Dressed coordinates: the path-integrals approach

The recent introduced \textit{dressed coordinates} are studied in the path-integral approach. These coordinates are defined in the context of a harmonic oscillator linearly coupled to massless scalar field and, it is shown that in this model the dressed coordinates appear as a coordinate transformation preserving the path-integral functional measure. The analysis also generalizes the \textit{sum rules} established in a previous work.Comment: 9 pages, Latex2

Reconstituting Constitutions—Institutions and Culture: The Mexican Constitution and NAFTA: Human Rights \u3ci\u3evis-à-vis\u3c/i\u3e Commerce

The aim of this Essay is threefold. First, this Essay will focus on the main characteristics of both the great transformation, experienced in the Mexican institutional economic framework during the last thirty-five years, in general, and within the past twenty years, in particular, that were made through constitutional reforms. In addition, the greater expectation that such structural reforms generated in the process of re-enacting the constitution in the political context, should be along the lines of human rights and separation of powers. Second, this Essay will attempt to bring into play the role of treaties in this transformational process, by focusing the debate on whether the North American Trade Agreement (NAFTA), as an international treaty, regardless of its denomination, is constitutional. Furthermore, this debate will concentrate the discussion on the place of treaties in the hierarchy of norms, by critically analyzing a controversial jurisprudential criteria, according to which treaties are above federal laws. Third, this Essay will illustrate that in an eventual conflict between a treaty on commerce and another treaty on human rights, the later ought to prevail over the former

Natalie Stoljar’s Wishful Thinking and One Step Beyond: What Should Conceptual Legal Analysis Become?

Praising wishful thinking is a serious risk that the author is willing to run not only in this article commenting of Natalie Stoljar’s work but also elsewhere in his scholarship. The author will analyze her claims and will agree mostly with them, he will also criticize her for stopping one step short adopting the desirability or weaker claim, when in it is not merely possible but necessary to go one step beyond arguing for the necessity or stronger claim. The author intends to present further grounds for endorsing “conceptual (legal) analysis pluralism” by distinguishing the three different inquiry or projects that are and must be integrated and stating the normative priority of one of them, i.e. the prescriptive, interpretive, and moral

Ronald Dworkin’s Justice for Hedgehogs and Partnership Conception of Democracy (With a Comment to Jeremy Waldron’s \u27A Majority in the Lifeboat\u27)

In this article the author focuses mainly in the last part of Ronald Dworkin´s Justice for Hedgehogs and in his argument for a partnership conception of democracy. For that purpose, first, he recalls some of the main features that Dworkin had advanced in previous but intrinsically related works, about political morality, equality and democracy; second, he reassess the arguments for a partnership conception of democracy; third, he reconsiders the resistance produced by Jeremy Waldron in his “A Majority in the Lifeboat” and the response provided by Dworkin, but since it may appear insufficient, he intends to present an alternative—or complementary—riposte in order to meet Waldron’s challenge; and, finally, he insists in the importance of taking Ronald Dworkin seriously

The Legacy of Ronald Dworkin (1931-2013): A Legal Theory and Methodology for Hedgehogs, Hercules, and One Right Answers

In this paper the author addresses Ronald Dworkin’s work and assesses his legacy to legal, moral and political philosophy. And so, considers among its merits having developed an original legal theory with its distinctive methodology, which not only has transcended the Natural Law and Legal Positivism dichotomy, but also has reintegrated law into a branch of political morality and defended as a corollary the one right answer thesis. Hence, commences by identifying the dworkininan challenge; continues by introducing some basic definitions and distinctions between jurisprudence, legal philosophy (or philosophy of law) and legal theory (or theory of law), on the one hand, and its relationship to methodology, on the other hand; later by pointing out the main methodologies available to legal theories, following the distinctions between descriptive and prescriptive or normative, on one side, and, general and particular, on the other; then by revisiting Dworkin’s model, which he characterizes as constructive, interpretive (and even argumentative), evaluative and integrative; and, concludes by reconsidering in this light the one right answer thesis

More Than a Hot Neighborhood

Maybe you don’t have to care about what goes on outside of your little bubble, whether that’s Gettysburg or your hometown. After all, ignorance is bliss. But while you find comfort in your home, I find my comfort slipping away more and more each time I go back to what is supposed to be my haven. Where I once saw the small, familiar-looking apartment buildings, I now see daunting, tall buildings with impenetrable glass windows. Where I once saw local businesses thrive, I now only see the old rusty overhead doors with a bright red sign that says, “FOR RENT”. Maybe you don’t have to care but I do especially when a lot of changes are happening in my own home, East Harlem, otherwise known as “El Barrio”. Before you go on reading, take a moment to think about what the words “progress” and “development” mean to you and what do you think they look like? [excerpt

H. L. A. Hart’s Moderate Indeterminacy Thesis Reconsidered: In Between Scylla and Charybdis?

In this article, in the context of the fiftieth anniversary of H. L. A. Hart’s The Concept of Law, The author reconsiders the moderate indeterminacy of law thesis, which derives from the open texture of language. For that purpose, the author intends: first, to analyze Hart’s moderate indeterminacy thesis, i.e. determinacy in “easy cases” and indeterminacy in “hard cases,” which resembles Aristotle’s “doctrine of the mean”; second, to criticize his thesis as failing to embody the virtues of a center in between the vices of the extremes, by insisting that the exercise of discretion required constitutes an “interstitial” legislation; and, third, to reorganize an argument for a truly “mean” position, which requires a form of weak interpretative discretion, instead of a strong legislative discretion