Philip Bobbitt
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Sir Philip Bobbitt DPhil) | |
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Occupations |
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Children | 4 |
Relatives | Lyndon B. Johnson (uncle) Samuel Ealy Johnson Jr. (grandfather) |
Sir Philip Chase Bobbitt
Early life and education
Philip Bobbitt was born in Temple, Texas, on July 22, 1948.[2] He is the only child of Oscar Price Bobbitt Jr (1918–1995) and Rebekah Luruth Johnson Bobbitt. Oscar Price Bobbitt Jr was the son of Oscar Price Bobbitt Sr (1892–1965) and Maude Wisner, a direct descendant of Henry Wisner of Swiss descent, the only delegate from New York to vote for the Declaration of Independence.[3] Rebekah Bobbitt was the daughter of Samuel Ealy Johnson Jr. and Rebekah Baines. Her father and grandfather were members of the Texas Legislature; her great grandfather was president of Baylor University. Her brother was Lyndon B. Johnson, 36th president of the United States from 1963 to 1969. Between high school and college, Bobbitt spent a summer with Johnson at the White House.[4]
At the age of 15, Bobbitt graduated from Stephen F. Austin High School, where he was elected president of the student council, in 1964.[5][6] He then attended Princeton University and graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in philosophy in 1971. His student thesis, "On Wittgenstein and a Philosophical Topology," was one of the earliest attempts to argue for an underlying continuity between the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus and the Philosophical Investigations.[7] It was advised by philosopher Richard Rorty. While at Princeton, Bobbitt was president of the Ivy Club and Chairman of the Nassau Literary Magazine.[8]
Bobbitt left Princeton after three semesters to enter
Career
Bobbitt's first book, Tragic Choices (1978), was written with Yale Law Professor (later Dean and Judge of the Second Circuit) Guido Calabresi. The book was a study of how societies make difficult decisions concerning resources and rights—e.g., who gets expensive medical care, who is to be drafted into the army, who may have children, and other society-defining choices. Tragic Choices has won a number of awards and is studied by multiple disciplines, including law. It has been especially influential in the field of bioethics and was discussed in several countries during the COVID-19 virus pandemic. Writing in The Times of London about the pandemic, Philip Collins said, "The tragic choice is the pivot of the action in classical tragedy, and a perennial dilemma in the history of philosophy. The best book on how tragedy turns up in politics is Guido Calabresi and Philip Bobbitt's Tragic Choices...In each case a moral imperative clashes with the scarcity of resources." [15][16]
His second book, Constitutional Fate: Theory of the Constitution, first proposed the model of the six fundamental forms of constitutional argument. One critic subsequently called it, "the outstanding recent work treating constitutional law in terms of the legitimating effects of constitutional argument. It ranks among the most original and impressive works of American jurisprudence to appear during the decade." In 1994,
Bobbitt was also at
Until 2007, Bobbitt held the A.W. Walker Centennial Chair at the
Bobbitt has delivered the Mellon Lectures at
He has been elected a member of the International Institute for Strategic Studies, the Pacific Council on International Affairs, the American Society of International Law, a Life Member of the American Law Institute, a member of the
Views on constitutional law
Like many contemporary scholars, Bobbitt believes that the Constitution's durability rests, in part, in the flexible manner in which it can be and has been interpreted since its creation. He emphasizes the "modalities of constitutional argument": 1) structural; 2) textual; 3) ethical; 4) prudential; 5) historical; and 6) doctrinal. He has argued in his books for the recognition of the ethical modality, which has to do with the traditional vision we have of the nation and the role government ought to play (some scholars call this form "argument from tradition"). He first introduced these forms of argument—or modalities—as a way of understanding constitutional review generally in Constitutional Fate: Theory of the Constitution (1982), a study of judicial review and then broadened their application to constitutional review generally in Constitutional Interpretation (1993) which deals with non-judicial examples of constitutional argument and decision making. Bobbitt asserts that all branches of government have a duty to assess the constitutionality of their actions. Bobbitt's "modalities" of constitutional law are now generally considered to be the standard model for constitutional arguments.[19][20]
Government service
Bobbitt has served extensively in government, for both Democratic and Republican administrations. In the 1970s, he was Associate Counsel to President Carter for which he received the Certificate of Meritorious Service,[21] and worked with Lloyd Cutler on the charter of the Central Intelligence Agency.[22] He later was Legal Counsel to the Iran-Contra Committee in the U. S. Senate, the Counselor for International Law and member of the Senior Executive Service at the State Department during the George H. W. Bush administration, and served at the National Security Council, where he was director for Intelligence Programs, senior director for Critical Infrastructure, and senior director for Strategic Planning during Bill Clinton's presidency.[23] He was a principal draftsman of PDD63, the first presidential document to establish a strategy for critical infrastructure and cyber protection.[24] Subsequently he was strategist in residence to the Secretary of the Navy, Richard Danzig, and has lectured at West Point, Annapolis, and the National Defense University where for some years he delivered the annual opening keynote lecture.[citation needed]
Other works
In the early '80s, Bobbitt published Democracy and Deterrence: The History and Future of Nuclear Strategy. This book argued that US nuclear targeting had gone through reciprocal cycles, alternating between total and graduated response regimes. These cycles were driven, he argued, not by changes in the central deterrence relationship between the American homeland and the homelands of its adversaries but by developments in extended deterrence—the protection of non-homeland theatres by US nuclear forces. An accompanying volume, US Nuclear Strategy: A Reader was edited by Bobbitt, Gregory F. Treverton and Sir Lawrence Freedman.
Bobbitt's most recent two books are second editions of classics in US law, The Ages of American Law by Grant Gilmore, first published by the 1970s which Bobbitt brought up to present time; and Impeachment: A Handbook by Charles Black. Impeachment was doubled in size, and was widely discussed during the various Trump proceedings. Both books were published by the Yale Press.
Bobbitt is currently[when?] at work on The Constitution Trilogy for Oxford University Press.[citation needed]
Other activities
Since 1990, Bobbitt has endowed the Rebekah Johnson Bobbitt National Prize for Poetry, awarded biennially by the Library of Congress.[25] It is the only prize given by the nation for poetry.[26]
He is a Fellow of the
In 2021 Bobbitt was made an honorary Knight Commander of the Order of the British Empire (KBE).[35][36] On 11 June 2024 the appointment was made substantive.[37]
In 2021, he became the chair of the American Friends of St James's Church, Piccadilly; in 2023 he was selected as president.[38]
Personal life
Bobbitt has been married twice.
Selected publications
Books
- Constitutional Fate: Theory of the Constitution. New York & Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1984. ISBN 0-19-503422-8
- Democracy and Deterrence: The History and Future of Nuclear Strategy. New York: St. Martin's Press, 1987. ISBN 0-312-00523-7
- United States Nuclear Strategy: A Reader. (Co-editor, with ISBN 0-8147-1107-3
- Tragic Choices. (Co-author: ISBN 0-393-09085-X
- Constitutional Interpretation. Blackwell, 1991. ISBN 0-631-16485-5
- ISBN 0-385-72138-2), 2003 Grand Prize Winner, Robert W. Hamilton Awards and Bronze Medalist, Arthur Ross Book Award
- Terror and Consent: the Wars for the Twenty-first Century. Knopf/Penguin, 2008.
- Garments of Court and Palace: Machiavelli and the World That He Made. New York. Atlantic Monthly Press, 2013 . ISBN 978-0-8021-2074-8
- The Ages of American Law (Lead Author: ISBN 978-0300189919
- Impeachment: A Handbook. (Lead Author: ISBN 978-0-300-23826-6
The Shield of Achilles
In 2002, Knopf published The Shield of Achilles: War, Peace and the Course of History (Knopf), an ambitious 900-page work that explicates a theory, actually a philosophy, of historical change in the modern era, and a history of the development of modern constitutional and international law. Bobbitt traces interacting patterns in the (mainly modern
Arguing that "law and strategy are not merely made in history. . . they are made of history" (p. 5), Bobbitt presents a dynamic view of historical change that has a dark, tragic dimension, for he holds that the painful and, indeed, atrocious process of resolving issues that create conflict and war tends to cause changes that render obsolete the solution to that conflict (generally a new form of the state possessing a new principle of legitimacy), even as it is established. This tragic dimension is evoked in the title of Bobbitt's book, inspired by the last lines of Book 18 of Homer's Iliad, describing a shield fabricated for Achilles by Hephaestus, across the "vast expanse" of which "with all his craft and cunning/the god creates a world of gorgeous immortal work" (trans. Robert Fagles).
The Shield of Achilles generated much interest in the diplomatic and political community. Public officials who followed Bobbitt's works included Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, Tony Blair;[41] the Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, who built his Dimbleby Lecture around Bobbitt's thesis [42] and the former United States Secretary of State Henry Kissinger[43]
The Shield of Achilles was the 2003 Grand Prize Winner of the Hamilton Awards and the Arthur Ross Book Award Bronze Medalist of the Council on Foreign Relations for Best Book in Foreign Policy of that year. British military historian Michael Howard wrote, The Shield of Achilles "will be one of the most important works on international relations published during the last fifty years", and Paul Kennedy, writing in The New York Review of Books argued that it may "become a classic for future generations."
Terror and Consent
In 2008, Knopf published Bobbitt's
Terror and Consent was on both the New York Times and the London Evening Standard’s best-seller lists and was widely reviewed. The front page of the New York Times Sunday Book Review called it, "quite simply the most profound book to have been written on the subject of American foreign policy since the attacks of 9/11 — indeed, since the end of the cold war." Among others, Senator John McCain praised the book as "the best book I've ever read on terrorism,"[44] and Henry Kissinger called Bobbitt, "perhaps the most important political philosopher today."[45]Tony Blair wrote of Terror and Consent, "It may be written by an academic but it is actually required reading for political leaders."[46] David Cameron, the leader of the UK Conservative Party put it on a list of summer reading for his parliamentary colleagues in 2008.[47]
In 2017, he had a spirited exchange arguing that litigation is not the exclusive legal method for determining constitutionality in national security affairs and that law applied even when the constitutional issue in question was not justiciable.[48] General Sir Rupert Smith wrote that Terror and Consent, "shows more convincingly than any other book I know, why the defeat of terrorism must be brought about within the context of law."[49] Bobbitt is currently[when?] at work on a third book in this series, The Bow of Odysseus: Statecraft and the Future of World Order.
The Garments of Court and Palace
In 2013, Bobbitt published a study of Niccolò Machiavelli entitled The Garments of Court and Palace: Machiavelli and the World That He Made. In this book he argues that only by understanding The Prince as one half of a constitutional treatise on the State (the other being Machiavelli's Discourses on Livy) can we reconcile the many otherwise contradictory elements of his work. Bobbitt also situates this constitutional treatise in the politics of Machiavelli's day.[50]
See also
- Long War (20th century)
References
- ^ "Philip C Bobbitt | Texas Law Faculty | Texas Law". law.utexas.edu. Retrieved 2019-12-14.
- ^ a b "Philip Bobbitt: The presidents' brain". The Independent. 2008-07-20. Archived from the original on 2022-05-26. Retrieved 2020-10-20.
- ^ Lancaster Intelligencer, July 2, 1800 (reprint); Boston Centinal, July 14, 1817 (obituary of Thomas McKean, noting that McKean and Wisner had been present on July 4, 1976 and voted for independence)
- ^ a b Crace, John (19 May 2009). "Interview: Philip Bobbitt". the Guardian. Retrieved 11 February 2022.
- ^ Knight, Drew (2021-06-09). "UT professor earns Honorary Knighthood from Queen Elizabeth II". KVUE. Retrieved 2024-01-19.
- ^ John Bobbitt, The Bobbitt Family in America, pp ____ (1985)
- ^ P.C. Bobbitt, On Wittgenstein and a Philosophical Topology (of file, Princeton University Library); compare Peter Winch, Introduction, in the Philosophy of Wittgenstein (1969), published 18 months before Bobbitt's thesis
- ^ a b The Nassau Herald, "Philip Chase Bobbitt," p. 43 (1971).
- ^ "NFPF Grant Recipient: Hey, Mama (1967) | UCLA Film & Television Archive". www.cinema.ucla.edu. Retrieved 2023-07-07. “No Retreat in Poverty War for LBJ Kin,” Daily News (New York), Monday, November 13, 1967; “President’s Nephew Promises to Stay On In Venice Poverty Area,” The San Bernardino County Sun, p. 3, Monday, November 13, 1967.
- ^ "The Yale Law Journal - Masthead: Volume 84".
- ^ "For My Friend".
- ^ Lat, David (2008-10-24). "The James Bond of Columbia Law School: Philip Bobbitt - Above the Law". Aaron P. Brecher, Brecher, Aaron (April 2014). "Some Kind of Judge: Henry Friendly and the Law of Federal Courts". Michigan Law Review. 112 (6): 1179–1193.; see also David M. Dorsen, Henry Friendly: Greatest Judge of His Era (2012)
- ^ "Philip C. Bobbitt". www.law.columbia.edu. Retrieved 2020-10-20.
- ^ "Thesis: United States nuclear strategy : the problem of extended deterrence". solo.bodleian.ox.ac.uk. Retrieved 2023-07-17.
- ^ Collins, Philip. "Johnson's tragedy is that he has no safe option". Retrieved 2020-04-23.
- ^ Conti, Roberto (17 May 2020). "Tragic choices, 42 anni dopo. Philip Bobbitt riflette sulla pandemia" (in Italian). Retrieved 2020-05-17.
- Amar, Akhil (June 1994). "In Praise of Bobbitt". Texas Law Review. 72 (7): 1703.
- ^ Constitutional Fate, 2d edition, forthcoming 2021
- ISSN 1521-2823.
For over thirty years, Philip Bobbitt's taxonomy of legitimate constitutional argument types has reigned as the most influential and enduring in the scholarly discourse.
- ISBN 978-94-007-6730-0. Retrieved 3 July 2022.
The modalities identified by Bobbitt are now a staple of the leading casebooks on constitutional law. Every American law student learns them as the basic tools of constitutional discourse.
- ^ Records of the White House office of Counsel to the President: A Guide To Its Records. Jimmy Carter Library, at 143.
- ^ Gathman, Roger. "An Artificial Wilderness". www.austinchronicle.com. Retrieved 10 February 2022.
- ^ "Philip Bobbitt". 21 October 2020.
- ^ "Philip Bobbitt". The Montgomery Fellows. 2016-12-29. Retrieved 2020-10-20.
- ^ Holmes, Anne (2018-06-06). "Nominations Open for 2018 Rebekah Johnson Bobbitt National Prize for Poetry | From the Catbird Seat: Poetry & Literature at the Library of Congress". blogs.loc.gov. Retrieved 2020-10-20.
- ^ https://law.utexas.edu/faculty/pbobbitt/prize.php#:~:text=The%20Rebekah%20Johnson%20Bobbitt%20National%20Poetry%20prize%20is%20awarded%20every,the%20jury%2C%20for%20lifetime%20achievement; see also http://globetrotter.berkeley.edu/people8/Bobbitt/transcript_bobbitt.pdf; see also https://www.timeshighereducation.com/books/the-book-of-the-week-terror-and-consent-the-wars-for-the-twenty-first-century/402369.article
- ^ "Philip Chase Bobbitt". July 2023.
- ^ "Philip Bobbitt '71 | Program in Law and Public Affairs | Princeton University".
- ^ "Top 100 British intellectuals". Prospect. London. July 24, 2004.
- ^ "Home". barbarajordanfreedomfoundation.org.
- ^ "Home". rothkochapel.org.
- ^ "Search | ASIL".
- ^ "Introducing the Editorial Board | | download".
- ^ "The Pilgrims".
- ^ "Her Majesty The Queen Awards Honorary Knighthood to Professor Philip Bobbitt". UT News. 9 June 2021. Retrieved 9 February 2022.
- ^ "Her Majesty The Queen Awards Honorary Knighthood to Professor Philip Bobbitt - LBJ Presidential Library". 8 June 2021. Archived from the original on 11 July 2021. Retrieved 9 February 2022.
- ^ "CENTRAL CHANCERY OF THE ORDERS OF KNIGHTHOOD". London Gazette. Retrieved 29 June 2024.
- ^ "American Friends".
- ^ Pruitt, Sharon (30 April 2012). "Student-teacher relationships part of campus life for many universities". Current. 45 (1378). University of Missouri-St. Louis.
- ^ Lat, David (2 February 2012). "A Law School Love Story: Prominent Professor Marries Columbia 3L". Above the Law. Retrieved 2020-10-20.
- ^ Whittell, Giles. "Key US adviser Philip Bobbitt: 'We must rewrite war on terror'".
- ^ "His speech took as its starting point work by American academic and former White House adviser Philip Bobbitt which focuses on the shift from a nation state to a market state," http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/2589863.stm ; see also, https://www.theguardian.com/world/2002/dec/19/religion.uk ; see also https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/business-leaders-are-split-over-williams-speech-h0r2w9d0rdg
- TheGuardian.com. 18 May 2009.
- ^ Goldberg, Jeffrey (1 October 2008). "The Wars of John McCain". The Atlantic. Retrieved 10 February 2022.
- Independent.co.uk. 19 July 2008. Archivedfrom the original on 2022-05-26.
- ^ Bobbitt, Philip (January 2008). "Terror and Consent: The Wars for the Twenty-First Century". Faculty Books.
- TheGuardian.com. 4 August 2008.
- ^ https://www.justsecurity.org/34885/aclu-war/ https://www.justsecurity.org/34994/philip-bobbitts-war-tears/ https://www.justsecurity.org/35305/bobbitt-version1/ https://balkin.blogspot.com/2016/12/bobbitt-vs-jaffer-on-drone-strikes.html
- ISBN 9781400042432.
- ^ Mancusi, Nicholas (1 July 2013). "This Week's Hot Reads: July 1, 2013". The Daily Beast. Retrieved 10 February 2022.