Exploring the virtues (and vices) of zero tolerance arguments

The zero tolerance fallacy occurs when someone advocates or adopts a zero tolerance policy towards some activity or behaviour without seeing if there is evidence to support the view that such a policy is the best or most cost-effective way of preventing or reducing the unwanted behaviour. This paper explores the idea that, instead of thinking about what the zero tolerance fallacy is (or what zero tolerance fallacies are), argumentation theorists should try to characterize what features good arguments for zero tolerance policies must have

Legal Reasoning when the Supreme Court is Corrupt

This paper suggests a way of thinking about the legal reasoning done by conscientious judges working in a legal system during periods when those judges believed that their Supreme Court was malfunctioning. Seeing a legal system as a shared cooperative activity allows us to best understand how legal decision-making can remain consistent when it contains elements at the highest level which are believed not to be functioning properly

Commentary on: Brian MacPherson\u27s The incompleteness problem for a virtue-based theory of argumentation

N/

Biases, Bumps, Nudges, Query lists, and Zero Tolerance Policies

Zero tolerance policies are often mistakenly thought to be the best way to deal with pressing social problems. However, most arguments for zero tolerance policies are either based on inaccurate premises or they commit the zero tolerance fallacy. This paper explores ways that we might counteract the bias in favor of zero tolerance policies by adding a query list to the choice architecture

Commentary: Teaching Rational Decision Making: A Commentary on Mark Battersby’s “Practical Rationality: Critical Questions for Rational Decision Making”

A short commentary on Mark Battersby’s paper “Practical Rationality: Critical Questions for Rational Decision Making

Studies in Modern Choice-of-Law: Torts, Insurance, Land Titles

This is a collection of the more important articles on conflict of laws that Professor Hancock has written since 1960; in addition, it contains a chapter, hitherto unpublished, on Allstate Ins. Co. v. Hague,\u27 the Supreme Court\u27s most recent foray into constitutional limitations on the power of a state to apply its law in situations involving foreign facts. Many of us undoubtedly read the majority of these essays at the time when they first appeared in law review form. It is good that they are now available in a single book. We are thereby afforded a convenient opportunity to refresh a memory that may have grown dim and to gain a new insight into Professor Hancock\u27s thinking. Hancock is a brilliant and talented scholar. He is interested primarily in the methodology that he believes the courts should use in deciding choice-of-law questions. On this score, he evinces no doubt. He is sure that there is but one true path for courts to take, and he states his position forcefully and directly. No one can read this book without being challenged to give deep thought to what in his own view is the proper approach to choice of law. He can agree with Professor Hancock. But if he does not, he will almost surely feel forced to reevaluate-or at least to attempt to reevaluate-the alternative approach that he favors

Persuading Annoying Turtles: Blocking Conspiracies from Taking our Rationality

Recent work on Lewis Carroll’s “What the Tortoise Said to Achilles” sheds light not just on cases where one fails to be persuaded when one should be but also on cases where people are persuaded when they should not be. The recognition of impossibility that Carroll’s paper illuminates can help to show what goes wrong with some of those addicted to conspiracy theories