Law & Society Blog

[Law & Society] In response to my discussion of the NYC subway search cases, Bruce Regal observed:[T]he program ultimately is probably not about deterrence at all, but about making people feel better (irrationally perhaps, but no less actually) — helping them feel, subconsciously if nothing else, that the authorities are doing something, anything, about what is from a rational point of view (at least for local law enforcement authorities who have no control over international policy) the intractable problem of terrorism…. Let’s assume (counterfactually) that there are no ulterior motives on the part of the proponents of the program, that is, no upcoming elections and no political capital to be gained; the goal is to make people feel safer and thus improve their welfare.

The discussion whether law reviews deserve cheers or raspberries continues. Dan Solove thinks that student-edited law reviews aren’t that bad after all, and even have their virtues. What I am particularly interested in is the relationship between the law-review piece and legal scholarship. There are two aspects to this.
The first aspect is whether overall, law-review […]

This post on Truth in the Market is a good example of property fundamentalism run amok and how overlawyering gets in the way of just having fun. Unless you want to make money with your blog, why not simply license all content under a creative commons (non-commercial) attribution license and be done with it?

Unlike some of the commentators on the WSJ website, Nate knows what he’s talking about, as he identifies two factors that contribute to the dissatisfaction: lack of interest in the law and the mismatch between the dominant myths about the legal profession current in law schools and the reality of the legal profession in practice…. The law is one of the most fascinating creations of the human mind, and its study can be as intellectually rewarding (and thus intoxicating) as that of philosophy or social science, to pick two academic disciplines with which I have some familiarity.

Rosa Brooks, over on the new and enjoyable LawCulture blog, has started—perhaps I should say, rekindled—a discussion on the sense and nonsense of law-review articles. There are responses on PrawfsBlawg by Ethan Leib and Paul Horwitz, and another one back at LawCulture by Jessica Silbey. (I am sure the debate will go on, […]

We have pointed out before the parochial flavor of the current debate over intelligent design in the USA. Further proof comes from the Vatican of all places, reported today by the New York Times:
“If the model proposed by Darwin is not considered sufficient, one should search for another,” Fiorenzo Facchini, a professor of […]

I am reading Gonzales v. Oregon today, like everyone else, and I am reading what people have to say about the decision. I came across a post by Robert Tsai on Concurring Opinions, in which Tsai is counting justices:
But I have to think that Oregon is very, very lucky regarding the timing of the case.
Justice […]

Here is the syllabus of Stephen Stich’s seminar in experimental philosophy at Rutgers, which includes a useful reading list. (Hat tip to Brian Leiter for the link.) The course covers the following topics:

Free will, compatibilism & responsibility
The identity of objects
The nature of conceptual change in science
The reference […]

Check out Truth on the Market, a new blog co-founded by Geoff Manne and others. If the time that Geoff and I spent at Starbucks in DC disagreeing about pretty much everything related to antitrust and economics (such as this, and most certainly that) is any indication, we can look forward to flame wars spirited […]

Alexy captures the connection in four theses: All problems of general philosophy can arise in the context of legal philosophy (”general nature thesis”) There are problems specific to legal philosophy, due to the nature of its object (”special character thesisǃ?)… The “restrictive maxim” holdsfirst, that legal philosophy should never get involved in any genuinely philosophical problem, second, that legal philosophy should concentrate its efforts on the institutional or authoritative character of law, and, third, that legal philosophy should delegate critical normative questions to moral and political philosophy.