Category Archives: Philosophy

So, what does ‘progressive fusionism’ look like?

May 8, 2008 – 4:33 am

This piece had its origins in a pair of posts written by Don Arthur over at Club Troppo, and followed up by Andrew Norton, Andrew Leigh, Will Wilkinson and Backroom Girl. The idea that libertarians and ‘progressives’ could hammer out some of their differences and reach a compromise far more workable than that between [...]

By skepticlawyer | Also posted in Economics, Law, Politics | Comments (14)

Expert witnesses, gay rights and you can’t say that on the stand!

February 8, 2008 – 12:08 pm

Well well well, the stuff you learn.
Professor John Finnis is one of my teachers here. This term I have to front up for four hours of Finnis a week, so I’m becoming reasonably familiar with both his ideas and method. Granted, that’s sometimes by osmosis, but it’s good to be forced to confront ideas with [...]

By skepticlawyer | Also posted in Law, Personal liberty | Comments (121)

Equity as Spontaneous Order: Evolution of Glosses on the Common Law

July 10, 2007 – 12:02 am

One of the requirements for entry to the University of Oxford’s BCL is provision of an essay demonstrating ‘legal scholarship’. This is the essay that I submitted to the admissions board at the Law Faculty. Long ago, Rococo Liberal asked me to write a piece on Hayek and Equity. I’d already written this piece, but [...]

By skepticlawyer | Also posted in Law | Comments (75)

Corrida!

February 7, 2007 – 12:34 am

At one point when I was living in Italy, I paid for mum to come and stay with me for a couple of months. She’d never travelled to ‘the Continent’ as the Irish so quaintly put it, and her last holiday had been on the boat on the way over to Australia - in 1950. [...]

By skepticlawyer | Also posted in Literature | Comments (8)

Hayek on Amazon

January 28, 2007 – 3:22 pm

Since we’re shameless promoters of all things Hayek around these parts, and we’ve all no doubt contributed to improving Amazon’s share price over the years, I decided to sign us up as an Amazon affiliate.
Those of you who’ve been sold on our Hayek advocacy - or who simply aspire to know more than Hevvie Kevvie [...]

By skepticlawyer | Also posted in Economics | Comments (21)

Jurisprudence for Dummies: Finnis

December 12, 2006 – 9:14 pm

Professor John Finnis provides the first real attempt to deal with the problems that beset natural law. He’s not an easy read, focussing on quality ideas rather than quality writing. For that reason, I’ve put considerable time into the construction of this commentary on his work. Ultimately, I don’t agree with him, but there’s no [...]

By skepticlawyer | Also posted in Law | Comments (55)

Voluntary Euthanasia: a musical plea

December 7, 2006 – 10:44 pm

For the uninitiated, stumbling across Metallica’s One can seem like encountering a passionate anti-war statement. For metal aficionados, however, the song - probably Metallica’s finest - doesn’t work that way. This is a song about euthanasia, and manages to make all the points Million Dollar Baby did over two hours in six minutes of intense [...]

By skepticlawyer | Also posted in Music | Comments (88)

Jurisprudence for Dummies - Natural Law before Finnis

December 6, 2006 – 6:23 pm

Rafe mentioned Natural law and David Hume’s analysis of its weaknesses in the first Jurisprudence for Dummies thread, and so reminded me that it may make more sense to treat jurisprudence sequentially, rather than in the order in which it is commonly taught. With that in mind, I’ve posted the first part of the natural [...]

By skepticlawyer | Also posted in Law | Comments (24)

Jurisprudence for Dummies

December 6, 2006 – 1:09 am

One of the privileges I enjoyed at law school was studying jurisprudence with Professor Suri Ratnapala. As someone with no background in political philosophy, his course was both a damn steep learning curve and very enlightening. It turns out I wasn’t the only one who felt this way. As I progressed through the subject, I [...]

By skepticlawyer | Also posted in Law | Comments (19)