Emotion, Neuroscience, and Law: A Comment on Darwin and Greene

Darwin’s (1871) observation that evolution has produced in us certain emotions responding to right and wrong conduct that lack any obvious basis in individual utility is a useful springboard from which to clarify the role of emotion in moral judgment. The problem is whether a certain class of moral judgments is “constituted” or “driven by” emotion (Greene 2008, p. 108) or merely correlated with emotion while being generated by unconscious computations (e.g., Huebner et al. 2008). With one exception, all of the “personal” vignettes devised by Greene and colleagues (2001, 2004) and subsequently used by other researchers (e.g., Koenigs et al. 2007) in their fMRI and behavioral studies of emotional engagement in moral judgment involve violent crimes or torts. These studies thus do much more than highlight the role of emotion in moral judgment; they also support the classical rationalist thesis that moral rules are engraved in the mind

‘Plucking the Mask of Mystery from its Face’: Jurisprudence and H.L.A. Hart

Until recently, little was known of H.L.A. Hart\u27s private life. That has now changed with the publication of Nicola Lacey\u27s A Life of H.L.A. Hart: The Nightmare and the Noble Dream. Drawing on Hart\u27s notebooks and correspondence, Lacey paints an illuminating portrait of Hart, which reveals that despite his public success he struggled with internal perplexities, including his sexual orientation, Jewish identity, intellectual insecurity, and unconventional marriage. Yet, as critics have noted, the connection between these revelations and the development of Hart\u27s ideas is unclear. Moreover, one cannot help but wonder whether by focusing on these aspects of Hart\u27s personal life, Lacey has missed an opportunity to explore certain basic questions about his jurisprudence and its link to wider intellectual currents. For example, linguistics, psychology, and the philosophy of language and mind are much different today than they were in the 1940s and 1950s, yet Lacey does not discuss how such familiar events as the overthrow of logical positivism, the demise of behaviorism, the rise of generative linguistics, or the broader cognitive revolution of which they were a part actually impacted Hart or should influence our understanding of his legacy. Surprisingly, none of these developments are taken up in this book, leading one to ponder the significance of their absence. Likewise, one of the mysteries surrounding Hart is his attitude toward human rights. It is difficult to imagine a more direct repudiation of legal positivism than the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the broader human rights revolution it helped to promote. Yet Hart never seemed to notice or care. None of his rights-related essays of the 1940s and 1950s gives the Universal Declaration so much as a passing reference. Meanwhile, the topic of human rights is completely absent from The Concept of Law. We are therefore left with the following paradox: human rights is the idea of our time (Louis Henkin), yet the twentieth century\u27s leading legal philosopher had virtually nothing to say about them. Disappointingly, Lacey does not shed much light on these issues. Even after the publication of her biography of Hart, therefore, we lack a proper overall assessment of Hart\u27s place in the recent history of ideas. This Essay attempts to take an initial step in that direction, by examining a few select themes of Hart\u27s jurisprudence and Lacey\u27s interpretation of them in light of recent developments in philosophy, linguistics, cognitive science, and law. The central argument I make is that a genuinely puzzling aspect of Hart\u27s jurisprudence is how detached it now seems from many of the most important intellectual events of the past fifty years, including the modern revival of Universal Grammar, the cognitive revolution in the study of language and mind, and the human rights revolution in constitutional and international law, all of which would appear to have significant implications for the traditions of legal positivism, analytic jurisprudence, and epistemological empiricism with which Hart was associated

Dilemmas of Cultural Legality: A Comment on Roger Cotterrell\u27s \u27The Struggle for Law\u27 and a Criticism of the House of Lords\u27 Opinions in Begum

In “The Struggle for Law: Some Dilemmas of Cultural Legality,” Professor Roger Cotterrell argues that the law’s most distinctive aspiration is to promote a respectful exchange of ideas among different parts of a multicultural society. He illustrates his thesis with the House of Lords’ decision in Begum, describing it as “a relatively successful contribution to the process by which battlefields of rights are turned into areas of routine structuring” and finding much to admire in the messages communicated by the Lords in this case. I am more troubled by the Lords’ opinions in Begum and less convinced than Cotterrell seems to be that the court used it as an opportunity to promote successful cross-cultural dialogue. On close examination, the message it communicates to Muslims in Great Britain and elsewhere appears to be less that of mutual respect or “trans-cultural reasonableness” than of evasion and double standards. This conclusion rests on four main observations. First, although Article 9 of the European Convention on Human Rights requires courts to engage in a two-part analysis by first asking whether an individual’s religious freedom has been limited and then determining whether any such limitation can be justified, the Lords simply elide both the crucial distinction between purpose and incidental effects and the careful scrutiny of necessary means that are required for a proper legal analysis in this context. The school dress code policy in Begum appears to have targeted a certain type of religious clothing because of its character as religious clothing and the particular belief system it represents. Yet three of the judges held that the policy did not even limit religious freedom, and none of them made a serious attempt to show that this limitation was “necessary in a democratic society” as required by the ECHR. Second, a familiar lesson of both feminism and critical race theory is that rights discourse can often be uplifting for disadvantaged or marginalized populations, and that denying these individuals the chance to participate in that discourse, and to assert their rights, can be alienating or disempowering for them, serving mainly to reinforce their subordinate status. In this light, one of the most conspicuous features of Begum is the manner in which Shabina Begum and her family are chastised, scolded even, for approaching their dispute with school officials from a legal perspective and vigorously asserting her legal rights. Several of the Lords accept without comment the school’s portrayal of this behavior as “threatening” and add some unflattering characterizations of their own. Third, as Cotterrell perceptively observes, the House of Lords effectively “dilutes Shabina Begum’s individual claim by implicitly portraying it as something else: perhaps a politically motivated group claim” or “an insincere claim abstracted from her personal circumstances.” For example, the Lords emphasize that Begum elected to comply with the school’s dress code for two years before subsequently refusing to do so. Oddly, several of the judges imply that the school thereby obtained some kind of reliance interest in this behavior, as if an individual were not entitled to change her mind about what clothes to wear and thereafter modify her conduct accordingly. At the same time, the Lords pass right over the rather obvious differences between the ages of twelve and fourteen in the typical course of female adolescent development. Apart from a brief mention by Baroness Hale, one searches in vain for any serious analysis or recognition in these opinions of the fact that, over the course of these two years, Begum presumably had undergone puberty, crossing the threshold from girl to young woman, at least in her own eyes, and developing breasts, hips, and other adult characteristics, which she then wished to conceal, as a matter of sincere religious belief or otherwise. A more sympathetic decision might have considered these facts and Begum’s physical, cognitive, and emotional development generally from the perspective of familiar rites of passage like the Christian confirmation or Jewish bat mitzvah. Instead, the Lords often fall into the dismal pattern of exoticizing Begum and of viewing her largely unremarkable manifestation of adolescent independence through the prism of their own apparent multicultural anxieties. Finally, another indication that the Lords missed a valuable opportunity to promote successful cross-cultural dialogue in Begum is, paradoxically, the deference it displays to Islamic religious authorities. The court repeatedly relies on the approval of Muslim religious leaders to uphold the school’s dress code policy. To grasp the irony of appeals to religious authority in this context, one need only recall the central drama of the Reformation, which eventually paved the way for secular developments such as the Scientific Revolution and the Enlightenment, but which was above all else a revival of religion, as historian Roland Bainton observes. Luther’s famous, if perhaps apocryphal, declaration of autonomy has long been held to mean that no one should be compelled to accept the authority of intermediaries in matters of individual conscience. The Lords neglect to explain why this celebrated principle does not apply to Muslims like Shabina Begum. Isn’t she entitled to decide for herself which, if any, religious authorities to accept, without being forced to comply with the edicts of local Imams or “mainstream” Muslim opinion

Super-Rosenbluth Measurements with Electrons and Positrons

Precise measurements of the proton form factor ratio mu*GE/GM from Rosenbluth separation measurements can be combined with Polarization based extractions to provide significant constraints on two-photon exchange contributions to the elastic e-p cross section. We present an overview of JLab experiment E05-017, the high-precision Super-Rosenbluth measurements of the proton form factor taken in Hall C of Jefferson Lab. We then examine what precision could be obtained for Super-Rosenbluth measurements using a low-intensity positron beam at Jefferson Lab.Comment: 6 pages, 4 figures. Conference proceedings from JPOS17 (https://www.jlab.org/conferences/JPos2017/

Rawls’ Concept of Reflective Equilibrium and Its Original Function in A Theory of Justice

The aim of this Article is to explain the meaning and original function of reflective equilibrium in A Theory of Justice. To accomplish this objective, I first briefly clarify the technical nature of this concept and then summarize the main contractual argument of Rawls\u27 influential book (Part I). Next, I explain the meaning and function of reflective equilibrium in Sections 4 and 9 of A Theory of Justice, calling attention to several apparent and previously unnoticed differences between these two distinct accounts (Part II). I then discuss the distinction Rawls draws implicitly in A Theory of Justice and explicitly in Independence between narrow and wide reflective equilibrium (Part III). Finally, I discuss and criticize Daniels\u27 influential interpretation of the latter distinction, making plain the differences between Daniels\u27 deliberately non-psychological account of wide reflective equilibrium and Rawls\u27 own partly psychological account (Part IV). Throughout the article, my primary purpose is careful exegesis and analysis of what Rawls actually says about reflective equilibrium in A Theory of Justice and Independence. This effort is a necessary first step in clarifying many of the philosophical and jurisprudential debates that have surrounded the meaning and function of this concept, as well as many debates about the aims, scope, and authority of moral philosophy more generally during the past four decades

High throughput microbalance and methods of using same

The method and apparatus is particularly adapted for providing microbalance measurement of solid materials as part of a combinatorial research program. The method and apparatus contemplate monitoring the response of a resonator holding a sample and correlating the response with mass change in the samples