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How We Make Sense of Other People (and Why Legal Scholarship Should Care). Claire A. Hill University of Minnesota Law School. Models of humans in law: Law and economics/behavioral law and economics (as to people generally) Capacity and limitations, in particular contexts:
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How We Make Sense of Other People(and Why Legal Scholarship Should Care) Claire A. Hill University of Minnesota Law School
Models of humans in law: • Law and economics/behavioral law and economics (as to people generally) • Capacity and limitations, in particular contexts: • Criminal: responsibility, assisting in one’s defense, execution • Civil Commitment • Ability to enter into contract, wills, dispose of property, etc. • Mostly, binary: people either have capacity • or they don’t
None of these models expressly consider how people make sense of others • Implicitly, as to Capacity: • getting it colossally wrong could be indication of incapacity • Implicitly, as to Homo economicus • Just as we are homo economicus, so are others, and they should (for accuracy’s sake) be dealt with as though they are homo economicus.
Bottom line thus far: no sophisticated • view in law as to how people make • sense of others • Aims in this paper • Develop a (preliminary) taxonomy of how people make sense of others • Show how taxonomy provides a new objection to the Homo Economicus model • Start considering ways in which taxonomy can be helpful in legal policy
Legal Contexts: • General need to ‘get it right’ about people • Judge and jury determinations about mindset/intention • Attribution of own/particular mindsets • Implications for approaches to “others” • hiring, firing, promotion • contracting • Tie-in to general ability to go behind Rawlsian veil