Sunday, October 9, 2016

The Provocative Life of Judge Richard Posner

by John Fabian Wittoct

New York Times

October 7, 2016

Once in every great while, nature and nurture combine in a single person the qualities of erratic genius, herculean work ethic and irrepressible ambition. Think of Picasso in art, Ali in boxing or Roth in literature. Add a penchant for provocation untethered to the constraints of conventional human interaction and you get, in the law, Judge Richard Posner of the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit in Chicago.

In the past half-century there has been no figure more dominant or more controversial in American law than Posner. He has written more than 50 books, over 500 articles and nearly 3,000 majority opinions for his court. Not even Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. — to whom he is often compared — matches his productivity and range.

William Domnarski’s biography, the first such book on Posner, draws on extensive interviews and on access to Posner’s correspondence at the University of Chicago. “Richard Posner” portrays a man who aims self-­consciously to be (in his words) a “Promethean intellectual hero,” remaking the world of the law by sheer will. The questions Domnarski asks are, What makes this extraordinary character tick — and to what end?

Posner was born in New York City in 1939 to parents who were Communists, or at least fellow travelers. He held traditionally left-liberal views into adulthood, including the time of his clerkship on the Supreme Court with a liberal lion, Justice William Brennan. But he was restless and sometimes even bored. He considered leaving the law for graduate training in literature. In the late 1960s, however, he discovered economics. Legal thought has never been the same.

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Tuesday, July 19, 2016

The Illiberal Democracy of Ancient Athens

by Aristides N. Hatzis
University of Athens
July 15, 2016


Abstract

Ancient Athenians introduced democracy, majoritarianism and popular sovereignty. They also introduced populism and rent-seeking. Moreover, Athenians didn’t invent the rule of law. The power of demos was almost unlimited, there were no constitutional guarantees, checks and balances. The laws were subjected to the whims of the majority of citizens or judges. Most importantly, individual rights were not recognized in Athens. The concept of liberty in Ancient Athens was very different from the concept of liberty that prevailed after the Great Revolutions of the late 18th and the early 19th century which led to the contemporary liberal democracies. We will discuss these issues with reference to famous historical episodes and trials. However, we will also see that the liberal ideas of individuality, toleration and the rule of law, appeared in a not-so-embryonic way, in three important works of the period (a tragedy, a comedy and a history book). These ideas were remarkably original but at the same time marginal. They didn’t exert any significant influence on the Athenian democratic institutions.

This is the text of a Keynote Lecture at the international conference: “Ancient Greece and the Modern World: The Influence of Greek Thought on Philosophy, Science and Technology” (Ancient Olympia, August 2016)

Download the Lecture (PDF)

Friday, January 29, 2016

Richard A. Posner’s ‘Divergent Paths: The Academy and the Judiciary’

by Kermit Roosevelt

New York Times

January 29, 2016

If Richard Posner did not exist, who would dare invent him? The most-cited legal scholar of all time, who is arguably America’s greatest living judge; a man who publishes a book a year while writing all his own judicial opinions; an icy ration­alist who once confessed to unrequited love for his cat. . . . It’s all a bit too much to believe. Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes and Gene Roddenberry’s Mr. Spock are probably the closest anyone has come.

Fortunately, Posner does exist. A judge on the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit since 1981, he remains a senior lecturer at the University of Chicago Law School and from these dual positions continues to produce an astounding amount of work. He made his reputation as a scholar by pioneering the economic analysis of law in the 1970s and since then has ranged widely, covering topics like the relationship between law and literature, the regulation of sex, the 2000 election and antiterrorism. Recently he has turned his attention to the federal judiciary and written two books, “How Judges Think” and “Reflections on Judging.”

His latest, “Divergent Paths,” continues that trend, though its aim is less illumination than critique and reform. The book has two parts. The first, and longer, identifies problems facing the modern federal judiciary; the second offers suggestions for how law schools might alleviate them. Both display Posner’s characteristic clearheaded insights. “Divergent Paths” is a valuable contribution to debates over the future of federal courts and law schools alike.

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