After the Great Recession: Law and Economics\u27 Topics of Invention and Arrangement and Tropes of Style

AFTER THE GREAT RECESSION: LAW AND ECONOMICS’ TOPICS OF INVENTION AND ARRANGEMENT AND TROPES OF STYLE by Michael D. Murray Abstract The Great Recession of 2008 and onward has drawn attention to the American economic and financial system, and has cast a critical spotlight on the theories, policies, and assumptions of the modern, neoclassical school of law and economics—often labeled the Chicago School —because this school of legal economic thought has had great influence on the American economy and financial system. The Chicago School\u27s positions on deregulation and the limitation or elimination of oversight and government restraints on stock markets, derivative markets, and other financial practices are the result of decades of neoclassical economic assumptions regarding the efficiency of unregulated markets, the near-religious-like devotion to a hyper-simplified conception of rationality and self-interest with regard to the persons and institutions participating in the financial system, and a conception of laws and government policies as incentives and costs in a manner that excludes the actual conditions and complications of reality. This Article joins the critical conversation on the Great Recession and the role of law and economics in this crisis by examining neoclassical and contemporary law and economics from the perspective of legal rhetoric. Law and economics has developed into a school of contemporary legal rhetoric that provides topics of invention and arrangement and tropes of style to test and improve general legal discourse in areas beyond the economic analysis of law. The rhetorical canons of law and economics—mathematical and scientific methods of analysis and demonstration; the characterization of legal phenomena as incentives and costs; the rhetorical economic concept of efficiency; and rational choice theory as corrected by modern behavioral social sciences, cognitive studies, and brain science—make law and economics a persuasive method of legal analysis and a powerful school of contemporary legal rhetoric, if used in the right hands. My Article is the first to examine the prescriptive implications of the rhetoric of law and economics for general legal discourse as opposed to examining the benefits and limitations of the economic analysis of law itself. This Article advances the conversation in two areas: first, as to the study and understanding of the persuasiveness of law and economics, particularly because that persuasiveness has played a role in influencing American economic and financial policy leading up to the Great Recession; and second, as to the study and understanding of the use of economic topics of invention and arrangement and tropes of style in general legal discourse when evaluated in comparison to the other schools of classical and contemporary legal rhetoric. I examine each of the rhetorical canons of law and economics and explain how each can be used to create meaning, inspire imagination, and improve the persuasiveness of legal discourse in every area of law. My conclusion is that the rhetorical canons of law and economics can be used to create meaning and inspire imagination in legal discourse beyond the economic analysis of law, but the canons are tools that only are as good as the user, and can be corrupted in ways that helped to bring about the current economic crisis

Cognitive context and arguments from ontologies for learning

The deployment of learning resources on the web by different experts has resulted in the accessibility of multiple viewpoints about the same topics. In this work we assume that learning resources are underpinned by ontologies. Different formalizations of domains may result from different contexts, different use of terminology, incomplete knowledge or conflicting knowledge. We define the notion of cognitive learning context which describes the cognitive context of an agent who refers to multiple and possibly inconsistent ontologies to determine the truth of a proposition. In particular we describe the cognitive states of ambiguity and inconsistency resulting from incomplete and conflicting ontologies respectively. Conflicts between ontologies can be identified through the derivation of conflicting arguments about a particular point of view. Arguments can be used to detect inconsistencies between ontologies. They can also be used in a dialogue between a human learner and a software tutor in order to enable the learner to justify her views and detect inconsistencies between her beliefs and the tutor’s own. Two types of arguments are discussed, namely: arguments inferred directly from taxonomic relations between concepts, and arguments about the necessary an

The intersection between Descriptivism and Meliorism in reasoning research: further proposals in support of 'soft normativism'

The rationality paradox centres on the observation that people are highly intelligent, yet show evidence of errors and biases in their thinking when measured against normative standards. Elqayam and Evans (e.g., 2011) reject normative standards in the psychological study of thinking, reasoning and deciding in favour of a ‘value-free’ descriptive approach to studying high-level cognition. In reviewing Elqayam and Evans’ position, we defend an alternative to descriptivism in the form of ‘soft normativism’, which allows for normative evaluations alongside the pursuit of descriptive research goals. We propose that normative theories have considerable value provided that researchers: (1) are alert to the philosophical quagmire of strong relativism; (2) are mindful of the biases that can arise from utilising normative benchmarks; and (3) engage in a focused analysis of the processing approach adopted by individual reasoners. We address the controversial ‘is–ought’ inference in this context and appeal to a ‘bridging solution’ to this contested inference that is based on the concept of ‘informal reflective equilibrium’. Furthermore, we draw on Elqayam and Evans’ recognition of a role for normative benchmarks in research programmes that are devised to enhance reasoning performance and we argue that such Meliorist research programmes have a valuable reciprocal relationship with descriptivist accounts of reasoning. In sum, we believe that descriptions of reasoning processes are fundamentally enriched by evaluations of reasoning quality, and argue that if such standards are discarded altogether then our explanations and descriptions of reasoning processes are severely undermined

The use of "no evidence" statements in public health

Public health communication makes extensive use of a linguistic formulation that will be called the "no evidence" statement. This is a written or spoken statement of the form "There is no evidence that P" where P stands for a proposition that typically describes a human health risk. Danger lurks in these expressions for the hearer or reader who is not logically perspicacious, as arguments that use them are only warranted under certain conditions. The extent to which members of the public are able to determine what those conditions are will be considered by examining data obtained from 879 subjects. The role of "no evidence" statements as cognitive heuristics in public health reasoning is considered

Approaching Proof in the Classroom Through the Logic of Inquiry

The paper analyses a basic gap, highlighted by most of the literature concerning the teaching of proofs, namely, the distance between students' argumentative and proving processes. The analysis is developed from both epistemological and cognitive standpoints: it critiques the Toulmin model of reasoning and introduces a new model, the Logic of Inquiry of Hintikka, more suitable for bridging this gap. An example of didactical activity within Dynamic Geometry Environments is sketched in order to present a concrete illustration of this approach and to show the pedagogical effectiveness of the model

Thinking skills in the context of Formal Logic, Informal Logic and Critical Thinking19

The aim of this essay is to explore the concept of thinking skills in three different contexts, i.e. Formal Logic, Informal Logic and Critical Thinking. The essay traces some contemporary historical connections between these approaches and illustrates differences and overlap between them by referring to the content pages of textbooks which are representative of the different approaches. In evaluating the historical developments sketched in the essay, the conclusion is reached that the open and pragmatic way in which Critical Thinking handles the topic of thinking skills has advantages for interdisciplinary contact and cooperation. However, this pragmatic approach also has a possible downside: the concept of thinking skills can become so vague as to be of no use

Deductive models and practical reasoning

Cognitive psychology investigates the structural properties of human reasoning. We review some achievements of this kind of research and give a critical evaluation of its methods

Nudging and the Ecological and Social Roots of Human Agency

List of Stress Shared Gene