Background
Kelman, Mark Gregory was born on August 20, 1951 in New York City. Son of Kurt and Sylvia (Etman) Kelman.
( Until now there has been no summary or overview of the...)
Until now there has been no summary or overview of the wide range of work contributing to critical legal studies, the movement that has aroused such a furor in the communities of law and political philosophy. This book outlines and evaluates the principal strands of critical legal studies, and achieves much more as well. A good deal of the writing in critical legal studies has been devoted to laying bare the contradictions in liberal thought. There have been attacks and counterattacks on the liberal position and on the more conservative law and economics position. Now Mark Kelman demonstrates that any critique of law and economics is inextricably tied to a broader critique of liberalism. There are three central contradictions in liberal thought: between a commitment to mechanically applicable rules and to standards that fluctuate with situations; between intrinsic individual values and the objective knowledge of ethical truths; and between free will and determinism. Kelman shows us the pervasiveness of these contradictions in legal doctrine; their connection to broader political theory and to visions of human nature; and, finally, the degree to which mainstream thought tends to privilege certain of these commitments over others. The author also analyzes two of the most significant components of jurisprudence today the law and economics discipline and the legal process school. He concludes with a lively discussion of the role of law generally and of "cognitive legitimation," or the ways in which legal thought can make the unnecessary, the contingent, and the unjust seem natural, inevitable, and fair.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0674367561/?tag=2022091-20
Kelman, Mark Gregory was born on August 20, 1951 in New York City. Son of Kurt and Sylvia (Etman) Kelman.
Bachelor in Social Studies, magna cum laude, Harvard University, 1972. Juris Doctor magna cum laude, Harvard University, 1976.
As a prominent legal scholar, he has applied social science methodologies, including economics and psychology, to the study of law. He is one of the most cited law professors. He is regarded as one of the co-founders of the critical legal studies movement and authored "A Guide to Critical Legal Studies." He is widely known for his influential 1978 critique of the Coase theorem, a core part of law and economics.
Being a published novelist, Kelman is well aware of the role of narrative in forming a sense of personal identity - as also of the way narratives may be incriminating or exculpatory, depending on the time frame used.
Thus, for example, when viewed in a long enough time-frame, a criminal act which appears at first sight the result of individual responsibility may, Kelman suggests, be instead the deterministic result of socio-economic conditions. Kelman argues that much in the law involves providing rational interpretative constructs that surround a non-rational core – what he terms "rational rhetoricism" with the result that, in his words, “lieutenant is illuminating and disquieting to see that we are nonrationally constructing the legal world over and over again..”.
Stanley Fish has proposed in rebuttal that such rhetorical constructs are in fact a necessary aspect of the human condition, and thus an inevitable facet of the legal world as well.
( Until now there has been no summary or overview of the...)
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Member Conference on Critical Legal Studies.
Married Ann Barbara Richman, August 26, 1979. 1 child, Nicholas.