Jurisprudence Commons^™

Law's Legitimacy: Lon Fuller In A Consequentialist Frame, Daniel L. Feldman

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This thesis argues that Lon Fuller’s approach to jurisprudence offers more important support to the rule of law than has been generally recognized. It argues further that a consequentialist lens allows clearer views of Fuller’s strengths in this regard, despite Fuller’s own resistance to consequentialism and despite consequentialism’s blindness to some of Fuller’s depth and texture. This thesis supplies a formula, although one intended only as a guide to thinking, not for actual computation, to drive judicial decision-making. The inputs into this formula are six values widely shared in the United States, modified by case-by-case salience. Kantian deontology strongly influences …

Production, Not Dependence: The Metaphysics Of Causation And Its Role In Explanation, Responsibility, And The Law, Yuval Abrams

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Causation is production, not dependence. It is not merely a matter of how two facts or events covary, but about what underlies that covariation. Furthermore, causation is unified (not fragmented or plural) and is a natural relation (in the world). To cause is to make something happen, to generate. The causal nexus (the web of causal influence) consists entirely of productive positive causes. With these fixed, the (causal) dependence relations are determined.

Dependence belongs to the theory of explanation. Causal dependence is an explanatory notion: A causally explains B, in virtue of a causal relation between cause C and effect …