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Full-Text Articles in Law

The Consequence Of Final Causality: Competing Views Of Legal Teleology, Jonathan M. Dumdei Jan 2023

The Consequence Of Final Causality: Competing Views Of Legal Teleology, Jonathan M. Dumdei

Liberty University Journal of Statesmanship & Public Policy

Philosophy of law and legal jurisprudence have received recent attention in the United States due to the significant change in the makeup of the Supreme Court. Historical understanding of the legal philosophies that have influenced the U.S. and the ancient principles upon which they are built must of necessity be properly assessed. This thesis proposes that Aquinas’s conception of Natural Law as the basis for legal teleology provides a superior grounding for American jurisprudence than the theories of legal positivism and critical legal theory due to the superiority of Natural Law’s integration of ultimate final causes. Through a survey of …


Complicity And Lesser Evils: A Tale Of Two Lawyers, David Luban Jan 2021

Complicity And Lesser Evils: A Tale Of Two Lawyers, David Luban

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

Government lawyers and other public officials sometimes face an excruciating moral dilemma: to stay on the job or to quit, when the government is one they find morally abhorrent. Staying may make them complicit in evil policies; it also runs the danger of inuring them to wrongdoing, just as their presence on the job helps inure others. At the same time, staying may be their only opportunity to mitigate those policies – to make evils into lesser evils – and to uphold the rule of law when it is under assault. This Article explores that dilemma in a stark form: …


The Unruliness Of Rules, Peter A. Alces Sep 2019

The Unruliness Of Rules, Peter A. Alces

Peter A. Alces

No abstract provided.


The Semantics And Pragmatics Of Legal Statements, Michael S. Green Sep 2019

The Semantics And Pragmatics Of Legal Statements, Michael S. Green

Michael S. Green

No abstract provided.


The New Eliminativism, Michael S. Green Sep 2019

The New Eliminativism, Michael S. Green

Michael S. Green

No abstract provided.


Prediction Theories Of Law And The Internal Point Of View, Michael S. Green Sep 2019

Prediction Theories Of Law And The Internal Point Of View, Michael S. Green

Michael S. Green

No abstract provided.


On Hart's Category Mistake, Michael S. Green Sep 2019

On Hart's Category Mistake, Michael S. Green

Michael S. Green

This essay concerns Scott Shapiro’s criticism that H.L.A. Hart’s theory of law suffers from a “category mistake.” Although other philosophers of law have summarily dismissed Shapiro’s criticism, I argue that it identifies an important requirement for an adequate theory of law. Such a theory must explain why legal officials justify their actions by reference to abstract propositional entities, instead of pointing to the existence of social practices. A virtue of Shapiro’s planning theory of law is that it can explain this phenomenon. Despite these sympathies, however, I end with the suggestion that Shapiro’s criticism of Hart, as it stands, is …


The Semantics And Pragmatics Of Legal Statements, Michael S. Green Jun 2019

The Semantics And Pragmatics Of Legal Statements, Michael S. Green

Popular Media

No abstract provided.


Invisible Adjudication In The U.S. Courts Of Appeals, Michael Kagan, Rebecca Gill, Fatma Marouf Oct 2018

Invisible Adjudication In The U.S. Courts Of Appeals, Michael Kagan, Rebecca Gill, Fatma Marouf

Fatma Marouf

Non-precedent decisions are the norm in federal appellate courts, and are seen by judges as a practical necessity given the size of their dockets. Yet the system has always been plagued by doubts. If only some decisions are designated to be precedents, questions arise about whether courts might be acting arbitrarily in other cases. Such doubts have been overcome in part because nominally unpublished decisions are available through standard legal research databases. This creates the appearance of transparency, mitigating concerns that courts may be acting arbitrarily. But what if this appearance is an illusion? This Article reports empirical data drawn …


Invisible Adjudication In The U.S. Courts Of Appeals, Michael Kagan, Rebecca Gill, Fatma Marouf Mar 2018

Invisible Adjudication In The U.S. Courts Of Appeals, Michael Kagan, Rebecca Gill, Fatma Marouf

Faculty Scholarship

Non-precedent decisions are the norm in federal appellate courts, and are seen by judges as a practical necessity given the size of their dockets. Yet the system has always been plagued by doubts. If only some decisions are designated to be precedents, questions arise about whether courts might be acting arbitrarily in other cases. Such doubts have been overcome in part because nominally unpublished decisions are available through standard legal research databases. This creates the appearance of transparency, mitigating concerns that courts may be acting arbitrarily. But what if this appearance is an illusion? This Article reports empirical data drawn …


How Well Do We Treat Each Other In Contract?, Aditi Bagchi Feb 2018

How Well Do We Treat Each Other In Contract?, Aditi Bagchi

William & Mary Business Law Review

One of the important contributions of Nathan Oman’s new book is to draw focus onto the quality of the relationships enabled by contract. He claims that contract, by supporting markets, cultivates certain virtues; helps facilitate cooperation among people with diverse commitments; and produces the wealth that may fuel interpersonal and social justice. These claims are all plausible, though subject to individual challenge. However, there is an alternative story to tell about the kinds of relationships that arise from markets--i.e., a story about domination. The experience of domination is driven in part by the necessity, inequality, and competition enjoined by markets, …


Contract Law And The Common Good, Brian H. Bix Feb 2018

Contract Law And The Common Good, Brian H. Bix

William & Mary Business Law Review

In The Dignity of Commerce, Nathan Oman offers a theory of contract law that is largely descriptive, but also strongly normative. His theory presents contract law’s purpose as supporting robust markets. This Article compares and contrasts Oman’s argument about the proper understanding of contract law with one presented over eighty years earlier by Morris Cohen. Oman’s focus is on the connection between Contract Law and markets; Cohen’s connection had been between Contract Law and the public interest. Oman’s work brings back Cohen’s basic insight, and gives it a more concrete form, as a formidable normative theory with detailed prescriptions.


The New Eliminativism, Michael S. Green Jan 2016

The New Eliminativism, Michael S. Green

Popular Media

No abstract provided.


The Third Pillar Of Jurisprudence: Social Legal Theory, Brian Z. Tamanaha May 2015

The Third Pillar Of Jurisprudence: Social Legal Theory, Brian Z. Tamanaha

William & Mary Law Review

No abstract provided.


Prediction Theories Of Law And The Internal Point Of View, Michael S. Green Dec 2014

Prediction Theories Of Law And The Internal Point Of View, Michael S. Green

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.


On Hart's Category Mistake, Michael S. Green Sep 2013

On Hart's Category Mistake, Michael S. Green

Faculty Publications

This essay concerns Scott Shapiro’s criticism that H.L.A. Hart’s theory of law suffers from a “category mistake.” Although other philosophers of law have summarily dismissed Shapiro’s criticism, I argue that it identifies an important requirement for an adequate theory of law. Such a theory must explain why legal officials justify their actions by reference to abstract propositional entities, instead of pointing to the existence of social practices. A virtue of Shapiro’s planning theory of law is that it can explain this phenomenon. Despite these sympathies, however, I end with the suggestion that Shapiro’s criticism of Hart, as it stands, is …


Leiter On The Legal Realists, Michael S. Green Jun 2013

Leiter On The Legal Realists, Michael S. Green

Michael S. Green

In this essay reviewing Brian Leiter’s recent book Naturalizing Jurisprudence, I focus on two positions that distinguish Leiter’s reading of the American legal realists from those offered in the past. The first is his claim that the realists thought the law is only locally indeterminate – primarily in cases that are appealed. The second is his claim that they did not offer a prediction theory of law, but were instead committed to a standard positivist theory. Leiter’s reading is vulnerable, because he fails to discuss in detail those passages from the realists that inspired past interpretations. My goal is to …


Dworkin's Fallacy, Or What The Philosophy Of Language Can't Teach Us About The Law, Michael S. Green Jun 2013

Dworkin's Fallacy, Or What The Philosophy Of Language Can't Teach Us About The Law, Michael S. Green

Michael S. Green

No abstract provided.


Legal Realism, Lex Fori, And The Choice-Of-Law Revolution, Michael S. Green Jun 2013

Legal Realism, Lex Fori, And The Choice-Of-Law Revolution, Michael S. Green

Michael S. Green

No abstract provided.


Leiter On The Legal Realists, Michael S. Green Jan 2011

Leiter On The Legal Realists, Michael S. Green

Faculty Publications

In this essay reviewing Brian Leiter’s recent book Naturalizing Jurisprudence, I focus on two positions that distinguish Leiter’s reading of the American legal realists from those offered in the past. The first is his claim that the realists thought the law is only locally indeterminate – primarily in cases that are appealed. The second is his claim that they did not offer a prediction theory of law, but were instead committed to a standard positivist theory. Leiter’s reading is vulnerable, because he fails to discuss in detail those passages from the realists that inspired past interpretations. My goal is to …


Dworkin's Fallacy, Or What The Philosophy Of Language Can't Teach Us About The Law, Michael S. Green Jan 2003

Dworkin's Fallacy, Or What The Philosophy Of Language Can't Teach Us About The Law, Michael S. Green

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.


The Unruliness Of Rules, Peter A. Alces Jan 2003

The Unruliness Of Rules, Peter A. Alces

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.


Legal Realism, Lex Fori, And The Choice-Of-Law Revolution, Michael S. Green Jan 1995

Legal Realism, Lex Fori, And The Choice-Of-Law Revolution, Michael S. Green

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.


An Introduction To The Philosophy Of Law, Thomas Porter Hardman Jun 1923

An Introduction To The Philosophy Of Law, Thomas Porter Hardman

West Virginia Law Review

No abstract provided.