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Law

• Who is here• Who may work• Limits of social behavior

– Criminal law– Tort law– Contract law

• Government Benefits• Education• Language of official discourse

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Law and Social

Theory

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Weber: Variations on

Justice and the Law

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Max Weber: Kadi Justice

English and American Adjudication

Still a lot of Kadi Justice

Far-going denial of justice to economically weak groups

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Two extremes

• Rational interpretation of law on basis fo strictly formal conceptions (Roman law?)

• Kadi Justice

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Kadi Justice

• Tradition• Concrete revelation

– Oracle– Prophetic dicta– Revelation

• Informal judgments rendered in terms of concrete ethical or other practical considerations

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Empirical justice

• Formal judgments• Not subsumed to rational concepts• Draw upon and interpret concrete

“Precedents”• Can be sublimated and rationalized into

a “technology”• Balance between strict traditionalism

and lordly grace

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English and American Adjudication

• Still a lot of Kadi Justice• Largely empirical• The lawyers guilds resisted rational

codification of the law, driven by interest in fees

• Rational procedure driven by needs of capitalism

• Far-going denial of justice to economically weak groups

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The Modern Judge

• Automaton: Files + costs = verdict + reasons

• Legislatively- mandated “individualizing procedures”

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Democratization:

– Equality before the law– Legal guarantees against

arbitrariness– Formal and rational “objectivity” of

administration rather than free discretion

– For whom? “Propertyless masses”– Kadi justice and public opinion

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A common ethic

Without it no basis for trust

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Derived from?• Laws

• Constitution

• Social contract

• A secular document

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What is the following?

•Everyone has the right to work, to free choice of employment, to just and favourable conditions of work and to protection against unemployment.

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The Law• Redistribution of resources:

cost-shifting to meet social goals–Welfare laws

–Employment laws

–Housing laws

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The Law• Alteration of behavior- What

is the most effective means of curbing drunk driving?

• Criminal law

• Discrimination law

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The Law• Litigation costs?• Production?• Judicial law-making vs.

legislature?• Economism • Legitimacy

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The Law"a sort of glorified accounting that serves to regulate the affairs of those who have power -- and that all too often seeks to explain, to those who do not, the ultimate wisdom and justness of their condition.”

- Barack Obama

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The Law

Migration and immigration

Crime & punishment

education

employment

Civil rights

Families & youth

language

“HISPANICS”

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Interactions• How does the law affect ethicity?

• How does ethnicity affect the law?

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Law and Laws: The strong and

the weak

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What is the law?• Is it more than the sum of its

parts?• Is law more than the

nomenclature for a body of literature called “the laws”?

• What are the laws?

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What are the laws?

• There are weak laws such as–The abominable crime against

nature be it with mankind or with beast

• And strong laws such as–Homicide

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What are the laws?

• The Constitution of the United States • United States Statutes• United States Regulations• The Declaration of Rights of the

Commonwealth of Massachusetts• Massachusetts statutes• Massachusetts regulations• Municipal ordinances• Case law

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“Hispanic” is rare in state statute

• Twice:– SOWMBA- Mass. Gen. Laws ch.7, s.

40n

– AIDS (DPH)-Mass.Gen.Laws ch. 111, s. 2

• SJC Rule 3:10– indigent’s eligibility for public counsel

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In the civil justice system, “the law”

mostly means case law

• Courts decide “the law”

• Mastery of case law amounts to intellectual mastery of the civil justice system

• In Massachusetts, as in all civil society, “the law” means other things

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What does the law mean? Ask Google:

• 200712271118

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Google: “The Law”

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Google: “Massachusetts Law”