Some difficulties with having law 
(Seminars)
29 May 2012
5.30pm
Venue: Small Lecture Theatre, School of Law
Contact email: s.winter@auckland.ac.nz
Auckland Branch of the Society for Legal and Social Philosophy seminar by Professor Jim Evans.
Is it a good thing to be governed by clear, detailed, rules? Having clear, detailed, rules gives us stability and the ability to plan our lives. But these rules can be too blunt or tie us down to decisions that are inadequate or wrong. The mismatch between good decision-making and decision-making solely according to such rules is too large to be tolerable. So, the question now is, 'How can a society get the benefits of the rule of law without suffering too much from its potential defects?'
Professor Jim Evans is a Professor Emeritus of The University of Auckland, who retired from the Law School in 2005. He holds a PhD from Cambridge. His primary area of research is legal philosophy, particularly legal reasoning, on which he has published extensively. He is currently working on a book on the causes of problems of statutory interpretation.
All welcome.
