Catching my eye this week is a paper recently posted to SSRN by law prof Mark Osler (pictured), currently at St. Thomas (Minnesota) and formerly at Baylor (sic 'em Bears!). Osler's paper is titled Wisdom Not My Own: Rules, Principles, and the Teaching of Law. Here's the SSRN abstract:
Is it possible to not only give our law students knowledge, but the hope for wisdom?
This short essay argues that such a project is not only possible but desirable. We want wisdom (the ability to make principled choices) from those in the vocation of law, after all, especially in roles such as judge or prosecutor. The key to teaching towards wisdom is to allow students to work not only with rules but principles, and to model the sacrifice required to follow principle in our own public lives as law teachers.
The paper is already generating some buzz among my Campbell colleagues, and I'm looking forward to reading it.
Thanks for sharing this article.
Thanks for the shout-out! The article on Wisdom was for a conference at Baylor last month, and has gotten some interesting responses. I'm finding that people have very different ambitions for their teaching, and that there are many who think that the discussion of principles outside of the Constitution and statutes are best left to other institutions. As one person put it, "only one principle will help you pass the bar, and that is the principle of hard work."