Law and Philosophy Commons^™

Blackmail: Property Right - 1993, Wendy J. Gordon

Scholarship Chronologically

It is not a paradox. For it to be a paradox, the following would have to be true: that when one is free to do one thing, or not to do it, one is also free to threaten to do it and sell that for money. But threat and sale are not even "lesser included acts" within doing and not doing; they are quite different from doing or not doing.

Privileged Positions, Michael Fischl

Connecticut Law Review

No abstract provided.

Gendered States: Feminist (Re)Visions Of International Relations Theory, Hilary Charlesworth

Michigan Journal of International Law

Review of the book edited by V. Spike Peterson.

Totem And The God Of The Philosophers: How A Freudian Vocabulary Might Clarify Constitutional Discourse, 35 J. Church & State 521 (1993), Joel R. Cornwell

UIC Law Open Access Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

The Ennobling Of Democracy: The Challenge Of The Postmodern Age, Fernando R. Tesón

Michigan Journal of International Law

Review of the book by Thomas L. Pangle.

Constitutional Law And The Myth Of The Great Judge, Michael S. Ariens

Faculty Articles

One of the enduring myths of American history, including constitutional history, is that of the “Great Man” or “Great Woman.” The idea is that, to understand the history of America, one needs to understand the impact made by Great Men and Women whose actions affected the course of history. In political history, one assays the development of the United States through the lives of great Americans, from the “Founders” to Abraham Lincoln to John F. Kennedy. Similarly, in constitutional history, the story is told through key figures, the “Great Judges,” from John Marshall to Oliver Wendell Holmes to Earl Warren. …

Gendering And Engendering Process, Elizabeth M. Schneider

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

That Obscure Object Of Desire: Hermeneutics And The Autonomous Legal Text, Paul Campos

Publications

No abstract provided.

Rawls's Excessively Secular Political Conception, Gary C. Leedes

University of Richmond Law Review

In Political Liberalism, John Rawls clarifies the differences between general theories of human nature and his model of justice. Unlike most philosophers in the Western tradition, Rawls does not place the subject of justice within a comprehensive theory of human behavior. His conception of justice rests solely on a unique "construct" called the "liberal political conception" (LPC). Rawls claims that his freestanding LPC, if adopted by citizens of a constitutional democracy, could unite reasonable persons otherwise divided by their ideologies. As a result,, citizens-given favorable conditions-enjoy the benefits of a stable, well-ordered society.

Whose Loyalties?, Christina Whitman

Michigan Law Review

A Review of Loyalty: An Essay on the Morality of Relationships by George P. Fletcher

Book Review, Paul Campos

Publications

No abstract provided.

Whose Loyalties?, Christina B. Whitman

Reviews

It is disconcerting to open a book subtitled An Essay on the Morality of Relationships and find that the two case studies that most interest the author are reciting the Pledge of Allegiance in public schools and the criminalization of flag burning. Although George Fletcher begins to make his case for giving moral priority to loyalties by referring to the impulse to save one's mother from a burning house (p. 12), he is more concerned with the ties that bind individuals to groups than with the ethics of relationships between individuals. The loyalties to which Fletcher would give "moral importance" …

Review Of Willful Liberalism: Voluntarism And Individuality In Political Theory And Practice, Donald J. Herzog

Reviews

This is an elegant and studied little volume, rather more difficult than it lets on. Flathman wants to argue that liberals are sorely in need of a more robust understanding of the will and individuality than they now possess, that they (or we) should be enthusiastically embracing what might seem to be some tendentious commitments about the partial but inescapable opacity of other selves. He does so by working through a large number of texts and authors-some only contentiously called liberal (Hobbes); others not conceivably liberal (William of Ockham, Augustine, Nietzsche); and still others not obviously interested in anything narrowly …

A Morality Fit For Humans, Joseph Raz

Faculty Scholarship

I believe that it was opposition to utilitarianism which first bred arguments claiming in one way or another that a view of morality according to which morality is very demanding is mistaken just be-cause morality cannot be so demanding. On first hearing, this type of argument is liable to seem suspect. Humans should be fit for morality, and unfortunately too often they are not – one is inclined to say. If we find morality too demanding the fault is with us and not with morality. The idea of human morality, in the sense of a morality fit for humans …

Cunning Stunts: From Hegemony To Desire A Review Of Madonna's Sex, Katherine M. Franke

Faculty Scholarship

What is sex? Is it an accidental or contingent property that every person can be said to have? I am brunette and female, but the Pope is bald and male. Or, is sex more constitutive, that is, an essential part of who we are? In this respect, the claim is often made that women experience the world ditfierently than men. Or, is sex something we do?

If we consider sex as an adjective, can we or should we be able to manipulate it like a new hair style? Or does the notion of sexual malleability trivialize the significance …

Postmodern Constitutionalism As Materialism, Francis J. Mootz Iii

Michigan Law Review

Professor J.M. Balkin's recent essay in the Michigan Law Review assesses the implications that postmodernism holds for constitutional law. Although I agree with Balkin about many of the specific issues that he believes must be addressed in a postmodern constitutionalism, I find that his manner of talking about postmodernism is unproductive in an important way. Balkin quite correctly argues that a postmodern constitutionalism should not mimic the fragmented and superficial culture of postmodernity, nor should it devolve simply to normative claims that postmodernity is desirable and should be embraced or adopted within the law. However, Balkin's thesis that a postmodern …

Why Family Values Faltered: Capitalism, Bruce Ledewitz

Ledewitz Papers

Published scholarship collected from academic journals, law reviews, newspaper publications & online periodicals

A Pragmatic Model Of Law, Daniel C.K. Chow

Washington Law Review

While all of us are pragmatic in an informal or colloquial sense in many instances in daily life, pragmatism as applied to law has a deeper, jurisprudential sense The author suggests that modern legal pragmatism presents a model of law that avoids the serious philosophical errors of the traditional model of law, which is based upon assumptions that are untenable in light of fundamental developments in twentieth century thought. The traditional model justifies law by grounding law in eternal, immutable and transcendental foundations. All modern legal pragmatists reject the notion that transcendental foundations sustain law. Modern legal pragmatism arose in …

Rethinking Guild, Juries, And Jeopardy, George C. Thomas Iii, Barry S. Pollack

Michigan Law Review

We have attempted in this article to "begin over again and concentrate" by taking a fresh look at the interplay between guilt and jury verdicts. Somewhat to our surprise, we discovered that guilt is undefinable without reference to the larger society. We also discovered that our risk-of-error experiments implicated the principle of double jeopardy. When we began this thought experiment, we intended only to test the risk of error in various jury configurations and verdicts. We ended, however, by articulating a more fundamental principle: guilt is nothing more, and nothing less, than the judgment of society. Any verdict that accurately …

In The Wake Of Thoreau: Four Morden Legal Philosophers And The Theory Of Nonviolent Civil Disobedience, Stephen R. Alton

Faculty Scholarship

This Article opens with a discussion of Thoreau's philosophy of civil disobedience and then examines the ideas of four modem legal philosophers, Joseph Raz, Kent Greenawalt, John Rawls, and Ronald Dworkin, on the subject. Next, the Article compares the respective thinking of all five men regarding the circumstances that would justify the use of civil disobedience. To facilitate the comparison as well as to make it more relevant to the reader, the Article examines five related contemporary illustrations involving situations in which the use of civil disobedience might arguably be morally justified. This Article concludes with some general thoughts on …

Minority Cultures And The Cosmopolitan Alternative, Jeremy Waldron

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

I have chosen not to talk in this Article about the warning that Rushdie is sounding in his essay In Good Faith, but to discuss more affirmatively the image of the modern self that he conveys. Still, I hope that we do not lose sight of the warning. The communitarianism that can sound cozy and attractive in a book by Robert Bellah or Michael Sandel can be blinding, dangerous, and disruptive in the real world, where communities do not come ready-packaged and where communal allegiances are as much ancient hatreds of one's neighbors as immemorial traditions of culture.

Conceptions Of Value In Legal Thought, Richard H. Pildes

Michigan Law Review

A Review of Love's Knowledge by Martha C. Nussbaum

The Quest For Justice, James S. Fishkin

Michigan Law Review

A Review of Affirmative Action and Justice: A Philosophical and Constitutional Inquiry by Michel Rosenfeld

Playing With The Rules, Mark V. Tushnet

Michigan Law Review

A Review of Playing by the Rules: A Philosophical Examination of Rule-Based Decision-Making in Law and Life by Frederick Schauer

The Casey Conundrum, Bruce Ledewitz

Ledewitz Papers

Published scholarship collected from academic journals, law reviews, newspaper publications & online periodicals

Law, Politics, And The Claims Of Community, Stephen A. Gardbaum

Michigan Law Review

This article aims to provide this needed analysis and then to show how it illuminates many of the exchanges taking place within the legal academy. It argues that the first step toward understanding "the claims of community" - whether in law or moral and political theory - is to recognize that, as the phrase itself suggests, more than one claim is involved. Merely to observe that the various proponents of community have as yet failed to establish a common and coherent communitarian position, though certainly true, is to miss the more critical insight: they are not engaged in such an …

The Kantian Theory Of International Law, Fernando R. Tesón

Scholarly Publications

This Article defends the view, first developed by Immanuel Kant, that international law and domestic justice are fundamentally connected.'

Continuity, Precedent And Choice Of Law: A Reflective Response To Professor Hill, Robert A. Sedler

Law Faculty Research Publications

No abstract provided.

The Meaning Of Under Color Of Law, Steven L. Winter

Law Faculty Research Publications

No abstract provided.

Avalon Ethics, Thomas D. Eisele

Faculty Articles and Other Publications

Book review of Thomas Shaffer & Nancy Shaffer, American Lawyers and Their Communities (1991)