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Full-Text Articles in Law

The Case Against Assisted Suicide Reexamined, Ani B. Satz May 2002

The Case Against Assisted Suicide Reexamined, Ani B. Satz

Michigan Law Review

In Toni Morrison's acclaimed novel Beloved, Sethe, a runaway slave woman on the brink of capture, gruesomely murders one of her infant children and is halted seconds before killing the second. Cognizant of the approaching men, Sethe's actions are deliberate, swift, confident, and unflinching. Afterwards, she sits erect in the Sheriff's wagon. The reader is left to struggle, situating the horror of the event within the context of the reality of slavery. Was this an act of mercy tQ prevent the suffering Sethe's child would know as a slave? Is loss of autonomy, even rising to the condition of slavery, …


How Theology Might Learn From Law (Symposium: The Theology Of The Practice Of Law), James Boyd White Jan 2002

How Theology Might Learn From Law (Symposium: The Theology Of The Practice Of Law), James Boyd White

Articles

I want to start today with an account of the way lawyers think and speak, and then ask whether it might be useful for the theologically minded to take these practices and procedures seriously as a ground of comparison from which to look at their own. In doing this I shall look at the practice of law with an emphasis not on its social effects or ethical difficulties but on the nature of the activity itself, viewed from the inside, asking in particular what kind of knowledge it requires and creates in its practitioner. What does the lawyer learn from …


Legal Knowledge, James Boyd White Jan 2002

Legal Knowledge, James Boyd White

Articles

What do we know when we know the law? I asked a rabbi I know how he would answer that question with respect to Jewish law. Does someone know the law when he can repeat the rules that tell him what to do? Or when he can engage in the activity of reading them, sepa­rately or in conjunction with each other, and applying them sensibly to new circumstances? Is even that enough? My friend said it was not: he must know who he is in relation to the law, both as an individual and as a member of a people; …


Is There An Implicit Theology In The Practice Of Ordinary Law?, Joseph Vining Jan 2002

Is There An Implicit Theology In The Practice Of Ordinary Law?, Joseph Vining

Articles

We should have a text to help us-lawyers and theologians almost always do. Consider this from Wordsworth, and ask whether it goes too far if Wordsworth were thought to be speaking to the practicing lawyer: Here you stand, Adore, and worship, when you know it not; Pious beyond the intention of your thought; Devout above the meaning of your will. -Yes, you have felt, and may not cease to feel. The estate of Man would be indeed forlorn If false conclusions of the reasoning Power Made the Eye blind, and closed the passages Through which the Ear converses with the …


Pragmatism Regained, Christopher Kutz Jan 2002

Pragmatism Regained, Christopher Kutz

Michigan Law Review

Jules Coleman's The Practice of Principle serves as a focal point for current, newly intensified debates in legal theory, and provides some of the deepest, most sustained reflections on methodology that legal theory has seen. Coleman is one of the leading legal philosophers in the Anglo-American world, and his writings on tort theory, contract theory, the normative foundations of law and economics, social choice theory, and analytical jurisprudence have been the point of departure for much of the most interesting activity in the field for the last three decades. Indeed, the origin of this book lies in Oxford University's invitation …


Horrible Holmes, Mathias Reimann Jan 2002

Horrible Holmes, Mathias Reimann

Michigan Law Review

Holmes has kept scholars busy for most of a century, and the resulting volume of literature about him is staggering. In that last twenty years along, we have been blessed with four biographies, four symposia, three new collections of his works, two volumes of essays, and various monographs, not to mention a multitude of free-standing law review articles. Since life is short, everyone who adds to the deluge, including Albert Alschuler with his new book, bears a heavy responsibility to make the expenditure of trees, library space, and reading time worthwhile. Does Law Without Values fulfill that responsibility? Despite the …


The Value Of Rational Nature, Donald H. Regan Jan 2002

The Value Of Rational Nature, Donald H. Regan

Articles

Kant tells us in the Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals that rational nature is an end in itself; that it is the only thing which is unconditionally valuable; and that it is the ultimate condition of all value.1 A striking trend in recent Kant scholarship is to regard these value claims, rather than the formalism of universalizability, as the ultimate foundation of Kant’s theory.2 But does rational nature as Kant conceives it deserve such veneration? Can it really carry the world of value on its shoulders? I think not. As will become clear, I do not doubt the value …