Law and Philosophy Commons^™

A Philosophical Defense Of Judicial Minimalism, Cory A. Evans

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation analyzes, criticizes and ultimately defends judicial minimalism, a contemporary theory of judging that has come to the forefront of American jurisprudence in the early part of the 21st Century. In this dissertation I offer the first formal definition of judicial minimalism, apply that definition to case law and the literature, refute many objections to judicial minimalism including objections based on tough case counterexamples, offer a new version of the argument of epistemic humility and offer a new argument in support of judicial minimalism from the perspective of law and economics.

What Can We Learn From Vulnerability Theory?, Phillip Rich

Honors Projects

Martha Albertson Fineman frames philosophies of justice, freedom, equality, and human nature alongside original insights about the role of vulnerability and institutions in people’s lives to argue for increased government intervention. The conglomeration of these ideas form vulnerability theory, an emerging legal theory providing a loose framework for evaluating and creating public policy. The following article can be broken down into two parts. The first part defines vulnerability theory by identifying, evaluating, and discussing the interaction among the five major components of vulnerability theory: the rejection of the liberal subject in favor of a vulnerable subject, the universality and constancy …

April 25, 2018: It’S The Stupid Tax Cut, Bruce Ledewitz

Hallowed Secularism

Blog post, “It’s the Stupid Tax Cut“ discusses politics, theology and the law in relation to religion and public life in the democratic United States of America.

April 20, 2018: Acts Of Legislative Hatred, Bruce Ledewitz

Hallowed Secularism

Blog post, “Acts of Legislative Hatred“ discusses politics, theology and the law in relation to religion and public life in the democratic United States of America.

April 14, 2018: “No Pardon For Trump”, Bruce Ledewitz

Hallowed Secularism

Blog post, “No Pardon for Trump” discusses politics, theology and the law in relation to religion and public life in the democratic United States of America.

Characterizing Power For Separation-Of-Powers Purposes, Tuan N. Samahon

University of Richmond Law Review

The U.S. Constitution parcels "legislative," "executive," and "judicial" powers among the separate branches of the federal government, but leaves those powers undefined. Accordingly, characterizing exercises of power becomes an important threshold inquiry in separation-of-powers disputes. This symposium Essay canvasses four competing judicial approaches to the characterization of power: functional inquiry; identity-of-the-officer formalism; historical induction; and skepticism. In this area, Justice Scalia's formalism has been particularly influential but created considerable tension with original public meaning originalism. This Essay explains how Scalia's formalism led to his embrace of delegation and concludes by cautioning against judicial oversimplification in the characterization inquiry.

April 1, 2018: Passover, Easter And Impossible Renewal, Bruce Ledewitz

Hallowed Secularism

Blog post, “Passover, Easter and Impossible Renewal“ discusses politics, theology and the law in relation to religion and public life in the democratic United States of America.

The Rationality Of Promising, Emily Sherwin

Cornell Journal of Law and Public Policy

Binding promises yield a number of practical benefits, if in fact they are binding. One benefit is coordination. Knowing that she must perform, the promisor can allocate her time and resources more effectively. The promisee, meanwhile, can make plans on the assumption that the promised act will occur.

Markets for future exchange rely on the coordinating power of binding promises. For this purpose, it may be possible in theory to support coordination by designing and enforcing an ideal set of legal rules governing contractual obligation. Almost certainly, however, markets will function more effectively if promises also impose obligations to perform …

The Just Response To Crime: To Harm Or To Heal?, Matthew M. Silberstein

Philosophy Department Student Scholarship

In the realm of criminal justice, Western society has primarily relied on retributive justice system. A retributive system uses punishment as the standard response to crime. In recent years, some have formulated a different criminal justice system, that of restorative justice. Rather than punishment, restorative justice proponents argue that justice is achieved in the aftermath of crime by healing the trauma incurred by crime. The aim of this project is to articulate the value of restorative justice and evaluate its prospects.

Clark Memorandum: Spring 2018, J. Reuben Clark Law School, Byu Law School Alumni Association, J. Reuben Clark Law Society

The Clark Memorandum

• The Path of Present Intention (D. Gordon Smith)
• Scholarship as Dialogue and a Constructive Exercise: A Look at the Investitures of Three BYU Law Professors (D. Carolina Núñez)
• Kif Augustine-Adams
• Christine Hurt
• Brett Scharffs
• A Pattern of Timeless Moments: The J. Reuben Clark Law Society at 30 (Scott W. Cameron)
• "To Me He Doth Not Stink": Advocacy and Love (Gayla Moss Sorenson)

Beyond Rights And Welfare: Democracy, Dialogue, And The Animal Welfare Act, Jessica Eisen

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

The primary frameworks through which scholars have conceptualized legal protections for animals—animal “rights” and animal “welfare”—do not account for socio-legal transformation or democratic dialogue as central dynamics of animal law. The animal “rights” approach focuses on the need for limits or boundaries preventing animal use, while the animal “welfare” approach advocates balancing harm to animals against human benefits from animal use. Both approaches rely on abstract accounts of the characteristics animals are thought to share with humans and the legal protections they are owed as a result of those traits. Neither offers sustained attention to the dynamics of legal change …

Fiction In The Code: Reading Legislation As Literature, Thomas J. Mcsweeney

Faculty Publications

One of the major branches of the field of law and literature is often described as "law as literature." Scholars of law as literature examine the law using the tools of literary analysis. The scholarship in this subfield is dominated by the discussion of narrative texts: confessions, victim-impact statements, and, above all, the judicial opinion. This article will argue that we can use some of the same tools to help us understand non-narrative texts, such as law codes and statutes. Genres create expectations. We do not expect a law code to be literary. Indeed, we tend to dissociate the law …

Gossip And Gore: A Ghoulish Journey Into A Philosophical Thicket, Sean Hannon Williams

Michigan Law Review

A review of Don Herzog, Defaming the Dead.

March 28, 2018: Is Donald Trump The Antichrist?, Bruce Ledewitz

Hallowed Secularism

Blog post, “Is Donald Trump the Antichrist?“ discusses politics, theology and the law in relation to religion and public life in the democratic United States of America.

5 1/2 Problems With Legal Positivism And Tax Law, Bret N. Bogenschneider

Pepperdine Law Review

This essay is a reply to the famous paper by John Gardner, Legal Positivism: 51⁄2 Myths, and the more recent paper by John Prebble, Kelsen, the Principle of Exclusion of Contradictions, and General Anti-Avoidance Rules. The reply is developed from the perspective of tax law where the respective issues are of major significance. The “51⁄2 problems” correspond to Gardner’s arguments and are as follows: (#1) Legal Positivism centers on determining whether a tax law is legally valid based on its source (e.g., the legislature enacted a valid law applying tax at the rate of 25%). However, in the tax context, …

March 23, 2018: Going Martin Luther King, Jr., One Better, Bruce Ledewitz

Hallowed Secularism

Blog post, “Going Martin Luther King, Jr., One Better“ discusses politics, theology and the law in relation to religion and public life in the democratic United States of America.

March 18, 2018: Ross Douthat Misunderstands How Christ Works In The World, Bruce Ledewitz

Hallowed Secularism

Blog post, “Ross Douthat Misunderstands How Christ Works in the World“ discusses politics, theology and the law in relation to religion and public life in the democratic United States of America.

March 14, 2018: Conor Lamb’S Apparent Win, Bruce Ledewitz

Hallowed Secularism

Blog post, “ Conor Lamb’s Apparent Win“ discusses politics, theology and the law in relation to religion and public life in the democratic United States of America.

Nuccio V. Nuccio: The Doctrine Of Equitable Estoppel Will Not Bar The Statute Of Limitations Defense In A Child Sexual Abuse Case Involving Repressed Memory, Christina J. D'Appolonia

Maine Law Review

Kathleen Nuccio alleged that she was sexually abused by her father when she was three years old. He continued to sexually abuse her for ten long years. He threatened her life when he held a chisel to her throat and vowed to kill her if she ever told anyone of the abuse. Luke Nuccio not only sexually defiled his daughter but also verbally abused her and physically beat her until she was seventeen years old. One such beating caused damage so severe to Kathleen's ear that she was forced to have surgery. Kathleen never spoke of the abuse during the …

March 4, 2018: Privatizing Government Policy, Bruce Ledewitz

Hallowed Secularism

Blog post, “Privatizing Government Policy“ discusses politics, theology and the law in relation to religion and public life in the democratic United States of America.

March 2, 2018: To Cure American Politics, There Must Be A Reformation In Secularism, Bruce Ledewitz

Hallowed Secularism

Blog post, “To Cure American Politics, There Must Be a Reformation in Secularism“ discusses politics, theology and the law in relation to religion and public life in the democratic United States of America.

March 1, 2018: Want To Make America Great? Pay Your Bills, Bruce Ledewitz

Hallowed Secularism

Blog post, “Want to Make America Great? Pay Your Bills“ discusses politics, theology and the law in relation to religion and public life in the democratic United States of America.

Originalism, Cass R. Sunstein

Notre Dame Law Review

Originalism might be defended on two very different grounds. The first is that it is in some sense mandatory—for example, that it follows from the very idea of interpretation, from having a written Constitution, or from the only legitimate justifications for judicial review. The second is that originalism is best on broadly consequentialist grounds. While the first kind of defense is not convincing, the second cannot be ruled off limits. In an imaginable world, it is right; in our world, it is usually not. But in the context of impeachment, originalism is indeed best, because there are no sufficiently helpful …

Foreword: What’S Next? Counter-Stories And Theorizing Resistance, Tayyab Mahmud

Seattle Journal for Social Justice

No abstract provided.

Holy Gender! Promoting Free Exercise Of Gender By Discernment Without Establishing Binary Sex Or Compulsory Fluidity, José Gabilondo

Seattle Journal for Social Justice

No abstract provided.

On Margaret Montoya & Jerome Culp: An Appreciation, Angela P. Harris

Seattle Journal for Social Justice

No abstract provided.

“Who Is A Latcrit?”: Jerome Culp And Angela Harris Provide Answers And Ways Of Being, Margaret Montoya

Seattle Journal for Social Justice

No abstract provided.

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 …

20/20 Vision In The Long & Short-Termism Debate, Anne Tucker

Seattle University Law Review

What is an optimal investment time horizon—for institutions, individual shareholders and corporations? This question can evoke emotional, ideological, and theoretical responses. The answers usually deeply entrenched debates over the fundamental roles of markets versus regulation and between the appropriate loci of corporate power: the board of directors versus the shareholders. Too long-term and it is myopia; too near-term and is it short-termism. Neither label is inconsequential, so the debates are not tepid, academic, or marginal.

Corporate Governance As Privately-Ordered Public Policy: A Proposal, Lynn Stout, Sergio Gramitto

Seattle University Law Review

In this Article, we show how our society can use corporate governance shifts to address, if not entirely resolve, a number of currently pressing social and economic problems. These problems include: rising income inequality; demographic disparities in wealth and equity ownership; increasing poverty and income insecurity; a need for greater innovation and investment in solving problems like disease and climate change; the “externalization” of many costs of corporate activity onto third parties such as customers, employees, creditors, and the broader society; the corrosive influence of corporate money in politics; and discontent and loss of trust in the capitalist system among …