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Articles 31 - 60 of 152

Full-Text Articles in Philosophy

Time Out, Stephen B. Burbank Jan 2009

Time Out, Stephen B. Burbank

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No abstract provided.


Restoration But Also More Justice, Stephanos Bibas Jan 2009

Restoration But Also More Justice, Stephanos Bibas

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This short essay replies to Erik Luna's endorsement of restorative justice. He is right that the goal of healing victims, defendants, and their families is important but all too often neglected by substantive criminal law and procedure, which is far too state-centered and impersonal. The problem with restorative justice is that too often it seeks to sweep away punishment as barbaric and downplays the need for deterrence and incapacitation as well. In short, restorative justice deserves more of a role in American criminal justice. Shorn of its political baggage and reflexive hostility to punishment, restorative justice has much to teach …


Policing Politics At Sentencing, Stephanos Bibas, Max M. Schanzenbach, Emerson H. Tiller Jan 2009

Policing Politics At Sentencing, Stephanos Bibas, Max M. Schanzenbach, Emerson H. Tiller

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No abstract provided.


Exacerbating Injustice, Stephanos Bibas Nov 2008

Exacerbating Injustice, Stephanos Bibas

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This brief essay responds to Josh Bowers' argument that criminal procedure should openly allow innocent defendants to plead guilty as a legal fiction. Though most scholars emphasize the few but salient serious felony cases, Bowers is right to refocus attention on misdemeanors and violations, which are far more numerous. And though the phrase wrongful convictions conjures up images of punishing upstanding citizens, Bowers is also right to emphasize that recidivists are far more likely to suffer wrongful suspicion and conviction. Bowers' mistake is to treat the criminal justice system as simply a means of satisfying defendants' preferences and choices. This …


The Immigration Paradox: Alien Workers And Distributive Justice, Howard F. Chang Jul 2008

The Immigration Paradox: Alien Workers And Distributive Justice, Howard F. Chang

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The immigration of relatively unskilled workers poses a fundamental problem for liberals. While from the perspective of the economic welfare of natives, the optimal policy would be to admit these aliens as guest workers, this policy would violate liberal ideals. These ideals would treat these workers as equals, entitled to access to citizenship and to the full set of public benefits provided to citizens. If the welfare of incumbent residents determines admissions policies, however, and we anticipate the fiscal burden that the immigration of the poor would impose, then our welfare criterion would preclude the admission of relatively unskilled workers …


Embracing Risk, Sharing Responsibility, Tom Baker Jan 2008

Embracing Risk, Sharing Responsibility, Tom Baker

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No abstract provided.


The Disadvantages Of Immigration Restriction As A Policy To Improve Income Distribution, Howard F. Chang Jan 2008

The Disadvantages Of Immigration Restriction As A Policy To Improve Income Distribution, Howard F. Chang

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In this Article, I argue that tax and transfer policies are more efficient than immigration restrictions as instruments for raising the after tax incomes of the least skilled native workers. Policies to protect these native workers frol1'l immigrant competition in the labor market do no better at promoting distributive justice and are likely to impose a greater economic burden on natives in the country of immigration than the tax alternative. These immigration restrictions are especially costly given the disproportionate burden that they place on households with working women, which discourages fel1'wle participation in the labor force. This burden runs contrary …


Guest Workers And Justice In A Second-Best World, Howard F. Chang Jan 2008

Guest Workers And Justice In A Second-Best World, Howard F. Chang

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This essay offers a defense of guest-worker programs and a critique of the objections raised by Michael Walzer and by other critics of such programs. Although critics commonly complain that guest workers are vulnerable to exploitation by employers, we can design guest-worker programs that minimize the risk of such exploitation. Ready access for relatively unskilled guest workers to citizenship and to public benefits, however, generates a fiscal burden for the public treasury. A right to equal treatment for aliens yields perverse results unless aliens are also entitled to equal concern when the host country decides whether to admit the alien …


Contrived Defenses And Deterrent Threats: Two Facets Of One Problem, Claire Oakes Finkelstein, Leo Katz Jan 2008

Contrived Defenses And Deterrent Threats: Two Facets Of One Problem, Claire Oakes Finkelstein, Leo Katz

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What relation do the various parts of a plan bear to the overall aim of the plan? In this essay we consider this question in the context of two very different problems in the criminal law. The first, known in the German criminal law literature as the Actio Libera in Causa, involves defendants who contrive to commit crimes under conditions that would normally afford them a justification or excuse. The question is whether such defendants should be allowed to claim the defense when the defense is itself either contrived or anticipated in advance. The second is what we call the …


The Effect Of Conflicting Moral And Legal Rules On Bargaining Behavior: The Case Of Divorce, Tess Wilkinson-Ryan, Jonathan Baron Jan 2008

The Effect Of Conflicting Moral And Legal Rules On Bargaining Behavior: The Case Of Divorce, Tess Wilkinson-Ryan, Jonathan Baron

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No abstract provided.


Face To Face With “It”: And Other Neglected Contexts Of Health Privacy, Anita L. Allen Oct 2007

Face To Face With “It”: And Other Neglected Contexts Of Health Privacy, Anita L. Allen

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“Illness has recently emerged from the obscurity of medical treatises and private diaries to acquire something like celebrity status,” Professor David Morris astutely observes. Great plagues and epidemics throughout history have won notoriety as collective disasters; and the Western world has made curiosities of an occasional “Elephant Man,” “Wild Boy,” or pair of enterprising “Siamese Twins.” People now reveal their illnesses and medical procedures in conversation, at work and on the internet. This paper explores the reasons why, despite the celebrity of disease and a new openness about health problems, privacy and confidentiality are still values in medicine.


Well-Being, Inequality And Time: The Time-Slice Problem And Its Policy Implications, Matthew D. Adler Aug 2007

Well-Being, Inequality And Time: The Time-Slice Problem And Its Policy Implications, Matthew D. Adler

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Should equality be viewed from a lifetime or “sublifetime” perspective? In measuring the inequality of income, for example, should we measure the inequality of lifetime income or of annual income? In characterizing a tax as “progressive” or “regressive,” should we look to whether the annual tax burden increases with annual income, or instead to whether the lifetime tax burden increases with lifetime income? Should the overriding aim of anti-poverty programs be to reduce chronic poverty: being badly off for many years, because of low human capital or other long-run factors? Or is the moral claim of the impoverished person a …


Forgiveness In Criminal Procedure, Stephanos Bibas Jan 2007

Forgiveness In Criminal Procedure, Stephanos Bibas

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Though forgiveness and mercy matter greatly in social life, they play fairly small roles in criminal procedure. Criminal procedure is dominated by the state, whose interests in deterring, incapacitating, and inflicting retribution leave little room for mercy. An alternative system, however, would focus more on the needs of human participants. Victim-offender mediation, sentencing discounts, and other mechanisms could encourage offenders to express remorse, victims to forgive, and communities to reintegrate and employ offenders. All of these actors could then better heal, reconcile, and get on with their lives. Forgiveness and mercy are not panaceas: not all offenders and victims would …


Challenges In Law Making In Mass Societies, Geoffrey C. Hazard Jr. Jan 2007

Challenges In Law Making In Mass Societies, Geoffrey C. Hazard Jr.

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No abstract provided.


Traditionalism, Pluralism, And Same-Sex Marriage, Amy L. Wax Jan 2007

Traditionalism, Pluralism, And Same-Sex Marriage, Amy L. Wax

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No abstract provided.


Originalism And Its Discontents (Plus A Thought Or Two About Abortion), Mitchell N. Berman Jan 2007

Originalism And Its Discontents (Plus A Thought Or Two About Abortion), Mitchell N. Berman

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No abstract provided.


A Contractarian Argument Against The Death Penalty, Claire Oakes Finkelstein Oct 2006

A Contractarian Argument Against The Death Penalty, Claire Oakes Finkelstein

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Opponents of the death penalty typically base their opposition on contingent features of its administration, arguing that the death penalty is applied discriminatory, that the innocent are sometimes executed, or that there is insufficient evidence of the death penalty’s deterrent efficacy. Implicit in these arguments is the suggestion that if these contingencies did not obtain, serious moral objections to the death penalty would be misplaced. In this Article, Professor Finkelstein argues that there are grounds for opposing the death penalty even in the absence of such contingent factors. She proceeds by arguing that neither of the two prevailing theories of …


Hart On Social Rules And The Foundations Of Law: Liberating The Internal Point Of View, Stephen R. Perry Jan 2006

Hart On Social Rules And The Foundations Of Law: Liberating The Internal Point Of View, Stephen R. Perry

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No abstract provided.


Restorative Processes & Doing Justice, Paul H. Robinson Jan 2006

Restorative Processes & Doing Justice, Paul H. Robinson

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This essay argues that, while many restorative processes are quite valuable, there is the potential for their use to produce results that conflict with the community's shared intuitions of justice and to thereby undermine the criminal law's moral credibility. Because such moral credibility can have practical crime-control value, it ought not be undermined unless the crime-control benefits of doing so clearly outweigh the costs. In practice, it is entirely possible to rely upon restorative processes in ways that avoid injustice and that assure justice is done.


The "Bad Man" Goes To Washington: The Effect Of Political Influence On Corporate Duty, Jill E. Fisch Jan 2006

The "Bad Man" Goes To Washington: The Effect Of Political Influence On Corporate Duty, Jill E. Fisch

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No abstract provided.


Responsibilities Of Judges And Advocates In Civil And Common Law: Some Lingering Misconceptions Concerning Civil Lawsuits, Geoffrey C. Hazard Jr., Angelo Dondi Jan 2006

Responsibilities Of Judges And Advocates In Civil And Common Law: Some Lingering Misconceptions Concerning Civil Lawsuits, Geoffrey C. Hazard Jr., Angelo Dondi

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No abstract provided.


Imputed Conflicts Of Interest In International Law Practice, Geoffrey C. Hazard Jr. Oct 2005

Imputed Conflicts Of Interest In International Law Practice, Geoffrey C. Hazard Jr.

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No abstract provided.


The Conservative's Dilemma: Traditional Institutions, Social Change, And Same-Sex Marriage, Amy L. Wax Jan 2005

The Conservative's Dilemma: Traditional Institutions, Social Change, And Same-Sex Marriage, Amy L. Wax

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No abstract provided.


Law, Ethics And Mystery, Geoffrey C. Hazard Jr. Jan 2005

Law, Ethics And Mystery, Geoffrey C. Hazard Jr.

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No abstract provided.


"Lawyers For Lawyers": The Emerging Role Of Law Firm Legal Counsel, Geoffrey C. Hazard Jr. Jan 2005

"Lawyers For Lawyers": The Emerging Role Of Law Firm Legal Counsel, Geoffrey C. Hazard Jr.

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No abstract provided.


Welfare, Dialectic, And Mediation In Corporate Law, William W. Bratton Jan 2005

Welfare, Dialectic, And Mediation In Corporate Law, William W. Bratton

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No abstract provided.


Truth Machines And Consequences: The Light And Dark Sides Of 'Accuracy' In Criminal Justice, Seth F. Kreimer Jan 2005

Truth Machines And Consequences: The Light And Dark Sides Of 'Accuracy' In Criminal Justice, Seth F. Kreimer

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No abstract provided.


Responsibility For Unintended Consequences, Claire Oakes Finkelstein Jan 2005

Responsibility For Unintended Consequences, Claire Oakes Finkelstein

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The appropriateness of imposing criminal liability for negligent conduct has been the subject of debate among criminal law scholars for many years. Ever since H.L.A. Hart’s defense of criminal negligence, the prevailing view has favored its use. In this essay, I nevertheless argue against criminal negligence, on the ground that criminal liability should only be imposed where the defendant was aware he was engaging in the prohibited conduct, or where he was aware of risking such conduct or result. My argument relies on the claim that criminal liability should resemble judgments of responsibility in ordinary morality as closely as possible. …


The Protestant Revolutions And Western Law, William Ewald Jan 2005

The Protestant Revolutions And Western Law, William Ewald

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No abstract provided.


Plea Bargaining Outside The Shadow Of Trial, Stephanos Bibas Jun 2004

Plea Bargaining Outside The Shadow Of Trial, Stephanos Bibas

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Plea-bargaining literature predicts that parties strike plea bargains in the shadow of expected trial outcomes. In other words, parties forecast the expected sentence after trial, discount it by the probability of acquittal, and offer some proportional discount. This oversimplified model ignores how structural distortions skew bargaining outcomes. Agency costs; attorney competence, compensation, and workloads; resources; sentencing and bail rules; and information deficits all skew bargaining. In addition, psychological biases and heuristics warp judgments: overconfidence, denial, discounting, risk preferences, loss aversion, framing, and anchoring all affect bargaining decisions. Skilled lawyers can partly counteract some of these problems but sometimes overcompensate. The …