Arts and Humanities Commons^™

Enemies, Allies, And Opportunities: The Politics Of Noblewomen’S Lawsuits In Early Modern Piedmont, Catherine Ferrari

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports

This dissertation considers early modern law courts as political venues in which noble families not only asserted claims to wealth, property, and inheritance but also sought to enhance their reputation and influence. By studying the archives of elite families in Piedmont from the mid-sixteenth to the mid-seventeenth centuries, I argue that noblewomen used the law to gain a political voice, defending their legal claims against other family members in highly visible conflicts in which not only their property but their standing at the court of the duke of Savoy was at stake. These women exploited legal procedures and drew on …

The People's Court: On The Intellectual Origins Of American Judicial Power, Ian C. Bartrum

Dickinson Law Review (2017-Present)

This article enters into the modern debate between “consti- tutional departmentalists”—who contend that the executive and legislative branches share constitutional interpretive authority with the courts—and what are sometimes called “judicial supremacists.” After exploring the relevant history of political ideas, I join the modern minority of voices in the latter camp.

This is an intellectual history of two evolving political ideas—popular sovereignty and the separation of powers—which merged in the making of American judicial power, and I argue we can only understand the structural function of judicial review by bringing these ideas together into an integrated whole. Or, put another way, …

Law School News: Judge Rogeriee Thompson, Legal Pioneer Dorothy Crockett Among Influential "Women Of The Century" 08/19/2020, Eryn Dion, Roger Williams University School Of Law

Life of the Law School (1993- )

No abstract provided.

Law School News: Remembering John Lewis 07-18-2020, Michael M. Bowden

Life of the Law School (1993- )

No abstract provided.

John Quincy Adams Influence On Washington’S Farewell Address: A Critical Examination, Stephen Pierce

Undergraduate Research

John Quincy Adams is seen by the American public today as a failed one-term president. When one starts to see his diplomatic work and his service in Congress, however, he becomes one of the most important figures in American history. The diplomatic historian Samuel Flagg Bemis was in 1944 the first historian to suggest that Adams’ early writings influenced Washington’s Farewell Address. He looked through some of Adams’ early published writings and concluded that it was, “Conspicuous among the admonitions of the Farewell Address are: (1) to exalt patriotically the national words, America, American, Americans; (2) to beware of foreign …

1911 Triangle Factory Fire — Building Safety Codes, Paul H. Robinson, Sarah M. Robinson

All Faculty Scholarship

Can a crime make our world better? Crimes are the worst of humanity’s wrongs but, oddly, they sometimes do more than anything else to improve our lives. As it turns out, it is often the outrageousness itself that does the work. Ordinary crimes are accepted as the background noise of our everyday existence but some crimes make people stop and take notice – because they are so outrageous, or so curious, or so heart-wrenching. These “trigger crimes” are the cases that this book is about.

They offer some incredible stories about how people, good and bad, change the world around …

Crimes That Changed Our World: Tragedy, Outrage, And Reform: Chapter One: 1911 Triangle Factory Fire: Building Safety Codes, Paul H. Robinson, Sarah M. Robinson

All Faculty Scholarship

This first chapter of the recently published book Crimes That Changed Our World: Tragedy, Outrage, and Reform, examines the process by which the tragic 1911 Triangle Factory Fire provoked enormous outrage that in turn created a local then national movement for workplace and building safety that ultimately became the foundation for today’s building safety codes. What is particularly interesting, however, is that the Triangle Fire was not the worst such tragedy in its day. Why should it be the one that ultimately triggers social progress?

The book has 21 chapters, each of which traces the tragedy-outrage-reform dynamic in a …

Dorothy Moser Medlin Papers - Accession 1049, Dorothy Moser Medlin

Manuscript Collection

(The Dorothy Moser Medlin Papers are currently in processing.)

This collection contains most of the records of Dorothy Medlin’s work and correspondence and also includes reference materials, notes, microfilm, photographic negatives related both to her professional and personal life. Additions include a FLES Handbook, co-authored by Dorothy Medlin and a decorative mirror belonging to Dorothy Medlin.

Major series in this collection include: some original 18th century writings and ephemera and primary source material of André Morellet, extensive collection of secondary material on André Morellet's writings and translations, Winthrop related files, literary manuscripts and notes by Dorothy Medlin (1966-2011), copies …

Strict Liability's Criminogenic Effect, Paul H. Robinson

All Faculty Scholarship

It is easy to understand the apparent appeal of strict liability to policymakers and legal reformers seeking to reduce crime: if the criminal law can do away with its traditional culpability requirement, it can increase the likelihood of conviction and punishment of those who engage in prohibited conduct or bring about prohibited harm or evil. And such an increase in punishment rate can enhance the crime-control effectiveness of a system built upon general deterrence or incapacitation of the dangerous. Similar arguments support the use of criminal liability for regulatory offenses. Greater punishment rates suggest greater compliance.

But this analysis fails …

The Natural Relationship Of Church And State Within The Kingdom Of Christ Based On The Encyclical Immortale Dei Of Pope Leo Xiii, Brian M. Mccall

Brian M McCall

This lecture addresses the natural relationship between Church and State and explains Catholic Social Teaching regarding the organization of civil society.

Can A Pluralistic Commonwealth Endure?, Brian M. Mccall

Brian M McCall

This article considers whether the American pluralist system can satisfy Cicero's definition of a commonwealth as a multitude united in a definition of law and justice. The analysis is based upon a review of Thaddeus Kozinski's book, The Problem or Religious Pluralism and Why Philosophers Can't Solve It. This book critiques the philosophy of John Rawls, Jacques Maritain and Alisdaire MacIntyre. The critique is based upon Cicero's definition of a commonwealth and the article concludes that a society which maintains a deep pluralism over the first principles of law and justice cannot survive as a commonwealth.

Book Review (Paul Frymer's Black And Blue: African Americans, The Labor Movement, And The Decline Of The Democratic Party)., Sophia Z. Lee

All Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Citizenship, In The Immigration Context, Matthew J. Lister

All Faculty Scholarship

Many international law scholars have begun to argue that the modern world is experiencing a “decline of citizenship,” and that citizenship is no longer an important normative category. On the contrary, this paper argues that citizenship remains an important category and, consequently, one that implicates considerations of justice. I articulate and defend a “civic” notion of citizenship, one based explicitly on political values rather than shared demographic features like nationality, race, or culture. I use this premise to argue that a just citizenship policy requires some form of both the jus soli (citizenship based on location of birth) and the …

Policing Politics At Sentencing, Stephanos Bibas, Max M. Schanzenbach, Emerson H. Tiller

All Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Exploring The Foundations Of Dworkin's Empire: The Discovery Of An Underground Positivist, Brian M. Mccall

Brian M McCall

This review essay examines the jurisprudence of Ronald Dworkin as presented in the anthology: Exploring Law's Empire: The Jurisprudence of Ronald Dworkin, edited by Scott Hershovitz. Notwithstanding the influence Dworkin's jurisprudence has had on the reconsideration of moral reasoning within legal reasoning, the essay concludes that at its foundation Dworkin's jurisprudence is based upon Legal Positivist principles. The essay first summarizes the jurisprudence of Dworkin and then contrasts his jurisprudence with traditional Natural Law Legal Theory and finally exposes the Positivist foundations of Dworkin's Legal Empire.

Atypical Pneumonia And Ambivalent Law And Politics: Sars And The Response To Sars In China, Jacques Delisle

All Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Rights Of Inequality: Rawlsian Justice, Equal Opportunity, And The Status Of The Family, Justin Schwartz

Justin Schwartz

Is the family subject to principles of justice? In A Theory of Justice, John Rawls includes the (monogamous) family along with the market and the government as among the "basic institutions of society" to which principles of justice apply. Justice, he famously insists, is primary in politics as truth is in science: the only excuse for tolerating injustice is that no lesser injustice is possible. The point of the present paper is that Rawls doesn't actually mean this. When it comes to the family, and in particular its impact on fair equal opportunity (the first part of the the Difference …

Lying To Protect Privacy, Anita L. Allen

All Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Relativism, Reflective Equilibrium, And Justice, Justin Schwartz

Justin Schwartz

THIS PAPER IS THE CO-WINNER OF THE FRED BERGER PRIZE IN PHILOSOPHY OF LAW FOR THE 1999 AMERICAN PHILOSOPHICAL ASSOCIATION FOR THE BEST PUBLISHED PAPER IN THE PREVIOUS TWO YEARS.

The conflict between liberal legal theory and critical legal studies (CLS) is often framed as a matter of whether there is a theory of justice that the law should embody which all rational people could or must accept. In a divided society, the CLS critique of this view is overwhelming: there is no such justice that can command universal assent. But the liberal critique of CLS, that it degenerates into …

Immigration Policy, Liberal Principles, And The Republican Tradition, Howard F. Chang

All Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

What's Wrong With Exploitation?, Justin Schwartz

Justin Schwartz

Abstract: Marx thinks that capitalism is exploitative, and that is a major basis for his objections to it. But what's wrong with exploitation, as Marx sees it? (The paper is exegetical in character: my object is to understand what Marx believed,) The received view, held by Norman Geras, G.A. Cohen, and others, is that Marx thought that capitalism was unjust, because in the crudest sense, capitalists robbed labor of property that was rightfully the workers' because the workers and not the capitalists produced it. This view depends on a Labor Theory of Property (LTP), that property rights are based ultimately …

In Defence Of Exploitation, Justin Schwartz

Justin Schwartz

The concept of exploitation is thought to be central to Marx's Critique of capitalism. John Roemer, an analytical (then-) Marxist economist now at Yale, attacked this idea in a series of papers and books in the 1970s-1990s, arguing that Marxists should be concerned with inequality rather than exploitation -- with distribution rather than production, precisely the opposite of what Marx urged in The Critique of the Gotha Progam.

This paper expounds and criticizes Roemer's objections and his alternative inequality based theory of exploitation, while accepting some of his criticisms. It may be viewed as a companion paper to my What's …

Disquiet On The Eastern Front: Liberal Agendas, Domestic Legal Orders, And The Role Of International Law After The Cold War And Amid Resurgent Cultural Identities, Jacques Delisle

All Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

The Paradox Of Ideology, Justin Schwartz

Justin Schwartz

A standard problem with the objectivity of social scientific theory in particular is that it is either self-referential, in which case it seems to undermine itself as ideology, or self-excepting, which seem pragmatically self-refuting. Using the example of Marx and his theory of ideology, I show how self-referential theories that include themselves in their scope of explanation can be objective. Ideology may be roughly defined as belief distorted by class interest. I show how Marx thought that natural science was informed by class interest but not therefore necessarily ideology. Capitalists have an interest in understanding the natural world (to a …

Functional Explanation And Metaphysical Individualism, Justin Schwartz

Justin Schwartz

A number of (present or former) analytical Marxists, such as Jon Elster, have argued that functional explanation has almost no place in the social sciences. (Although the discussion is framed in terms of a debate among analytical Marxists, the point is quite general, and Marxism is used for illustrative purposes.) Functional explanation accounts for what is to be explained by reference to its function; thus, sighted organism have eyes because eyes enable them to see. Elster and other critics of functional explanation argue that this pattern of explanation is inconsistent with "methodological individualism," the idea, as they understand it, that …

The Wellsprings Of Legal Responses To Inequality: A Perspective On Perspectives, Howard Lesnick

All Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Democracy And Its Critics, Cary Coglianese

All Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Can Ignorance Be Bliss? Imperfect Information As A Positive Influence In Political Insitutions, Michael A. Fitts

All Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Unger's Philosophy: A Critical Legal Study, William Ewald

All Faculty Scholarship

Of all the scholars associated with the Critical Legal Studies movement, none has garnered greater attention or higher praise than Roberto Unger of Harvard Law School. In this Article, William Ewald argues that Professor Unger's reputation as a brilliant philosopher of law is undeserved. Despite the seeming erudition of his books, Professor Unger's work displays little familiarity with the basic philosophical literature, and the philosophical, legal, and political analysis in those works-in particular, the celebrated critique of liberalism in Knowledge and Politics-is so riddled with logical and historical errors as to be unworthy of serious scholarly attention.

Reply To Cornel West, William Ewald

All Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.