prior probability

Spring 2015 Business Law reading list (honors section)

Posted on January 17, 2015 by F. E. Guerra-Pujol

Readings. Our textbook is Richard A Epstein’s Simple Rules for a Complex World. In addition, we will read several classic legal essays this semester, including our all-time favorites “The Path of the Law” by Oliver Wendell Holmes and Federalist Paper #10 (on factions).

Law Cases. We will also study the following famous business law cases (past and present): McCulloch v. Maryland; Dodge v. Ford Motor Co.; International News Service v. Associated Press; Kellogg Co. v. National Biscuit Company; Sony v. Universal; Banco Nacional v. Sabbatino; and Facebook v. ConnectU.

Films. Lastly, we will also sit back, relax, and screen a number of movies with legal themes in order to see “the law in action,” so to speak, including The Social Network; The Insider; Hot Coffee; Judgment at Nuremberg; and various episodes of the hit TV show Entourage.

Posted in Economics, Ethics, Law | Tagged BUL3130H, Business Law | Leave a comment

The Kingdom of Physics

Posted on January 16, 2015 by F. E. Guerra-Pujol

Props to kottke for the pointer. More info about this strange map via Quantum Pontiff.

Posted in Maps, Science | Tagged Physics | Leave a comment

“Let’s make a (marijuana) deal …”

Posted on January 15, 2015 by F. E. Guerra-Pujol

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 59 deals last year,” and he poses a sobering question, “So is cannabis socially responsible or ethically objectionable?” What do you think?

Posted in Ethics, Law | Tagged BUL 3130, Cannabis, Freedom | Leave a comment

The geometry of airports

Posted on January 14, 2015 by F. E. Guerra-Pujol

Posted in Maps | Tagged Airports | Leave a comment

Is Riggs v. Palmer a “hard case”?

Posted on January 13, 2015 by F. E. Guerra-Pujol

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 cable news headlines today: a wealthy grandfather leaves the majority of his estate in his will to his grandson. Fearing that his grandfather might revoke his will, the grandson kills his grandfather with poison. Here is the legal problem: Does the grandson still have the right to inherit his grandfather’s estate? To us, however, Riggs v. Palmer has always seemed like an easy case … Continue reading →

Posted in Bayesian Reasoning, Law, Probability | Tagged Hard Cases, Prediction Theory of Law, Riggs v. Palmer | Leave a comment

From Pakistan to the Kamchatka Peninsula

Posted on January 11, 2015 by F. E. Guerra-Pujol

Alternate title: “The longest straight line you can sail.”

Props to Ambamja for the pointer.

Posted in Maps, Questions Rarely Asked | Tagged Kamchatka, Pakistan | Leave a comment

Foie gras and freedom

Posted on January 10, 2015 by F. E. Guerra-Pujol

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 (i.e. prohibiting) California public officials from enforcing a law criminalizing the sale of foie gras in the Golden State. In summary, since the sale of foie gras is legal under various federal laws, the judge ruled that local laws prohibiting the sale of foie gras are “pre-empted” (i.e. displaced) by such federal laws. But was this the “right” result as a matter of law, or an unauthorized assertion of federal judicial power? Specifically, what is the source of a federal judge’s power to veto a State law? Continue reading →

Posted in Economics, Law | Tagged Constitutional Law, Judicial Restraint, Preemption | Leave a comment

Judge Hercules or Judge Bayes?

Posted on January 9, 2015 by F. E. Guerra-Pujol

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 like a “hard case” in law–i.e. a choice problem with conflicting and equally logical solutions. The other is that the “superior Being” in Newcomb’s Problem and the mythical Judge Hercules in Ronald Dworkin’s theory of law are the same person. In particular, we claim that Judge Hercules, who we would rechristen Judge Bayes, has the near-perfect ability to predict the outcome of hard cases …

Our paper is about 3000 words. Fear not. We will make a complete draft of our paper–tentatively titled “Hard Cases, Newcomb’s Problem, and the Prediction Theory of Law”–available soon via SSRN. Addendum (1/13): Here is a link to our working paper.

Posted in Law, Philosophy, Probability | Tagged Hard Cases, Prediction Theory of Law, Thought Experiments | 1 Comment

Publish or perish …

Posted on January 8, 2015 by F. E. Guerra-Pujol

According to our friend Walter Olson at overlawyered.com: “CNN, NYT, AP, NBC, ABC, the BBC, Guardian, Telegraph, and the CBC, will *not* be running Charlie-Hebdo cartoons, though a number of American publications did so, including Daily Beast, Vox, and Bloomberg. No UK paper on Thursday morning runs the cartoons on its cover — though the Berliner-Zeitung in Germany publishes a full spread of them.” Is there a pattern here? New media versus old? Continue reading →