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Full-Text Articles in Law

Cognitive Errors, Individual Differences, And Paternalism, Jeffrey J. Rachlinski Dec 2014

Cognitive Errors, Individual Differences, And Paternalism, Jeffrey J. Rachlinski

Jeffrey J. Rachlinski

Legal scholars commonly argue that the widespread presence of cognitive errors in judgment justifies legal intervention to save people from predictable mistakes. Such arguments often fail to account for individual variation in the commission of such errors even though individual variation is probably common. If predictable groups of people avoid making the errors that others commit, then law should account for such differences because those who avoid errors will not benefit from paternalistic interventions and indeed may be harmed by them. The research on individual variation suggests three parameters that might distinguish people who can avoid error: cognitive ability, experience …


The Methodology Of The Behavioral Analysis Of Law, Avishalom Tor Nov 2013

The Methodology Of The Behavioral Analysis Of Law, Avishalom Tor

Avishalom Tor

This article examines the behavioral analysis of law, meaning the application of empirical behavioral evidence to legal analysis, which has become increasingly popular in legal scholarship in recent years. Following the introduction in Part I, this Article highlights four central propositions on the subject. The first, developed in Part II, asserts that the efficacy of the law often depends on its accounting for relevant patterns of human behavior, most notably those studied by behavioral decision scientists. This Part therefore reviews important behavioral findings, illustrating their application and relevance to a broad range of legal questions. Part III then argues that …


Doctors, Patients, And Pills--A System Popping Under Too Much Physician Discretion? A Law-Policy Prescription To Make Drug Approval More Meaningful In The Delivery Of Health Care, Michael J. Malinowski Oct 2013

Doctors, Patients, And Pills--A System Popping Under Too Much Physician Discretion? A Law-Policy Prescription To Make Drug Approval More Meaningful In The Delivery Of Health Care, Michael J. Malinowski

Michael J. Malinowski

This article challenges the scope of physician discretion to engage in off-label use of prescription drugs. The discretion to prescribe dimensions beyond the clinical research that puts new drugs on pharmacy shelves has been shaped by two historic influences: a legacy of physician paternalism, solidarity, autonomy, and self-determination that predates the contemporary commercialization of medicine by more than half a century, and regulatory necessity due to the limits of science and innate crudeness of pharmaceuticals prior to the genomics revolution (drug development and delivery based upon genetic expression). Although both factors have changed immensely, the standard for drug approval has …


From Natural Law To Natural Inferiority: The Construction Of Racist Jurisprudence In Early Virginia, Allen P. Mendenhall Dec 2012

From Natural Law To Natural Inferiority: The Construction Of Racist Jurisprudence In Early Virginia, Allen P. Mendenhall

Allen Mendenhall

Science informed American jurisprudence during the age of the Revolution. Colonials used science and naturalism to navigate the wilderness, define themselves against the British, and forge a new national identity and constitutional order. American legal historians have long noted the influence of science upon the Founding generation, and historians of American slavery have casually noted the influence of science upon early American racism as organized and standardized in slave codes. This article seeks to synthesize the work of American legal historians and historians of American slavery by showing how natural law jurisprudence, anchored in scientific discourse and vocabulary, brought about …


Brass Rings And Red-Headed Stepchildren: Protecting Active Criminal Informants, Michael L. Rich Feb 2012

Brass Rings And Red-Headed Stepchildren: Protecting Active Criminal Informants, Michael L. Rich

Michael L Rich

Informants are valued law enforcement tools, and active criminal informants – criminals who maintain their illicit connections and feed evidence to the police in exchange for leniency – are the most prized of all. Yet society does little to protect active criminal informants from the substantial risks inherent in their recruitment and cooperation. As I have explored elsewhere, society’s apathy toward these informants is a result of distaste with their disloyalty and a concern that protecting them will undermine law enforcement effectiveness. This Article takes a different tack, however, building on existing scholarship on vulnerability and paternalism to argue that …


How To Use Philosophy, Economics And Psychology In Jurisprudence: The Case Of Paternalism In Contract Law, Peter Cserne Nov 2007

How To Use Philosophy, Economics And Psychology In Jurisprudence: The Case Of Paternalism In Contract Law, Peter Cserne

Péter Cserne

In this paper I discuss the conceptual and methodological background of an economic approach to paternalism in contract law. This should serve as a case study to a more general problem: the uses and abuses of inter- and multidisciplinary research in jurisprudence, i.e. the proper scope of the non-doctrinal analysis of legal issues. Freedom of contract and paternalism are concepts eminently important in legal theory. I will argue that to evaluate this importance, legal scholarship should take into account not only political philosophy but economics and cognitive psychology as well. In the complex interrelations of empirical research, theoretical models and …


Informed Consent And Patients' Rights In Japan, Robert B. Leflar Dec 1995

Informed Consent And Patients' Rights In Japan, Robert B. Leflar

Robert B Leflar

This article analyzes the development of the concept of informed consent in the context of the culture and economics of Japanese medicine, and locates that development within the framework of the nation's civil law system. Part II sketches the cultural foundations of medical paternalism in Japan; explores the economic incentives (many of them administratively directed) that have sustained physicians' traditional dominant roles; and describes the judiciary's hesitancy to challenge physicians' professional discretion. Part III delineates the forces testing the paternalist model: the undermining of the physicians' personal knowledge of their patients that accompanies the shift from neighborhood clinic to high-tech …