Speakers/Abstracts
Beecher-Monas,
Erica (Florida State University)
Enron,
Evolutionary Biology and Accountability:
Evolutionary
game theory and human behavioral biology illuminate several important
aspects of the current crisis in corporate governance and suggest that
regulation and private enforcement through litigation are necessary
components of efficient capital markets. This project examines the
impact of evolutionary game theory - which combines the idea of
complex evolutionary interactions with mathematical economics - on
structuring economic regulation in democracies. In particular, it
draws on insights from evolutionary game theory and cognitive
psychology to discuss two major crises: the Russian experience with
privatization and the Enron fiasco. This project is novel and
controversial, in that it emphasizes the necessity of structuring
human interactions for optimal social gains.
Bridgeman, Curtis
(Student, Vanderbilt Law
School)
Kripkeholmes and
Contract Querformance: Can evolutionary biology accounts
of language help us to decide whether Holmes was right when he claimed
that contracting parties are really promising not to perform, but
rather to perform or pay damages? Holmes' claim that contracting
parties are really promising to perform or pay damages is analogous to
Kripke's account of Wittgenstein's private language argument, in which
Kripke raises the skeptical question of whether we can ever be said to
mean, say, plus by the term 'plus,' or whether we really mean "quus"
- in short, he claims that there is no fact of the matter about
meanings, at least at the individual level. Ruth Garrett Millikan
offers a biological response to the "Kripkenstein" problem,
arguing that a proper-function account of language can show that there
is a fact of the matter as to what we mean when we use language. Using
her basic structure, and supplementing it with work on cooperation in
evolutionary theory, I will argue, contra Holmes, that when we
promise to perform, we really do mean to perform, and not just either
to perform or to pay damages.
Covitz, Akiba J.
(University of Richmond)
The Nature of
the Constitution: Are there elements of the structure
and function of the Constitution of the United States that can be
more accurately viewed through the lenses of evolutionary analysis
and brain science? Darwin proclaimed the related structures and
"the mutual relations of all organic beings" within
"the polity of nature." The Constitution of the United
States is a text that is written with that natural polity in mind.
The links between the human constitution and the American
Constitution will be discussed.
Geu, Tom (University
of South Dakota Law School)
Human Motivation
and the Family Business: Does a new synthetic model of
human "drive" (primarily derived from evolutionary biology)
provide a behavioral algorithm for closely-held family businesses? In
the new book "Driven: How Human Nature Shapes our Choices"
two business researchers synthesize research results and literature
from across disciplines concerning human nature and the working of the
human brain. The authors hypothesize the existence of four basic and
independent human drives that motivate human behavior. The purpose of
the talk is to introduce the hypothesis and then analyze it by
comparing it to the law of closely held businesses and selected other
literature n family businesses.
Goodenough, Oliver (Vermont
Law School)
Applications
of Evolutionary Analysis to Humans: A Methodological Review:
What are proper and improper uses of
evolutionary analysis in the study of law and related
disciplines? There is now a significant history for the
application of evolutionary analysis to the study of law and related
disciplines. The success and limitations of these studies suggests the
need for a review of the methodology appropriate for evolutionary
approaches to human behavior. We should also consider once again the
implications for the law of establishing the contours of the
biological components of human behavior.
Jones, Gregory and Doug Yarn (Georgia State
University College or Law)
Uncertainty,
Information, & Irrationality in Legal Negotiations:
What does experimental evidence have to show about the extent to which
information, acquired through evaluation by third-party intervention,
is rationally processed by disputants for use in settlement
negotiations and to what extent can evolutionary analysis help to
explain divergence from rationality? In the context of a broader
debate in the legal community on the relative merits of evaluative
forms of alternative dispute resolution (ADR), we report experimental
results indicating that evaluative information offered in evaluative
mediation, advisory arbitration, and pre-trial settlement conferences
is under-valued and under-utilized by negotiators as compared to
Bayesian optimums. There is significant literature to suggest that
ecological rationality has evolved in a manner that is not consistent
with the percentages and probabilities that are traditionally part of
Bayesian evidence computation and such theories may be helpful in
understanding our findings. Our study contributes to an emerging body
of evolutionary analysis literature that may undermine the popular
paradigm of rational legal negotiations and suggests important
implications for lawyers as problem solvers, alternative dispute
resolution practitioners, policy analysts who may seek to optimize and
regulate the role that evaluative alternative dispute resolution may
play within our legal system, and researchers who investigate these
and related areas.
Kniffin, Kevin M.
(State University of New York at Binghamton)
Corporate
Personhood, Biological Fictions, and Multilevel Selection
Theory: What evolutionary bases exist (if any) for the
legal doctrine of corporate personhood? Evolutionary biologists have a
history of considering whether groups of individuals can and do
function as "superorganisms." While biologists have not
reached consensus on these questions, the notion of "corporate
personhood" has been an accepted legal doctrine for several
decades. I will argue that multilevel selection theory helps to
illuminate the degree to which corporate personhood might be a
biological fiction.
Lanou, John
(Collier Shannon Scott)
Kin Recognition,
Fictive Families, and Darwinian Medicine: The Evolutionary Case for
Group Cohabitation and the Medical Case Against Village of Bell
Terre v. Boraas: Is the Supreme Court's zoning-law
decision in Village of Belle Terre v. Boraas consistent with
evolutionary prescriptions for good health? In Village of Belle
Terre v. Boraas (1974), the Supreme Court upheld the
constitutionality of a local zoning law that limited the number of
biologically unrelated persons allowed under one roof. These
"single-family" ordinances have since become popular with
local zoning boards and are now the norm in many suburban areas.
However, current medical data and evolutionary theory suggest that
modern, insular living arrangements and their discouragement of group
cohabitation can have a deleterious effect on public health.
Lillquist, Erik and
Charles Sullivan
(Seton
Hall University Law School)
Racial Profiling In Medicine: Too
Much or Too Little?: If
there is no such thing as race (as many biologists suggest), should
the legal system permit the use of race in the health care system?
Human evolutionary biologists often
suggest that attempts to classify people based on race are
"nonsensical," and American law generally forbids the use of
race in both the public and private spheres. Nonetheless, there have
been increasing calls for the use of race in medicine in recent years,
a result that is (somewhat) consistent with our knowledge that some
population groups are disproportionately subject to certain genetic
diseases. We use insights from evolutionary biology to investigate
when the use of race in medicine may or may not be rational, and what
the role, if any, of government should be to the proposed use of race
in health care.
Low, Bobbi - Keynote Speaker
(University of Michigan)
Sex, Power, and
Resources: How Our Evolutionary Past Haunts Our Ecological Future: As
we look at problems of global sustainability, and
population-environment issues, it is striking how our modern
environment is evolutionarily novel. Both fertility patterns and
consumption patterns, both central to ecological sustainability,
were once far more "ecologically" controlled
than today, when we have more socio-cultural regulation. What does
this mean for changes in those patterns?
Dr. Low is a Professor
at the University of Michigan's School of Natural Resources and
Environment. She is an expert on, among other things, the influence
of evolutionary processes on human sexual behaviors. She is also the
author of, among many other publications, Why Sex Matters: A
Darwinian Look at Human Behavior. Dr. Low is President-Elect of
the Human Behavior and Evolution Society (HBES). You may learn more about Dr. Low
at http://www.snre.umich.edu/people/faculty_detail.html?faculty_id=15.
Masters, Roger (President,
Foundation for Neuroscience and Society and Department of
Government, Dartmouth College)
Explaining and
Responding to Terrorism: Inclusive Fitness Theory and Suicide Bombers:
Although rational choice theory can only explain suicide bombers as
"insane" religious fundamentalists, empirical evidence often
contradicts this account. In contrast, from the perspective of
inclusive fitness theory, suicide bombers are "kin selected
altruists" whose behavior is predicted by the confluence of
demographic and power differences between societies. From this
perspective, while pre-emptive strategies directed at potential enemy
states (such as Iraq) are likely to elicit disastrous terrorist
retaliation, deterrence combined with aggressive counterintelligence
provides a promising means to limit domestic losses.
Millar, Paul
(University of Calgary)
Paternity
Testing and Game Theory:
What insight can game theory
provide to choices made in paternity testing for child support? A
Bayesian game theoretic model for choices in paternity testing is
presented, illustrating the impact of changing technology on the
parameters of choice available to the protagonists in child support.
Implications for legal policy, and the possible impact of future
changes in technology will be discussed.
Schall, Jeffrey
D. (Vanderbilt University)
Neural Basis of
Deciding, Choosing and Acting:
The ability and opportunity to make decisions and carry out effective
actions to obtain goals is central to intelligent life. Recent research
has provided significant new insights into how the brain arrives at
decisions, makes choices, and produces and evaluates the consequences of
actions. In fact, by monitoring or manipulating specific neurons,
certain choices can be predicted or manipulated.
Skinner, Nicholas
(Franklin Pierce Law Center)
The Biological
Basis of Entitlements: Can evolutionary analysis explain
the emergence of entitlements and human rights? Entitlements satisfy
human desires. Human desires are conscious states caused by neuro-physiological
processes in the brain. At the level of description where human beings
experience desires, legal phenomenon such as contracts, patents, food
stamps, and ownership of Black Acre in fee simple emerge along a
causal pathway leading from brains to minds, to desires, and the
extraordinary array of entitlements serving to satisfy many of them.
To the extent this biology is shaped by evolutionary forces,
principles of evolutionary biology can be used to explain the
emergence of entitlements.
Stake, Jeff (Indiana
University School of Law-Bloomington)
Adverse
Possession and Territoriality: What
do studies of animal territoriality suggest about the normative
foundation for the doctrine of adverse possession? Studies show that
animals fight harder to retain possession than to gain possession of
territory. The doctrine of adverse possession seems to recognize
that difference in attitude. Are the studies sufficient to justify
adverse possession?
Vandenbergh,
Michael P. and Daniel E. Orr (Vanderbilt
University Law School)
Evolutionary
Analysis of Causa Mortis Gifts: Does evolutionary
analysis predict court decisions on causa mortis gifts? Causa
mortis gifts are gifts given by a donor in apprehension of the
donor's death from an existing peril. If court decisions are
representative of causa mortis gift giving generally,
evolutionary analysis suggests that the outcomes of these decisions
will reflect the genetic relatedness of the donor and donee. This
talk will discuss our preliminary analysis of causa mortis
gift decisions in the United States and will identify potential
implications.
| 
