Virtuous Circularity: Positive Law and Particular Justice

This paper argues that the positive allocative decisions paradigmatically carried out by the application of legal rules are a necessary condition for arguments about particular justice (i.e., distributive and commutative justice) to make sense. If one shifts the focus from the distinction between distributive and commutative justice to what the two aspects of particular justice are for, namely, providing criteria to judge the allocation of goods, it becomes clear that the distinction is conceptually unstable. The paper argues that stabilizing the distinction is worthwhile and that this can only be accomplished by the introduction of positive allocation schemes.     

Positive versus Negative Framing Affects Justice Judgments

This research demonstrates the effect of framing on justice judgments. Presenting identical allocation situations in different modes of accomplishing the resource allocation, resulting in either positive (benefits) or negative (harms) outcomes, affects justice judgments. Two independent studies revealed that participants judged non-egalitarian principles (i.e., merit, ability, effort, need, and tenure) as more just when allocation of a resource was presented in the positive framing manner (e.g., to deliver goods or to withhold bads) relative to presenting the exact same resource allocated in a negative framing manner (e.g., to deliver bads or to withhold goods). It is suggested that the way resource allocation is framed evokes favorable (or unfavorable) associations that cause people to judge the situation as more (or less) just.     

Ex Ante and Ex Post Allocation of Risk of Illegality: Regulatory Sources of Contractual Failure and Issues of Corrective and Distributive Justice

The pursuit of welfare objectives through contract law rules could be exemplified in the case of illegality and subsequent nullity sanctions attached to a contract that violates certain regulatory rules. The effectiveness of contractual allocation of risk of illegality (regulatory prohibitions), therefore, varies, depending on which contract theory prevails. Maintaining the validity of a prohibited and failed contract, and allocation of the relevant risks, is crucially dependent on whether we adhere to a welfare or rights-based theory of contract. In this paper we argue that impossibility of ex ante and ex post allocation of risk of illegality is the logical outcome of the adherence to a welfare theory of contract law, as maintaining even a minimum validity of the failed contract would result in some welfare losses. According to this approach unjust enrichment could not be rectified because it would diminish the optimal enforcement of welfare objectives. On the other hand, and despite such prohibition and illegality, a rights-based theory would resist opportunistic and rent-seeking behaviour and would ensure the validity of the contract and just allocation of losses and gains, which arise from the failure of the prohibited contract.     

The “Economic Battle” Now and Then: (E)valuation Patterns of Distributive Justice in Cuban State-Socialism

This article disentangles and explores some commonly made assumptions about egalitarian state-socialist ideologies. Based on the conceptual framework of the multiprinciple approach of justice, it presents the results of an in-depth analysis of (e)valuation patterns of distributive justice in Cuban state-socialism. The analysis mainly focuses on ideational conceptions of distributive justice (just rewards), but it also accounts for distribution outcomes and resulting (in)equalities (actual rewards). The results of the comparative case study of the Cuban framework of institutions and political leaders’ views in two periods of time, the early 1960s and the 2010s, point to (e)valuation patterns that are generally labelled as egalitarian, such as the allocation rules of outcome equality and (non-functional) needs. However, contrary to common assumptions about egalitarian state-socialist ideologies, the results also point to several other patterns, including equity rules as well as functional and productivist allocation rules. I argue that many of these (e)valuation patterns, in their connection to the discursive storyline of the Cuban economic battle, are indeed compatible with egalitarian state-socialist ideology.

     

‘Citizens’ and ‘Foreigners’ in EU Law. Migration Law and its Cosmopolitan Outlook

Migration has become a controversial subject across Europe and beyond. At the same time, the EU has built up an impressive set of rules for third‐country nationals over the past two decades, which—unlike the mobility of EU citizens—received comparatively little attention apart from immigration and asylum specialists. This contribution presents the constitutional framework for ‘migration law’ towards third‐country nationals and shows in how far they depart from the paradigm of intra‐European mobility. It will be argued that differences can be rationalised by divergent objectives and do, nonetheless, not present a move towards ‘fortress Europe’. EU migration law maintains the distinction between citizens and foreigners at the same time as it protects migrants, including refugees. By accommodating migrants' rights and self‐government, EU migration law can be construed as an endeavour to replace traditional notions of alienage with constitutional rules with a cosmopolitan outlook.     

我国公民参与公共决策的问题探究

公民参与公共决策是公民个人或组织通过直接或间接方式影响公共政策制定的行为,其目的是实现公共资源的有效配置,达到公共利益的最大化、合理化。随着市场经济和民主政治的发展,公民主体意识、利益意识和自主意识逐渐形成,公民不再只是被动地接受政府所提供的公共产品和公共服务,还会就公共产品和服务的质量提出自己的意见或建议。公民在公共决策中的主体地位日益凸现。因此,公共决策中的公民参与已成为政府和公民普遍关注的问题。本文探讨了我国公民参与公共决策的必要性,分析了公民参与公共决策所面临的问题与困境,并提出一些建议和措施,旨在为公民参与公共决策提供借鉴。     

Class Jurisprudes: Free Labor Ideology and For‐Profit Penal Labor in Gilded Age Courts

For‐profit penal servitude flourished in Gilded Age America. Prisoners produced consumer goods inside factory‐penitentiaries for private enterprise. Regulations protecting free labor encountered litigation by businesses invested in carceral capitalism. Judges who defended “liberty of contract,” maintained “state neutrality,” and condemned “class legislation” exhibited a different approach when evaluating labeling laws. Such statutes were seemingly consonant with the free labor ideology that dominated appellate benches—they remediated markets distorted by state‐created privileges. Yet courts routinely struck them down. This article argues that judges were motivated by a class‐infused framework structuring interpretation of facts and aliening lower‐class Americans. Judges perceived workingmen who sought remedial assistance as seeking class legislation; they saw prison inmates and products as ordinary workers and goods, not as captive manpower and state‐subsidized wares. Jurisprudence bent and bowed from judges’ values and associations. This article thus reintroduces the explanatory power of class to the Lochner era through judicial subjectivity.     

The Argument of Rightness as an Element of the Discretionary Power of the Administrative Judge

The article concerns the situation of the judicial application of the law where the entity applying the law refers in a decision-making process to moral principles. The decision should be based on the directives of interpretation, which indicate the need for such a determination of the meaning of the applicable norms so that it remains in harmony with commonly accepted moral rules of the society. The equity (understood as rightness) has one more purpose; namely, it allows for the process of decision-making—and not just for the process of unifying the decisions—since the mere rule does not specify the algorithm of undertaking them. This rule thus assumes that it will be further specified by phronesis judge who in a given situation will determine—for the purposes of a particular decision—a hierarchy between the criteria of substantive justice “embedded” in this rule. The reference to equity (rightness) stands for the concretization of an unspecified general rule. We deal here with an indefinite general rule, the application of which is facilitated by a reference to rightness.

     

Simple monetary rules: many strengths and few weaknesses

This paper endeavors to examine the basic idea in Richard Epstein’s book Simple Rules for a Complex World. It does so by considering a specific simple rule which was explicitly designed for complex world. A basic idea in Epstein’s book is that the more complex is the world the better is the case for simple rules. To show this, he develops six simple rules pertaining to the rights of individuals, first possession, contracts, torts, government eminent domain and the power of taxation to provide public goods. This paper considers one rule rather than six rules, and it looks at monetary policy rather than policy in general. While the context is different, the case for simple rules made here provides a useful comparison with the case made by Epstein.

     

Political Expertise, Social Worldviews, and Ideology: Translating “Competitive Jungles” and “Dangerous Worlds” into Ideological Reality

The psychological bases of ideology have received renewed attention amid growing political polarization. Nevertheless, little research has examined how one’s understanding of political ideas might moderate the relationship between “pre-political” psychological variables and ideology. In this paper, we fill this gap by exploring how expertise influences citizens’ ability to select ideological orientations that match their psychologically rooted worldviews. We find that expertise strengthens the relationship between two basic social worldviews—competitive-jungle beliefs and dangerous-world beliefs and left–right self-placement. Moreover, expertise strengthens these relationships by boosting the impact of the worldviews on two intervening ideological attitude systems—social dominance orientation and right-wing authoritarianism. These results go beyond previous work on expertise and ideology, suggesting that expertise strengthens not only relationships between explicitly political attitudes but also the relationship between political attitudes and their psychological antecedents.     

法律诠释与意识形态

本文从法律诠释与权利分配之关系入手 ,论述了法律诠释与意识形态之间的必然关联。任何法律诠释总是和一定的利益要求及对该种利益要求的规范调整相关的 ,这是决定法律诠释与意识形态必然关联之内因。在此基础上 ,文章站在批判立场 ,逐层对法律诠释理论和实践做了反思 ,并提出通过对话与整合 ,以“超越”法律诠释之意识形态属性的可能思路。     

无单放货的法律适用

在将无单放货定性为违约行为的前提下,以我国的国际私法规则为基础,论述了无单放货纠纷的法律适用问题:无单放货纠纷首先应适用提单准据法,在提单准据法不能规范无单放货行为时,应根据最密切联系原则确定无单放货地的法律作为无单放货纠纷的准据法。同时也分析了外国的直接适用的法、无单放货地公法适用的可能性,并指出根据中国立法,不存在根据场所支配行为而确定无单放货行为适用行为地法的可能。     

论道路交通事故损害赔偿责任归责原则的博弈分析

道路交通事故责任分担关系到社会资源配置的公正与效率。从博弈论的研究视角出发,比较了多种不同的责任制度。交通事故责任规则能否达到预期目的,主要取决于该规则对行为人产生的激励和约束效应。     

法学话语中的法律解释规则

法律解释方法的核心是法律解释规则,即各种理解、解释和运用法律的规则。几乎所有关于法律解释方法的理论,其目标都是探寻法律解释规则的构建与运用。为了证成这一判断,梳理与不同意识形态相匹配的具体法律方法很有必要。这种概括不是对法律方法纯粹历史的考察,重心在于说明法律解释规则的实践意义。我国的法律方法论研究即将进入第二个发展阶段,即在关注一般理论研究的基础上,开始法律解释规则及其运用研究。这是展现法学理论和法律方法论实用品格的开始。对法律解释规则的认识可以从多个角度展开,重点从法治意识形态、法律方法的进化以及与相近概念的比较三个方面进行诠释。     

THE SOCIAL DETERMINANTS OF GUN OWNERSHIP: SELF-PROTECTION IN AN URBAN ENVIRONMENT*

Based on a survey of 539 residents of Cincinnati, this study assesses various explanations of gun ownership. The analysis reveals that gender and childhood socialization into a gun culture are significantly related to protective and general (or “sport”) firearm possession. In contrast, only protective gun ownership appears to be linked to crime-related factors. Conservative crime ideology and concern about the relative level of crime in one's neighborhood increase armament for defensive purposes, while informal collective security—the belief that neighbors will provide assistance against criminal victimization—reduces protective gun ownership.     

移动设备电子搜查的制度挑战与程序规制——以英美法为比较对象

评估执法的正当需求和手机用户的合法权益成为移动互联网时代的程序规制命题。移动设备搜查对警察权力的重要性和公民权利保护的重要性日益凸显,应当将移动设备视为人们具有合理信赖的一个信息隐私空间。英国、美国的手机搜查规范上的域内不统一导致搜查实践的多样态、公民权利的保护缺陷。但其应对证据的移动电子化的基本思路——根据信息种类或其他变量进行立法,区别对待搜查条件——对中国相关搜查问题的解释和解决具有镜鉴意义。我国需要考虑确立获得搜查批准的原则,通过类型化规则给执法提供明确指导,并且明确搜查后的系列权利保障,进行电子搜查规则的适时调整与动态平衡。     

The ethics of competition

This paper analyzes the ethics of market competition with reference to sport games. The metaphor of games suggests that different games represent three elements or models that are related to man and society: record, struggle, and cooperation. Record-type games pursue excellence or virtue; struggle-type games determine winners in zero-sum games; and the idea of cooperation or teamwork demands the just rules of competition based on solidarity. Moral criticism of market competition is sometimes in confusion with regard to the targets of criticism. Distinction should be made between the aims, rules, and motives of competition. A free society based on self-interest should be maintained by improving the aims and rules of competition, which are often defective and degraded. Thus the ethics of competition should consist of the ethics of virtue, of justice, and of freedom.     

The rise and fall of communal liability in ancient law

In ancient societies, rules of communal responsibility permitted the imposition of retaliatory sanctions on a wrongdoer's clan. These rules followed the collective ownership structure of early communities. Over time, notions of personal responsibility emerged, terminating the transfer of responsibility from one member to the whole clan. This paper intends to provide an economic explanation for this transition.     

抵押物转让中的利益衡量与制度设计

抵押人在抵押期间不丧失对抵押物的处分权,可以自由转让抵押物。但抵押物的转让需要顾及到抵押权人利益的保障,传统立法通过赋予抵押权人追及效力来实现于此。但这可能会损害受让人的利益,导致利益和风险分配的不平衡。抵押物转让制度的设计应当充分权衡抵押人、抵押权人以及受让人三者的利益冲突,并结合物尽其用这一物权法基本价值目标,做出妥善安排。由于抵押权是价值权,以价金物上代位为主导、追及效力为补充的抵押物转让制度是一个很好的尝试。