In this book, James Stoner's purpose is to recover the common law basis of American constitutionalism. American constitutionalism in general, he argues, and judicial review in particular, cannot be fully understood without acknowledging their roots in both common law and liberal political theory. But for the most part, the common law underpinnings of constitutionalism have received short shrift.
In this study, W. J. Waluchow argues that debates between defenders and critics of constitutional bills of rights presuppose that constitutions are more or less rigid entities. Within such a conception, constitutions aspire to establish stable, fixed points of agreement and pre-commitment, which defenders consider to be possible and desirable, while critics deem impossible and undesirable. Drawing on reflections about the nature of law, constitutions, the common law, and what it is to be a democratic representative, Waluchow urges a different theory of bills of rights that is flexible and adaptable. Adopting such a theory enables one not only to answer to critics' most serious challenges, but also to appreciate the role that a bill of rights, interpreted and enforced by unelected judges, can sensibly play in a constitutional democracy.
In his new book, Lewis D. Sargentich shows how two different kinds of legal argument - rule-based reasoning and reasoning based on principles and policies - share a surprising kinship and serve the same aspiration. He starts with the study of the rule of law in life, a condition of law that serves liberty - here called liberal legality. In pursuit of liberal legality, courts work to uphold people's legal entitlements and to confer evenhanded legal justice. Judges try to achieve the control of reason in law, which is manifest in law's coherence, and to avoid forms of arbitrariness, such as personal moral judgment. Sargentich offers a unified theory of the diverse ways of doing law, and shows that they all arise from the same root, which is a commitment to liberal legality.
In the late 20th century, the law of sexual offenses began to reflect a striking divergence. On the one hand, it became significantly more punitive in its approach to nonconsensual sexual conduct, as in the case of rape and sexual assault. On the other hand, it became more permissive in how it dealt with putatively consensual sex, such as sodomy, adultery, and adult pornography. This book explores the conceptual and normative implications of this divergence. In doing so, it assumes that the proper role of criminal law in a liberal state is to protect individuals in their right not to be subjected to sexual contact against their will, while also safeguarding their right to engage in (private, consensual) sexual conduct in which they do wish to participate. Although consistent in the abstract, these dual aims frequently come into conflict in practice, as is explored in the context of a wide range of offenses.
Collection of essays by well-known British and American philosophers on the moral principles by which public policies and political decisions should be judged: does effective political action necessarily involve and justify actions which the individual would regard as unacceptable in "private" morality?
"It is commonly assumed that the state must provide the law necessary to maintain a peaceful and orderly society, to regulate the market, and to protect the environment. In this part of the book, I argue that these assumptions derive from a false dilemma-from the belief that the only options are legal regulation by the state and no regulation. This overlooks a third option-the regulation of human behavior by binding rules that emerge from human interaction; most importantly, by common law civil liability. I argue that the recognition of this third possibility implies that a proper analysis requires a comparative assessment of the effectiveness of state-created law and emergent law. Chapter 1 offers such an assessment of the criminal law and tort law as mechanisms for reducing violence sufficiently to allow human cooperation and prosperity. Chapter 2 offers a comparative assessment of legislation and common law as mechanisms for ensuring that market exchanges do not impose costly, unconsented to harm of third parties. And Chapter 3 offers a similar assessment of legislation and common law as mechanisms for preventing environmental degradation"--
Legal scholarship is in a state of crisis, Laura Kalman argues in this history of the most prestigious field in law studies: constitutional theory. Since the time of the New Deal, says Kalman, most law scholars have identified themselves as liberals who believe in the power of the Supreme Court to effect progressive social change. In recent years, however, new political and interdisciplinary perspectives have undermined the tenets of legal liberalism, and liberal law professors have enlisted other disciplines in the attempt to legitimize their beliefs. Such prominent legal thinkers as Cass Sunstein, Bruce Ackerman, and Frank Michelman have incorporated the work of historians into their legal theories and arguments, turning to eighteenth-century republicanism--which stressed communal values and an active citizenry--to justify their goals. Kalman, a historian and a lawyer, suggests that reliance on history in legal thinking makes sense at a time when the Supreme Court repeatedly declares that it will protect only those liberties rooted in history and tradition. There are pitfalls in interdisciplinary argumentation, she cautions, for historians' reactions to this use of their work have been unenthusiastic and even hostile. Yet lawyers, law professors, and historians have cooperated in some recent Supreme Court cases, and Kalman concludes with a practical examination of the ways they can work together more effectively as social activists.
