Law and Philosophy Commons^™

Legal Right And Social Democracy: Essays In Legal And Political Philosophy, Michigan Law Review

Michigan Law Review

A Review of Legal Right and Social Democracy: Essays in Legal and Political Philosophy by Neil MacCormick

Reconstructing Public Philosophy, Michigan Law Review

Michigan Law Review

A Review of Reconstructing Public Philosophy by William M. Sullivan

The Unfinished Work Of The Instrumentalists, Willard Hurst

Michigan Law Review

A Review of Instrumentalism and American Legal Theory by Robert Samuel Summers

Justice And Love, Raymond B. Marcin

Scholarly Articles

No abstract provided.

Hart's Definition And Theory In Jurisprudence Again, Robert Birmingham

Faculty Articles and Papers

No abstract provided.

Book Review, The Politics Of Informal Justice. Vol. 1: The American Experience. Vol. 2: Comparative Studies., Frank W. Munger

Other Publications

No abstract provided.

In Favor Of Capital Punishment: A Blending Of Philosophical Perspectives, James Charles Donnelly

Institute for the Humanities Theses

There has been little intellectual support for the average American's view of the proper relationship between L' crime and punishment. This text is an effort to philosophically define and defend this view. Chapters one and two deal with teleological theories and justification for systems and rules of practices. I first discuss the historical relationship of man to the state, showing the necessity of and providing a basis for civil authority and law and showing both to be based on social utility. This accomplished, a teleological justification of a system of punishment is presented. Chapter three discusses retribution as the deontological …

The Great American Legal Scholarship Bazaar, Graham Hughes

Journal of Legal Education

No abstract provided.

Liberalism, Radicalism, And Legal Scholarship, Steven H. Shiffrin

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

The Limits Of Obligation, Michigan Law Review

Michigan Law Review

A Review of The Limits of Obligation by James S. Fishkin

Promises, Morals, And Law, Michigan Law Review

Michigan Law Review

A Review of Promises, Morals, and Law by P.S. Atiyah

Contract As Promise: A Theory Of Contractual Obligation, Michigan Law Review

Michigan Law Review

A Review of Contract as Promise: A Theory of Contractual Obligation by Charles Fried

Laws, Norms And Authority, Michigan Law Review

Michigan Law Review

A Review of Laws, Norms and Authority by George C. Christie

So Reason Can Rule, Michigan Law Review

Michigan Law Review

A Review of So Reason Can Rule by Scott Buchanan

Troubling Questions: A Review Of The Decline Of The Rehabilitative Ideal, Sheldon L. Messinger

Michigan Law Review

A Review of The Decline of the Rehabilitative Ideal: Penal Policy and Social Purpose by Francis A. Allen

Where Lies Prophecy?, Bruce Ledewitz

Ledewitz Papers

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

Paternalism, Freedom, Identity, And Commitment, Donald H. Regan

Book Chapters

Some years ago, I wrote an essay entitled "Justifications for Paternalism." That essay is here revised, and expanded by the addition of a new topic. Many readers of the original version did not understand that the two principal sections presented arguments that were quite independent. I would therefore emphasize that in the present version the three principal sections (II, III, and IV) are separable one from another. Not surprisingly, in an essay so disconnected, I reach no general conclusions I have much confidence in. I suspect the reason for the failure is that I have been insufficiently daring in rejecting …

The Meaning Of Equality In Law, Science, Math, And Morals: A Reply, Peter Westen

Michigan Law Review

I shall set forth my thesis in Part I, using the Declaration of Independence ("all men are created equal") to illustrate that the emptiness of equality inheres in its very meaning, and that the confusions of equality result from neglecting its meaning. In Part II, I respond to Professors Chemerinsky's and D' Amato's reasons for believing that equality has independent normative content of its own. In Part III, I respond to Professor Chemerinsky's separate reasons for believing that equality is rhetorically useful.

When Incommensurable Values Conflict -- Thoughts On Mandelker's Environment And Equity: A Regulatory Challenge, Bailey Kuklin

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Interest Analysis And Forum Preference In The Conflict Of Laws: A Response To The "New Critics", Robert A. Sedler

Law Faculty Research Publications

No abstract provided.

The Ethics Of Argument: Plato's Gorgias And The Modern Lawyer, James Boyd White

Articles

In what follows I shall analyze Plato's text and do my best to suggest a response to it. But I should say at the outset that for the modern lawyer and law teacher this is not merely an academic exercise, for we in fact are rhetoricians very much as Plato defines them. What is at stake for us in reading this dialogue is what it means to have devoted ourselves to the set of social and intellectual practices that define the profession of law. We have a special relation to this text, for we can in the full Platonic sense …

Against Evaluator Relativity: A Response To Sen, Donald H. Regan

Articles

In a recent essay in this journal Amartya Sen introduced the notion of an evaluator-relative consequence-based morality. The basic idea can be described very simply. A consequence-based morality is a morality that instructs each agent to maximize some objective function defined over states of affairs. Such a morality is evaluator neutral if it assigns to every agent the same objective function. If different agents have different objective functions, then the morality is evaluator relative. For example, a morality would be evaluator relative if it assigned to Jones an objective function giving greater weight to the welfare of Jones's children than …

An Attack On Categorical Approaches To Freedom Of Speech, Pierre J. Schlag

Publications

No abstract provided.

In Defense Of Equality: A Reply To Professor Westen, Erwin Chemerinsky

Michigan Law Review

Part I of this essay analyzes Professor Westen's arguments that the concept of equality is unnecessary. My contention is that Professor Westen never demonstrates that equality is meaningless; his arguments only prove the obvious, that equality by itself is insufficient. Part II argues that equality is a necessary principle: It is the only concept that tells us that different treatment of people does matter. Part III addresses Professor Westen's suggestion that equality is misleading and points out that none of his criticisms of the idea of equality are in any way inherent to that concept. Finally, Part IV demonstrates that …

Is Equality A Totally Empty Idea?, Anthony D'Amato

Michigan Law Review

Professor Peter Westen's essay asserting that the concept of equality has no substantive content whatsoever usefully brushes aside much of the equal-protection rhetoric that, as Westen carefully explains, appropriately belongs to substantive due process. However, his absolutist position is open to challenge. I would like to posit one hypothetical case that I used in my classes when I taught Constitutional Law that I think contradicts Professor Westen's thesis. If it does, then there will be other cases as well, and his position cannot stand as the logically tight construct that he repeatedly asserts that it is.

On Identifying And Reconstructing A General Legal Theory – Some Thoughts Prompted By Professor Moore’S Critique, Robert S. Summers

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Suicide And The Failure Of Modern Moral Theory, Donald H. Regan

Articles

The question I want to address is when and why suicide is morally wrong. There is something peculiar in my writing on this question at all. It will soon become apparent that although I think suicide involves genuine moral issues. I also think that the moral problem of suicide is a problem which most people answer correctly. That is, I think that in the vast majority of cases where people ought not to commit suicide, they do not. They are not even tempted. Conversely, most people who do commit suicide, or who want to, are either justified or at least …

How Empty Is The Idea Of Equality, Kent Greenawalt

Faculty Scholarship

The nature of equality and the relationship between equality and justice have long been puzzling to social and legal philosophers. One manifestation of these problems of understanding is uncertainty among lawyers and judges about the significance of legal norms formulated in the language of equality, most notably the equal protection clause of the Constitution. In an elaborately reasoned, imaginative, and richly referenced recent article, Peter Westen has urged the arresting conclusion that the idea of equality is empty, empty in the sense that any normative conclusion derived from the idea could be reached more directly by reliance on normative judgments …

Reason And Law, George C. Christie

Michigan Law Review

A Review of Justice, Law, and Argument: Essays in Moral and Legal Reasoning by Chaim Perelman

Social Justice In The Liberal State, Michigan Law Review

Michigan Law Review

A Review of Social Justice in the Liberal State by Bruce A. Ackerman