Monday, November 5, 2012

Law and Economics

     Law and Economics was interesting and complicated in its conception and continues to be so today. "It offers a framework with which to model legal outcomes, and common objectives with which to unify disparate areas of legal activity"(Butler, 2003). Combining legal issues with economic evidence is a great way to solve problems. For example the legal system can use economic evidence to determine the implementations that would result from a new regulation or a courts decision due on a legal issue. In result better formulated conclusions can be drawn that represent the repercussions as well as unintended consequences making everything much more apparent.
      Law and Economics is also advancing into many different fields some of which include, "tort, contract, family, intellectual property, constitutional, criminal, admiralty, labour, arbitration, and anti discrimination law"(Richard A. Posner, 2000). Although it is interesting reading of its advancement I can't help but worry about the many regulations it is bound to create. This is because economics provides a way for the law to substantiate its claims as evidence with statistically representation. Basically I feel that it can become both slanted and an efficient way to implement jaded regulations and policies. That said there are people who feel quite positive about it diversifying into other fields for example (Butler, 2003) states that Law and Economics, "Asserts the tools of economic reasoning and offers the best possibility for justified and consistent legal practice." So, perhaps there are underlying fundamentals that prevent what I was talking about above from happening. 
     An excerpt I found interesting while researching was Legal Philosophy and its relationship to Law and Economics. It said that it, "It is important for a philosophical theory of law to define the core aspects of proper legal practice in order to fulfill the function of philosophical jurisprudence"(Butler, 2003). This is something that I feel is important to Law and Economics core building block as well as the law itself. An example that sparked my attention was where, "The question of how properly to interpret the U.S. Constitution belongs to democratic theory (and hence falls under the heading of political philosophy), the analysis of legal interpretation falls under the heading of legal philosophy. Likewise, whereas the question of whether capital punishment is morally permissible falls under the heading of applied ethics, the question of whether the institution of punishment can be justified falls under the heading of legal philosophy"(Himma, 2009). All relating back to Law and Economics.
     In all I found that Law and Economics is a very interesting topic but vast in its uses and somewhat complicated in its practice. Looking forward to the discussion. 


Sources:

Himma, K. E. (2009). Philosophy of law. Retrieved from http://www.iep.utm.edu/law-phil/

Richard A. Posner. (2000). Encyclopedia of law and economics. Retrieved from http://encyclo.findlaw.com/foreword.html

Lourdes A. Sereno. (n.d.). Understanding law and economics: A primer for judges. Retrieved from http://cjei.org/publications/sereno.htm

Butler, B. E. (2003). Internet encyclopedia of philosophy. In Retrieved from http://www.iep.utm.edu/law-econ/

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