Law and Philosophy Commons^™

Keynote Address: The Movement To Protect Kids From Addictive Technologies, Gaia Bernstein

Seattle University Law Review

In this keynote address, I describe my personal journey starting with a school outreach program I created in 2017 to address technology overuse among kids. While I initially advocated for self-help methods, I grew to recognize that the tech industry bore responsibility. This realization led me to write Unwired: Gaining Control over Addictive Technologies, which focused on collective action to pressure the tech industry to redesign its addictive products.

I then describe the movement to control addictive technologies and protect kids, which has gained momentum since the end of the pandemic. This movement combines grassroots parent activism with legal-political action. …

Moral Panic Or Public Health Crisis? Lessons From Drugs And Gambling For “Addictive” Design, Matthew B. Lawrence, Haomin (Kevin) Yan

Seattle University Law Review

Alcohol, automobiles, guns, lottery, loot boxes, meat, music, opioid painkillers, processed foods, prop bets, slot machines, television, tobacco, violent video games. Over the last century each of these has been subject to concerns—some might even say “moral panics”—from parents and policymakers about avoidable harms to kids and adults. In some cases we look back with the benefit of hindsight and dismiss those concerns as naïve or moralistic. In others we look back at them as justified or as having come too late to check an expanding industry before it did unfathomable harm while growing so powerful that it became all …

Responding To Digital Addiction, Ned Snow

Seattle University Law Review

In Unwired: Gaining Control over Addictive Technologies, Professor Gaia Bernstein calls our attention to the growing problem of digital addiction. Digital addiction may sound like something out of a science-fiction novel or something that does not raise the same sort of real-life practical concerns as are present in a physical health crisis or an economic decline. But as Bernstein presents the evidence, we learn that the consequences of digital addiction can be just as harmful as a serious disease or a financial depression. Cognitive development disorders, anxiety, emotional depression, social isolation, and other mental health ills can be debilitating—as much …

The Ai Doppelgänger Dilemma: Cloned Voices In The Music Industry, Elizabeth Shields

Seattle University Law Review

With the rise of generative artificial intelligence (AI), there has been an influx of “voice clones”—deep-learning algorithms that create synthetic speech to realistically mimic human voices. Celebrities and, in particular, music artists, have been subjected to the proliferation of AI voice clones on social media platforms like TikTok and streaming platforms such as Spotify. Despite music utilizing AI voice clones having amassed much popularity, this technology can be harmful and highly invasive to musicians whose livelihoods often depend on their distinct voices. While legal scholars have attempted to articulate various rights that could protect a person’s voice, individuals are largely …

Let The Sunshine In: Crafting Constitutional Transparency Regulations For Content Moderation, Caitlin Ring Carlson

Seattle University Law Review

In response to public concern about the impact of social media, legislators in some U.S. states have developed laws to regulate the process of content moderation. Many include mandatory transparency and disclosure requirements, some of which courts have already deemed an unconstitutional infringement on social media platforms’ right to free expression. This article explores the parameters for crafting constitutional social media transparency regulations using existing U.S. media policy and insights from recent legal challenges. The resulting analysis identifies content neutral transparency requirements that mandate the disclosure of purely factual, non-controversial information as those most likely to withstand judicial scrutiny. Specifically, …

This Is Not A Game: The Addictive Allure Of Digital Companions, Nizan Geslevich Packin, Karni Chagal-Feferkorn

Seattle University Law Review

Artificial Intelligence (AI) agents have become an inescapable part of modern childhood, reshaping education, leisure activities, entertainment, and social interaction. From AI-powered tutors that adapt to individual learning styles to emotionally responsive chatbots that simulate human companionship, these systems promise unprecedented personalization, cognitive stimulation, and social support. However, these benefits mask significant risks that remain unregulated and inadequately addressed.

Although adults are also susceptible to forming deep emotional bonds with AI companions—often trusting them as if they possessed genuine understanding and empathy—children are particularly vulnerable. Their misplaced trust can more severely distort social development, weaken critical thinking, and foster unhealthy …

Indonesia’S Identity Politics And Populism: Disruption To National Cohesion, Firdaus Arifin, Rosa Tedjabuwana, Subelo Wiyono, Mohd Kamarulnizam Bin Abdullah

Jurnal Civics: Media Kajian Kewarganegaraan

The principle of unity in diversity in Indonesia is increasingly challenged by the rise of identity politics and populism. These dynamics emerge as a confluence of pragmatic political strategies and the mobilization of sectarian groups, often leveraging religious and ethnic sentiments during election campaigns. While effective in garnering popular support, such tactics undermine national unity and social cohesion, serving as a shortcut to power at the cost of societal harmony. This issue is particularly pronounced in district head elections, where the politicization of tribal, religious, racial, and inter-community identities has become pervasive. These elections, intended to reflect democratic principles, are …

The Illusion Of Inclusion: The False Promise Of The New Governance Project For Content Moderation, Brenda Dvoskin

Fordham Law Review

Because private companies now control the most prominent communication platforms, the most pressing question in the field of content moderation is how to ensure that the governance of public discourse responds to public values. The prevailing approach, given that the state cannot regulate speech directly, is that state regulation can be substituted with audited self-regulation, broad stakeholder participation, and negotiated rulemaking. In this model, which this Article refers to as the “new governance model for content moderation,” companies include advocates as representatives of the public in their processes to govern online speech. Ideally, they negotiate policy goals and share responsibility …

Deputization And Privileged White Violence, Ekow N. Yankah

Articles

A number of high-profile and racially charged killings, such as Trayvon Martin’s, Kenneth Herring’s, Ahmaud Arbery’s, and Jordan Neely’s, have been at the hands of civilians declaring themselves the law. These deaths stemmed from a phenomenon best described as “deputization.” Deputization describes a latent legal power that has empowered White people throughout American history to claim authority to enforce the law, as they see it, upon racial minorities generally and Black people in particular. This power turned the ancient common law duty to police all felons in England into a specific American common law duty to police Blacks. From the …

The Female Judge “Hunch” In Family Court; Does Female Judgment Differ From Male Judgment?, Kareem M. Rashed

The Undergraduate Research Journal

This paper offers an in-depth theoretical review of the differences in moral judgments between genders, particularly emphasizing their manifestation in the context of family court. Based on Carol Gilligan's critique of Lawrence Kohlberg's theory about moral development, there are distinct differences in moral reasoning approaches between men and women. Gilligan's work challenged the universality of Kohlberg's framework and instead suggested that gendered perspectives on moral reasoning commonly prioritize care and relationships over abstract principles. Complementing this theoretical foundation, the paper incorporates findings from a number of practical studies and surveys, providing non-theoretical evidence of these differences in real-world contexts. Moreover, …

Custom’S Pervasive Role In Law And The Boundaries Of Positivism, James Paul George

Faculty Scholarship

Custom is law’s foundation, modulator, and occasional antithesis. This Article explores that relationship, starting with varying insights from some of the few legal philosophers who have examined the custom/law dynamic. The heart of this Article provides examples showing custom’s many influences on the law, set in five functional areas: origin, application, interstitial, rule-source, and oppositional. Although the custom/law interplay spans human behavior, these examples come from law practice where custom is exposed. Many are routine, some are significant, and all show our reliance on behaviors and norms that are not positive law. The conclusion addresses but does not resolve some …

Do Ais Dream Of Electric Boards?, Robert J. Rhee

Northwestern University Law Review

When artificial intelligence (AI) acquires self-awareness, agency, and unique intelligence, it will attain ontological personhood. Management of firms by AI would be technologically and economically feasible. The law could confer upon AI the status of legal personhood, as it did upon traditional business firms in the past, thus dispensing with the need for inserting AI as property within the legal boundary of a firm. As a separate and distinct entity, AI could function independently as a manager in the way that legal or natural persons do today: i.e., AI as director, officer, partner, member, or manager. Such a future is …

Law In Society: Defending Hart, Alma Diamond

Fellow, Adjunct, Lecturer, and Research Scholar Works

I revisit the debate between Joseph Raz and H. L. A. Hart concerning the nature of legal content and reasoning. Raz contended that legal reasoning should be analyzed as a form of moral reasoning. In contrast, Hart emphasized the distinction between legal and moral content, proposing that legal reasoning is a form of what I will call social-institutional reasoning. I characterize social-institutional reasoning in terms of the agent-relative, domain-specific, universal, and content-insensitive justifications it draws upon. I evaluate Raz’s moralized analysis and argue that it obscures the distinctive contribution that law’s social and institutional grounds play in our understanding of …

Through A Glass Darkly: How Securities Disclosures Give A Distorted View Of The Economy, Gerald F. Davis

Seattle University Law Review

Our understanding of the American economy often relies on stylized facts derived from mandatory disclosures by listed corporations. Data vendors like Standard & Poor’s vacuum up 10Ks and proxy statements into databases, and scholars distill these into tentative maps. This may have been adequate for a postwar economy centered on asset-heavy manufacturers, but it is increasingly out of step with an information-based economy. Companies listed on the stock market are fewer in number and less representative than they were, light in tangible assets and people, and heavy on IP. Basic facts such as what industry they are in are increasingly …

Law-Following Ai: Designing Ai Agents To Obey Human Laws, Cullen O'Keefe, Ketan Ramakrishnan, Janna Tay, Christoph Winter

Fordham Law Review

Artificial intelligence (AI) companies are working to develop a new type of actor: “AI agents,” which we define as AI systems that can perform computer-based tasks as competently as human experts. Expert-level AI agents will likely create enormous economic value but also pose significant risks. Humans use computers to commit crimes, torts, and other violations of the law. As AI agents progress, therefore, they will be increasingly capable of performing actions that would be illegal if performed by humans. Such lawless AI agents could pose a severe risk to human life, liberty, and the rule of law.

Designing public policy …

Natural Law Errors And Wrongs, Brian Z. Tamanaha

Brooklyn Law Review

Natural law is undergoing a revival in constitutional theory. What makes this surprising is that it has been largely dormant for over a century. A major factor that contributed to its decline was conflicting accounts of natural law and the inability of jurists to identify with certainty what it requires. For their project to get off the ground, contemporary proponents of natural law must address this question. This Article raises an even more challenging set of related issues that natural lawyers have never fully reckoned with: the most celebrated natural law thinkers—Aristotle, Aquinas, Pufendorf, Vitoria, Grotius, and many others—made natural …

Table Of Contents, Seattle University Law Review

Seattle University Law Review

Table of Contents

Corporate Scenarios: Drawing Lessons From History, Madison Condon

Seattle University Law Review

As corporations are increasingly pressed to reveal information about their exposure to climate-related risks, they are often asked to undertake and disclose the outcome of “scenario analysis.” In this exercise, corporations, including financial institutions, examine how their business would fare under different pathways the future may take. One oft-used scenario, for example, is the International Energy Agency’s “Net-Zero by 2050: A Roadmap for the Energy Sector.” This Essay presents a history of the use of scenarios as a corporate planning tool, particularly in the oil industry, arguing that it is key for understanding our present moment and the role of …

Shareholder Expression In A Time Of Heightened Political Tension, Aaron A. Dhir

Seattle University Law Review

In this article, I provide context for my forthcoming research project on shareholder proposals and racial equity audits. Since the murder of George Floyd in May of 2020, progressive shareholder actors have increasingly used the proposal mechanism to advance diversity, equity, inclusion, and justice-related goals. These proposals have frequently gone beyond requesting the usual corporate fare of diversity trainings, intersectionality workshops, affinity groups, etc. Instead, a more ambitious type of proposal asks corporate America to conduct racial equity audits, defined as “an independent, objective and holistic analysis of a company’s policies, practices, products, services and efforts to combat systemic racism …

Corporate Governance Speech, Sarah C. Haan

Seattle University Law Review

The State has always regulated the intra-firm communications that make corporate governance possible, most commonly by mandating disclosures of information by a corporation to its shareholders. Some such laws are labeled “securities regulation,” but securities regulation is a broad category that extends to speech by actors who are outside the corporate enterprise as well. Also, the conventional securities regulation category does not capture all such laws; other examples, including informationforcing mandates, can be found in state corporate law. This Article uses the term “corporate governance speech” to describe the communications among shareholders, directors, and officers through which corporate governance is …