Robin Paul Malloy

Adam Smith and the philosophy of law and economics

Preface. Introduction to the Volume R.P. Malloy. Setting the Scene: Adam Smiths Moral Philosophy J. Evensky. Adam Smith and the Role of the Courts in Securing Justice and Liberty J.W. Cairns. Adam Smiths Treatment of Criminal Law J.R. Lindgren. Adam Smith on Delictual Liability K.A.B. Mackinnon. Adam Smith and the Modern Discourse of Law and Economics R.P. Malloy. Introduction to Part Two R.P. Malloy. Is Law and Economics Moral? Humanistic Economics and a Classical Liberal Critique of Posners Economic Analysis R.P. Malloy. Law and Economics is Moral R.A. Posner. The Limits of Science in Legal Discourse -- a Reply to Posner R.P. Malloy. Rebuttal to Malloy R.A. Posner. Professor Malloy, Judge Posner, and Adam Smiths Moral Philosophy J. Evensky. The Role of Law in Adam Smiths Moral Philosophy: Natural Jurisprudence and Utility J. Evensky. Index.

The Limits of Science in Legal Discourse — A Reply to Posner

In the course of its slow development in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries the study of economic and social phenomena was guided in the choice of its methods in the main by the nature of the problems it had to face…. Students of political economy could describe it alternatively as a branch of science or of moral or social philosophy without the least qualms whether their subject was scientific or philosophical.

Real Estate Transactions and Entrepreneurship: Transforming Value Through Exchange

This article grows out of a paper presented at the 2010 Annual Meeting of the AALS. It was presented at a joint session sponsored by the AALS sections on Real Estate Transactions and Property Law. The article makes three key points.1) It explains, from a transactional perspective, the relationship between property law and the law of real estate transactions.2) It explains the growing significance and enhanced strategic value of real estate transactions law relative to property law.3) It calls for development of a deeper theory of real estate transactions, independent of property law theory, and suggests that such a theory ought to account for the relationship between real estate transactions and entrepreneurship. Suggestions are offered with respect to the meaning of entrepreneurship, and different types of entrepreneurial styles/motives that might operate in real estate markets.

Critiques of Law and Economics

This chapter summarizes leading critiques of law and economics. For the most part, we put aside objections to particular applications of law and economics to distinct fields of law. We focus on rather general criticisms that properly apply to widely shared core commitments within the field of law and economics. We have grouped these critiques into three categories. We first address concerns about the normative value of economic efficiency as a leading goal for law. We next address methodological criticisms, which often call into question the coherence of the allocative efficiency concept. Finally, we discuss the criticisms of law and microeconomics from the perspective of rhetoric and interpretation theory.

Economics as a map in law and market economy

S.I. Hayakawa said, “The map is not the territory.” Taking this as my theme, I explore the idea of economics as a cultural-interpretive map that can be usefully employed to navigate the legal landscape. As a map, economics facilitates our understanding of law in a market context. At the same time, the map is not the metaphorical territory that it represents, just as economics is not the market exchange process to which it refers. Therefore, we must be careful not to conflate our conception of the economic map with our understanding of the legal territory.

Planning for Serfdom—An Epilogue on Law, Economics, and Values

It is important not to confuse opposition against this kind of planning with a dogmatic laissez-faire attitude. The liberal argument is in favor of making the best possible use of the forces of competition as a means of coordinating human efforts, not an argument for leaving things just as they are. It is based on the conviction that, where effective competition can be created, it is a better way of guiding individual efforts than any other. It does not deny, but even emphasizes, that, in order that competition should work beneficially, a carefully thought-out legal framework is required and that neither the existing nor the past legal rules are free from grave defects. Nor does it deny that, where it is impossible to create the conditions necessary to make competition effective, we must resort to other methods of guiding economic activity.