Law and Philosophy Commons^™

Hohfeld's Cube, Mark Andrews

Akron Law Review

The thesis presented here is that the eight jural relations may be effectively graphed as the eight corners of a cube, and this image unifies all eight into a single logical structure. This structure symbolizes real legal relationships and assists an understanding of the way legal relations work. This article, then, is about Hohfeld's Cube.

The validity of the cube will be shown in three stages. First, the eight jural relations will be arranged on the cube in a manner which seems to best characterize the way Hohfeld intended his concepts to be used and which also seems to construct …

Can We Afford Liberty?, Arthur J. Goldberg

Akron Law Review

I would like to venture the suggestion, however, that the real gravamen of Chief Justice Burger's address has been overlooked. In a very real sense, the Chief Justice is raising the question of whether, in light of the serious nature of crime in America, we can afford liberty and decisions of the Supreme Court, largely during the Warren era, which enforced the Bill of Rights in the case of those charged with crime.

I therefore propose in this address to discuss the question of whether we can afford liberty under present circumstances.

July 29, 2015: The Power Of Choice, Bruce Ledewitz

Hallowed Secularism

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

A Commentary On Hegelian Philosophy And The Absolutes In Law, H. Newcomb Morse

Akron Law Review

The principles of law are twofold: those that are absolute and those that are relative. The absolute and the relative are akin to dogma and doctrine, respectively. We are on shaky ground indeed when we stand upon relativism. The principal purveyors of relativism have been Justices Cardozo, Douglas, and Holmes.

Legal Agreement, Andrew Tutt

Akron Law Review

This Article grapples with the question of what it means to agree about what the law is. First, it shows that the question of what it means to “agree about the law” invites us to consider many different kinds of agreement and disagreement we might have about what the law is. Second, it shows that without selecting one of these kinds of agreement, we cannot speak intelligibly about whether we agree or disagree. Third, it explains that this failure to choose is a source of much confusion and apparent disagreement between competing philosophers and philosophies of law. Fourth, it argues …

July 22, 2015: Why A Jew Invented Hallowed Secularism, Bruce Ledewitz

Hallowed Secularism

Blog post, “Why a Jew Invented Hallowed Secularism“ discusses politics, theology and the law in relation to religion and public life in the democratic United States of America.

July 21, 2015: A Great President, Bruce Ledewitz

Hallowed Secularism

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

Legislative Process And Intent In Justice Scalia's Interpretive Method, David Schultz

Akron Law Review

This article explores Justice Scalia's views on the legislative process and his interpretive methodology which questions using legislative intent when interpreting statutes. Unlike other recent scholarship which focuses on Scalia's interpretive method, this article is somewhat more expansive. It will examine his views towards the legislative process and decision-making, including his approach and methodology used in interpreting legislative pronouncements. To do this, the article will first provide an assessment of recent legal scholarship describing Scalia's interpretive jurisprudence. The goal here is to establish a description of the legal community's perspective regarding Scalia's views towards interpreting statutes. The second section will …

July 18, 2015: Religions That Promise Us Death And War, Bruce Ledewitz

Hallowed Secularism

Blog post, “Religions that Promise Us Death and War“ discusses politics, theology and the law in relation to religion and public life in the democratic United States of America.

The Declaration As Ur-Constitution: The Bizarre Jurisprudential Philosophy Of Professor Harry V. Jaffa, Patrick M. O'Neil

Akron Law Review

In his most recent work, Original Intent and the Framers of the Constitution: A Disputed Question, Professor Harry V. Jaffa finally has put together in one place the core of his constitutional hermeneutic with all the attendant elements of his jurisprudential philosophy. Stated in oversimplified terms, perhaps, Dr. Jaffa sees the Declaration of Independence as the source of the principles embodied in the Constitution of the United States and finds the Declaration, furthermore, to be an indispensable aid to the correct interpretation of that later document. In order to comprehend the error of Jaffa's claims, one must first consider several …

July 14, 2015: Good News Tuesday, Bruce Ledewitz

Hallowed Secularism

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

July 10, 2015: Mark Greif Says We Can No Longer Ask, What Is Man?, Bruce Ledewitz

Hallowed Secularism

Blog post, “Mark Greif Says We Can No Longer Ask, What is Man?“ discusses politics, theology and the law in relation to religion and public life in the democratic United States of America.

The Future As A Concept In National Security Law, Mary L. Dudziak

Pepperdine Law Review

With their focus on the future of national security law, the essays in this issue share a common premise: that the future matters to legal policy, and that law must take the future into account. But what is this future? And what conception of the future do national security lawyers have in mind? The future is, in an absolute sense, unknowable. Absent a time machine, we cannot directly experience it. Yet human action is premised on ideas about the future, political scientist Harold Lasswell wrote in his classic work The Garrison State. The ideas about the future that guide social …

July 4, 2015: Can God Do A New Thing?, Bruce Ledewitz

Hallowed Secularism

Blog post, “Can God Do a New Thing?“ discusses politics, theology and the law in relation to religion and public life in the democratic United States of America.

Franz Kafka’S “Before The Law”: A Parable, Geoffrey L. Brackett

Pace Law Review

Despite Francis Bacon’s cautionary note, I have always been a fan of parables, and perhaps the most poignant one to speak for perils of the legal profession is Franz Kafka’s “Vor dem Gesetz” (“Before the Law”), one of the relatively few works to be published in his lifetime. It was seen first in the almanac Vom Jüngsten Tag: Ein Almanach Neuer Dichtung in December 1915 before it was included in his novel Der Prozess (The Trial), which was unpublished in his lifetime. He wrote it at one sitting on December 13, 1914, and in fewer than 650 words, Kafka illustrates …

The Spectrum Of Control: A Social Theory Of The Smart City, Jathan Sadowski, Frank A. Pasquale

Faculty Scholarship

There is a certain allure to the idea that cities allow a person to both feel at home and like a stranger in the same place. That one can know the streets and shops, avenues and alleys, while also going days without being recognized. But as elites fill cities with “smart” technologies—turning them into platforms for the “Internet of Things” (IoT): sensors and computation embedded within physical objects that then connect, communicate, and/or transmit information with or between each other through the Internet—there is little escape from a seamless web of surveillance and power. This paper will outline a social …

July 1, 2015: None, Bruce Ledewitz

Hallowed Secularism

Blog post, “None“ discusses politics, theology and the law in relation to religion and public life in the democratic United States of America.

Dangerous Diagnoses, Risky Assumptions, And The Failed Experiment Of "Sexually Violent Predator" Commitment, Deirdre M. Smith

Faculty Publications

In its 1997 opinion, Kansas v. Hendricks, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld a law that reflected a new model of civil commitment. The targets of this new commitment law were dubbed “Sexually Violent Predators” (SVPs), and the Court upheld indefinite detention of these individuals on the assumption that there is a psychiatrically distinct class of individuals who, unlike typical recidivists, have a mental condition that impairs their ability to refrain from violent sexual behavior. And, more specifically, the Court assumed that the justice system could reliably identify the true “predators,” those for whom this unusual and extraordinary deprivation of liberty …

June 27, 2015: The Supreme Court's Week, Bruce Ledewitz

Hallowed Secularism

Blog post, “The Supreme Court's Week“ discusses politics, theology and the law in relation to religion and public life in the democratic United States of America.

Four Models Of Jury Democracy, Jeffrey Abramson

Chicago-Kent Law Review

This article proposes a theory of “representative deliberation” to describe the democratic ideal that jurors seek to practice. Given its long history, the jury does not fit neatly into any one of the most familiar types of democracy, such as direct democracy, representative democracy, or deliberative democracy. However, the jury does hold together elements of all of these theories. In line with direct democracy, we select jurors from the people-at-large. In line with representative democracy, we seek to draw jurors from a representative cross-section of the community. In line with deliberative democracy, jurors talk as well as vote and seek …