This chapter discusses the repugnant income generating activities (“RIGA”) of phase I medical research, sex work, and plasma donation. Though each is a robust industry and substantial source of income and professional identity for many providers, significant debate surrounds whether participants in these industries are engaged in work, despite the subjective attitudes of participants themselves and objective similarities to other jobs. I show that repugnant work differs less from other work on nearly every relevant metric than is conventionally assumed and that this recognition carries social, legal, and economic consequences. The most thoughtful RIGA-as-work skeptics recognize this, urging a reevaluation of other jobs, or even work more generally. But the disproportionate focus on RIGA, as compared to other forms of work, and the continued invocation of false distinctions between RIGA and other jobs suggests that this attitude has yet to gain widespread acceptance.
The Supreme Court’s turn to “history and tradition” raises the critical question of what to do about “bad traditions.” If the customs of yore were...
This chapter discusses the repugnant income generating activities (“RIGA”) of phase I medical research, sex work, and plasma donation. Though each is...
We introduce altruism into standard models of bargaining and explore its implications for the Coase Theorem. A strict interpretation of the Coase...
This casebook provides an overview of the wide range of legal and ethical issues facing lawyers in practice. As did prior editions, the Seventh...
“In a time when disinformation is being laundered through government agencies, the responsibility to protect evidence-based care falls to courageous...
Constitutional scholars have long observed that the term “constitutional crisis” is overused. Pundits and scholars routinely use it to describe...
A distinct set of six institutions and traditions makes the country hard to subjugate to an authoritarian’s will.
Psychology and law, by their nature, are deeply entwined. Both are about human behavior – understanding it, modifying it, regulating it. Psychology’s...
Although ethical critiques of markets are longstanding, modern academic debates about the ‘moral limits of markets’ (MLM) tend to be fairly limited in...
Reconstructing Parentage is a comprehensive investigation into what makes someone a parent. Drawing on liberal-egalitarian philosophy, the book argues...
The Founders were not textualists. The letter of the law mattered quite a bit. But, as William Blackstone noted, interpretation also required the...
Leaders often try to amend constitutions to remove checks on their powers. To help protect against such democratic erosion, constitutional drafters...
In less than a decade, the Law and Political Economy Project (LPE) has become a significant force in legal academia and beyond. "Rooted in the insight...
This essay is a contribution to a special issue of the Florida State University Law Review in memory and honor of Dan Markel, who was tragically...
The term algorithmic fairness is used to assess whether machine learning algorithms operate fairly. To get a sense of when algorithmic fairness is at...
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...