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Full-Text Articles in Law
Race, Trust, Altruism, And Reciprocity, George W. Dent
Race, Trust, Altruism, And Reciprocity, George W. Dent
Faculty Publications
Trust, altruism and reciprocity are attracting growing attention from scholars. Interest began with psychological experiments showing that people often are altruistic, trust others, and reciprocate the benevolence of others far more than economic models of "rational" human selfishness predict. These findings inspired social scientists to discover what factors promote or hinder cooperation. Legal scholars have employed this learning to determine how the law does or could facilitate or discourage cooperation in many contexts, including business transactions and the workplace. The influence of race on cooperation has been studied in specific areas, but so far no one has considered how the …
The Pimple On Adonis's Nose: A Dialogue On The Concept Of Merit In The Affirmative Action Debate, Tobias Barrington Wolff, Robert Paul Wolff
The Pimple On Adonis's Nose: A Dialogue On The Concept Of Merit In The Affirmative Action Debate, Tobias Barrington Wolff, Robert Paul Wolff
All Faculty Scholarship
Efforts at progressive educational reform in general, and affirmative action in particular, frequently encounter a rhetorically powerful objection: Merit. The story of merit proclaims that high-achieving applicants - those who have already made effective use of educational opportunities in the past and demonstrated a likelihood of being able to do so in the future - enjoy a morally superior claim in the distribution of scarce educational resources. Past achievement, in other words, entitles an applicant to a superior education. This moral framework of merit serves as a constant counterpoint in debates over affirmative action, including those contained in the Court's …