© John Haslam

Philosophy of Law

(Spring 2007)

This course has two primary parts. In the first part we discuss a few influential accounts of what law is. In particular we will focus on how law is different from other social institution, and also how these accounts bear on the process of “interpretation” that is required of judges. Our last book of the first section, Ronald Dworkin's Law's Empire, discusses the process of interpretation in some detail. While reading this we will have the opportunity to discuss the oft-used distinction between “activist” judges and “judicially restrained” judges.

In the second part of the course, we will read a series of influential U.S. Supreme Court decisions. We will attempt to square the reasoning in these decisions with the framework for interpretation set out in the first half of the course. In this section half, we will look at court cases in three major areas, Equal Protection, Privacy, and War Powers. This last topic will allow us to look at one recent supreme court decision, Hamdi v. Rumsfeld.

• Syllabus
• Lecture 1
• Lecture 2
• Lecture 3
• Lecture 4
• Lecture 5
• Lecture 6
• Lecture 7
• Lecture 8
• Lecture 9
• Lecture 10
• Lecture 12
• Lecture 13
• Lecture 14
• Lecture 15
• Lecture 16
• Lecture 17
• Lecture 19
• Midterm Review
• Paper Assignments