Throughout the history of moral, political, and legal philosophy, many have portrayed passions and emotions as being opposed to reason and good judgment. At the same time, others have defended passions and emotions as tempering reason and enriching judgment, and there is mounting empirical evidence linking emotions to moral judgment. In Passions and Emotions, a group of prominent scholars in philosophy, political science, and law explore three clusters of issues: “Passion & Impartiality: Passions & Emotions in Moral Judgment”; “Passion & Motivation: Passions & Emotions in Democratic Politics”; and “Passion & Dispassion: Passions & Emotions in Legal Interpretation.” This timely, interdisciplinary volume examines many of the theoretical and practical legal, political, and moral issues raised by such questions.

Although the connection of law, passion and emotion has become an established focus in legal scholarship, the extent to which emotion has always been, and continues to be, a significant influence in informing legal reasoning, decision-making, decision-avoidance and legal judgment - rather than an adjunct - is still a matter for critical analysis. Engaging with the underlying social context in which emotional states are a motivational force - and have produced key legal principles and controversial judgments, as evidenced in a range of illustrative legal cases - Law and the Passions: A Discrete History provides a uniquely inclusive commentary on the significance and influence of emotions in the history and continuing development of legal institutions and legal dogma. Law, it is argued, is a passion; and, as such, it is a primarily emotional endeavour.

A history of the government's regulation of sexual behavior traces the historical purposes behind the prohibition against sodomy in early America and continues with a discussion of how the law was referenced in different contexts in later years, covering such topics as the McCarthy era, the sexual revolution of the 1960s, and the 2003 Supreme Court decision to decriminalize private sex between consenting adults. 20,000 first printing.

While the Constitution is the cornerstone of American government, some who are most familiar with the document find it lacking. This unique volume brings together many of the country's most esteemed constitutional commentators and challenges them to select the "stupidest" provision of the Constitution--then to surmise possible results if different interpretations were applied.

This illuminating Research Handbook analyses the role that emotions play and ought to play in legal reasoning and practice, rejecting the simplistic distinction between reason and emotion.

This anthology treats the role that emotions play, don't play, and ought to play in the practice and conception of law and justice. The work consists largely of original essays, by scholars of law, theology, political science and philosophy.

Scholars of law, theology, political science, and philosophy evaluate the role of emotion in the practice and conception of law and justice. Exploring the part that emotions such as disgust, shame, remorse, the desire for revenge, and love, all play in legal settings, the authors debate the ways that emotion should or should not be used in the decision making processes of judges, lawyers, and juries, and explore the possibility of an emotional hierarchy, and ways to evaluate emotion in sensational cases, such as death sentencing and hate crimes. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR