Introduction and investigation of the concept - and utility - of legacy in the field of medical jurisprudence.

"Graeme Laurie stepped down from the Chair in Medical Jurisprudence at the University of Edinburgh in 2019. This edited collection pays tribute to his extraordinary contributions to the field. Graeme has often spoken about the importance of 'legacy' in academic work and has forged a remarkable intellectual legacy of his own, notably through his work on genetic privacy, human tissue and information governance, and on the regulatory salience of the concept of liminality. The essays in this volume animate the concept of legacy as lens of analysis for the study and practice of medical jurisprudence. In this light, legacy reveals characteristics of both benefit and burden, as both an encumbrance to and facilitator of the development of law, policy and regulation. Overall, the contributions reconcile the ideas of legacy and responsiveness and show that both dimensions are critical to achieve and sustain the health of medical jurisprudence itself as a dynamic, interdisciplinary and policy-engaged field of thinking"--

How should judges and legislators address challenges arising at the frontiers of biomedicine? What if it became possible to edit the DNA of embryos for enhanced traits, gestate a fetus in an artificial womb, self-modify brain implants to provide new skills or bring a frozen human back to life? This book presents an innovative legal theory and applies it to future developments in biomedicine. This legal theory reconceptualises the role of legal officials in terms of moral principle and contextual constraints: 'contextual legal idealism'. It is applied by asking how a political leader or appeal court judge could address technological developments for which the current law of England and Wales would be ill-equipped to respond. The book's central thesis is that the regulation of human conduct requires moral reasoning directed to the context in which it operates. The link between abstract theory and practical application is articulated using future developments within four areas of biomedicine. Developments in heritable genome editing and cybernetic biohacking are addressed using Explanatory Notes to hypothetical UK Parliamentary Bills. Developments in ectogestation and cryonic reanimation are addressed using hypothetical appeal court judgments. The book will be of great interest to scholars and students of medical/health law, criminal law, bioethics, biolaw, legal theory and moral philosophy.

This book analyses discontent with law and assesses the prospect of better governance by technology. In the first part of the book, where the context is ‘low tech’, the range of discontent with law is examined; the underlying reasons for such discontent are identified (namely, the human nature of the legal enterprise, its reliance on rules, and the pluralistic nature of human communities); and the reasonableness of such discontent is assessed. In the second part of the book, where the context is ‘high-tech’ (with new tools becoming available to undertake governance functions), the question is whether discontent with law is further provoked or, to the contrary, is eased. While new technologies provoke further discontent with law’s claimed authority, its ineffectiveness, and its principles, positions, and policies, they also promise more effective and efficient ways of achieving order. The book closes with some reflections on the ambivalence that humans might experience when faced with the choice between law’s governance and apparently better performing governance by technology. That law’s governance is imperfect is undeniable; that humans should quest after better governance is right; but, the shape of our technological futures is unclear. This accessibly written book will appeal to scholars and students who are working in the broad and burgeoning field of law, regulation, and technology, as well as to legal theorists, political scientists, and sociologists with interests in the impact of new technology.

This book comprises sixteen papers selected from the 2014 McMaster University Philosophy of Law Conference (lawconf.mcmaster.ca) on the legacy of Ronald Dworkin (lawconf.mcmaster.ca). These pieces touch upon many aspects of Ronald Dworkin?s wide-ranging contributions to philosophy and jurisprudence, including his theory of value, political philosophy, moral philosophy, philosophy of international law, and legal philosophy. The book?s organizing principle and theme reflects Dworkin?s self-conception as a builder of a unified theory of value. Part I addresses the most abstract and general aspect of Dworkin?s work?the unity of value thesis. Part II comprises works that address themes from Dworkin?s political philosophy, including his discussions of authority, civil disobedience, the legitimacy of states and the international legal system, distributive justice, collective responsibility, and Dworkin?s master value of dignity and the associated values of equality, and respect. Part III addresses various aspects of Dworkin?s general theory of law. Part IV comprises pieces that offer accounts of the structure and defining values of discrete areas of law, including constitutional law, the law of contract, and procedural law.

In the context of the technological disruption of law and, in particular, the prospect of governance by machines, this book reconsiders the demand that we should respect the law, simply because it is the law. What does ‘the law’ need to look like to justify our respect? Responding to this question, the book takes the form of a dialectic between, on the one side, the promise of the prospectus for law and, on the other, the discontent provoked by the performance of law in practice; this is followed by a synthesis. Four pictures of law are considered: two are traditional pictures – law as order and law as just order; and two are prompted by the technological disruption of law – law as governance by machines and law as self-governance by humans. These pictures are tested in five performance areas: contract law, criminal law, biolaw, information law, and constitutional law. The synthesis, revealing the complexity of the demand for respect, highlights three particular points. First, the only prospectus for law that clearly commands respect is one that is committed to protecting the global commons (the preconditions for humans to form their own communities with their own forms of governance); second, any form of governance by humans will invite reservations and push-back against the demand for respect; and, third, governance by machines is not so much a superior form of governance as a radically different form in which questions about respect are redundant. This book will appeal to scholars and students with interests in the broad and burgeoning field of law, regulation and technology, as well as to legal theorists, practitioners, and others interested in the impact of new technology on law.

A wide-ranging and comprehensive survey of modern legal scholarship and the evolution of law in America What do Catharine MacKinnon, the legacy of Brown v. Board of Education, and Lani Guinier have in common? All have, in recent years, become flashpoints for different approaches to legal reform. In the last quarter century, the study and practice of law have been profoundly influenced by a number of powerful new movements; academics and activists alike are rethinking the interaction between law and society, focusing more on the tangible effects of law on human lives than on its procedural elements. In this wide-ranging and comprehensive volume, Gary Minda surveys the current state of legal scholarship and activism, providing an indispensable guide to the evolution of law in America.

Finalist for the 2022 Cheiron Book Prize​ An Organ of Murder explores the origins of both popular and elite theories of criminality in the nineteenth-century United States, focusing in particular on the influence of phrenology. In the United States, phrenology shaped the production of medico-legal knowledge around crime, the treatment of the criminal within prisons and in public discourse, and sociocultural expectations about the causes of crime. The criminal was phrenology’s ideal research and demonstration subject, and the courtroom and the prison were essential spaces for the staging of scientific expertise. In particular, phrenology constructed ways of looking as well as a language for identifying, understanding, and analyzing criminals and their actions. This work traces the long-lasting influence of phrenological visual culture and language in American culture, law, and medicine, as well as the practical uses of phrenology in courts, prisons, and daily life.