Author: Mayo Moran
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
ISBN: 9780199247820
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 372
Book Description
The 'reasonable person' is used to assess the acceptability of behaviour in many areas of the law. This notion has attracted a great deal of criticism as it presupposes uncontested notions of 'normal' behaviour. This book explores whether there are deeper foundations to these criticisms.
Rethinking the Reasonable Person
Author: Mayo Moran
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
ISBN: 9780199247820
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 372
Book Description
The 'reasonable person' is used to assess the acceptability of behaviour in many areas of the law. This notion has attracted a great deal of criticism as it presupposes uncontested notions of 'normal' behaviour. This book explores whether there are deeper foundations to these criticisms.
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
ISBN: 9780199247820
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 372
Book Description
The 'reasonable person' is used to assess the acceptability of behaviour in many areas of the law. This notion has attracted a great deal of criticism as it presupposes uncontested notions of 'normal' behaviour. This book explores whether there are deeper foundations to these criticisms.
The Limits of Blame
Author: Erin I. Kelly
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 0674980778
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 241
Book Description
Faith in the power and righteousness of retribution has taken over the American criminal justice system. Approaching punishment and responsibility from a philosophical perspective, Erin Kelly challenges the moralism behind harsh treatment of criminal offenders and calls into question our society’s commitment to mass incarceration. The Limits of Blame takes issue with a criminal justice system that aligns legal criteria of guilt with moral criteria of blameworthiness. Many incarcerated people do not meet the criteria of blameworthiness, even when they are guilty of crimes. Kelly underscores the problems of exaggerating what criminal guilt indicates, particularly when it is tied to the illusion that we know how long and in what ways criminals should suffer. Our practice of assigning blame has gone beyond a pragmatic need for protection and a moral need to repudiate harmful acts publicly. It represents a desire for retribution that normalizes excessive punishment. Appreciating the limits of moral blame critically undermines a commonplace rationale for long and brutal punishment practices. Kelly proposes that we abandon our culture of blame and aim at reducing serious crime rather than imposing retribution. Were we to refocus our perspective to fit the relevant moral circumstances and legal criteria, we could endorse a humane, appropriately limited, and more productive approach to criminal justice.
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 0674980778
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 241
Book Description
Faith in the power and righteousness of retribution has taken over the American criminal justice system. Approaching punishment and responsibility from a philosophical perspective, Erin Kelly challenges the moralism behind harsh treatment of criminal offenders and calls into question our society’s commitment to mass incarceration. The Limits of Blame takes issue with a criminal justice system that aligns legal criteria of guilt with moral criteria of blameworthiness. Many incarcerated people do not meet the criteria of blameworthiness, even when they are guilty of crimes. Kelly underscores the problems of exaggerating what criminal guilt indicates, particularly when it is tied to the illusion that we know how long and in what ways criminals should suffer. Our practice of assigning blame has gone beyond a pragmatic need for protection and a moral need to repudiate harmful acts publicly. It represents a desire for retribution that normalizes excessive punishment. Appreciating the limits of moral blame critically undermines a commonplace rationale for long and brutal punishment practices. Kelly proposes that we abandon our culture of blame and aim at reducing serious crime rather than imposing retribution. Were we to refocus our perspective to fit the relevant moral circumstances and legal criteria, we could endorse a humane, appropriately limited, and more productive approach to criminal justice.
The Law's Flaws
Author: Larry Laudan
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781848901995
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 228
Book Description
This is a book about the law's failure as a system of empirical inquiry. While the US Supreme Court repeatedly says that the aim of a trial is to find out the truth about a crime, there is abundant evidence that many of the rules of evidence and legal procedure are not truth-conducive. Quite the contrary; many are truth-thwarting. Relevant evidence of defendant's guilt is often excluded; reasonable inferences from the available evidence are likewise often excluded. When a defendant elects not to testify, jurors are told to draw no inculpatory inferences from the former's refusal to be questioned. If evidence of prior crimes committed by the defendant is admitted (and often it is excluded), jurors are strictly told to use them only for deciding whether the defendant lied during his testimony and not as evidence of his guilt. Making matters worse, the most important evidence rule of all (saying that defendant can be convicted only if there are no reasonable doubts about his guilt) is monumentally vague; and judges are under firm instruction to decline jurors' frequent requests to explain what a 'reasonable doubt' is. Lastly, this book examines the fact that American courts collect little information about how often they convict the innocent and no information about how often they acquit the guilty. This is tragic because ignorance of the error rates in trials and in plea bargains means that citizens have no grounds for confidence in the judicial system; such a condition of non-transparency should be unacceptable in a democracy. Reform is urgent and this book sketches some of the necessary changes.
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781848901995
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 228
Book Description
This is a book about the law's failure as a system of empirical inquiry. While the US Supreme Court repeatedly says that the aim of a trial is to find out the truth about a crime, there is abundant evidence that many of the rules of evidence and legal procedure are not truth-conducive. Quite the contrary; many are truth-thwarting. Relevant evidence of defendant's guilt is often excluded; reasonable inferences from the available evidence are likewise often excluded. When a defendant elects not to testify, jurors are told to draw no inculpatory inferences from the former's refusal to be questioned. If evidence of prior crimes committed by the defendant is admitted (and often it is excluded), jurors are strictly told to use them only for deciding whether the defendant lied during his testimony and not as evidence of his guilt. Making matters worse, the most important evidence rule of all (saying that defendant can be convicted only if there are no reasonable doubts about his guilt) is monumentally vague; and judges are under firm instruction to decline jurors' frequent requests to explain what a 'reasonable doubt' is. Lastly, this book examines the fact that American courts collect little information about how often they convict the innocent and no information about how often they acquit the guilty. This is tragic because ignorance of the error rates in trials and in plea bargains means that citizens have no grounds for confidence in the judicial system; such a condition of non-transparency should be unacceptable in a democracy. Reform is urgent and this book sketches some of the necessary changes.
Reasonableness and Law
Author: Giorgio Bongiovanni
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN: 1402085001
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 462
Book Description
Reasonableness is at the centre of legal debate, both in academic circles and in practice. This unique reference work adopts an interdisciplinary perspective, merging jurisprudence, legal theory, political philosophy and the different branches of law. All aspects relating to reasonableness and law are addressed by the most prominent scholars in the field. In the first part of the book, the focus is on jurisprudential analyses of the concept of reasonableness and on its moral, political and constitutional implications. In the second part, reasonableness is examined in the different fields of law like Public, Private and International Law. Here in more detail the practical consequences of reasonableness are worked out, making this work of interest to practitioners as well as legal theorists.
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN: 1402085001
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 462
Book Description
Reasonableness is at the centre of legal debate, both in academic circles and in practice. This unique reference work adopts an interdisciplinary perspective, merging jurisprudence, legal theory, political philosophy and the different branches of law. All aspects relating to reasonableness and law are addressed by the most prominent scholars in the field. In the first part of the book, the focus is on jurisprudential analyses of the concept of reasonableness and on its moral, political and constitutional implications. In the second part, reasonableness is examined in the different fields of law like Public, Private and International Law. Here in more detail the practical consequences of reasonableness are worked out, making this work of interest to practitioners as well as legal theorists.
Rethinking Race
Author: Michael O. Hardimon
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 0674975669
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 241
Book Description
Many scholars and activists seek to eliminate “race”—the word and the concept—from our vocabulary. Their claim is clear: because science has shown that racial essentialism is false and because the idea of race has proved virulent, we should do away with the concept entirely. Michael O. Hardimon criticizes this line of thinking, arguing that we must recognize the real ways in which race exists in order to revise our understanding of its significance. Rethinking Race provides a novel answer to the question “What is race?” Pernicious, traditional racialism maintains that people can be judged and ranked according to innate racial features. Hardimon points out that those who would eliminate race make the mistake of associating the word only with this view. He agrees that this concept should be jettisoned, but draws a distinction with three alternative ideas: first, a stripped-down version of the ordinary concept of race that recognizes minimal physical differences between races but does not consider them significant; second, a scientific understanding of populations with shared lines of descent; and third, an acknowledgment of “socialrace” as a separate construction. Hardimon provides a language for understanding the ways in which races do and do not exist. His account is realistic in recognizing the physical features of races, as well as the existence of races in our social world. But it is deflationary in rejecting the concept of hierarchical or defining racial characteristics. Ultimately, Rethinking Race offers a philosophical basis for repudiating racism without blinding ourselves to reality.
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 0674975669
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 241
Book Description
Many scholars and activists seek to eliminate “race”—the word and the concept—from our vocabulary. Their claim is clear: because science has shown that racial essentialism is false and because the idea of race has proved virulent, we should do away with the concept entirely. Michael O. Hardimon criticizes this line of thinking, arguing that we must recognize the real ways in which race exists in order to revise our understanding of its significance. Rethinking Race provides a novel answer to the question “What is race?” Pernicious, traditional racialism maintains that people can be judged and ranked according to innate racial features. Hardimon points out that those who would eliminate race make the mistake of associating the word only with this view. He agrees that this concept should be jettisoned, but draws a distinction with three alternative ideas: first, a stripped-down version of the ordinary concept of race that recognizes minimal physical differences between races but does not consider them significant; second, a scientific understanding of populations with shared lines of descent; and third, an acknowledgment of “socialrace” as a separate construction. Hardimon provides a language for understanding the ways in which races do and do not exist. His account is realistic in recognizing the physical features of races, as well as the existence of races in our social world. But it is deflationary in rejecting the concept of hierarchical or defining racial characteristics. Ultimately, Rethinking Race offers a philosophical basis for repudiating racism without blinding ourselves to reality.
Rethinking Life and Death
Author: Peter Singer
Publisher: Macmillan
ISBN: 9780312144012
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 268
Book Description
In a reassessment of the meaning of life and death, a noted philosopher offers a new definition for life that contrasts a world dependent on biological maintenance with one controlled by state-of-the-art medical technology.
Publisher: Macmillan
ISBN: 9780312144012
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 268
Book Description
In a reassessment of the meaning of life and death, a noted philosopher offers a new definition for life that contrasts a world dependent on biological maintenance with one controlled by state-of-the-art medical technology.
Rethinking Consumer Protection
Author: Thomas Tacker
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 1498577423
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 189
Book Description
For many decades consumer protection laws have focused on preventing “bad” choices. Though that approach has some value, this book explains we are much more often harmed, even killed, by the needless delay of new inventions that could save lives or vastly improve life quality. Thomas Tacker explains how we can revamp regulation to embrace inventions that save and improve lives while still holding companies accountable for actions that harm consumers. Case studies include price gouging, the FDA approval process, airport passenger screening, and occupational licensing, particularly as it relates to Uber. This book demonstrates that enacting appropriate liability laws and providing information to guide consumers, rather than strictly controlling their choices, will save thousands of lives annually, increase consumer freedom, and make life more enjoyable.
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 1498577423
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 189
Book Description
For many decades consumer protection laws have focused on preventing “bad” choices. Though that approach has some value, this book explains we are much more often harmed, even killed, by the needless delay of new inventions that could save lives or vastly improve life quality. Thomas Tacker explains how we can revamp regulation to embrace inventions that save and improve lives while still holding companies accountable for actions that harm consumers. Case studies include price gouging, the FDA approval process, airport passenger screening, and occupational licensing, particularly as it relates to Uber. This book demonstrates that enacting appropriate liability laws and providing information to guide consumers, rather than strictly controlling their choices, will save thousands of lives annually, increase consumer freedom, and make life more enjoyable.
Rethinking Homework
Author: Cathy Vatterott
Publisher: ASCD
ISBN: 141662659X
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 198
Book Description
In this updated edition, Cathy Vatterott examines the role homework has played in the culture of schooling over the years; how such factors as family life, the media, and "homework gap" issues based on shifting demographics have affected the homework controversy; and what recent research as well as common sense tell us about the effects of homework on student learning. She also explores how the current homework debate has been reshaped by forces including the Common Core, a pervasive media and technology presence, the mass hysteria of "achievement culture," and the increasing shift to standards-based and formative assessment. The best way to address the homework controversy is not to eliminate homework. Instead, the author urges educators to replace the old paradigm (characterized by long-standing cultural beliefs, moralistic views, and behaviorist philosophy) with a new paradigm based on the following elements: Designing high-quality homework tasks; Differentiating homework tasks; Deemphasizing grading of homework; Improving homework completion; and Implementing homework support programs. Numerous examples from teachers and schools illustrate the new paradigm in action, and readers will find useful new tools to start them on their own journey. The end product is homework that works—for all students, at all levels.
Publisher: ASCD
ISBN: 141662659X
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 198
Book Description
In this updated edition, Cathy Vatterott examines the role homework has played in the culture of schooling over the years; how such factors as family life, the media, and "homework gap" issues based on shifting demographics have affected the homework controversy; and what recent research as well as common sense tell us about the effects of homework on student learning. She also explores how the current homework debate has been reshaped by forces including the Common Core, a pervasive media and technology presence, the mass hysteria of "achievement culture," and the increasing shift to standards-based and formative assessment. The best way to address the homework controversy is not to eliminate homework. Instead, the author urges educators to replace the old paradigm (characterized by long-standing cultural beliefs, moralistic views, and behaviorist philosophy) with a new paradigm based on the following elements: Designing high-quality homework tasks; Differentiating homework tasks; Deemphasizing grading of homework; Improving homework completion; and Implementing homework support programs. Numerous examples from teachers and schools illustrate the new paradigm in action, and readers will find useful new tools to start them on their own journey. The end product is homework that works—for all students, at all levels.
The Reasonable Robot
Author: Ryan Abbott
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1108472125
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 165
Book Description
Argues that treating people and artificial intelligence differently under the law results in unexpected and harmful outcomes for social welfare.
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1108472125
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 165
Book Description
Argues that treating people and artificial intelligence differently under the law results in unexpected and harmful outcomes for social welfare.
Rethinking Commonsense Psychology
Author: Matthew Ratcliffe
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 023028700X
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 283
Book Description
This book offers arguments against the view that interpersonal understanding involves a 'folk' or 'commonsense' psychology, a view which Ratcliffe suggests is a theoretically motivated abstraction. His alternative account draws on phenomenology, neuroscience and developmental psychology, exploring patterned interactions in shared social situations.
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 023028700X
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 283
Book Description
This book offers arguments against the view that interpersonal understanding involves a 'folk' or 'commonsense' psychology, a view which Ratcliffe suggests is a theoretically motivated abstraction. His alternative account draws on phenomenology, neuroscience and developmental psychology, exploring patterned interactions in shared social situations.