Law and NatureCambridge University Press, 2003 M10 13 - 440 pages This interdisciplinary study explores the relationship between conceptions of nature and (largely American) legal thought and practice. It focuses on the politics and pragmatics of nature talk as expressed in both extra-legal disputes and their transformation and translation into forms of legal discourse (tort, property, contract, administrative law, criminal law and constitutional law). Delaney begins by considering the pragmatics of nature in connection with the very idea of law and the practice of American legal theorization. He then traces a set of specific political-legal disputes and arguments. The set consists of a series of contexts and cases organized around a conventional distinction between 'external' and 'internal nature': forces of nature, endangered species, animal experiments, bestiality, reproductive technologies, genetic screening, biological defenses in criminal cases, and involuntary medication of inmates. He demonstrates throughout that nearly any construal of 'nature' entails an interpretation of what it is to be (distinctively) human. |
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animals antinature antipsychotic argue arguments artifact assert behavior bestiality biological biological psychiatry body boundary chapter civilization claims conception concerns constitute contexts contract crime against nature critics cultural defendant disgust distinction domain emotional endangered species Endangered Species Act evil facts figure of nature folk psychology force fundamental gene genetic habitat Harper human ical ideology images imagine indeterminacy insanity defense interpretation judges knowledge laboratory law idea legal discourse legal meaning legal subject legal violence limits material world meaningful mental metaphor mind moral nature talk object oral sex perhaps physical plaintiff politics of nature practice problem processes punishment question realist reason reductionism relationship renderings representations of nature reproductive technologies rules schizophrenic scientific seen sense sexual significant simply situation social sodomy sort specific statute stories surrogacy technologies things tion tort transformations troubles understood wild wilderness Wilderness Act words zoophile zoophilia