Reinventing American Jurisprudence: Law through the Lens of Value

(Hardback)

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This original approach to value provides a foundation for a new imaginative landscape in philosophy of law. "Value essentialism" identifies value formations such as a sacred cow and scapegoat tandem and the intensification of "oughtness" as it approaches sacred zenith values. Readers learn how Occams razor has been responsible for the death of many ideas; how the celebrated Other gains nuance as near and remote; and where a spectral assessment of probability and necessity leads. Analyses of Supreme Court cases grow out in different and exciting directions. Bell was not about eugenics, but another iteration of the value of efficiency and Yo Wick was as much about classism as it was about racism. Lochner involved not an ideological binary but three distinct value schemes. Separate but equal was refined as parallelism and exploitative tangents. In Brown, the Fourteenth Amendment took a significant subjective turn. In Heller, the communitarian position of stopping violence before it could start could be contrasted with the individualistic position of waiting until you see the whites of their eyes in your bedroom. Citizens United represented the best example of this axiological approach, raising the question: was the First Amendment designed to maximize participation or maximize democracy

Reviews

At a time when the U.S. legal system is coming under increased scrutiny over its possible complicity in enabling social inequality, racial injustice, and sexism, this critical analysis of the values underlying the major theories of law could not come at a better time.

This text makes crystal clear how the legal system is not merely a set of norms, but rather highlights the values and value tensions underlying high profile cases and decisions. This is an important contribution for those interested in deepening their knowledge of the philosophy of law.

Author Bio

George Miller is retired professor of philosophy.

Laura Brown is PhD candidate in philosophy at the University of Iowa.