Legal Reasoning and Political Conflict

by Cass R. Sunstein

Overview

In Legal Reasoning and Political Conflict, Cass R. Sunstein, one of America's best known commentators on our legal system, offers a bold, new thesis about how the law should work in America, arguing that the courts best enable people to live together, despite their diversity, by resolving particular cases without taking sides in broader, more abstract conflicts.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780198026099
Publisher:	Oxford University Press
Publication date:	02/29/2000
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
File size:	369 KB

About the Author

Cass R. Sunstein is Karl N. Llewellyn Distinguished Service Professor of Jurisprudence and Co-Director of the Center on Constitutionalism in Eastern Europe at the University of Chicago. One of America's preeminent writers on legal issues, he is the author most recently of Democracy and the Problem of Free Speech, and is a frequent contributor to The New Republic and The New York Times Book Review.

Table of Contents

	Introduction: Law Amid Diversity	3
1	Reasoning and Legal Reasoning	13
2	Incompletely Theorized Agreements	35
3	Analogical Reasoning	62
4	Understanding (and Misunderstanding) the Rule of Law	101
5	In Defense of Casuistry	121
6	Without Reasons, Without Rules	136
7	Adapting Rules, Privately and Publicly	148
8	Interpretation	167
	Conclusion: Law and Politics	191
	Notes	197
	Index	211

Editorial Reviews

"This carefully nuanced description of the kind of reasoning employed in law, a process often mysterious to outsiders, is the best I've seen."—The New York Times Book Review

"An eloquent review of how the law works."—The Washington Post Book World

From the Publisher