The Faculty has published first edition of 2015, Volume 6 Number 1 of the University of Cambridge Faculty of Law Legal Studies Research Paper Series on SSRN.
This issue includes the following articles:
Matthew H. Kramer: Moral Conflicts, the 'Ought'-Implies-'Can' Principle, and Moral Demandingness (67/2014)
Among the complaints often voiced by philosophers who doubt the possibility or actuality of moral conflicts is that any such conflict would violate the “ought”-implies-“can” principle or would in some other respect be objectionably burdensome. The present essay seeks to rebut or defuse the concerns that impel such complaints. It accepts (at least arguendo) that moral conflicts are at odds with the “ought”-implies-“can” precept, but it maintains that the proper conclusion to be drawn is that that precept in any universally quantified form is false. As for the concern about excessive burdensomeness, I allow that such a worry is genuine but contend that it does not provide any ground for denying that moral conflicts are possible and quite frequently actual.
Matthew H. Kramer: The Purgative Rationale for the Death Penalty: Replies to Steiker and Danaher (68/2014)
Carol Steiker and John Danaher have recently published thought-provoking critiques of my 2011 book "The Ethics of Capital Punishment". In this paper I respond to the main points in their respective critiques. The paper goes beyond the book in two chief ways. First, it significantly expands on what the book has said about the role of everyone's self-respect in the purgative rationale for the death penalty. Second, in response to some of Danaher's remarks, the paper modifies the book's account of the wrongness of executing defendants who have become certifiably insane after being convicted of terrible crimes.
David Fox: Banks v Whetson (1596) (69/2014)
This chapter considers the pre-modern common law rules on the identification of money in mixtures. It takes the decision of the Court of King’s Bench in Banks v Whetson (1596) as a starting point for considering the legal structures which tended to ensure the perfect fungibility of commodity monies in the late medieval and early modern periods. It then considers how these were applied in civil actions in detinue and in criminal appeals of theft for the recovery of money. It shows how these rules were relevant to delimiting the differences between the forms of legal remedy available to plaintiffs, and how their relationship to common forms of monetary transaction. These rules were the foundation of the modern rules for tracing money in mixtures.
Mark Elliott: The Proposed Scotland Bill: The Constitutional Implications of Draft Clauses 1 and 2 (3/2015)
A paper concerning the constitutional implications of clauses 1 and 2 of the proposed Scotland Bill relating to the permanent status of the Scottish Parliament and Government and the placing on a statutory footing of a constitutional convention concerning non-interference by the UK Parliament in devolved Scottish affairs.
Carsten Burhop, David Chamber & Brian Cheffins: Law, Politics and the Rise and Fall of German Stock Market Development, 1870-1938 (4/2015)
Law and politics had a significant impact on stock market development in Germany between 1870 and the beginning of World War II. IPOs can be a bellwether for stock market development and nearly 1100 were carried out on the Berlin Stock Exchange during this period. Regulatory changes occurring in the 1880s and 1890s contributed to a very high survival rate among those companies going public. The IPO market retained its vibrancy through the 1920s notwithstanding an infamous hyperinflation episode. Collapse followed, however, in the 1930s, at least partly due to regulatory changes inimical to the publicly quoted firm brought about by the ideological shifts under Nazi rule.
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