Law and its Limits: Ethical Issues in Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein or, The Modern Prometheus

The law and literature movement is frequently associated with the use of literary images of law as a point of reflection upon the ethical obligations of lawyers. Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein (1818)—the story of a young scientist whose unorthodox experiments end up creating the famed “monster”—is not, at first glance, a likely candidate for that enterprise. However, Dr. Frankenstein’s ambition and ruthless pursuit of knowledge has become a contemporary image of science out of control and the need for ethical limitations on scientific progress. Consequently, the novel raises currently important issues of regulating science and technology. Given the lawyer’s ethical obligation to work for the improvement of the law, is Artificial Intelligence (“AI”) and the trend toward automated decision-making in legal contexts, the professions own out of control “monster?” Shelley’s novel includes depictions of injustice in unsympathetic criminal courts: two innocent characters are condemned to death, one on weak evidence and one for his religious beliefs alone, while another has his property cruelly confiscated. While Frankenstein raises issues pertaining to “Big E” ethics—such as the responsibility of lawyers for law reform and justice in society—it also engages our everyday concerns for injustice as reflected in relevant judicial codes of ethics and rules of professional conduct

Law’s Virtues: Fostering Autonomy and Solidarity in American Society

Non

Introduction (Chapter 1) of Stories About Science in Law: Literary and Historical Images of Acquired Expertise (Ashgate 2011)

This is the introductory chapter of Stories About Science in Law: Literary and Historical Images of Acquired Expertise (Ashgate, 2011), explaining that the book presents examples of how literary accounts can provide a supplement to our understanding of science in law. Challenging the view that law and science are completely different, I focus on stories that explore the relationship between law and science, and identify cultural images of science that prevail in legal contexts. In contrast to other studies on the transfer and construction of expertise in legal settings, the book considers the intersection of three interdisciplinary projects-- law and science, law and literature, and literature and science--in an effort to reimagine the use of science in the courtroom and in policy and regulatory settings