski’s research): social ontology. More specifically, this ontological investigation of society aims to study the conditions of possibility and the logical structure of social reality and its entities. According to Searle, social reality is a symbolic reality in that it is made possible by that particular “biological capacity” that humans possess “to make something symbolize”. For example, it is thanks to this human ability that a piece of multicolored paper can have the value of a ten-dollar bill. This ability is also the basis of language, which, according to Searle, is an essential tool for the construction of social reality. The role played by language in the creation of institutional entities has been particularly highlighted by the research carried out by Barry Smith and Maurizio Ferraris on documents as linguistic artifacts that greatly enhance the architecture of institutional reality. Within this survey, however, the roles that can also be played by drawing, alongside language, in documents and social architecture, as a “symbolizing tool” have often been overlooked. The objective of this special issue is to fill this gap, interlacing social ontology (and the theory of documentality) with a second new philosophical discipline recently brought into being thanks to Patrick Maynard’s book Drawing Distinctions: The Varieties of Graphic Expression, published in 2005: philosophy of drawing

Partecipazione, rappresentanza e crimini di genere. L'obiettivo 5 dell'Agenda 2030 delle Nazioni Unite

I saggi raccolti nel presente volume sono la rielaborazione, dopo un giusto tempo di “sedimentazione” scientifica, delle relazioni al convegno di studi, presso il Dipartimento di Giurisprudenza dell’Università degli Studi di Bari Aldo Moro (6 e 7 ottobre 2022), dal titolo «L’obiettivo 5 dell’Agenda 2030 delle Nazioni Unite tra partecipazione, rappresentanza e crimini di genere», convegno inserito, tra l’altro, nel «Progetto di ricerca di rilevante interesse nazionale» (Prin 2017): The Dark Side of the Law. When Discrimination, Exclusion and Oppression are by Law. La riflessione verte, da un lato, sui maggiori profili penalistici e processual-penalistici dell’uguaglianza/disuguaglianza di genere, in un’ottica essenzialmente post-moderna (Parte I, Diritto e processo di genere), dall’altro sugli aspetti politici di settore (Parte II, Politiche e strategie di genere) relativi alle scelte legislative e agli altri processi sociali che meglio si associano al progresso identitario femminile. L’ultradecennale esperienza mostra, infatti, come sia sempre alto il rischio che le disposizioni assumano semplicemente la natura di leggi-manifesto (diritto simbolico), anziché assicurare interventi realmente efficaci

Extremus necessitatis casus. Ai confini dell'ordine giuridico

The “state of exception” [Ausnahmezustand] examined by C. Schmitt in Politische Theologie (1922) is much more than any emergency ordinance in which the legal rule always prevails over naked power. In the state of exception, the decisive question arises of who decides at the origin of all sovereignty. Who does decide security and public order at the extremity of the law? What does really distinguish the state of emergency from the state of exception? What is the risk to use some means of emergency without adequate legal legitimacy? Isn’t it the problem of all emergency situations, beyond the current pandemic? Here are some fundamental questions these pages try to answer