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Vanderbilt Law Review
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Defending a Social Learning Explanation: A Comment on The Origins of Shared Intuitions of Justice
by Christopher Brett Jaeger
June 22, 2009
This Response addresses the November 2007 Vanderbilt Law Review Article, The Origins of Shared Intuitions of Justice, by Professors Paul H. Robinson, Robert Kurzban, and Owen D. Jones. The Article reviews empirical evidence that people share surprisingly similar moral inclinations—especially with respect to core social principles like opposition to unprovoked physical harm, the taking of property, and cheating in exchanges—and argues that a specific evolved human mechanism provides a more plausible explanation of these similarities than an accumulated social learning theory.
This Response defines the “accumulated social learning” theory and defends it, addressing its purported shortcomings and highlighting areas in which accumulated social learning theory explains present evidence better than an evolutionary theory. Specifically, this Response explains that accumulated social learning theory predicts that people will widely share core moral inclinations, just like evolutionary theory. Furthermore, on the more peripheral issues in which the data demonstrate that moral inclinations differ, social learning theory better accounts for the differences. This Response concludes that accumulated social learning theory provides the simpler, cleaner explanation of the current data.
Responding to The Origins of Shared Intuitions of Justice by Paul H. Robinson, Robert Kurzban, and Owen D. Jones
Preferred citation: Christopher Brett Jaeger, Defending a Social Learning Explanation: A Comment on The Origins of Shared Intuitions of Justice, 62 Vand. L. Rev. En Banc 25 (2009).
Reforming the Legal Ethics Curriculum: A Comment on Edward Rubin's "What's Wrong with Langdell's Method and What To Do About It"
by Lauren Solberg
April 30, 2009
This Response addresses Edward Rubin’s March 2007 article “What’s Wrong With Langdell’s Method and What to Do About It,” which discusses the need for curriculum reform in U.S. law schools. He proposes a curriculum overhaul to reform, at a minimum, first-year law school courses, and he advocates that law schools develop more concentrations—programs akin to undergraduate majors—to offer students a more cohesive curriculum. Rubin also briefly mentions general student and faculty distaste for the course in professional responsibility required by most law schools but proposes no remedy for this issue.
This Response proposes to supplement Rubin’s suggested comprehensive reform with just such a remedy. Recent publications suggest that the required professional responsibility course in its current form is indeed disliked, outdated, and fails to teach law students adequately about real-world ethical issues in legal practice. To resolve this problem, law schools should implement a re-tooled legal ethics curriculum that weaves legal ethics into each core course in the law school curriculum. This method of integration, known as the “pervasive method,” will educate students about practical and relevant ethical issues associated with the particular legal discipline in conjunction with the standard course material. It will serve to reduce monotony in the coursework and provide a better setting than the standard Professional Responsibility course for examining real-world ethical issues in legal practice.
This Response will discuss how to implement the pervasive method in the law school setting and the advantages and disadvantages that accompany it.
Responding to What's Wrong With Langdell's Method, and What To Do About It by Edward Rubin
Preferred citation: Lauren Solberg, Reforming the Legal Ethics Curriculum: A Comment on Edward Rubin's "What's Wrong With Langdell's Method, and What To Do About It," 62 Vand. L. Rev. En Banc 12 (2009).
Relative Difference and the Dean Method: A Comment on "Getting the Math Right"
by Mark Bell
March 30, 2009
This Response critiques a recent Article in the Vanderbilt Law Review, Getting the Math Right: Why California Has Too Many Seats in the House of Representatives, by Professor Paul H. Edelman, on the doctrine of "one person one vote" as applied to congressional apportionment. Professor Edelman discusses the background of "one person one vote" in the congressional apportionment context and asserts that because of a mathematical flaw, the Supreme Court in U.S. Department of Commerce v. Montana incorrectly permitted a method of congressional apportionment that is not in accordance with "one person one vote." Professor Edelman's mathematical assertion is fundamentally correct; the Court did not use the correct denominator in its calculations. However, this Response argues that even if the Court had been presented with the correct mathematical calculations, the Court should not have been persuaded. This Response also argues that there should be a distinction between relative deviation—used in districting—and relative difference—used in apportionment—and proposes a method for calculating relative difference that differs from the ones that Professor Edelman and the Court proposed.
Responding to Getting the Math Right: Why California Has Too Many Seats in the House of Representatives by Paul H. Edelman
Preferred citation: Mark Bell, Relative Difference and the Dean Method: A Comment on "Getting the Math Right," 62 Vand. L. Rev. En Banc 1 (2009).
Wrongs Without Recourse: A Comment on Jason Solomon's Judging Plaintiffs
by Professor John C.P. Goldberg
November 22, 2008
Jason Solomon’s very interesting Article Judging Plaintiffs argues that neither efficient-deterrence theories nor corrective justice theories adequately explain the existence of rules that bar or limit recovery by a tort victim on the ground that she failed to take certain pre-tort steps to protect herself from harm, or failed to take certain post-tort steps in response to the harm. The vitality of these “judging plaintiffs” doctrines, he maintains, attests to the superiority of an alternative theory of tort known as civil recourse theory. According to Solomon, recourse theory treats tort law as one component of a liberal political order and thus explains these doctrines in terms of a liberal principle calling for state nonintervention where it was or is unnecessary. In this Response, I situate Judging Plaintiffs within current tort theory debates, describe briefly its major claims, and discuss some of the doctrinal and theoretical strengths and weaknesses of the position it stakes out.
Responding to Judging Plaintiffs by Jason Solomon
Preferred citation: John C.P. Goldberg, Wrongs Without Recourse: A Comment on Jason Solomon's Judging Plaintiffs, 61 Vand. L. Rev. En Banc 9 (2008).
Public Pension Funds as Shareholder Activists: A Comment on Choi and Fisch
by Professor Randall S. Thomas
October 6, 2008
This Response critiques a recent Article on public pension fund shareholder activism by Stephen Choi and Jill Fisch. Choi and Fisch use the results of a survey of forty public pension funds as a basis for an empirical and normative analysis of public pension fund activism. Choi and Fisch’s survey evidence gives us some tantalizing glimpses inside the black box of public pension fund activism. At the end of the day though, we are still left with significant questions. This Response raises some of these questions, critiquing the representativeness of Choi and Fisch’s sample, their interpretation of the survey results on litigation and non-litigation activism, and the “right” place for public pension funds in the spectrum of shareholder activists.
Responding to On Beyond CalPERS: Survey Evidence on the Developing Role of Public Pension Funds in Corporate Governance by Stephen J. Choi and Jill E. Fisch
Preferred citation: Randall S. Thomas, Public Pension Funds as Shareholder Activists: A Comment on Choi and Fisch, 61 Vand. L. Rev. En Banc 1 (2008).
