About
Philosophical problems rest at the heart of each area of law. Criminal law punishes people for wronging others, but what conduct is wrong exactly, and do current criminal laws prohibit only such conduct? Civil rights law prohibits discrimination, but what kinds of differential treatment are morally troubling and why? Family law governs relationships among adults and between adults and children, but what right does the state have to intervene in our personal affairs and what rights and responsibilities do parents have with respect to children? Constitutional law offers special protection for freedom of speech and religion, but are speech and religion really special?
Latest Research
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In theoretical linguistics the word “pragmatics” refers to the roles of context and communicative intentions in the production of meaning. Those roles...
We introduce altruism into standard models of bargaining and explore its implications for the Coase Theorem. A strict interpretation of the Coase...
This Article develops a new way of understanding the law in order to address contemporary debates about judicial practice and reform. The...
A large segment of the political left identifies as “progressive,” but what does a belief in progress entail? This short essay, written for a...
Our perceptions of what we owe each other turn somewhat on whether we consider “another” to be “an other”—a stranger and not a friend. In this essay...
Constitutional theory is a mess. Disagreements about originalism and living constitutionalism have become intractable. Constitutional theorists make...
Faculty Director(s)
Deborah Hellman
Robert E. Scott Distinguished Professor of Law
Director, Center for Law & Philosophy