Category Archives: Legal Philosophy

Concept-Checking: Killing vs. Murder/Homicide vs. Manslaughter

Legal Philosophy, Metaethics, Morality and Ethics, Social and Political Philosophy March 30, 2022 Leave a comment

*To kill someone means to terminate their life permanently. To kill someone means that they cease to exist in any meaningful biological or physiological sense of the term. To kill someone means to end their ability to do just about everything.

**To murder someone means to terminate their life permanently. To murder someone means that they cease to exist in any meaningful biological or physiological sense of the term. To murder someone means to end their ability to do just about everything.

***To commit homicide against someone means to terminate their life permanently. To commit homicide against someone means that they cease to exist in any meaningful biological or physiological sense of the term. To commit homicide against someone means to end their ability to do just about everything.

****To commit manslaughter against someone means to terminate their life permanently. To commit manslaughter against someone means that they cease to exist in any meaningful biological or physiological sense of the term. To commit manslaughter against someone means to end their ability to do just about everything.

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SCOTUS and the Mandatory Arbitration Revolution: Part 7/7 (Works Cited)

Legal Philosophy, Social and Political Philosophy August 14, 2020 Leave a comment

Works Cited

American Arbitration Association (AAA). “Costs of Arbitration.” Consumer Arbitration Rules (published February 21, 2018, accessed March 19, 2018): https://www.adr.org/sites/default/files/Consumer_Fee_Schedule.pdf.

Aschen, Noah. “Tearing Down the Wall Protecting Mandatory Arbitration: A Critical Evaluation of Mandatory Arbitration Clauses in Consumer Contracts.” Dispute Resolution Journal 71:3 (2016), 55-75.

Barnes, Lauren G. “How Mandatory Arbitration Agreements and Class Action Waivers Undermine Consumer Rights and Why We Need Congress to Act.” Harvard Law & Policy Review 9:2 (2015), 329-354.

Berger, Klaus Peter. “Vynior’s Case, 8 Co. Rep. 81 b. et seq. (1609).” Translex (published March 01, 2016 and accessed February 18, 2018): https://www.trans-lex.org/801200/_/vyniors- case-8-co-rep-81-b-et-seq-/.

Bureau of Justice Statistics. “Civil Bench and Jury Trials in State Courts: 2005.” Publications and Products (published 2005, accessed February 13, 2018): http://www.bjs.gov/index.cfm?ty=pbdetail&iid=369.

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SCOTUS and the Mandatory Arbitration Revolution: Part 6/7 (Strong Suggestions for Improvement)

Legal Philosophy, Social and Political Philosophy August 11, 2020 Leave a comment

The FAA, Judicial Activism, and their Implications for Access Justice

But for all of this discussion about the empirical data concerning the utility and fairness of mandatory arbitration, a more serious and two-pronged, objection can be raised, one which combines the well-known concept of ‘judicial activism’ with the relatively new methodology to legal studies known as ‘access justice.’ In what follows, I will describe the Supreme Court’s judicial activism within the context of the FAA as well as its implication for access justice, ultimately arguing that the Supreme Court is causally responsible for mandatory arbitration increasingly becoming a hybrid institutional/financial barrier to an individual’s proper access to justice.

Judicial activism occurs, most broadly, whenever a judge rules for or against a particular decision based predominantly, if not solely, on their own political perspectives and experiences. For instance, instead of ruling impartially in a court case involving a relatively straightforward case of business fraud and negligence, this hypothetical judge may, instead, rule in favor of the business because he owns stock in it or they offered him a bribe or he just believes that businesses should inherently have more governmental protection than consumers.

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SCOTUS and the Mandatory Arbitration Revolution: Part 5/7 (Actual Disadvantages of Arbitration)

Legal Philosophy, Social and Political Philosophy August 8, 2020 Leave a comment

Disadvantages of Arbitration (MACs/CABs)

Despite the sincerity with which they are held, advocates of mandatory arbitration are entertaining demonstrably false and ultimately misguided views. For some of the aforementioned benefits of arbitration, there is significant empirical evidence to the contrary. In discussing the disadvantages of mandatory arbitration for consumers and employees, I will focus broadly on cost, flexibility, privacy/confidentiality, and finality. The advantage of time/duration that arbitration has over litigation withstands scrutiny; on average litigation does, in fact, take longer from beginning to end than arbitration and must be conceded.1

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