Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

The Family Values: Is It Really About The Family? Analyzing The Family In The Egyptian Discourse Through A Sociological Lens, Taher Sabala

Theses and Dissertations

The Egyptian state has put on its shoulders the responsibility of protecting the family and its values. But how this family, in a massive society like Egypt, can be defined? In this paper, I argue that it has never been about protecting the family. However, it is an attempt to shape the citizens into small separate hives which give the State the power to gain access to the intimate details of its citizens’ lives through which they can be easily monitored, managed, and controlled. By analyzing Michel Foucault’s work on government, power, sexuality, and family, I travel through a historical …

Antitrust Philosophy And Its Impact On Rural Industry, Logan Gary Johnson

Honors Thesis

The United States is a nation steeped in values, and tradition. One of these values has always been the preservation of competition in the pursuit of liberty. The philosophical backing of America’s founding can be traced back to a handful of European thinkers, most notably John Locke. The connection between Locke, America’s founding, and continued struggles with antitrust enforcement are worthy of exploration. Though likely unintentional, rural communities have been left to deal with the impacts of weak antitrust enforcement in a number of key sectors. Chief of which is Agriculture. Consolidation is the new norm, with each stage of …

Why Aim Law Toward Human Survival, John William Draper

Librarian Scholarship at Penn Law

Our legal system is contributing to humanity’s demise by failing to take account of our species’ situation. For example, in some cases law works against life and supports interests such as liberty or profit maximization.

If we do not act, science tells us that humanity bears a significant (and growing) risk of catastrophic failure. The significant risk inherent in the status quo is unacceptable and requires a response. We must act. It is getting hotter. When we decide to act, we need to make the right choice.

There is no better choice. You and all your relatives have rights. The …

Autonomy And The Folk Concept Of Valid Consent, Joanna Demaree-Cotton, Roseanna Sommers

Law & Economics Working Papers

Consent governs innumerable everyday social interactions, including sex, medical exams, the use of property, and economic transactions. Yet little is known about how ordinary people reason about the validity of consent. Across the domains of sex, medicine, and police entry, Study 1 showed that when agents lack autonomous decision-making capacities, participants are less likely to view their consent as valid; however, failing to exercise this capacity and deciding in a nonautonomous way did not reduce consent judgments. Study 2 found that specific and concrete incapacities reduced judgments of valid consent, but failing to exercise these specific capacities did not, even …

Review Of Samuel J. Levine’S Was Yosef On The Spectrum? Understanding Joseph Through Torah, Midrash, And Classical Jewish Sources: Urim Publications, Jerusalem, New York, Nathan Weissler

Touro Law Review

No abstract provided.

Moral Choices And Leadership, Gregory Eastwood

The International Journal of Ethical Leadership

No abstract provided.

"Do You Have A Conscience?", Jeremy Bendik-Keymer

The International Journal of Ethical Leadership

No abstract provided.

On The Nature Of Norms: Biology, Morality, And The Disruption Of Order, Owen D. Jones

Owen Jones

This essay discusses the legal implications of bio-behavioral underpinnings to norms, morality, and economic order. It first discusses the recent book "The Great Disruption: Human Nature and the Reconstitution of Social Order," in which Francis Fukuyama explores the importance of evolved human nature to the reconstruction of social order and a thriving economy. It then addresses the extent to which we can usefully view law-relevant norms as products of evolutionary - as well as economic - processes.

Opposition To Abortion, Then And Now: How Amicus Briefs Use Policy Frames In Abortion Litigation, Laura Moyer, Alyson Hendricks-Benton, Megan Balcom

Faculty Scholarship

Early in the debate over abortion, opposition to the procedure was primarily described in terms that reflected moral concerns about the protection of “the unborn.” Indeed, much of the media coverage and public discourse describing opposition to abortion since the time of Roe characterizes the movement as focused on securing rights for all human beings from the moment of conception (Huff 2014, 39). However, interviews with activists and movement leaders suggest that antiabortion groups have employed an array of public outreach strategies over time. As seen above, the former director of the antiabortion group National Right to Life …

Dorothy Moser Medlin Papers - Accession 1049, Dorothy Moser Medlin

Manuscript Collection

(The Dorothy Moser Medlin Papers are currently in processing.)

This collection contains most of the records of Dorothy Medlin’s work and correspondence and also includes reference materials, notes, microfilm, photographic negatives related both to her professional and personal life. Additions include a FLES Handbook, co-authored by Dorothy Medlin and a decorative mirror belonging to Dorothy Medlin.

Major series in this collection include: some original 18th century writings and ephemera and primary source material of André Morellet, extensive collection of secondary material on André Morellet's writings and translations, Winthrop related files, literary manuscripts and notes by Dorothy Medlin (1966-2011), copies …

Norms, Law And The Impeachment Power, John M. Greabe

Law Faculty Scholarship

[Excerpt]

"Most experts believe that, while a president can be criminally prosecuted after leaving office, he cannot be prosecuted while he is president. And while the president may be sued civilly while holding office, the office confers powerful immunities and other constitutional defenses that are unavailable to ordinary civilian defendants."

The Perverse Consequences Of Disclosing Standard Terms, Tess Wilkinson-Ryan

All Faculty Scholarship

Although assent is the doctrinal and theoretical hallmark of contract, its relevance for form contracts has been drastically undermined by the overwhelming evidence that no one reads standard terms. Until now, most political and academic discussions of this phenomenon have acknowledged the truth of universally unread contracts, but have assumed that even unread terms are at best potentially helpful, and at worst harmless. This Article makes the empirical case that unread terms are not a neutral part of American commerce; instead, the mere fact of fine print inhibits reasonable challenges to unfair deals. The experimental study reported here tests the …

Crime, Morality, And Republicanism, Richard Dagger

Political Science Faculty Publications

One of the abiding concerns of the philosophy of law has been to establish the relationship between law and morality. Within the criminal law, this concern often takes the form of debates over legal moralism--that is, "the position that immorality is sufficient for criminalization" (Alexander 2003: 131). This paper approaches these debates from the perspective of the recently revived republican tradition in politics and law. Contrary to what is usually taken to be liberalism's hostility to legal moralism, and especially to attempts to promote virtue through the criminal law, the republican approach takes the promotion of virtue to be one …

Why Law Now Needs To Control Rather Than Follow Neo-Classical Economics, John William Draper

Librarian Scholarship at Penn Law

Selfish utilitarianism, neo-classical economics, the directive of short-term income maximization, and the decision tool of cost-benefit analysis fail to protect our species from the significant risks of too much consumption, pollution, or population. For a longer-term survival, humanity needs to employ more than cost-justified precaution.

This article argues that, at the global level, and by extension at all levels of government, we need to replace neo-classical economics with filters for safety and feasibility to regulate against significant risk. For significant risks, especially those that are irreversible, we need decision tools that will protect humanity at all scales. This article describes …

Punishing Property Offenders: Does Moral Correction Work?, Sharona Aharony-Goldenberg, Yael Wilchek-Aviad

Touro Law Review

No abstract provided.

Of Drones And Justice: A Just War Theory Analysis Of The United States' Drone Campaigns, Ethan A. Wright

Richard T. Schellhase Essay Prize in Ethics

No abstract provided.

Freedom Of Conscience As Religious And Moral Freedom, Michael J. Perry

Faculty Articles

In another essay being published contemporaneously with this one, I have explained that as the concept "human right" is understood both in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and in all the various international human rights treaties that have followed in the Universal Declaration's wake, a right is a human right if the rationale for establishing and protecting the right-for example, as a treaty-based right-is, in part, that conduct that violates the right violates the imperative, articulated in Article i of the Universal Declaration, to "act towards all human beings in a spirit of brotherhood." Each of the human rights …

The Morality Of Human Rights, Michael J. Perry

San Diego Law Review

My discussion of the morality of human rights in this Article presupposes that the reader is familiar with the internationalization of human rights: the growing international recognition and protection, in the period since the end of the Second World War, of certain rights as human rights. The Appendix to this Article is for readers not familiar with the internationalization of human rights. I begin, in the first Part of the Article, by explaining what the term human right means in the context of the internationalization of human rights. I also explain both the sense in which some human rights are, …

Killing, Letting Die, And The Case For Mildly Punishing Bad Samaritanism, Ken M. Levy

Ken Levy

For over a century now, American scholars (among others) have been debating the merits of “bad-samaritan” laws – laws punishing people for failing to attempt “easy rescues.” Unfortunately, the opponents of bad-samaritan laws have mostly prevailed. In the United States, the “no-duty-to-rescue” rule dominates. Only four states even have bad-samaritan laws, and these laws impose only the most minimal punishment – either sub-$500 fines or short-term imprisonment.

This Article argues that this situation needs to be remedied. Every state should criminalize bad samaritanism. For, first, criminalization is required by the supreme value that we place on protecting human life, a …

The Moral International Sphere As A New "Civic Virtue", Claudia Heiss

Human Rights & Human Welfare

Liberal political theory, the predominant paradigm at least since the 1970s, rules out as oppressive the imposition of any substantive notion of a "good way of life" and proposes instead a neutral conception where each individual should have the right to pursue his or her own preferred project of life. This opposition of an ancient "virtue" and a modern "freedom" seems challenged by current debates about morality and the responsibility to protect innocent civilians from massive crimes. The moral outrage of the international community may be interpreted as a signal of a perhaps minimal notion of civic virtue, which translates …

Mental Disorder And Criminal Law, Stephen J. Morse

All Faculty Scholarship

Mental disorder among criminal defendants affects every stage of the criminal justice process, from investigational issues to competence to be executed. As in all other areas of mental health law, at least some people with mental disorders, are treated specially. The underlying thesis of this Article is that people with mental disorder should, as far as is practicable and consistent with justice, be treated just like everyone else. In some areas, the law is relatively sensible and just. In others, too often the opposite is true and the laws sweep too broadly. I believe, however, that special rules to deal …

Killing, Letting Die, And The Case For Mildly Punishing Bad Samaritanism, Ken M. Levy

Journal Articles

For over a century now, American scholars (among others) have been debating the merits of “bad-samaritan” laws – laws punishing people for failing to attempt “easy rescues.” Unfortunately, the opponents of bad-samaritan laws have mostly prevailed. In the United States, the “no-duty-to-rescue” rule dominates. Only four states even have bad-samaritan laws, and these laws impose only the most minimal punishment – either sub-$500 fines or short-term imprisonment.

This Article argues that this situation needs to be remedied. Every state should criminalize bad samaritanism. For, first, criminalization is required by the supreme value that we place on protecting human life, a …

Marten Zwanenburg On Killer Robots: Legality And Ethicality Of Autonomous Weapons. By Armin Krishnan. Farnham: Ashgate, 2009. 240pp., Marten Zwanenburg

Human Rights & Human Welfare

A review of:

Killer Robots: Legality and Ethicality of Autonomous Weapons. By Armin Krishnan. Farnham: Ashgate, 2009. 240pp.

Moral Foundation Theory And The Law, Colin Prince

Seattle University Law Review

Moral foundation theory argues that there are five basic moral foundations: (1) harm/care, (2) fairness/reciprocity, (3) ingroup/loyalty, (4) authority/respect, and (5) purity/sanctity. These five foundations comprise the building blocks of morality, regardless of the culture. In other words, while every society constructs its own morality, it is the varying weights that each society allots to these five universal foundations that create the variety. Haidt likens moral foundation theory to an “audio equalizer,” with each culture adjusting the sliders differently. The researchers, however, were not content to simply categorize moral foundations—they have tied the foundations to political leanings. And it is …

Rules Of Engagement: Seeking Moral And Legal Sufficiency In The 21st Century, Tanner Williams

Global Tides

Modern conflict in Iraq and Afghanistan has proved to be unlike any other conflict in history. United States and Coalition forces are faced with an insurgent enemy that defies all pre-established Laws of Armed Combat. As we transition from a wartime operations to a peacekeeping environment, it is important to reflect upon the moral and legal struggles that our soldiers face in the line of duty. Certainly, it cannot be easy to distinguish between lawful or unlawful combatants and innocent civilians in a war that lacks a clearly defined enemy. As a result, it is necessary to examine our rules …

The Inevitability Of Conscience: A Response To My Critics, David Luban

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

This essay by Professor David Luban is written in response to critics of his book, Legal Ethics and Human Dignity.

In part I Professor Luban addresses the primacy that he assigns conscience over the professional role and focuses mainly on the arguments of his critics, Professors Norman Spaulding and W. Bradley Wendel. Part II explores the challenge of pluralism, replying primarily to Professors Katherine Kruse, Spaulding, and Wendel. Part III, in response to Professors Kruse and William Simon, elaborates on the concept of human dignity. Part IV discusses institutions and ethics, focusing on Professors Susan Carle and Simon. The …

How And Understanding Of The Second Personal Standpoint Can Change Our Understanding Of The Law: Hart's Unpublished Response To Exclusive Legal Positivism, Robin B. Kar

ExpressO

This Article describes recent developments in moral philosophy on the “second personal standpoint,” and argues that they will have important ramifications for legal thought. Moral, legal and political thinkers have, for some time now, understood important distinctions between the first personal perspective (of deliberation) and the third personal perspective (of observation, cause and effect), and have plumbed these distinctions to great effect in their thought. This distinction is, in fact, implicit the law and economics movement’s “rational actor” model of decision, which currently dominates much legal academic thought. Recent developments in value theory due to philosopher Stephen Darwall suggest, however, …

Gay Is Good: The Moral Case For Marriage Equality And More, Chai R. Feldblum

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

The struggle for marriage equality in this country is ripe for an intervention. If the effort continues along in the manner in which it has been headed, gay couples may or may not succeed in gaining access to civil marriage. But even if gay couples succeed in "getting marriage," the gay rights movement may have missed a critical opportunity-a chance to make a positive moral case for gay sex and gay couples. In other words, it will have missed the opportunity to argue that "gay is good."

Moreover, to the extent that the struggle for marriage equality focuses solely on …

Judicial Selection: Ideology Versus Character, Lawrence B. Solum

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

Part I of Judicial Selection: Ideology versus Character sets the stage for an argument that character and not political ideology should be the primary factor in the selection of judges. Political ideology has played an important role in judicial selection, from John Adams's entrenchment of federalists as judges after the election of 1800 to the Roosevelt's selection of progressives, liberals, and New Dealers, the contemporary era, from the failed nominations of Fortas, Haynsworth, Carswell to the defeat of Robert Bork, the narrow confirmation of Clarence Thomas. But until recently, political ideology has played its role behind the scenes--mostly off the …

Sodomy And Prostitution: Laws Protecting The “Fabric Of Society”, Nicole A. Hough

The University of New Hampshire Law Review

[Excerpt] “Throughout history many people have viewed sodomy and prostitution as moral evils, because sex has often been linked to sin and, therefore, to immorality and guilt. For example, in ancient Hebrew, a sodomite was known as a qadhesh, a male temple prostitute who was associated with heathen deities and impure forms of worship. The female version of qadhesh, qedheshah, is translated directly as prostitute. This archaic view of labeling prostitution and sodomy as impure has been challenged over time, and both topics are still a source of great controversy. […]

This note is a comparative analysis of sodomy and …