Technical Work

Generalization in legal reasoning

I picked up a copy of Frederick Schauer's Profiles, Probabilities, and Stereotypes because it looked very promising. The book is about generalization in legal reasoning, and I thought I'd learn something about methods. Schauer is Frank Stanton Professor of the First Amendment at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government, and author of several books in legal philosophy. I started the book in happy anticipation, rapidly became puzzled, then a little put off, and finally wound up just plain irritated.

The ex ante-ex post distinction and scenarios

I have been reading Lawrence Solum's Legal Theory Blog on some problems of intellectual property with great profit. Solum is engaged in a discussion with Eugene Volokh [1,2] on certain problems in economic analysis of intellectual property rights. My concern here is with two methodological problems. The first problem comes from the ex ante/ex post distinction, the second from the use of hypothetical cases.