Barbara Levenbook

A familiar jurisprudential view is that a judicial decision functions as a legal precedent by laying down a rule and that the content of this rule is set by officials. Precedents can be followed only by acting in accordance with this rule. This view is mistaken on all counts. A judicial decision functions as a precedent by being an example. At its best, it is an example both for officials and for a target population. Even precedents outside of law function as examples when they have conduct-guiding significance. Examples may be rule-like in their scope, but need not be. Their import is independent of their justification; this point has implications for coherence theories of precedent meaning. The content and scope of a legal decision’s extension is not set exclusively by officials. It is socially set and depends upon social salience

Dworkin's theoretical disagreement argument, developed in Law's Empire, is presented in that work as the motivator for his interpretive account of law. Like Dworkin's earlier arguments critical of legal positivism, the argument from theoretical disagreement has generated a lively exchange with legal positivists. It has motivated three of them to develop innovative positivist positions. In its original guise, the argument from theoretical disagreement is presented as ‘the semantic sting argument’. However, the argument from theoretical disagreement has more than one version. This article briefly discusses two versions and the leading replies to them, then focuses on the most influential version, directed at Hartian positivism. The article surveys the leading positivist rejoinders to the recast version, indicating key Dworkinian replies or assessing the strength of these rejoinders, and concludes with a rejoinder of its own, making a new case that the argument from theoretical disagreement isn't fatal for Hartian legal positivism

This chapter discusses the retroactivity problem and how it arises when the idea that events occurring after a person’s life can harm that person is pursued. The common objection to this dilemma is the “no subject” type of response. The retroactivity problem is the result of making several assumptions jointly, many of which are initially plausible but none of which are actually defended. The first of these assumptions is referred to as Worse-Off, which states that an event harms a person only if it makes him worse off than he would have been if the event had not occurred. The second assumption, implied by the first, is referred to as Welfare, which states that an event harms a person only if it makes it the case that his welfare is lower than it would have been if the event had not occurred.

I defend the claim that posthumous harm is possible against a simple but powerful and appealing argument for the impossibility of harm from posthumous events. I produce a counterargument against one of its assumptions. My conclusion is that the boundaries of welfare-affecting events may extend beyond the existence of the person whose welfare is in question. My case for rejecting the contrary claim avoids an objection to some familiar arguments for posthumous harm and is superior to another argument for posthumous harm. To my knowledge, the case for posthumous harm presented here is a novel one, though it is of the same form as arguments made in 1984 by Feinberg and Parfit. My case for posthumous harm is not complete, for I argue for the satisfaction of what many people regard as only a necessary condition for harm. But I hope to have cleared away one obstacle to the possibility of posthumous harm

Dworkin’s dignity framework has little explanatory value for one moral topic for which it should be especially suited: paternalistic intervention by one adult with another. The dignity framework has little epistemic value for morality regarding paternalism. Dworkin’s conception of dignity is too inchoate to illuminate why and when individual paternalism is wrong, all things considered. Dignity does somewhat better at illuminating why some types of individual paternalism are pro tanto wrong; but not other types. Moreover, the conception of dignity cannot be refined by the process described above and retain any epistemic value on this matter. One would expect that a very natural -- indeed, a central -- use of the conception of dignity dHedgehogs would be to explain and illuminate moral claims about paternalism. That Dworkin’s conception of dignity largely fails to do so is, therefore, particularly important.

This essay is aimed at those moral philosophers who recognize a certain category of negative moral rights, but refuse to recognize a similar category of positive moral rights. That category consists of moral rights normally held by human beings. Such rights may be called "natural moral rights." My thesis is that if there is a natural negative right not to be killed, then -- contra Thomson, Nozick and others -- there must be at least one natural positive right, which might be called a "right not to be allowed to die."

A familiar jurisprudential view is that statutes have the content the legislature intended. Scott Soames has challenged this view in one form while giving credence to it in another. The burden of his recent publications on the subject is that while legislative intent in the form of legislative purpose does not determine statutory content, some legislative intentions do. I maintain that Soames inflates the role of legislative intentions and ignores a source of pragmatic information that does the bulk of the work of determining the linguistic content of statutes.