<p>Lawyers love legal reasoning. It promises a clean, clear path through sticky, tricky territory. But legal reasoning can enable grotesque real-world outcomes, like torture, or arresting journalists, or masked government agents detaining and disappearing people. On this week’s Amicus, Dahlia Lithwick is in conversation with <a href="https://government.cornell.edu/joseph-margulies" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Joseph Margulies</a>, Professor of Practice of Government at Cornell University. Margulies litigated some of the biggest cases of egregious human rights violations of the post-9/11 “War on Terror”, an experience that informed his recent piece in the <em>Boston Review:</em> <a href="https://www.bostonreview.net/articles/the-moral-stupefaction-of-the-american-public/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank"><em>The Moral Stupefaction of America</em></a><em>. </em>Margulies explains how, when we allow obscure legal language to overshadow moral imperatives, we can end up in very dark places. The line from waterboarding at black sites to executing American citizens in the streets is a straight one. And there will be a lawyer willing to write a memo for all of it.&nbsp;</p><br><p>Want more Amicus? Join Slate Plus to unlock weekly bonus episodes with exclusive legal analysis. Plus, you’ll access ad-free listening across all your favorite Slate podcasts. You can subscribe directly from the Amicus show page on <a href="https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/amicus-with-dahlia-lithwick-law-justice-and-the-courts/id928790786" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Apple Podcasts</a> and <a href="https://open.spotify.com/show/7DpL32jgjwBTah8o9HQkBl" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Spotify</a>. Or, visit <a href="https://slate.com/podcast-plus?utm_medium=link&amp;utm_campaign=plus_pod&amp;utm_content=Amicus&amp;utm_source=show_summary" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">slate.com/amicusplus</a> to get access wherever you listen.</p><hr><p style='color:grey; font-size:0.75em;'> Hosted on Acast. See <a style='color:grey;' target='_blank' rel='noopener noreferrer' href='https://acast.com/privacy'>acast.com/privacy</a> for more information.</p>