Out of Hart, Dworkin and Altman, who provided the best understanding Essay

Out of Hart, Dworkin and Altman, who provided the best understanding of judicial discretion What implication do their position have for the legitimacy of judic - Essay Example After Roper says he would cut down every law in England that kept him from pursuing and capturing the Devil, More answers: Oh And when the last law was down, and the Devil turned 'round on you, where would you hide, Roper, the laws all being flat This country is planted thick with laws, from coast to coast, Man's laws, not God's! And if you cut them down, and you're just the man to do it, do you really think you could stand upright in the winds that would blow then Yes, I'd give the Devil benefit of law, for my own safety's sake! (Bolt 46) In other words, from More's perspective, the protections that the law affords everyone are worth the protections that the law offers the accused, no matter how obvious his or her guilt may seem. More clearly advocates a fairly literal application of the law and would frown on a great deal of legislation from judicial benches. More, of course, lived four centuries ago. Legal philosophy has changed a great deal since then. One movement that has been particularly influential in the past century has been the advent of legal positivism. This idea asserts a fundamental difference between law and morality. By extension, this idea suggests that there is room for judges to act as social activists, and use rulings to ameliorate the damage that the gaps between the laws as they stand and the ethics of particular situations can wreak. H.L.A. Hart, Ronald Dworkin, and Alfred Altman all have perspectives on the proper role of judicial activism and discretion. Dworkin and Hart come in on basically opposite sides of the argument. While Dworkin views the law as a system that always provides a correct answer, through his Theory of Adjudication (Gaffrey 22), Hart asserts that laws themselves are "open-textured" and that there is room for judges to use discretion to plug the gaps between legal rules and morals (Bix 52). Altman takes a middle view based on his idea of "truncation," which basically refers to a judge knowing when to apply the law to its most literal extent, and when to abridge its extension (Altman 5). Given the liberal ideals of the modern rule of law in the United Kingdom, it would seem that this middle way provides the most room for compromises in cases where compromises are clearly needed, without permitting judges to become too activist in their rulings. Hart's concept of legal positivism divides the law into two categories: primary, or duty-imposing, rules, and secondary, or power-imposing rules. Primary rules confer rights or set obligations: criminal law is made up of only primary rules, for example. Secondary rules dictate the ways in which primary rules are made and enforced. An example would be the rules that dictate the makeup of Parliament, and the rules governing the enactment of acts in Parliament (Bix 51). One of the most crucial elements of Hart's theory is the "open texture theory." Hart uses the term "open texture" to mean that there are some situations in which judges should apply discretion when there is a case that may be said to fall outside existing rule of law. He supports this assertion with three reasons. First, language itself, which comprises laws, contains many loopholes, just by virtue of its very nature. While words in a legal rule may well

Economics thoughts and history Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Economics thoughts and history - Essay Example and real median family income seem to go in different directions, productivity soaring up, with a cumulative change rate of over 300%, while the real median family income going down from 150-100% (Economic Policy Institute, 2012). This situation can be explained using a neo classical framework. The high levels of productivity in relation to lower real income values for median families can have tremendous effects both in the long and short run. In the short run, the middle class, which consists of the majority of citizens, will not have enough income to cater for savings. They will be less motivated to work since they do not feel the impact of their efforts at a national level. In the long run, the demonization of these people would mean productivity is affected. Using the labor theory, the situation captured by the graph has a lot of implications on labor from the middle class in America. In as much as the middle class contributes their labor to the national growth of the economy, they do not reap the benefits. More people will be less motivated to work, making labor a rare factor of production. The cost of labor is bound to increase in the long run. From a Keynesian perspective, the government needs to provide motivation to the middle class by ensuring they also benefit from the increase I productivity. The government can do this by investing in infrastructure and other fixed capital expenditure as well as changing tax laws to reduce the pain felt by middle class families. This will lead to increased productivity and real median family income in the long run. Using the institutional methodology, the situation portrayed in the graph can be remedied by changing institutions that serve the middle class. The cost of services and goods ought to be reduced so as to increase the amount of disposable income among the middle class. The theory of marginal productivity of distribution has various economical assumptions, most of which have highly been criticized. One of