Law Commons^™

From Premodern To Modern American Jurisprudence: The Onset Of Positivism, Stephen M. Feldman

Vanderbilt Law Review

What distinguished premodern from modern American jurisprudence? Whereas most commentators agree that the transition from premodernism to modernism occurred around the Civil War,' recent writings reveal dissension regarding the nature of antebellum and postbellum jurisprudence. In a wonderfully detailed study of Christopher Columbus Langdell, his jurisprudence, and his case method of teaching, William P. LaPiana argues that a defining feature of Langdell's postbellum legal science was a positivism that contrasted with a natural law orientation characteristic of the earlier antebellum jurisprudence. In a provocative critical essay, Robert W. Gordon argues to the contrary: LaPiana's emphasis on natural law during the …

The Canons Of Statutory Construction And Judicial Constraints: A Response To Macey And Miller, Lawrence C. Marshall

Vanderbilt Law Review

Professors Jonathan Macey and Geoffrey Miller claim to have set out to provide a positivist explanation for why judges ever invoke canons in the course of interpreting statutes.' In truth, though, their question is a far broader one. What they really seek to explain is why judges ever use any interpretive tools in the course of interpreting statutes. Why, Macey and Miller want to know, don't judges simply decide what result in the case will best promote a good outcome on the grounds of public policy, intrinsic fairness, economic efficiency or wealth maximization? This question is perplexing to Macey and …

Book Reviews, Kevin M. Clark Reviewer, Charles A. White, Jr. Lieutenant Colonel

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

LEGAL REASONING AND LEGAL THEORY

Philosophers have always questioned the nature of rationality. The history of philosophy appears to many as an ongoing struggle between dogmatism and scepticism, between those who defend the broad scope of reason and those who assert its strict limitation. Concern for the nature of reason has thus become almost synonymous with philosophy. In the past few decades, however, the nature of this concern has changed in a fundamental manner, giving rise to inquiry into the interrelation between different modes of rationality.

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MILITARY OBEDIENCE

Two major characteristics, the concepts of command responsibility and obedience to …