Subscribe to get Parts 1 and 2 ad-free, plus a supporter exclusive Part 3. Continuing from part one on Ronald Dworkin's "Unenumerated Rights: Whether and How Roe Should be Overruled" (1992) and the Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization (2021) decision featuring guest Robin Linsenmayer. Sponsors: Visit StoryWorth.com/pel to save $10 making it easy for your loved Continue Reading …
Ep. 306: Dworkin and the Dobbs Decision (Part One)
Subscribe to get parts 1 and 2 of this now, ad-free. Does the U.S. Constitution guarantee the right to an abortion? Mark, Wes, Dylan, and Seth are joined by lawyer/sister Robin Linsenmayer to discuss Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization (2021) and Ronald Dworkin's "Unenumerated Rights: Whether and How Roe Should be Overruled" (1992). We previously considered Continue Reading …
Ep. 306: Dworkin and the Dobbs Decision (Part Two for Supporters)
Continuing from part one on Ronald Dworkin's "Unenumerated Rights: Whether and How Roe Should be Overruled" (1992) and the Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization (2021) decision featuring guest Robin Linsenmayer. Dworkin thinks that the distinction between enumerated and unenumerated rights really doesn't make sense. All legal language is vague and requires Continue Reading …
Ep. 306: Dworkin and the Dobbs Decision (Part One for Supporters)
Does the U.S. Constitution guarantee the right to an abortion? Mark, Wes, Dylan, and Seth are joined by lawyer/sister Robin Linsenmayer to discuss Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization (2021) and Ronald Dworkin's "Unenumerated Rights: Whether and How Roe Should be Overruled" (1992). We previously considered Dworkin's take on what judges do when law is ambiguous. Continue Reading …
Ep. 304: Dworkin v. Hart on Legal Judgment (Part One)
Subscribe to get parts 1 and 2 of this now, ad-free. On Ronald Dworkin's "The Model of Rules" (1967) and Scott J. Shapiro's "The 'Hart-Dworkin' Debate: A Short Guide for the Perplexed" (2007). How do judges make decisions in hard cases? When the law "runs out" and doesn't definitively decide, e.g., whether we have a general "right of privacy," do judges then just draw Continue Reading …
Ep. 304: Dworkin v. Hart on Legal Judgment (Part Two for Supporters)
Continuing from part one on Roland Dworkin's "The Model of Rules" (1967) and Scott J. Shapiro's "The 'Hart-Dworkin' Debate: A Short Guide for the Perplexed" (2007), plus some of Dworkin's "Hard Cases" (1977). We go through some responses by Hartians to Dworkin's initial attack, revisiting the issue of whether judges can employ moral considerations when making decisions, or Continue Reading …
Ep. 304: Dworkin v. Hart on Legal Judgment (Part One for Supporters)
On Ronald Dworkin's "The Model of Rules" (1967) and Scott J. Shapiro's "The 'Hart-Dworkin' Debate: A Short Guide for the Perplexed" (2007). How do judges make decisions in hard cases? When the law "runs out" and doesn't definitively decide, e.g., whether we have a general "right of privacy," do judges then just draw on their personal moral judgment in deciding cases? And if Continue Reading …
Ep. 303: H.L.A. Hart on the Foundations of Law (Part Two)
Subscribe to get Parts 1 and 2 ad-free, plus a supporter exclusive Part 3. Continuing from part one on "Positivism and the Separation of Law and Morals" (1958) and The Concept of Law (1961), ch. 5 and 6. If law is not based on morality, then why obey the law? Hart claims that it's just a fact that most of us feel most of the time that we should obey the law. If this Continue Reading …
Ep. 303: H.L.A. Hart on the Foundations of Law (Part Three for Supporters)
On The Concept of Law (1961), ch. 6, "Foundations of a Legal System." This chapter goes into detail about Hart's "rule of recognition," which is what is supposed to foundationally make something legitimately a law in a given society. How can we identify something as a law? In Britain, Hart says it's when the Queen in Parliament declares something to be a law (note that I say Continue Reading …
Ep. 303: H.L.A. Hart on the Foundations of Law (Part One)
Subscribe to get parts 1 and 2 of this now, ad-free. On "Positivism and the Separation of Law and Morals" (1958) and The Concept of Law (1961), ch. 5 and 6. What's the relationship between law and morality? If law isn't founded on morality, what is it founded on? Hart was a leading figure in the philosophy of law, and wrote in the tradition of legal positivism that goes Continue Reading …
Ep. 303: H.L.A. Hart on the Foundations of Law (Part Two for Supporters)
Continuing from part one on "Positivism and the Separation of Law and Morals" (1958) and The Concept of Law (1961), ch. 5 and 6. If law is not based on morality, then why obey the law? Hart claims that it's just a fact that most of us feel most of the time that we should obey the law. If this isn't the case, then Hart says there is no law in that society at all, whatever Continue Reading …
Ep. 303: H.L.A. Hart on the Foundations of Law (Part One for Supporters)
On "Positivism and the Separation of Law and Morals" (1958) and The Concept of Law (1961), ch. 5 and 6. What's the relationship between law and morality? If law isn't founded on morality, what is it founded on? Hart was a leading figure in the philosophy of law, and wrote in the tradition of legal positivism that goes back to the British Utilitarians John Austin and before Continue Reading …
Ep. 278: Derrick Bell on the Dynamics of Racism (Part Two for Supporters)
Continuing from part one on Faces At the Bottom of the Well: The Permanence of Racism (1992), with guest Lawrence Ware. We discuss mainly "The Racial Preference Licensing Act" (ch. 3), "Divining a Racial Realism Theory" (ch. 5), and "The Rules of Racial Standing" (ch. 6). The first of these essays plays with an idea (attributed to his fictional alter ego Geneva Crenshaw) Continue Reading …
Ep. 278: Derrick Bell on the Dynamics of Racism (Part One for Supporters)
On Faces At the Bottom of the Well: The Permanence of Racism (1992), a foundational text in critical race theory that presents stories and essays related chiefly to the philosophy of law. Lawrence Ware returns to talk with Mark, Seth, and Dylan about "The Space Traders." What is racism, and how can we measure its acuity? Bell thinks that an argument that racism in America Continue Reading …
Ep. 278: Derrick Bell on the Dynamics of Racism (Part One)
Subscribe to get Part 2 of this episode. Listen to a preview. Hear this part ad-free. On Faces At the Bottom of the Well: The Permanence of Racism (1992), a foundational text in critical race theory that presents stories and essays related chiefly to the philosophy of law. Lawrence Ware returns to talk with Mark, Seth, and Dylan about "The Space Traders." What is Continue Reading …
Aquinas, MLK, and the Philosophical Foundations of Equal Protection
Natural law seems like a relic, remembered only by Catholics who use it as thin grounds for odd sexual theories: the evil of condoms, the intrinsic disorder of homosexuals. Undeterred, our Not School Philosophy of Law group decided to take a look at this relic, including selections from Aquinas and Martin Luther King. It turns out to provide some interesting foundations for our Continue Reading …
Stories We Tell: A Review of Michael Sandel’s Democracy’s Discontent
The stories we tell ourselves are important to who we are. Moreover, the identities we come to have are in large measure shaped by our social ties. We can agree with Michael Sandel that “we cannot regard ourselves as independent ... without great cost to those loyalties and convictions whose moral force consists partly in the fact that living by them is Continue Reading …