Law and Philosophy Commons^™

December 25, 2019: Christmas 2019, Bruce Ledewitz

Hallowed Secularism

Blog post, “Christmas 2019“ discusses politics, theology and the law in relation to religion and public life in the democratic United States of America.

December 22, 2019: Light In This Dark Season, Bruce Ledewitz

Hallowed Secularism

Blog post, “Light in this Dark Season“ discusses politics, theology and the law in relation to religion and public life in the democratic United States of America.

December 17, 2019: Today's Column On Hate Speech In The Pennsylvania Capital-Star, Bruce Ledewitz

Hallowed Secularism

Blog post, “Today's column on hate speech in the Pennsylvania Capital-Star“ discusses politics, theology and the law in relation to religion and public life in the democratic United States of America.

Think We’Re Powerless Against Hate Speech? The Constitution Provides Plenty Of Room To Address It, Bruce Ledewitz

Newspaper Columns

Collected biweekly contributions to the Pennsylvania Capital-Star, a nonpartisan, nonprofit news site.

Spiritual-Moral Environment And Its Basic Indicators, Matlyuba Qaxxarova, Hamida Tuychieva

The Light of Islam

The article considers the problems of the spiritual and moral environment of society as a socio-historical phenomenon, the features of its development in a civil society and the laws of its development. The main attention is paid to ethical principles and means, ways to meet the needs of the individual, the importance of moral ideal, as well as objective conditions and subjective factors of the spiritual and moral environment.

In order to comprehensively improve the spiritual and moral climate in society, a philosophical approach to the question of the beliefs and beliefs of the individual was made in order to …

The Unreasonableness Of Catholic Integralism, Micah Schwartzman, Jocelyn Wilson

San Diego Law Review

In this symposium contribution, we argue that Catholic integralism is unreasonable. Our conception of reasonableness is defined in terms of substantive moral and epistemic commitments to respecting the freedom and equality of citizens who hold a wide—but not unlimited—range of religious, ethical, and philosophical conceptions of the good. In arguing that Catholic integralism conflicts with this understanding of reasonableness, it might seem that we are begging the question against integralists. But our purpose here is not to engage integralists on their own terms. So far, the debate about integralism has been conducted mostly among Catholics and Christian conservatives. Our critique …

December 7, 2019: Churchill Champions Free Trade And Castigates Republican Tariffs As Secular, Bruce Ledewitz

Hallowed Secularism

Blog post, “Churchill Champions Free Trade and Castigates Republican Tariffs as Secular“ discusses politics, theology and the law in relation to religion and public life in the democratic United States of America.

Dignity Takings In Leviathanic Immigration Proceedings, Christopher Mendez

The Scholar: St. Mary's Law Review on Race and Social Justice

Current immigration law in the United States is rife with racially motivated biases necessitating immediate correction. Among the many problems with current law, constitutional rights are withheld from a large populace. This article reflects upon the history of immigration law in the United States, noting key decisions which have formed the status quo. This article also proposes remedies such as the cessation of infringement by government agents on the property rights that affected immigrants have on their own bodies and a modern-day amnesty reflective of the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986. This article also introduces Bernadette Atuahene’s concept …

December 4, 2019: A Good Day For The Rule Of Law, Bruce Ledewitz

Hallowed Secularism

Blog post, “A Good Day for the Rule of Law“ discusses politics, theology and the law in relation to religion and public life in the democratic United States of America.

Calif. Supreme Court Right To Strike Down Law Requiring Trump To Release Tax Returns To Get On The Ballot, Bruce Ledewitz

Newspaper Columns

Collected biweekly contributions to the Pennsylvania Capital-Star, a nonpartisan, nonprofit news site.

Legal Realism And Legal Doctrine, Dan Priel

All Papers

Legal realism is widely perceived to be hostile to legal doctrine. In the familiar narrative, the realists showed that legal doctrine does not, and cannot, constrain judges from using existing legal materials to reach virtually any outcome they want. As such, doctrine only serves to hides and obfuscate what is better discussed openly. The purpose of this essay is to complicate this familiar story. I focus on one contemporary take on legal realism that argues that an open discussion of values will give the law greater determinacy. I counter this view, first, by showing that it does not, in fact, …

Still Writing At The Master’S Table: Decolonizing Rhetoric In Legal Writing For A “Woke” Legal Academy, 21 The Scholar 255 (2019), Teri A. Mcmurtry-Chubb

UIC Law Open Access Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Personality Disruption As Mental Torture: The Cia, Interrogational Abuse, And The U.S. Torture Act, David Luban, Katherine S. Newell

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

This Article is a contribution to the torture debate. It argues that the abusive interrogation tactics used by the United States in what was then called the “global war on terrorism” are, unequivocally, torture under U.S. law. To some readers, this might sound like déjà vu all over again. Hasn’t this issue been picked over for nearly fifteen years? It has, but we think the legal analysis we offer has been mostly overlooked. We argue that the basic character of the CIA’s interrogation of so-called “high-value detainees” has been misunderstood: both lawyers and commentators have placed far too much emphasis …

November 28, 2019: Happy Thanksgiving, Bruce Ledewitz

Hallowed Secularism

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

November 22, 2019: What Is The Point Of This Column?, Bruce Ledewitz

Hallowed Secularism

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

Examining Pharmaceutical Exceptionalism: Intellectual Property, Practical Expediency, And Global Health, Govind Persad

Sturm College of Law: Faculty Scholarship

Advocates, activists, and academics have criticized pharmaceutical intellectual property ("pharma IP") rights as obstacles to access to medicines for the global poor. These criticisms of pharma IP holders are frequently exceptionalist: they focus on pharma IP holders while ignoring whether others also bear obligations to assist patients in need. These others include holders of other lucrative IP rights, such as music copyrights or technology patents; firms, such as energy companies and banks, that do not rely on IP; and wealthy private individuals. Their resources could be used to aid patients by providing direct medical assistance, funding prizes or biomedical research, …

November 19, 2019: Court-Packing, Bruce Ledewitz

Hallowed Secularism

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

November 14, 2019: What’S Wrong With Impeachment, Bruce Ledewitz

Hallowed Secularism

Blog post, “What’s Wrong With Impeachment“ discusses politics, theology and the law in relation to religion and public life in the democratic United States of America.

Two Forms Of Formalism, Dan Priel

All Papers

In this paper I argue that what is called ‘formalism’ is actually two very different views: I call one ‘conceptualism’ and the other ‘doctrinalism’. The former is deductive and ‘philosophical’ whereas the latter is inductive and ‘pragmatic’. While the two views have sometimes been aligned in opposition to certain views they were both in opposition to, they are actually fundamentally at odds with each other. I demonstrate this by identifying eight parameters on which the two are opposed. After presenting the two views, I turn to evaluating the two views. I first argue that conceptualism is indefensible, and that though …

Contractual Communication, Lawrence B. Solum

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

In this Response, I will investigate the foundations of both shared and unshared meaning in legal communication. Part I takes a step back from contractual communication and offers a preliminary sketch of a general model of legal communication; the sketch draws on speech act theory and the work of Paul Grice, extending and modifying many of the insights developed by Kar and Radin. Part II turns to contractual communication, differentiating distinct “situations of contractual communication” and interrogating Kar and Radin’s Shared Meaning Analysis. Part III interrogates Kar and Radin’s distinction between “contract” and “pseudo-contract.” The conclusion of the Response briefly …