Law and Philosophy Commons^™

July 12, 2012: What Is Law School For?, Bruce Ledewitz

Hallowed Secularism

Blog post, “What is Law School For?“ discusses politics, theology and the law in relation to religion and public life in the democratic United States of America.

July 8, 2012: If The Higgs Boson Particle Affected Capitalism, Bruce Ledewitz

Hallowed Secularism

Blog post, “ If the Higgs Boson Particle Affected Capitalism“ discusses politics, theology and the law in relation to religion and public life in the democratic United States of America.

July 4, 2012: How To Be Religious, Bruce Ledewitz

Hallowed Secularism

Blog post, “How to be Religious“ discusses politics, theology and the law in relation to religion and public life in the democratic United States of America.

July 1, 2012: The Significance Of The Obamacare Decision, Bruce Ledewitz

Hallowed Secularism

Blog post, “The Significance of the Obamacare Decision“ discusses politics, theology and the law in relation to religion and public life in the democratic United States of America.

Exile On Main Street: Competing Traditions And Due Process Dissent, Colin Starger

All Faculty Scholarship

Everybody loves great dissents. Professors teach them, students learn from them, and journalists quote them. Yet legal scholars have long puzzled over how dissents actually impact the development of doctrine. Recent work by notable empirical scholars proposes to measure the influence of dissents by reference to their subsequent citation in case law. This Article challenges the theoretical basis for this empirical approach and argues that it fails to account for the profound influence that uncited dissents have exerted in law. To overcome this gap in the empirical approach, this Article proposes an alternative method that permits analysis of contextual and …

Constitutional And Religious Redemption: Assessing Jack Balkin's Call For A 'Constitutional Project’, Linda C. Mcclain

Faculty Scholarship

I begin with a disclaimer: I am not a constitutional theorist. I haven’t even played one on TV. But according to Professor Jack Balkin’s ambitious new book Living Originalism, that should not stop me from engaging in what he calls “the constitutional project,” in which I, along with others, attempt to interpret – indeed, to redeem – the U.S. constitution.1 Living Originalism pairs two intriguing ideas: a “constitutional project” and “constitutional redemption.” I am excited by the notion of a project, and of a constitutional project in particular. In my work for at least a decade I have used the …

June 28, 2012: Materialism, The Supernatural And The More, Bruce Ledewitz

Hallowed Secularism

Blog post, “ Materialism, the Supernatural and the More“ discusses politics, theology and the law in relation to religion and public life in the democratic United States of America.

June 25, 2012: Having It Both Ways On The Iranian Fatwa, Bruce Ledewitz

Hallowed Secularism

Blog post, “Having It Both Ways on the Iranian Fatwa“ discusses politics, theology and the law in relation to religion and public life in the democratic United States of America.

June 21, 2012: The Misuse Of Religious Exemptions, Bruce Ledewitz

Hallowed Secularism

Blog post, “The Misuse of Religious Exemptions“ discusses politics, theology and the law in relation to religion and public life in the democratic United States of America.

June 17, 2012: My First Fatherless Father’S Day, Bruce Ledewitz

Hallowed Secularism

Blog post, “My First Fatherless Father’s Day“ discusses politics, theology and the law in relation to religion and public life in the democratic United States of America.

June 14, 2012: Do We Have Any Player As Good As Jesus?, Bruce Ledewitz

Hallowed Secularism

Blog post, “Do We Have Any Player as Good as Jesus?“ discusses politics, theology and the law in relation to religion and public life in the democratic United States of America.

June 10, 2012: Cut Off From Blame And Punishment, Bruce Ledewitz

Hallowed Secularism

Blog post, “Cut Off from Blame and Punishment“ discusses politics, theology and the law in relation to religion and public life in the democratic United States of America.

June 8, 2012: How Do The Draft Cases Aid In Resolution Of The Culture Wars?, Bruce Ledewitz

Hallowed Secularism

Blog post, “How Do the Draft Cases Aid in Resolution of the Culture Wars?“ discusses politics, theology and the law in relation to religion and public life in the democratic United States of America.

June 2, 2012: Massachusetts V. United States Department Of Health And Human Services, Bruce Ledewitz

Hallowed Secularism

Blog post, “ MASSACHUSETTS v. UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES“ discusses politics, theology and the law in relation to religion and public life in the democratic United States of America.

May 30, 2012: Seeger—An Extraordinary Case, Bruce Ledewitz

Hallowed Secularism

Blog post, “Seeger—an Extraordinary Case“ discusses politics, theology and the law in relation to religion and public life in the democratic United States of America.

May 27, 2012: Happy Memorial Day, Bruce Ledewitz

Hallowed Secularism

Blog post, “Happy Memorial Day“ discusses politics, theology and the law in relation to religion and public life in the democratic United States of America.

May 24, 2012: What Is The Right Term For Nonmembers Of Organized Religion?, Bruce Ledewitz

Hallowed Secularism

Blog post, “What Is the Right Term for Nonmembers of Organized Religion?“ discusses politics, theology and the law in relation to religion and public life in the democratic United States of America.

May 21, 2012: Raimon Panikkar On Church And State, Bruce Ledewitz

Hallowed Secularism

Blog post, “Raimon Panikkar on Church and State“ discusses politics, theology and the law in relation to religion and public life in the democratic United States of America.

May 15, 2012: Religion At Occupy Wall Street, Bruce Ledewitz

Hallowed Secularism

Blog post, “Religion at Occupy Wall Street“ discusses politics, theology and the law in relation to religion and public life in the democratic United States of America.

May 9, 2012: The Future Of Secularism, Bruce Ledewitz

Hallowed Secularism

Blog post, “The Future of Secularism“ discusses politics, theology and the law in relation to religion and public life in the democratic United States of America.

May 2, 2012: Charles Murray And Alain De Botton Agree On The Emptiness Of Secular Life, Bruce Ledewitz

Hallowed Secularism

Blog post, “Charles Murray and Alain de Botton Agree on the Emptiness of Secular Life“ discusses politics, theology and the law in relation to religion and public life in the democratic United States of America.

Two-Way Translation: The Ethics Of Engaging With Religious Contributions In Public Deliberations, Jeremy Waldron

Mercer Law Review

Our topic for this Symposium panel is "Citizenship and Civility in a Divided Democracy: Political, Religious, and Legal Concerns." It is a topic that can be approached in the abstract or through a case study. I am going to proceed with a case study, involving the work of one of Mercer University's most distinguished scholars and public thinkers, University Professor and Professor of Christian Ethics, David Gushee. But the discussion will become abstract before very long.

I. AN EVANGELICAL DECLARATION AGAINST TORTURE

In March 2007, an organization called Evangelicals for Human Rights issued a document entitled An Evangelical Declaration Against …

Violence And Poltical Incivility, David Lyons

Mercer Law Review

The charge to our panel refers to "the deterioration of the political conversation," to "deep ... divisions in society," and to recent violence- especially the tragic events in Tuscon. It asks us to identify "the virtues required.for our common life as citizens in a democracy and for civil democratic conversation." I shall offer observations and conjectures on each issue, stressing the historical background.

Let me suggest, first,. that the nonconstructive and increasingly abusive character of our political discourse may be relatively mild manifestations of an even more troubling malaise of our society- commonplace unlawful violence. I wish to draw your …

Democratic Citizenship And Civil Political Conversation: What's Law Got To Do With It?, Marianne Constable

Mercer Law Review

I have been asked to talk about democratic citizenship and civil conversation and what law has to do with it. I have been asked in particular: How are legal traditions and legal conversations implicated in our common life as citizens and, I presume, as residents, and in our political conversation? What can law contribute toward a restoration of the virtues required for democratic citizenship and civil conversation? At first, I thought about this second question as a question about the resources of law for repairing or mending political conversation.

Put this way though, the question is too easy to set …

Religious Reason-Giving In The Torture Debate: A Response To Jeremy Waldron, David P. Gushee

Mercer Law Review

I am grateful to the Mercer Law Review for including a Christian ethics professor in this colloquy and, wearing my other hat as a cosponsor of this symposium, grateful to our distinguished guests for being here! I am also grateful to my friend Jeremy Waldron for his very kind words about me and about our Evangelical Declaration Against Torture,' and for his excellent paper presented at this symposium, to which it is my honor to offer a brief response.

It seems to me that a paper focusing as it does on my own work on the Evangelical Declaration rightly evokes …

Law As Language?, Steven D. Smith

Mercer Law Review

It is an honor for me to be able to participate in this Symposium with such distinguished company, and I want to thank the Mercer Law Review and the symposium organizers for inviting me. I do feel a bit awkward, though, commenting on Professor Marianne Constable's paper. As it happens, I agree with most of the sentences in the paper, taken one-by-one, but I am not sure that I catch the larger vision that the paper seeks to convey, and I am also unsure how Professor Constable's astute observations about law and language respond to the overall theme of this …

The Controversy About The Essence Of Law: A Dispute Between Hart And Dworkin, Petrus Ckl Bello

Indonesia Law Review

Does the law merely contain rules? Or does it also include morality? The debate between H.L.A. Hart and Ronald Dworkin revolved around this very issue. Hart considered the law is nothing more than a set of rules whereas Dworkin believed that the law contains not only the rules but also principles which are morality and justice. This paper is trying to explore the issue of the relationship of law and morality in the context of this debate between Hart and Dworkin. The debate itself is very significant in the study of law. Following their arguments we can learn a lot …

April 26, 2012: The Continuing Attack On/Engagement With Religion, Bruce Ledewitz

Hallowed Secularism

Blog post, “The Continuing Attack on/Engagement with Religion“ discusses politics, theology and the law in relation to religion and public life in the democratic United States of America.

April 20, 2012: Back To The Bishops, Bruce Ledewitz

Hallowed Secularism

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

April 15, 2012: Atheism Is Growing, Bruce Ledewitz

Hallowed Secularism

Blog post, “Atheism is Growing“ discusses politics, theology and the law in relation to religion and public life in the democratic United States of America.