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Full-Text Articles in Jurisprudence
Choice Theory: A Restatement, Michael A. Heller, Hanoch Dagan
Choice Theory: A Restatement, Michael A. Heller, Hanoch Dagan
Faculty Scholarship
This chapter restates choice theory, which advances a liberal approach to contract law. First, we refine the concept of autonomy for contract. Then we address range, limit, and floor, three principles that together justify contract law in a liberal society. The first concerns the state’s obligation to be proactive in facilitating the availability of a multiplicity of contract types. The second refers to the respect contract law owes to the autonomy of a party’s future self, that is, to the ability to re-write the story of one’s life. The final principle concerns relational justice, the baseline for any legitimate use …
For Legal Principles, Mitchell N. Berman
For Legal Principles, Mitchell N. Berman
All Faculty Scholarship
Most legal thinkers believe that legal rules and legal principles are meaningfully distinguished. Many jurists may have no very precise distinction in mind, and those who do might not all agree. But it is widely believed that legal norms come in different logical types, and that one difference is reasonably well captured by a nomenclature that distinguishes “rules” from “principles.” Larry Alexander is the foremost challenger to this bit of legal-theoretic orthodoxy. In several articles, but especially in “Against Legal Principles,” an influential article co-authored with Ken Kress two decades ago, Alexander has argued that legal principles cannot exist.
In …
Justice Scalia’S Originalism And Formalism: The Rule Of Criminal Law As A Law Of Rules, Stephanos Bibas
Justice Scalia’S Originalism And Formalism: The Rule Of Criminal Law As A Law Of Rules, Stephanos Bibas
All Faculty Scholarship
Far too many reporters and pundits collapse law into politics, assuming that the left–right divide between Democratic and Republican appointees neatly explains politically liberal versus politically conservative outcomes at the Supreme Court. The late Justice Antonin Scalia defied such caricatures. His consistent judicial philosophy made him the leading exponent of originalism, textualism, and formalism in American law, and over the course of his three decades on the Court, he changed the terms of judicial debate. Now, as a result, supporters and critics alike start with the plain meaning of the statutory or constitutional text rather than loose appeals to legislative …
The Effect Of Legal Theories On Judicial Decisions, Anthony D'Amato
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.
Are Constitutional Cases Political?, Brian Slattery
Are Constitutional Cases Political?, Brian Slattery
Articles & Book Chapters
To argue that constitutional adjudication is political does not carry us very far unless we go on to specify what the pursuit of politics entails, the goals it seeks to attain, and the basic principles informing its practice. The word political has no clearly defined meaning in modern usage. Rather, it has the chameleon-like capacity to change colours so as to blend with a variety of different conceptual backgrounds. Of course, if we adopt an Aristotelian notion of politics as the pursuit of the common good of a community and the individual goods of its members, we can agree that …
Jurisprudence And Gender, Robin West
Jurisprudence And Gender, Robin West
Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works
What is a human being? Legal theorists must, perforce, answer this question: jurisprudence, after all, is about human beings. The task has not proven to be divisive. In fact, virtually all modern American legal theorists, like most modern moral and political philosophers, either explicitly or implicitly embrace what I will call the "separation thesis" about what it means to be a human being: a "human being," whatever else he is, is physically separate from all other human beings. I am one human being and you are another, and that distinction between you and me is central to the meaning of …
Book Review Of Passion: An Essay On Personality , Richard F. Devlin Frsc
Book Review Of Passion: An Essay On Personality , Richard F. Devlin Frsc
Articles, Book Chapters, & Popular Press
Passion is a cogently structured, compel Jingly argued and seductively enthralling masterpiece which, in years to come, will undoubtedly stand out as an inspirational source for many who seek social transformation. Unger's style, in this essay at least, is lucid and inviting. Substantively, Passion demonstrates not only the depth of his penetrating intellect but also his command of an array of' disciplines. Unger's polymathy is all the more impressive when we remember that ours is an era in which idiosyncratic specialization is the norm.