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2008

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Articles 1 - 30 of 49

Full-Text Articles in Law

Généticisation Et Responsabilité: Les Habits Neufs De La Gouvernance Néolibérale (Uncorrected Proofs), Antoinette Rouvroy Dec 2008

Généticisation Et Responsabilité: Les Habits Neufs De La Gouvernance Néolibérale (Uncorrected Proofs), Antoinette Rouvroy

Antoinette Rouvroy

Loin du phantasme spectaculaire d’une “maléabilité” génétique de l’être humain, et nonobstant les discours grandiloquants qui ont accompagné la très coûteuse exploration du génome humain, la “nouvelle génétique humaine” ne révèle ni ne porte atteinte à l’essence de l’être humain (encore faudrait-il qu’une telle essence puisse jamais être définie), mais révolutionne notre perception des causes des smilitudes et variations au sein de l’espèce humaine. Le néologisme ‘généticisation’ désigne la contamination progressive des discours sociétaux (médicaux, juridiques, politiques, sociologiques,...) par une logique réductionniste et essentialiste faisant des gènes la cause privilégiée sinon exclusive des variations inter-personnelles et inter-communautaires au sein de …


The Moral Justification For Journalism, Sandra L. Borden Dec 2008

The Moral Justification For Journalism, Sandra L. Borden

Center for the Study of Ethics in Society Papers

Papers presented for the Center for the Study of Ethics in Society Western Michigan University


Plus On Est Observé, Moins On Est Sensible Aux Atteintes À La Vie Privée, Antoinette Rouvroy Nov 2008

Plus On Est Observé, Moins On Est Sensible Aux Atteintes À La Vie Privée, Antoinette Rouvroy

Antoinette Rouvroy

Voir ce qui se passe dans sa rue, sur une plage aux Maldives ou au Nord-Kivu, au mètre près et en teps réel, ou presque. C'est le pari de e-Corce, un concept d'observation de la terre imaginé par l'agence spatiale française. Super Google Earth ou Big Brother?


Exacerbating Injustice, Stephanos Bibas Nov 2008

Exacerbating Injustice, Stephanos Bibas

All Faculty Scholarship

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 …


Draft For Harmless Use: Gleaning From Fields Of Copyrighted Works - 2008, Wendy J. Gordon Oct 2008

Draft For Harmless Use: Gleaning From Fields Of Copyrighted Works - 2008, Wendy J. Gordon

Scholarship Chronologically

My inquiry is into whether harmless uses of property should give the property owner a right to sue. Under current law, harmless trespasses to land and to copyrights and patents do indeed give rise to liability. Should they? Neither moral philosophy, political science nor economics deals well with the harmless free-rider. The possibility I'm exploring-- just exploring at this stage-- is the following: that where inexhaustible products like information become a primary source of value, our institutions might serve us better if instead of mandating payment for harmless use via legal compulsion, payment for harmless use be left to the …


"Of All Professions Begging Is The Best" - Some Problems In The Study Of Professions, Michael Davis Aug 2008

"Of All Professions Begging Is The Best" - Some Problems In The Study Of Professions, Michael Davis

Center for the Study of Ethics in Society Papers

Michael Davis' original paper was presented to the Center of the Study of Ethics in Society Western Michigan University on October 4, 2007.


Reply To Joseph Ellin's Of All Professions, Prostitution Is The Oldest (Except Possibly For Teaching), Michael Davis Aug 2008

Reply To Joseph Ellin's Of All Professions, Prostitution Is The Oldest (Except Possibly For Teaching), Michael Davis

Center for the Study of Ethics in Society Papers

No abstract provided.


Of All Professions, Prostitution Is The Oldest (Except Possibly For Teaching), Joseph Ellin Aug 2008

Of All Professions, Prostitution Is The Oldest (Except Possibly For Teaching), Joseph Ellin

Center for the Study of Ethics in Society Papers

Response by Joseph Ellin to a paper by Michael Davis Professions "Of All Professions, Begging is the Best"


Professions "Of All Professions, Begging Is The Best" A Paper By Michael Davis. Response By Joseph Ellin. Professor Davis' Reply, Center For The Study Of Ethics In Society Aug 2008

Professions "Of All Professions, Begging Is The Best" A Paper By Michael Davis. Response By Joseph Ellin. Professor Davis' Reply, Center For The Study Of Ethics In Society

Center for the Study of Ethics in Society Papers

Michael Davis' original paper was presented to the Center of the Study of Ethics in Society Western Michigan University on October 4, 2007.


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

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

All Faculty Scholarship

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 …


Heuristics, Biases, And Philosophy, Jeffrey J. Rachlinski Jul 2008

Heuristics, Biases, And Philosophy, Jeffrey J. Rachlinski

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

Commenting on Professor Cass Sunstein's work is a daunting task. There is simply so much of it. Professor Sunstein produces scholarship at a rate that is faster than I can consume it. Scarcely an area of law has failed to feel his impact. One cannot today write an article on administrative law, free speech, punitive damages, Internet law, law and economics, separation of powers, or animal rights law without addressing one or more of Sunstein's papers. And his work is typically not a mere footnote. Sunstein has changed how scholars think about each of these areas of law. More broadly, …


A Primary Human Challenge, Carroy U. Ferguson Apr 2008

A Primary Human Challenge, Carroy U. Ferguson

Carroy U "Cuf" Ferguson, Ph.D.

We may ask why, at both the individual and collective levels, it has seemed so difficult for us to choose to evolve our human games with Joy. There is no one answer for such a question, for each of us has the gift of free will. I will suggest, however, that built into our human games is what I call a primary human challenge. That primary human challenge is a dynamic tension, flowing from our creative urge for the freedom “to be” who we really are in our current physical form, and simultaneously to embrace our responsibility for our Being-ness.


Réinventer L'Art D'Oublier Et De Se Faire Oublier Dans La Société De L'Information?, Antoinette Rouvroy Apr 2008

Réinventer L'Art D'Oublier Et De Se Faire Oublier Dans La Société De L'Information?, Antoinette Rouvroy

Antoinette Rouvroy

Ce qu’il nous intéresse d’explorer à travers une réflexion sur le « droit à l’oubli » dans la société de l’information, c’est la manière dont les nouvelles technologies – et les formes inédites de production du savoir et de constitution de la mémoire qui les accompagnent - instigatrices de changements culturels, transforment les processus de « subjectivation » ou de développement par l’individu d’une personnalité qui lui soit propre. L’enjeu de ce détour, plus philosophique que juridique, est fondamental pour le droit: puisque l'auto-détermination, ou le libre développement de la personnalité se trouvent être les concepts clés des régimes de …


Polycentric Governance Of Normative Technologies: Democratic And Constitutional Issues / Gouvernance Polycentrique Des Technologies Normatives: Enjeux Démocratiques Et Constitutionnels., Antoinette Rouvroy Apr 2008

Polycentric Governance Of Normative Technologies: Democratic And Constitutional Issues / Gouvernance Polycentrique Des Technologies Normatives: Enjeux Démocratiques Et Constitutionnels., Antoinette Rouvroy

Antoinette Rouvroy

English abstract: This personal project, funded by the FNRS, addresses the relationships between Law and the myriad of norms generated by non-state actors involved in the governance of the Information Society. A first question is about both the specificities, if any, of the legal norms, or of the Law, in the regulatory landscape of the Information Society, and the role that the law might have in the assessment and guarantee of the legitimacy of 'non-state norms'. Assuming that a basic condition of the legitimacy of norms, whatever their kinds, would reside in the possibility that individuals have to contest them, …


The Organismic State Against Itself: Schelling, Hegel And The Life Of Right, Joshua D. Lambier Apr 2008

The Organismic State Against Itself: Schelling, Hegel And The Life Of Right, Joshua D. Lambier

Joshua D Lambier

Focusing on the political thought of Schelling and Hegel – beginning with the early texts (1796–1802), then moving briefly to Hegel’s well known Philosophy of Right (1821) – this essay revisits the Romantic-Idealist theory of the organic state by returning to its genesis in the turbulent political, cultural and scientific debates of the post-Revolutionary period. Given the controversial nature of its historical (mis)appropriations, the organic idea of the state has become synonymous with totality and closure. This essay argues, however, that the contemporary rejection of organicism relies on narrow interpretations of Romantic and Idealist notions of organic life, interpretations that …


Disability Rights In Ireland: Chronicle Of A Missed Opportunity, Jurgen De Wispelaere, Judy Walsh Mar 2008

Disability Rights In Ireland: Chronicle Of A Missed Opportunity, Jurgen De Wispelaere, Judy Walsh

Jurgen De Wispelaere

This article critically examines the Disability Act 2005 which regulates access to public services for disabled people in Ireland. We examine the competing conceptions of disability rights advanced by the government and the disability sector during the debate on the legislation and offer an interpretation of disability rights as the justiciable right to challenge. The Disability Act 2005 is then evaluated in light of the proposed framework. We outline a number of ways in which the absence of a justiciable right to challenge fails to safeguard the dignity, empowerment and participation of disabled people. We contend that, despite protestations to …


Competing Conceptions Of Modern Desert: Vengeful, Deontological, And Empirical, Paul H. Robinson Mar 2008

Competing Conceptions Of Modern Desert: Vengeful, Deontological, And Empirical, Paul H. Robinson

All Faculty Scholarship

The dispute over the role desert should play, if any, in assessing criminal liability and punishment has a long and turbulent history. There is some indication that deserved punishment -- referred to variously as desert, just punishment, retributive punishment, or simply doing justice -- may be in ascendance, both in academic debate and in real world institutions. A number of modern sentencing guidelines have adopted it as their distributive principle. Desert is increasingly given deference in the purposes section of state criminal codes, where it can be the guiding principle in the interpretation and application of the code's provisions. Indeed, …


Demystifying The Right To Exclude: Of Property, Inviolability, And Automatic Injunctions, Shyamkrishna Balganesh Jan 2008

Demystifying The Right To Exclude: Of Property, Inviolability, And Automatic Injunctions, Shyamkrishna Balganesh

All Faculty Scholarship

The right to exclude has long been considered a central component of property. In focusing on the element of exclusion, courts and scholars have paid little attention to what an owner's right to exclude means and the forms in which this right might manifest itself in actual property practice. For some time now, the right to exclude has come to be understood as nothing but an entitlement to injunctive relief- that whenever an owner successfully establishes title and an interference with the same, an injunction will automatically follow. Such a view attributes to the right a distinctively consequentialist meaning, which …


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

All Faculty Scholarship

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 …


The Practice Of Teaching, The Practice Of Law: What Does It Mean To Practice Responsibly?, Howard Lesnick Jan 2008

The Practice Of Teaching, The Practice Of Law: What Does It Mean To Practice Responsibly?, Howard Lesnick

All Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.


Droits De L'Homme, Droits Du Citoyen: Les Présupposés De La Jurisprudence Américaine Et Européenne, Gregory Lewkowicz Jan 2008

Droits De L'Homme, Droits Du Citoyen: Les Présupposés De La Jurisprudence Américaine Et Européenne, Gregory Lewkowicz

Gregory Lewkowicz

This paper proposes a comparative analysis of some rulings of the US Supreme Court and of the European Court of Human Rights. Reviewing cases related to international legal problems or using comparative legal reasoning, the paper suggests that the difference of attitudes between the two courts in human rights cases is embedded in the classical opposition between men and citizen.


Solidarity And Subsidiarity In A Changing Climate: Green Building As Legal And Moral Obligation, Jamison E. Colburn Jan 2008

Solidarity And Subsidiarity In A Changing Climate: Green Building As Legal And Moral Obligation, Jamison E. Colburn

Jamison E. Colburn

This essay grew out of a symposium on Catholic social thought. It makes the case for solidarity and subsidiarity as principles of applied (secular) ethics by injecting them into what must be their most challenging context: catastrophic global climate disruption. It argues that the principles of solidarity and subsidiarity hold tremendous potential within our liberal constitutional tradition by exploring the developing trend toward "green building" in the United States. Part I describes what we know about greenhouse gases and climate disruption while Part II frames the principles of solidarity and subsidiarity. Part III explores the phenomenal growth of green building …


John Rawls, La Razón Pública Y El Papel Del Poder Judicial (Traducción), Leonardo García Jaramillo Jan 2008

John Rawls, La Razón Pública Y El Papel Del Poder Judicial (Traducción), Leonardo García Jaramillo

Leonardo García Jaramillo

No abstract provided.


Prolegomena To A Process Theory Of Natural Law, Mark C. Modak-Truran Jan 2008

Prolegomena To A Process Theory Of Natural Law, Mark C. Modak-Truran

Mark C Modak-Truran

Two contemporary quandaries in legal theory provide an occasion for a revival of interest in natural law theories of law. First, the debate about legal indeterminacy has made it clear that law cannot function autonomously—as a self-contained set of rules—but requires a normative justification of judges’ decisions in hard cases. In addition, Steven D. Smith has persuasively argued that there is an "ontological gap" between the practice of law, which presupposes a classical or religious ontology, and legal theory, which presupposes a scientific ontology (i.e., scientific materialism) that rejects religious ontology. This article demonstrates how the process philosophy of Alfred …


De Paradojas Y Neocons, Mario Šilar Jan 2008

De Paradojas Y Neocons, Mario Šilar

Mario Šilar

No abstract provided.


Political Liberalism And Public Reason, Mario Šilar Jan 2008

Political Liberalism And Public Reason, Mario Šilar

Mario Šilar

The paper explores John Rawls´s idea of public reason, as reflected in Political Liberalism and The Idea of Public Reason Revisited. In Rawls’s later works, public reason acquires fundamental significance as a criterion by which the principles to be assumed from the outset in a theory of political justice may be determined. The starting-point for Rawls´s theory -the idea of citizens as free and equal reveals- that this abstraction falls short of an authentic conception of human beings as social by nature. A brief study of key issues concerning marriage and the family shows the difficulties that underlie this question. …


The Practical Value Of Natural Law Theory In The Work Of St Thomas Aquinas, Mario Šilar Jan 2008

The Practical Value Of Natural Law Theory In The Work Of St Thomas Aquinas, Mario Šilar

Mario Šilar

No abstract provided.


Pacifist Aggressives Vs. The Second Amendment: An Analysis Of Modern Philosophies Of Compulsory Non-Violence, David B. Kopel Jan 2008

Pacifist Aggressives Vs. The Second Amendment: An Analysis Of Modern Philosophies Of Compulsory Non-Violence, David B. Kopel

David B Kopel

This Article examines the strengths and weaknesses of modern pacifist religious philosophy. The Article suggests that some intellectual arguments for pacifism are logically solid (once certain premises are granted), while others have serious flaws. The article discusses five influential philosophical advocates of non-violence Thomas Merton, Stanley Hauerwas, Leo Tolstoy, Tony Campolo, and John Howard Yoder. In addition, the Article examines three real-world cases where the practice of non-violence was put into action: the Danish rescue of the Jews during WW II, the American Civil Rights movement in the South in the 1960s, and the invasion of the Chatham Islands—the home …


Legal And Technological Normativity: More (And Less) Than Twin Sisters, Mireille Hildebrandt Jan 2008

Legal And Technological Normativity: More (And Less) Than Twin Sisters, Mireille Hildebrandt

Mireille Hildebrandt

Within science technology and society studies the focus has long been on descriptive micro-analyses. Several authors have raised the issue of the normative implications of the findings of research into socio-technical devices and infrastructures, while some claim that material artifacts have moral significance or should even be regarded as moral actors. In this contribution the normative impact of technologies is investigated and compared with the normative impact of legal norms, arguing that a generic concept of normativity is needed that does not depend on the intention of whoever designed either a law or a technology. Furthermore this contribution develops the …


The Fake Revolution: Understanding Legal Realism, Eric A. Engle Jan 2008

The Fake Revolution: Understanding Legal Realism, Eric A. Engle

Eric A. Engle

Abstract: Legal interpretation in the United States changed dramatically between 1930 and 1950. The Great Depression and World War II unleashed radical critique (particularly prior to the war). Legal realism proposed radical new methods of legal interpretation to try to meet the challenges of global depression and global war. The new legal methods proposed by realism at first seemed to indicate a new legal order. In fact, they only preserved the old order, protecting it from fundamental change. Thus, the same problem, cyclical economic downturn triggering war for resources and market share recurred in Vietnam. Just as the depression and …