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Full-Text Articles in Jurisprudence

The Effect Of Legal Theories On Judicial Decisions, Anthony D'Amato Jan 2010

The Effect Of Legal Theories On Judicial Decisions, Anthony D'Amato

Faculty Working Papers

I draw a distinction in the beginning of this essay between judicial decision-making and a judge's decision-making. To persuade a judge, we should try to discover what her theories are. Across a range of theories, I offered well-known case examples typically cited as examples of each theory. Then I showed that the exact same theory used to justify or explain those case results could be used to justify or explain the opposite result in each of those cases.


Legal Realism Explains Nothing, Anthony D'Amato Jan 2010

Legal Realism Explains Nothing, Anthony D'Amato

Faculty Working Papers

I argue that American legal realism as derived from Oliver Wendell Holmes's prediction theory of law was misinterpreted, and that a deeper examination of law-as-prediction might help to reduce the pathology of judicial lawmaking that has been the unfortunate consequence of legal realism.


The Speluncean Explorers--Further Proceedings, Anthony D'Amato Jan 2010

The Speluncean Explorers--Further Proceedings, Anthony D'Amato

Faculty Working Papers

Lon L. Fuller's The Case of the Speluncean Explorers is a classic in jurisprudence. The case presents five judicial opinions which clash with each other and produce for the reader an exhilarating excursion into fundamental theories of law and the state and the role of courts vis-i-vis legislatures and executives. Though the issues articulated by Fuller are timeless, the past thirty years in jurisprudential scholarship have produced at least one major new vantage point—the "rights thesis".


The Number Of States And The Economics Of American Federalism, Steven G. Calabresi, Nicholas K. Terrell Jan 2009

The Number Of States And The Economics Of American Federalism, Steven G. Calabresi, Nicholas K. Terrell

Faculty Working Papers

In 1789 it was possible to speak of a federation of distinct States joined together for their mutual advantage, but today it is rather the Nation that is divided into subnational units. What caused this shift in focus from the States to the Federal Government? Surely the transformation from a collection of thirteen historically separate States clustered along the Atlantic seaboard to a group of fifty States largely carved out of Federal territory has played a role. Building on previous analysis of the economics of federalism, this essay considers the dynamic effects of increasing the number of states on the …


The Moral Dilemma Of Positivism, Anthony D'Amato Jan 1986

The Moral Dilemma Of Positivism, Anthony D'Amato

Faculty Working Papers

I think there has been an advance in positivist thinking, and that advance consists of the recognition by MacCormick, a positivist, that positivism needs to be justified morally (and not just as an apparent scientific and objective fact about legal systems). But the justification that is required cannot consist in labelling "sovereignty of conscience" as a moral principle, nor in compounding the confusion by claiming that positivism minimally and hence necessarily promotes sovereignty of conscience. We need, from the positivists, a more logical and coherent argument than that. Until one comes along, I continue to believe that positivists inherently have …