030349 SE Why the Law is so Pervers (2016S)

Leo Katz is one of the leading legal theorists of our time.

In his most recent book, Why the Law Is So Perverse, he focuses on four fundamental features of our legal system, all of which seem to demand explanation.

First, legal decisions are essentially made in an either/or fashion—guilty or not guilty, liable or not liable—but reality is rarely as clear-cut. Why aren’t there any in-between verdicts?

Second, the law is full of loopholes. No one seems to like them, but somehow they cannot be made to disappear.

Third, legal systems abstain form punishing certain kinds of highly immoral conduct while prosecuting other far less pernicious behaviors. Why that?

Finally, why does the law often prohibit what are sometimes called win-win transactions, such as organ sales or surrogacy contracts?

Katz’s reconstruction of these phenomena draws on the logical difficulties related to multi-criterial decision making. The discovery of these difficulties dates back to Condorcet’s eighteenth-century exploration of voting rules, which marked the beginning of what we know today as social choice theory.

Professor Katz agreed to participate in the seminar.