Law Commons^™

Political Theory, Activism, And Visual Media: The Ideology Of Protest Symbols, Jilly E. Crane-Mauzy Mx.

Whittier Scholars Program

Art changes culture while policy codifies it. Radical revolutionary movements are often accompanied by equally radical shifts in art and design. I cataloged, compared, and contrasted the semiotic power of three specific symbols and their most significant historical moments in the United States. Through the examination of; Stonewall, The Equality March March Against Death, The Day The World Said No To War, The 1968 Summer Olympics, and The 2020 Black Lives Matter, the shifting of each ideologies symbol from inflammation in the media to recognition showcases the clarifying function along with creating unity and pride in community that is integral …

Righting Health Policy: Bioethics, Political Philosophy, And The Normative Justification Of Health Law And Policy, D. Robert Macdougall

Publications and Research

In Righting Health Policy, D. Robert MacDougall argues that bioethics needs but does not have adequate tools for justifying law and policy. Bioethics’ tools are mostly theories about what we owe each other. But justifying laws and policies requires more; at a minimum, it requires tools for explaining the legitimacy of actions intended to control or influence others. It consequently requires political, rather than moral, philosophy. After showing how bioethicists have consistently failed to use tools suitable for achieving their political aims, MacDougall develops an interpretation of Kant’s political philosophy. On this account the legitimacy of health laws does …

Inamori International Thesis Prize In Military Ethics 2019 | 2020 - Front Matter And Message From The Editors, Shannon E. French, Beth Trecasa

The International Journal of Ethical Leadership Special Volumes

The Inamori International Center for Ethics and Excellence awards an annual prize for the best thesis in military ethics to promote active involvement in the study and application of military ethics, including: Just War Theory; the Conduct of War; the Law of Armed Conflict (LOAC); International Humanitarian Law (IHL); and other related fields that include the study of human rights issues in the context of armed conflict.

In an effort to foster global discussion of pressing issues in military ethics and improve the accessibility of the field in languages other than English, the Inamori Center publishes the winning theses, in …

Just War Traditions And Revisions, Joseph Chapa

The International Journal of Ethical Leadership Special Volumes

No abstract provided.

Arguments For Banning Autonomous Weapon Systems: A Critique, Hunter Cantrell

The International Journal of Ethical Leadership Special Volumes

No abstract provided.

Empathy And Jus In Bello, Kevin Cutright

The International Journal of Ethical Leadership Special Volumes

No abstract provided.

The Subversions And Perversions Of Shadow Vigilantism, Paul H. Robinson, Sarah M. Robinson

All Faculty Scholarship

This excerpt from the recently published Shadow Vigilantes book argues that, while vigilantism, even moral vigilantism, can be dangerous to a society, the real danger is not of hordes of citizens, frustrated by the system’s doctrines of disillusionment, rising up to take the law into their own hands. Frustration can spark a vigilante impulse, but such classic aggressive vigilantism is not the typical response. More common is the expression of disillusionment in less brazen ways by a more surreptitious undermining and distortion of the operation of the criminal justice system.

Shadow vigilantes, as they might be called, can affect the …

The Prospects For Change: The Question Of Justice In A Law & Society Framework, Michael W. Raphael

Graduate Student Publications and Research

What is the law and society framework and where has it gotten us? A student in a classroom might raise their hand and offer "understanding legal pluralism" as a possible answer. However, the conceptual problem with legal pluralism is the coexistence of potentially conflicting bases of justification. Given this, desiring to understand how the law shapes the structural underpinnings of whichever "legal" phenomena and its "ongoing transformation", is nevertheless an immense achievement that stops short of its underlying goal – the achievement of human dignity through human rights. For example, to talk about 'multi-stakeholder consultations' and other pithy phrases that …

Of Drones And Justice: A Just War Theory Analysis Of The United States' Drone Campaigns, Ethan A. Wright

Richard T. Schellhase Essay Prize in Ethics

No abstract provided.

Rights-Based Theories Of Accident Law, Gregory J. Hall

All Faculty Scholarship

This article shows that extant rights-based theories of accident law contain a gaping hole. They inadequately address the following question: What justifies using community standards to assign accident costs in tort law?

In the United States, the jury determines negligence for accidental harm by asking whether the defendant met the objective reasonable person standard. However, what determines the content of the reasonable person standard is enigmatic. Some tort theorists say that the content is filled out by juries using cost benefit analysis while others say that juries apply community norms and conventions. I demonstrate that what is missing from this …

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 …

Engaging Capital Emotions, Douglas A. Berman, Stephanos Bibas

All Faculty Scholarship

The Supreme Court, in Kennedy v. Louisiana, is about to decide whether the Eighth Amendment forbids capital punishment for child rape. Commentators are aghast, viewing this as a vengeful recrudescence of emotion clouding sober, rational criminal justice policy. To their minds, emotion is distracting. To ours, however, emotion is central to understand the death penalty. Descriptively, emotions help to explain many features of our death-penalty jurisprudence. Normatively, emotions are central to why we punish, and denying or squelching them risks prompting vigilantism and other unhealthy outlets for this normal human reaction. The emotional case for the death penalty for child …

Virtue Jurisprudence: A Virtue-Centered Theory Of Judging, Lawrence B. Solum

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

"Virtue jurisprudence" is a normative and explanatory theory of law that utilizes the resources of virtue ethics to answer the central questions of legal theory. The main focus of the essay is the development of a virtue-centered theory of judging. The exposition of the theory begins with exploration of defects in judicial character such as corruption and incompetence. Next, an account of judicial virtue is introduced. This includes judicial wisdom, a form of phronesis, or sound practical judgment. A virtue-centered account of justice is defended against the argument that theories of fairness are prior to theories of justice. The …

Causing The Conditions Of One's Own Defense: A Study In The Limits Of Theory In Criminal Law Doctrine, Paul H. Robinson

All Faculty Scholarship

One widely-stated goal of criminal law theory is to create the set of rules that best implements our collective sense of justice. To reach this goal, the theorist continuously adjusts his theory so that it generates rules that better reflect our fundamental notions of justice. These rules, moreover, must function as workable doctrine, which in the context of criminal law means precise statutory provisions. It is this process of theoretical refinement and translation that is the topic of this article. Can good theory generate results that approximate our collective sense of justice? Can the theoretical refinements be translated into workable …

The Nature Of The Contract Argument, David B. Lyons

Faculty Scholarship

As truth is the first virtue of belief, so justice is of social institutions. That is John Rawls's view, and it seems true, at any rate, of the law. Official acts, laws, and legal arrangements generally are characterized as just or unjust, while other moral categories are much less frequently invoked. Justice seems inseparable from good law. It is therefore striking and important that justice has recently been regarded by prominent legal theorists as rationally disreputable--as, in Kelsen's words, "an irrational idea." Many divergent conceptions of social justice have been propounded, and it is held that there is no rational …

On Formal Justice, David B. Lyons

Faculty Scholarship

A number of legal and political theorists have suggested that public officials who fail to act within the law that they administer act unjustly. This does not mean that injustice is always likely to be done merely because it often happens to be done when officials depart from the law. Some writers have held that injustice is done whenever an official fails to act within the law, regardless of the circumstances. I shall call this type of view "formal justice."