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Full-Text Articles in Jurisprudence

Fiction In The Code: Reading Legislation As Literature, Thomas J. Mcsweeney Sep 2019

Fiction In The Code: Reading Legislation As Literature, Thomas J. Mcsweeney

Thomas J. McSweeney

One of the major branches of the field of law and literature is often described as "law as literature." Scholars of law as literature examine the law using the tools of literary analysis. The scholarship in this subfield is dominated by the discussion of narrative texts: confessions, victim-impact statements, and, above all, the judicial opinion. This article will argue that we can use some of the same tools to help us understand non-narrative texts, such as law codes and statutes. Genres create expectations. We do not expect a law code to be literary. Indeed, we tend to dissociate the law …


The Unruliness Of Rules, Peter A. Alces Sep 2019

The Unruliness Of Rules, Peter A. Alces

Peter A. Alces

No abstract provided.


Artificial Intelligence And Role-Reversible Judgment, Stephen E. Henderson, Kiel Brennan-Marquez Dec 2017

Artificial Intelligence And Role-Reversible Judgment, Stephen E. Henderson, Kiel Brennan-Marquez

Stephen E Henderson

As intelligent machines begin more generally outperforming human experts, why should humans remain ‘in the loop’ of decision-making?  One common answer focuses on outcomes: relying on intuition and experience, humans are capable of identifying interpretive errors—sometimes disastrous errors—that elude machines.  Though plausible today, this argument will wear thin as technology evolves.

Here, we seek out sturdier ground: a defense of human judgment that focuses on the normative integrity of decision-making.  Specifically, we propose an account of democratic equality as ‘role-reversibility.’  In a democracy, those tasked with making decisions should be susceptible, reciprocally, to the impact of decisions; there ought to …


Stephenmfeldmanthereturno.Pdf, Stephen M. Feldman Dec 2016

Stephenmfeldmanthereturno.Pdf, Stephen M. Feldman

Stephen M. Feldman

Postmodern jurisprudence was all the rage in the 1990s.  Two of the most renowned postmodernists, Stanley Fish and Pierre Schlag, both persistently criticized mainstream legal scholars for believing they were modernist selves--independent, sovereign, and autonomous agents who could remake the social and legal world merely by writing a law review article.  Then Fish and Schlag turned on each other.  Each attacked the other for making the same mistake: harboring a modernist self.  I revisit this skirmish for two reasons.  First, it helps explain the current moribund state of postmodern jurisprudence.  If two of the leading postmodernists could not avoid embedding …


The Antinomy Of Coherence And Determinacy, William A. Edmundson Nov 2015

The Antinomy Of Coherence And Determinacy, William A. Edmundson

William A. Edmundson

Coherence and determinacy are both apparent desiderata for bodies of law and legal systems. Unfortunately, in legal systems of any complexity, increasing the degree of one invariably brings about a lessening of the other. For theories of law - such as Ronald Dworkin's - that emphasize the importance of coherence in judicial reasoning, while requiring as a condition of legitimacy that legal rights pre-exist judicial decisions, this must be an unwelcome fact.


Constituencies And Contemporaneousness In Reason-Giving: Thoughts And Direction After T-Mobile, Donald J. Kochan Dec 2014

Constituencies And Contemporaneousness In Reason-Giving: Thoughts And Direction After T-Mobile, Donald J. Kochan

Donald J. Kochan

This Article presents a framework for reason giving requirements in administrative law that includes a demand on agencies that reasons be produced contemporaneously with agency decisions where multiple constituencies (including regulated entities) and not just the courts (and judiciary review) are served and respected as consumers of the reasons. The Article postulates that the January 2015 decision by the U.S. Supreme Court in the case of T-Mobile South, LLC v. City of Roswell may prove to be groundbreaking and stir this framework to the forefront of administrative law decisionmaking. There are some fundamental yet very understated lessons in the T-Mobile …


On The Conceptual Confusions Of Jurisprudence, Aaron Rappaport Dec 2013

On The Conceptual Confusions Of Jurisprudence, Aaron Rappaport

Aaron Rappaport

For more than half a century, legal theorists have tried to identify and describe the concept of law, employing a method called “conceptual analysis” to pursue this goal. Yet the details of that methodology remain obscure, its merits largely accepted without careful analysis. A reassessment is long past due. This paper offers the first comprehensive survey of the way conceptual analysis has been used in legal theory. The paper identifies four different forms of conceptual analysis – the empirical, intuitive, categorical and contingent methods of analysis. After clarifying the core assumptions of each approach, the paper evaluates whether any of …


Entender Los Males Económicos Modernos A La Luz De La Doctrina Social Católica, Brian M. Mccall Dec 2013

Entender Los Males Económicos Modernos A La Luz De La Doctrina Social Católica, Brian M. Mccall

Brian M McCall

In a general sense, St. Thomas Aquinas predicted the paralysis and chaos of the financial and economic systems in America and Europe which occurred in 2008, when he predicted that in a society where unjust exchanges dominate, eventually all exchanges will cease. St. Thomas also points out that although human law cannot prohibit all injustice, society cannot escape the consequences of transgressing the divine law which leaves “nothing unpunished.” Thus, at least part of the explanation for that crisis whose effects remain with us today lies in continuous violations of natural justice by our economic system. Neither one product nor …


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 Oct 2013

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.


Leiter On The Legal Realists, Michael S. Green Jun 2013

Leiter On The Legal Realists, Michael S. Green

Michael S. Green

In this essay reviewing Brian Leiter’s recent book Naturalizing Jurisprudence, I focus on two positions that distinguish Leiter’s reading of the American legal realists from those offered in the past. The first is his claim that the realists thought the law is only locally indeterminate – primarily in cases that are appealed. The second is his claim that they did not offer a prediction theory of law, but were instead committed to a standard positivist theory. Leiter’s reading is vulnerable, because he fails to discuss in detail those passages from the realists that inspired past interpretations. My goal is to …