The high court and the utility of multiple judgments

Recently, the High Court has been criticised for its supposed increasing tendency to deliver multiple majority judgments. Ostensibly this impairs the capacity for the Court to clarify and unify the law, thereby making it more difficult for citizens to plan and coordinate their affairs. This criticism of the High Court is unsound. First, there is no evidence to suggest that the High Court is now more fragmented than it has been during other periods of its history. Secondly, the precise reasoning process (and the underlying jurisprudence reflected by this) is a cardinal aspect of the development of precedent and legal principle. Convergence in conclusion only is of little utility and does not promote certainty and clarity in the law. One cannot make an informed assessment of the impact and breadth of a decision without an understanding of the (actual) premise underpinning the decision. It is for this reason that legislation is such a poor vehicle for declaring the law and why in recent decades there has been an increasing degree of reliance on extraneous material to assist in the interpretation of legislation. Conclusion without (genuine) reasons is not highly instructive. Coerced agreement, no matter how subtle, is undesirable. The High Court should resist calls to deliver more single majority judgments.

Order of question presentation and correlation between judgments of comparative and own risk

Unrealistic optimism is often assessed using a single question asking for an estimate of comparative risk. However, it has been proposed that individuals treat such a question essentially as though it were only about their own risk. This proposal leads to the prediction that, when the questions about own risk and comparative risk are asked in sequence, the correlation between the resulting estimates should be lower if the question about own risk comes first than if the question about comparative risk comes first. This prediction was tested using a student sample (N=68). Participants answered the two types of question in sequence, with order of presentation being counterbalanced. Results were in accord with the prediction. Possible reasons are advanced for individuals' answering questions about comparative risk as if the questions concerned their own risk.

The effect of mood on opposite-sex judgments of males' commitment and females sexual intent

Gender differences in perceptions of sexual intent and commitment have been the subject of formal and informal inquiry for considerable time. One evolutionary theory, Error Management Theory (EMT), predicts that opposite-sex perceptions of female sexual intent and male commitment intent reflect intrinsic biases that minimize gender-specific evolutionary costs. The results supporting these hypotheses were obtained from subjects regardless of mood. We hypothesized that mood would influence ratings of sexual and commitment intent. Sixty participants (30 males, 30 females) were recruited and exposed to a positive and negative mood condition in counterbalanced groups using video stimuli. Preliminary analyses found an unexpected effect of order of mood induction, necessitating separate analyses of the Positive-Negative (PN) and Negative-Positive (NP) groups. Contrary to the original study, there were no gender effects. Positive moods led to increased ratings of both sexual and commitment intent across genders. Further, negative to positive mood-change was associated with significantly increased ratings. Both males and females attributed significantly higher sexual intent to same-sex rivals than themselves, but only males assessed themselves as having significantly higher commitment intent than same-sex rivals. The EMT model may require adaptation to acknowledge effects of variables such as mood on its predictions of gender-specific biases.

The effects of phonological and morphological training on speech perception scores and grammatical judgments in deaf and hard-of-hearing children

Seventeen primary school deaf and hard-of-hearing children were given two types of training for 9 weeks each. Phonological training involved practice of /s, z, t, d/ in word final position in monomorphemic words. Morphological training involved learning and practicing the rules for forming third-person singular, present tense, past tense, and plurals. The words used in the two training types were different (monomorphemic or polymorphemic) but both involved word final /s, z, t, d/. Grammatical judgments were tested before and after training using short sentences that were read aloud by the child (or by the presenter if the child was unable to read them). Perception was tested with 150 key words in sentences using the trained morphemes and phonemes in word final position. Grammatical judgments for sentences involving the trained morphemes improved significantly after each type of training. Both types of training needed to be completed before a significant improvement was found for speech perception scores. The results suggest that both phonological and morphological training are beneficial in improving speech perception and grammatical performance of deaf and hard-of-hearing children and that both types of training were required to obtain the maximum benefit.

Identity crisis in identification evidence: Similarity judgments as an alternative to identification decisions.

This research explored similarity ratings as an alternative to identifications with regards to eyewitness evidence. This involved replacing the concept of binary identity decisions with continuum-based similarity judgments. Preliminary evidence suggested that a relationship exists between similarity and identity, and that ratings offer a number of advantages over identifications.

International commercial law : principles and practices

International Commercial Law: Principles and practices considers the multifaceted nature of international commercial law and explains the rules, principles, policies and practices that comprise this area of law and the wide-ranging influences that shape it

The book provides an extensive analysis of the wider policy, moral, economic and political considerations underpinning international commercial law.
- It analyses and evaluates existing standards and practices, and suggests proposals for reform.
- It encourages readers to make informed judgments regarding the interpretation of relevant legal standards and to make predictions about how the law is likely to develop.

Quo iure? Defendants' liability to rescuers in the tort of negligence

The year 2001 marks the 80th anniversary of Cardozo J's judgment in Wagner v International Railway Co 232 NY 176 (1921). This article examines theoretical and procedural problems associated with the concept of duty of care as a foundation for the defendant's liability in negligence to altruistic rescuers, and suggests that Cardozo J's judgment did not establish the principle that defendants owe rescuers a duty of care in negligence. It is argued that subsequent judgments failed to provide the duty of care owed to rescuers under tortious negligence with proper jurisprudential foundations. Conceptual difficulties inherent in a jurisprudential principle that would provide physically injured rescuers with a legal right to a duty of care from the defendant under the tort of negligence were compounded once compensation for negligently occasioned pure emotional distress became available. This article analyses various theories of recovery for pure psychiatric injury and the classification of rescuers into primary and secondary victims. It proposes a solution in the form of a separate cause of action on the case for liability to injured rescuers, partly based on the principle of necessity that governs the Roman action for negotiorum gestio. Cases from the United States, England and Australia are used to illustrate the similarities and differences in the development of and approaches to, the law of rescue.

Overcoming principles: dialogue in business ethics

Basing itself upon a virtue-ethics approach, this paper questions the value of syllogistic or deductive approaches to teaching business ethics and to the modelling of the kinds of judgments that executives are asked to make in situations of moral complexity. It urges that the teaching of ethical theories, of ethical principles, and of logical methods of moral thinking, and the use of hypothetical or historical scenarios, be augmented by the method of `Real Case Dialogue' which more nearly models the eal and intense existential realities of ethical decision making. A brief description of such a dialogue is offered so aslo provide an example.

The effects of mood states on the AIDS-related judgements of gay men

In two studies, the effects of induced mood on the AIDS-related judgements of gay men were investigated. Participants were induced into a positive, neutral, or negative mood by recall of affect-laden autobiographical memories; they then made AIDS-related judgements. In Study 1 (n=30), the men indicated their level of agreement with statements expressing optimism about the efficacy of antiretroviral treatments for HIV/AIDS. Those induced into a positive mood indicated stronger agreement than did those induced into a neutral or negative mood. In Study 2 (n=83), participants read brief descriptions of men they did not know and estimated the likelihood that they were HIV-infected. Each sketch highlighted one characteristic of the man described. There were two versions of each sketch (e.g., the versions of the sketch highlighting intelligence described the man either as very intelligent or as very unintelligent), given to different participants. Stereotype use was inferred if significantly different estimates were given for the two versions of a sketch. Reliance on stereotypes was found most often in the positive mood condition and least often in the negative mood condition. The findings are consistent with, and suggest explanations for, earlier correlational evidence that, in gay men of the age group studied, sexual risk-taking is associated with a positive mood. Suggestions are made for how AIDS educators might address the contributions of mood states to sexual risk-taking.

The influence of object-image velocity change on perceived heading in minimal environments

When human observers move forward and rotate their eyes, a complex pattern of light flows across the retina. This pattern is referred to as retinal flow. A model has been proposed to explain how humans perceive their direction of self-movement (or heading) from (1) static depth, (2) direction of image motion, and (3) whether image velocity undergoes acceleration or deceleration (Wang & Cutting, 1999). However, findings from past research in which sparse or minimalist stimuli were used have suggested that not all of the information to which participants are sensitive is captured within the scope of this model. In particular it has been suggested that the magnitude or size of image velocity change may be of significance beyond simply whether image velocity could be categorized as speeding up (i.e., accelerating) or slowing down (i.e., decelerating). In two experiments, the influence of this factor on heading judgments under minimal conditions was investigated. Evidence was found in support of the idea that the rate of image velocity change can influence judgments of the direction of self-movement in minimalist conditions.

Corporate donations, the best interest of the company and the proper purpose doctrine

Corporate philanthropy is illegitimate spending by powerful corporate elite of someone else’s money; an attempt to bypass democratic allocation of taxes; philanthropy by individuals is laudable, but not by corporations.

Just as I wouldn’t want you to implement your personal judgments by writing checks on my bank account for charities of your choice, I feel it inappropriate to write checks on your corporate ‘bank account’ for the charities of my choice.