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Full-Text Articles in Law
Cicero And Barack Obama: How To Unite The Republic Without Losing Your Head, Michael J. Cedrone
Cicero And Barack Obama: How To Unite The Republic Without Losing Your Head, Michael J. Cedrone
Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works
By turning to the works of Cicero and Barack Obama, we can find models of how to speak into crises in ways that foster unity. Cicero’s Catilinarian orations were delivered in 63 BCE, during his one-year term as consul—the highest elected official in the Roman Republic. Facing a conspiracy by certain noble Romans, Cicero delivered a series of four speeches that drove the chief conspirator out of Rome, turned public opinion against the conspirators, and convinced the Roman Senate to support the death penalty for conspirators who remained and were captured in Rome. The Fourth Catilinarian, in which Cicero advocates …
Ethical Limitations On The State's Use Of Arational Persuasion, Nadia N. Sawicki
Ethical Limitations On The State's Use Of Arational Persuasion, Nadia N. Sawicki
Faculty Publications & Other Works
Policymakers frequently use arational appeals – such as those relying on emotion, cognitive biases, and subliminal messaging – to persuade citizens to adopt behaviors that support public goals. However, these communication tactics have been widely criticized for relying on arational triggers, rather than reasoned argument. This Article develops a fuller account of the non-consequentialist objections to arational persuasion by state actors, as well as the arguments in favor of such tactics, that have been presented by scholars of rhetoric, political theory, and cognitive science. The Article concludes by proposing ethically justifiable limitations on state communications that should be compelling to …
Towards A (Bayesian) Convergence?, Richard D. Friedman
Towards A (Bayesian) Convergence?, Richard D. Friedman
Articles
If I understand them correctly, several leading Bayesioskeptics (Allen, Callen, Stein) acknowledge - with varying degrees of specificity and varying degrees of grudgingness - that standard probability theory can be useful as an analytical tool in considering evidentiary doctrines and the probative value of evidentiary items.
Answering The Bayesioskeptical Challenge, Richard D. Friedman
Answering The Bayesioskeptical Challenge, Richard D. Friedman
Articles
In recent years, some scholars of evidence, myself among them, have made active use of subjective probability theory - what is sometimes referred to as Bayesianism - in thinking about issues and problems related to the law of evidence. But, at the same time, this use has been challenged to various degrees and in various ways by scholars to whom I shall apply the collective, if somewhat misleading, label of Bayesioskeptics. I present this brief paper to defend this use of probability theory, and to discuss what I believe is its proper role in discourse about evidentiary issues.