Normative Theory
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Introduction The idea of “structural injustice” has become a fixture of contemporary political discourse. Politicians, journalists, and activists invoke structural racism, structural poverty, and structural inequality to describe social problems that seem to persist no matter who holds office or whether any particular individuals intend to discriminate. The core intuition is that serious injustice can…
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Introduction Law students almost always encounter criminal law in their first year, frequently in the first semester. The traditional course in criminal law introduces students to the way the law approaches deep moral questions. What justifies the state’s deliberate imposition of suffering on offenders? What conduct should be criminalized? The criminal law does not (and…
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Introduction Law students at different law schools encounter the course in constitutional law at different points in their legal education. At some law schools constitutional law is a second-semester first-year course, but conlaw is sometimes a first-semester 1L course and at a significant number of law schools, the course is an upper-division elective or requirement.…
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Many first-year law students experience civil procedure as a bewildering mass of complex and technical rules. There are rules about pleading, jurisdiction, joinder, discovery, summary judgment, and preclusion—and the rules have exceptions, and the exceptions have their own exceptions. It is easy to feel lost. But a student who sees only the rules is missing…
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First year law students encounter many important concepts for the first time in their torts course. The “reasonable person” and Learned Hand’s formula appear in the Carroll Towing case. The mysteries of causation are introduced in Palsgraf. And debates over whether negligence or strict liability should provide the standard for imposing liability introduce important debates…
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Introduction Contracts is a foundational course, almost always included in the first semester of the first-year curriculum in American law schools. Although the focus of contracts courses is usually doctrine, theoretical questions inevitably arise: What is a contract? Why does the law enforce promises? What gives a contractual obligation its force? Should the law of…
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Property is almost always a first year subject. Decades ago, it was most likely a year-long course, but today the course is typically offered in the Fall or Spring. The 1L property course typically begins with possession (capture cases like Pierson v. Post), moves through estates in land and future interests, and then takes up…
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By Lawrence B. Solum Link to the Most Recent Version of this Lexicon Entry Legal Theory Lexicon 110: Soundness and Validity in Legal Argumentation Introduction Legal arguments come in many forms. Lawyers argue from precedent, from statutory text, from policy considerations, and from moral principles. But underlying these diverse forms of legal argument are basic…
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Introduction There is a very powerful idea that has developed in feminist philosophy and the philosophy of race. That idea is epistemic injustice. And it turns out that the idea of epistemic injustice is an important tool for legal theorits. Let’s figure out what epistemic injustice is and what work it can do in legal…
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Introduction Legal theorists routinely invoke the idea that legitimate law must emerge from something like a fair deliberative process — one in which reasons are exchanged, positions are tested, and outcomes reflect genuine agreement rather than mere coercion or strategic manipulation. That intuition needs a theoretical foundation. The German philosopher Jürgen Habermas has developed a…