On Logic in the Law: “Something,but not All”

Abstract. In 1880, when Oliver Wendell Holmes (later to be a Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court) criticized the “logical theology” of law articulated by Christopher Columbus Langdell (the first Dean of Harvard Law School), neither Holmes nor Langdell was aware of the revolution in logic that had begun, the year before, with Frege's Begriffsschrift. But there is an important element of truth in Holmes's insistence that a legal system cannot be adequately understood as a system of “axioms and corollaries”; and this element of truth is not obviated by the more powerful logical techniques that are now available.     

The Pluralistic Universe of Law: Towards a Neo‐Classical Legal Pragmatism*

After a brief sketch of the history of philosophical pragmatism generally, and of legal pragmatism specifically (section 1), this paper develops a new, neo‐classical legal pragmatism: a theory of law drawing in part on Holmes, but also on ideas from the classical pragmatist tradition in philosophy. Main themes are the “pluralistic universe” of law (section 2); the evolution of legal systems (section 3); the place of logic in the law (section 4); and the relation of law and morality (section 5).     

COURTYARDS－CONFUCIAN OR WHAT？

I lean on the southern window and let my pride expandI consider how easy it is to be content with a small spaceEveryday I stroll in my garden for pleasure...And walk round my lonely pine tree, stroking it. -Tao Yuanming, 4th century AD     

EVALUATION OF THE PAINT CREEK YOUTH CENTER: A RESIDENTIAL PROGRAM FOR SERIOUS DELINQUENTS*

A classic experimental design was used to determine whether youths assigned to a small experimental program, designed to offer a comprehensive and highly structured array of intervention services and activities, actually received significantly different treatment, and performed better, than control youths assigned to traditional training schools. Interviews with staff and youths suggest that the experimental program did deliver significantly more treatment services. One-year follow-up data showed no significant differences in arrests or self-reported delinquency between experimental and control groups, although those who completed the experimental program performed significantly better than those who were removed for disciplinary reasons.     

The Professionalization of Public Accounting: A Social Dilemma Perspective

This study uses a social dilemma model of auditing and a model of cooperative regulatory enforcement to provide a framework within which the evolution of self-regulation in the U.S. accounting profession is studied. From a social dilemma perspective, individual public accounting firms are best off, in a single period sense, by providing a low quality audit product, which is defined in terms of the degree of auditor acquiescence to managers' accounting method discretion. However, firms' collective welfare is maximized by high quality auditing. The cooperative regulatory model employed is premised on the existence of a plausible government threat of punishments and invasive regulations, which motivates self-regulation in an industry. We argue that prior to enactment of the securities acts, public accounting firms faced a social dilemma in which there were limited incentives for high quality auditing either voluntarily or through the establishment of self-regulation. The securities acts provided a plausible threat to which the accounting industry responded by implementing self-regulation in order to avoid invasive and costly government regulation. After the emergence of the accounting profession, there occurred a long period of cooperative regulation with the SEC. Management discretion over accounting methods increased during this time period and audit quality correspondingly decreased, suggesting possible inefficient capture of the SEC. Evidence of an evolution towards a tripartite form of regulation appeared in the 1970s when the SEC and public accounting began to be critically reviewed by Congress. From this time to the present, new regulatory threats have motivated a series of self-regulatory responses by public accounting to improve audit quality.     

BEING PURSUED: STALKING VICTIMIZATION IN A NATIONAL STUDY OF COLLEGE WOMEN*

Research Summary: We provide the results of a 1997 national‐level study of stalking among college women. Over an approximately seven‐month period, 13.1% of the women reported being stalked. Although physical harm was not common, the incidents typically lasted two months, involved frequent contact by offenders, and prompted victims to take protective actions. Lifestyle‐routine activities, prior sexual victimization, and demographic characteristics affected the risk of victimization. Policy Implications: Due to its prevalence, college and university administrators need to rectify their current neglect of stalking. Interventions may include educational programs, crime prevention seminars, reducing opportunities for stalking, and increasing informal and formal controls over stalkers.     

Reexamining the Institutional Effects of Term Limits in U.S. State Legislatures

Research on term limits suggests that they have substantial consequences for the power of legislatures vis‐à‐vis the executive and interest groups and for the relationship between leaders and rank‐and‐file members within a chamber. Existing work, however, has not accounted for the actual power of relevant state actors. We contribute to this research by examining the effect of term limits on the influence of institutional actors conditional on the existing political power structure in a state. The inclusion of controls for the direct and moderating effect of actual institutional power suggests some significant extensions of previous findings regarding the institutional effects of term limits.