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Category Archives: Law
“Let’s make a (marijuana) deal …”
Check out this Bloomberg Business video “Why Peter Thiel’s fund is investing in marijuana” and Andrew Ross Sorkin’s thoughtful essay in The New York Times exploring the ethics of investing in the marijuana industry. Sorkin reports that “legal marijuana businesses raised $104 million in … Continue reading
Is Riggs v. Palmer a “hard case”?
For many legal scholars, the paradigm or textbook example of a “hard case” in law is Riggs v. Palmer, the infamous “murdering heir” case decided in 1889 by the New York Court of Appeals. The facts of this legendary case would make tabloid and … Continue reading
Posted in Bayesian Reasoning, Law, Probability
Tagged Hard Cases, Prediction Theory of Law, Riggs v. Palmer
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“Did I adequately answer your condescending question?”
We can’t wait to see blackhat, the new Michael Mann film about computer hackers who take down the international banking system. In the meantime, our favorite film about computers and hackers continues to be “The Social Network.” Above is one … Continue reading
Foie gras and freedom
Foie gras is a fancy food delicacy, and until a few days ago, it was also an outlaw product in the State of California. A federal judge in Los Angeles–our childhood hometown, by the way–recently issued a judicial order enjoining … Continue reading
Judge Hercules or Judge Bayes?
Here is the abstract of one of our thought experiments, which we have been working on over the holidays: This paper explores two possible connections between hard cases in law and Newcomb’s Paradox in philosophy. One is that Newcomb’s Problem is … Continue reading
Posted in Law, Philosophy, Probability
Tagged Hard Cases, Prediction Theory of Law, Thought Experiments
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Hitler’s judges and the war on drugs
We finally saw the film Judgment at Nuremberg for the first time last night at the annual meeting of the American Association of Law Schools (AALS) in Washington DC. This film depicts the trial of four Nazi judges accused of … Continue reading
Posted in Law, Questions Rarely Asked
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“Google’s Philosopher”
That is the title of this intriguing essay by Robert Herritt in the Pacific Standard — our favorite e-mag, by the way — summarizing the “philosophy of information” as well as the original work of Luciano Floridi, an Oxford philosopher who is inventing “entirely new ways … Continue reading
Posted in Ethics, Law, Philosophy, Property Rights, Questions Rarely Asked
Tagged Coase, Facebook, Google+, Information Markets, Privacy, Right to be forgotten
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“Antebellum Islam”
That is the title of this intriguing paper by Khaled Beydoun, a law professor at Barry University. Here is an excerpt from Professor Beydoun’s abstract: America’s first Muslims were slaves. Social scientists estimate that 15 to 30 percent of the … Continue reading
Posted in History, Law, Questions Rarely Asked
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“Visualizing Probabilistic Proof”
Our latest theoretical paper (“Visualizing Probabilistic Proof” — click on the image above to see our abstract) has just been published in volume 7 of the Wash U Jurisprudence Review, along with an interesting Note by Krista C. McCormack titled “Ethos, Pathos, and … Continue reading
Posted in Bayesian Reasoning, Law, Paradoxes
Tagged Blue Bus Problem, Proof Paradoxes
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“Trolley problems”
That is the title of our latest paper — in which we offer a novel solution to the famous Trolley Problem from moral and legal philosophy — just published in the Drake Law Review Discourse. (You may also click directly on the image … Continue reading
prior probability 