Yale Law Journal: Volume 125, Number 7 - May 2016
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About this ebook
This issue of the Yale Law Journal include these contents:
-- Essay, "Fiduciary Political Theory: A Critique," by Ethan J. Leib and Stephen R. Galoob
-- Note, "The Modification of Decrees in the Original Jurisdiction of the Supreme Court," by James G. Mandilk
In addition, the issue includes an extensive collection of Features by leading scholars, entitled "A Conversation on Title IX," growing out of an event sponsored by the Journal. Contributors include Michelle J. Anderson, Adele P. Kimmel, Catharine A. MacKinnon, Dana Bolger, Zoe Ridolfi-Starr, and Alyssa Peterson & Olivia Ortiz. Subjects of these essays include institutional liability, costs of liability and schools' financial obligations, transparency in campus reporting, adjudicative processes, and using Title IX for preventing the bullying of LGBT students.
This is the seventh issue of academic year 2015-2016. Quality formatting includes linked notes and an active Table of Contents (including linked Contents for individual articles), as well as active URLs in footnotes and proper Bluebook style.
Yale Law Journal
The editors of The Yale Law Journal are a group of Yale Law School students, who also contribute Notes and Comments to the Journal’s content. The principal articles are written by leading legal scholars.
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Yale Law Journal - Yale Law Journal
YALE LAW JOURNAL
MAY 2016
VOLUME 125, NUMBER 7
Yale Law School
New Haven, Connecticut
Yale Law Journal
Smashwords edition. Copyright © 2016 by The Yale Law Journal Company, Inc. All rights reserved. This work or parts of it may not be reproduced, copied or transmitted (except as permitted by sections 107 and 108 of the U.S. Copyright Law and except by reviewers for the public press), by any means including voice recordings and the copying of its digital form, without the written permission of the print publisher. Further information on copyright, permissions, and reprints is found at the "About the Yale Law Journal" page.
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CONTENTS
ESSAY
Fiduciary Political Theory: A Critique
Ethan J. Leib & Stephen R. Galoob (125 YALE L.J. 1820)
NOTE
The Modification of Decrees in the Original Jurisdiction of the Supreme Court
James G. Mandilk (125 YALE L.J. 1880)
FEATURES
Campus Sexual Assault Adjudication and Resistance to Reform
Michelle J. Anderson (125 YALE L.J. 1940)
Title IX: An Imperfect but Vital Tool To Stop Bullying of LGBT Students
Adele P. Kimmel (125 YALE L.J. 2006)
In Their Hands: Restoring Institutional Liability for Sexual Harassment in Education
Catharine A. MacKinnon (125 YALE L.J. 2038)
Gender Violence Costs: Schools’ Financial Obligations Under Title IX
Dana Bolger (125 YALE L.J. 2106)
A Better Balance: Providing Survivors of Sexual Violence with Effective Protection
Against Sex Discrimination Through Title IX Complaints
Alyssa Peterson & Olivia Ortiz (125 YALE L.J. 2132)
Transformation Requires Transparency: Critical Policy Reforms To Advance Campus Sexual Violence Response
Zoe Ridolfi-Starr (125 YALE L.J. 2156)
About the Yale Law Journal
RESPONSES. The Yale Law Journal invites short papers responding to scholarship appearing in the Journal within the last year. Responses should be submitted to the Yale Law Journal Forum at http://www.yalelawjournal.org/submissions. We cannot guarantee that submitted responses will be published. Responses selected for publication will be edited with the cooperation of the author.
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INTERNET ADDRESS. The Yale Law Journal’s homepage is http://www.yalelawjournal.org.
YALE LAW SCHOOL
OFFICERS OF ADMINISTRATION
Peter Salovey, A.B., M.A., Ph.D., President of the University
Benjamin Polak, B.A., M.A., Ph.D., Provost of the University
Robert C. Post, J.D., Ph.D., Dean
Alvin Keith Klevorick, M.A., Ph.D., Deputy Dean
Michael J. Wishnie, B.A., J.D., Deputy Dean for Experiential Education
S. Blair Kauffman, J.D., LL.M., M.L.L., Law Librarian
Ellen Cosgrove, B.A., J.D., Associate Dean
Joseph M. Crosby, B.A., M.B.A., Associate Dean
Toni Hahn Davis, J.D., LL.M., Associate Dean
Mary Briese Matheron, B.S., Associate Dean
Asha Rangappa, A.B., J.D., Associate Dean
Mike K. Thompson, M.B.A., J.D., Associate Dean
FACULTY EMERITI
Guido Calabresi, LL.B., Dr.Jur., LL.D., D.Phil., H.Litt.D., D.Poli.Sci., Sterling Professor Emeritus of Law and Professorial Lecturer in Law
Dennis E. Curtis, B.S., LL.B., Clinical Professor Emeritus of Law and Professorial Lecturer in Law
Harlon Leigh Dalton, B.A., J.D., Professor Emeritus of Law
Mirjan Radovan Damaška, LL.B., Dr.Jur., Sterling Professor Emeritus of Law and Professorial Lecturer in Law
Drew S. Days, III, B.A., LL.B., Alfred M. Rankin Professor Emeritus of Law and Professorial Lecturer in Law
Jan Ginter Deutsch, LL.B., Ph.D., Walton Hale Hamilton Professor Emeritus of Law and Professorial Lecturer in Law
Robert C. Ellickson, A.B., LL.B., Walter E. Meyer Professor Emeritus of Property and Urban Law and Professorial Lecturer in Law
Owen M. Fiss, M.A., LL.B., Sterling Professor Emeritus of Law and Professorial Lecturer in Law
Robert W. Gordon, A.B., J.D., Chancellor Kent Professor Emeritus of Law and Legal History
Michael J. Graetz, B.B.A., LL.B., Justus S. Hotchkiss Professor Emeritus of Law and Professorial Lecturer in Law
Geoffrey Cornell Hazard, Jr., M.A., LL.B., Sterling Professor Emeritus of Law
John H. Langbein, LL.B., Ph.D., Sterling Professor Emeritus of Law and Legal History and Professorial Lecturer in Law
Carroll L. Lucht, M.S.W., J.D., Clinical Professor Emeritus of Law, Supervising Attorney, and Professorial Lecturer in Law
Jerry L. Mashaw, LL.B., Ph.D., Sterling Professor Emeritus of Law and Professorial Lecturer in Law
Carol M. Rose, J.D., Ph.D., Gordon Bradford Tweedy Professor Emeritus of Law and Organization and Professorial Lecturer in Law
Peter H. Schuck, M.A., J.D., LL.M., Simeon E. Baldwin Professor Emeritus of Law
John G. Simon, LL.B., LL.D., Augustus E. Lines Professor Emeritus of Law and Professorial Lecturer in Law
Robert A. Solomon, B.A., J.D., Clinical Professor Emeritus of Law
Stephen Wizner, A.B., J.D., William O. Douglas Clinical Professor Emeritus of Law and Professorial Lecturer in Law
FACULTY
Bruce Ackerman, B.A., LL.B., Sterling Professor of Law and Political Science
† Muneer I. Ahmad, A.B., J.D., Clinical Professor of Law
Richard Albert, B.C.L., LL.M., Visiting Professor of Law and Canadian Bicentennial Visiting Associate Professor of Political Science (fall term)
† Anne L. Alstott, A.B., J.D., Jacquin D. Bierman Professor in Taxation
Akhil Reed Amar, B.A., J.D., Sterling Professor of Law
Michelle Anderson, J.D., LL.M., Visiting Professor of Law and Peter and Patricia Gruber Fellow in Women’s Rights (spring term)
Rick Antie, B.S., Ph.D., Professor (Adjunct) of Law (fall term)
† Ian Ayres, J.D., Ph.D., William K. Townsend Professor of Law
Jack M. Balkin, J.D., Ph.D., Knight Professor of Constitutional Law and the First Amendment
Aharon Barak, LL.M., Dr.Jur., Visiting Professor of Law and Gruber Global Constitutionalism Fellow (fall term)
Seyla Benhabib, B.A., Ph.D., Professor (Adjunct) of Law (fall term)
Paul Bloom, B.A., Ph.D., Professor (Adjunct) of Law (spring term)
Philip C. Bobbitt, J.D., Ph.D., Florence Rogatz Visiting Professor of Law (fall term)
Lea Brilmayer, J.D., LL.M., Howard M. Holtzmann Professor of International Law
Richard R.W. Brooks, Ph.D., J.D., Professor (Adjunct) of Law (fall term)
Guido Calabresi, LL.B., Dr.Jur., LL.D., D.Phil., H.Litt.D., D.Poli.Sci., Sterling Professor Emeritus of Law and Professorial Lecturer in Law
Steven G. Calabresi, B.A., J.D., Visiting Professor of Law (fall term)
Stephen Lisle Carter, B.A., J.D., William Nelson Cromwell Professor of Law
George Chauncey, M.A., Ph.D., Professor (Adjunct) of Law (fall term)
Marian R. Chertow, M.P.P.M., Ph.D., Professor (Adjunct) of Law (fall term)
Amy Chua, A.B., J.D., John M. Duff, Jr. Professor of Law
Ellen Cosgrove, B.A., J.D., Associate Dean
Joseph M. Crosby, B.A., M.B.A., Associate Dean
Dennis E. Curtis, B.S., LL.B., Clinical Professor Emeritus of Law and Professorial Lecturer in Law
Mirjan Radovan Damaška, LL.B., Dr.Jur., Sterling Professor Emeritus of Law and Professorial Lecturer in Law
Toni Hahn Davis, J.D., LL.M., Associate Dean
Drew S. Days, III, B.A., LL.B., Alfred M. Rankin Professor Emeritus of Law and Professorial Lecturer in Law
Jan Ginter Deutsch, LL.B., Ph.D., Walton Hale Hamilton Professor Emeritus of Law and Professorial Lecturer in Law
Fiona M. Doherty, B.A., J.D., Clinical Associate Professor of Law
Steven Barry Duke, J.D., LL.M., Professor of Law
Robert C. Ellickson, A.B., LL.B., Walter E. Meyer Professor Emeritus of Property and Urban Law and Professorial Lecturer in Law
Edwin Donald Elliott, B.A., J.D., Professor (Adjunct) of Law
† William N. Eskridge, Jr., M.A., J.D., John A. Garver Professor of Jurisprudence
Daniel C. Esty, M.A., J.D., Hillhouse Professor of Environmental Law and Policy, School of Forestry & Environmental Studies; and Clinical Professor of Environmental Law and Policy, Law School
Owen M. Fiss, M.A., LL.B., Sterling Professor Emeritus of Law and Professorial Lecturer in Law
† James Forman, Jr., A.B., J.D., Clinical Professor of Law
Emmanuel Gaillard, Ph.D., Visiting Professor of Law (spring term)
Lech Garlicki, Doctorate in Legal Sciences, Habil. in Legal Sciences, Visiting Professor of Law and Gruber Global Constitutionalism Fellow (fall term)
Stanley J. Garstka, M.S.I.A., Ph.D., Professor (Adjunct) of Law (fall term)
‡ Heather K. Gerken, B.A., J.D., J. Skelly Wright Professor of Law
Paul Gewirtz, B.A., J.D., Potter Stewart Professor of Constitutional Law
Abbe R. Gluck, B.A., J.D., Professor of Law
Julie Goldscheid, M.S.W., J.D., Visiting Professor of Law and Peter and Patricia Gruber Fellow in Women’s Rights (spring term)
Robert W. Gordon, A.B., J.D., Chancellor Kent Professor Emeritus of Law and Legal History
Michael J. Graetz, B.B.A., LL.B., LL.D., Justus S. Hotchkiss Professor Emeritus of Law and Professorial Lecturer in Law (fall term)
David Singh Grewal, J.D., Ph.D., Associate Professor of Law
Dieter Grimm, LL.M., Dr.Jur., Visiting Professor of Law and Gruber Global Constitutionalism Fellow (fall term)
Mark Hall, B.A., J.D., Florence Rogatz Visiting Professor of Law (fall term)
‡ Henry B. Hansmann, J.D., Ph.D., Oscar M. Ruebhausen Professor of Law
Robert D. Harrison, J.D., Ph.D., Lecturer in Legal Method
Oona Hathaway, B.A., J.D., Gerard C. and Bernice Latrobe Smith Professor of International Law
Marcia Johnson, B.A., Ph.D., Professor (Adjunct) of Law (fall term)
† Christine Jolls, J.D., Ph.D., Gordon Bradford Tweedy Professor of Law and Organization
‡ Dan M. Kahan, B.A., J.D., Elizabeth K. Dollard Professor of Law and Professor of Psychology
Paul W. Kahn, J.D., Ph.D., Robert W. Winner Professor of Law and the Humanities
Johanna Kalb, M.A., J.D., Visiting Associate Professor of Law
Amy Kapczynski, M.A., J.D., Professor of Law
S. Blair Kauffman, J.D., LL.M., M.L.L., Law Librarian and Professor of Law
Alvin Keith Klevorick, M.A., Ph.D., Deputy Dean, John Thomas Smith Professor of Law, and Professor of Economics
Harold Hongju Koh, M.A., J.D., Sterling Professor of International Law
Issa Kohler-Hausmann, J.D., Ph.D., Associate Professor of Law and Associate Professor of Sociology
Anthony Townsend Kronman, J.D., Ph.D., Sterling Professor of Law
Douglas Kysar, B.A., J.D., Joseph M. Field ’55 Professor of Law
John H. Langbein, LL.B., Ph.D., Sterling Professor Emeritus of Law and Legal History and Professorial Lecturer in Law
‡ Anika Singh Lemar, B.A., J.D., Clinical Associate Professor of Law
‡ Yair Listokin, Ph.D., J.D., Shibley Family Fund Professor of Law
Carroll L. Lucht, M.S.W., J.D., Clinical Professor Emeritus of Law and Professorial Lecturer in Law
Jonathan R. Macey, A.B., J.D., Sam Harris Professor of Corporate Law, Corporate Finance, and Securities Law
Daniel Markovits, D.Phil., J.D., Guido Calabresi Professor of Law
Jerry Louis Mashaw, LL.B., Ph.D., Sterling Professor Emeritus of Law and Professorial Lecturer in Law
Mary Briese Matheron, B.S., Associate Dean
† Tracey L. Meares, B.S., J.D., Walton Hale Hamilton Professor of Law
Noah Messing, B.A., J.D., Lecturer in the Practice of Law and Legal Writing
Alice Miller, B.A., J.D., Associate Professor (Adjunct) of Law (spring term)
John D. Morley, B.S., J.D., Associate Professor of Law
Christina M. Mulligan, B.A., J.D., Visiting Associate Professor of Law (spring term)
Andrew V. Papachristos, M.A., Ph.D., Professor (Adjunct) of Law (spring term)
Jason Parkin, B.A., J.D., Florence Rogatz Visiting Clinical Associate Professor of Law
Nicholas R. Parrillo, J.D., Ph.D., Professor of Law
Jean Koh Peters, A.B., J.D., Sol Goldman Clinical Professor of Law
Robert C. Post, J.D., Ph.D., Dean and Sol & Lillian Goldman Professor of Law
J.L. Pottenger, Jr., A.B., J.D., Nathan Baker Clinical Professor of Law
Claire Priest, J.D., Ph.D., Simeon E. Baldwin Professor of Law
George L. Priest, B.A., J.D., Edward J. Phelps Professor of Law and Economics and Kauffman Distinguished Research Scholar in Law, Economics, and Entrepreneurship
Asha Rangappa, A.B., J.D., Associate Dean
William Michael Reisman, LL.M., J.S.D., Myres S. McDougal Professor of International Law
‡ Judith Resnik, B.A., J.D., Arthur Liman Professor of Law
† Cristina Rodríguez, M.Litt., J.D., Leighton Homer Surbeck Professor of Law
John E. Roemer, A.B., Ph.D., Professor (Adjunct) of Law (fall term)
† Roberta Romano, M.A., J.D., Sterling Professor of Law
Carol M. Rose, J.D., Ph.D., Gordon Bradford Tweedy Professor Emeritus of Law and Organization and Professorial Lecturer in Law (fall term)
Susan Rose-Ackerman, B.A., Ph.D., Henry R. Luce Professor of Jurisprudence (Law School and Department of Political Science)
Jed Rubenfeld, A.B., J.D., Robert R. Slaughter Professor of Law
David E. Schizer, M.A., J.D., Florence Rogatz Visiting Professor of Law (spring term)
David N. Schleicher, M.Sc., J.D., Associate Professor of Law
Peter H. Schuck, M.A., J.D., LL.M., Simeon E. Baldwin Professor Emeritus of Law
Vicki Schultz, B.A., J.D., Ford Foundation Professor of Law and Social Sciences
† Alan Schwartz, B.S., LL.B., Sterling Professor of Law
Ian Shapiro, J.D., Ph.D., Professor (Adjunct) of Law (fall term)
† Scott J. Shapiro, J.D., Ph.D., Charles F. Southmayd Professor of Law and Professor of Philosophy
Robert J. Shiller, B.A., Ph.D., Professor (Adjunct) of Law (fall term)
Reva Siegel, M.Phil., J.D., Nicholas deB. Katzenbach Professor of Law
James J. Silk, M.A., J.D., Clinical Professor of Law
John G. Simon, LL.B., LL.D., Augustus E. Lines Professor Emeritus of Law and Professorial Lecturer in Law
Lawrence M. Solan, Ph.D., J.D., Sidley Austin—Robert D. McLean Visiting Professor of Law (spring term)
Edward Stein, Ph.D., J.D., Maurice R. Greenberg Visiting Professor of Law (spring term)
‡ Kate Stith, M.P.P., J.D., Lafayette S. Foster Professor of Law
Alec Stone Sweet, M.A., Ph.D., Leitner Professor of International Law, Politics, and International Studies (fall term)
Mike K. Thompson, M.B.A., J.D., Associate Dean
Tom R. Tyler, M.A., Ph.D., Macklin Fleming Professor of Law and Professor of Psychology
Patrick Weil, M.B.A., Ph.D., Visiting Professor of Law and Oscar M. Ruebhausen Distinguished Senior Fellow (fall term)
James Q. Whitman, J.D., Ph.D., Ford Foundation Professor of Comparative and Foreign Law
‡ Michael J. Wishnie, B.A., J.D., Deputy Dean for Experiential Education, William O. Douglas Clinical Professor of Law, and Director, Jerome N. Frank Legal Services Organization
‡ John Fabian Witt, J.D., Ph.D., Allen H. Duffy Class of 1960 Professor of Law
Stephen Wizner, A.B., J.D., William O. Douglas Clinical Professor Emeritus of Law and Professorial Lecturer in Law
* Gideon Yaffe, A.B., Ph.D., Professor of Law and Professor of Philosophy
Taisu Zhang, J.D., Ph.D., Irving S. Ribicoff Visiting Associate Professor of Law (fall term)
Howard V. Zonana, B.A., M.D., Professor of Psychiatry and Clinical Professor (Adjunct) of Law (spring term)
* On leave of absence, 2015–2016.
† On leave of absence, fall term, 2015.
‡ On leave of absence, spring term, 2016.
LECTURERS IN LAW
Sarah Baumgartel, A.B., J.D.
Emily Bazelon, B.A., J.D.
Brian Logan Beirne, B.S., J.D.
Tessa Bialek, B.A., J.D.
Jeremy L. Daum, B.S., J.D.
Gregg Gonsalves, B.S.
Linda Greenhouse, B.A., M.S.L., Joseph Goldstein Lecturer in Law
Su Lin Han, M.A., J.D.
Stephen Latham, J.D., Ph.D.
James Ponet, M.A., D.D.
Megan Quattlebaum, B.A., J.D.
Michael Ulrich, J.D., M.P.H.
Graham Webster, B.S., A.M.
Robert D. Williams, B.A., J.D.
VISITING LECTURERS IN LAW
Guillermo Aguilar-Alvarez, Lic. en Derecho (J.D.)
Catherine Ashton, B.Sc.
Yas Banifatemi, Ph.D., LL.M.
Mark Barnes, J.D., LL.M.
Stephen B. Bright, B.A., J.D., Harvey Karp Visiting Lecturer in Law
Lincoln Caplan, B.A., J.D., Truman Capote Visiting Lecturer in Law
Timothy Collins, B.A., M.B.A.
Victoria A. Cundiff, B.A., J.D.
Brian T. Daly, M.A., J.D.
Eugene R. Fidell, B.A., LL.B., Florence Rogatz Visiting Lecturer in Law
Gregory Fleming, B.A., J.D.
Lawrence J. Fox, B.A., J.D., George W. and Sadella D. Crawford Visiting Lecturer in Law
Lee Gelernt, M.Sc., J.D.
Peter T. Grossi, Jr., M.A., J.D.
Menaka Guruswamy, LL.M., D.Phil., Peter and Patricia Gruber Fellow in Global Justice
David L. Harfst, B.A., J.D.
Frank Iacobucci, LL.B., LL.M., Gruber Global Constitutionalism Fellow
Jeffrey A. Meyer, B.A., J.D.
Andrew J. Pincus, B.A., J.D.
Stephen Preston, B.A., J.D., Oscar M. Ruebhausen Distinguished Senior Fellow
Richard Ravitch, B.A., LL.B.
Eric S. Robinson, M.B.A., J.D.
Charles A. Rothfeld, A.B., J.D.
John M. Samuels, J.D., LL.M., George W. and Sadella D. Crawford Visiting Lecturer in Law
Paul Schwaber, M.A., Ph.D.
Michael S. Solender, B.A., J.D.
Jacob J. Sullivan, M.Phil., J.D., Oscar M. Ruebhausen Distinguished Senior Fellow in National Security
Robert Sussman, B.A., LL.D.
Stefan R. Underhill, B.A., J.D.
John M. Walker, Jr., B.A., J.D., George W. and Sadella D. Crawford Visiting Lecturer in Law
Megan A. Wulff, M.P.H., J.D.
David M. Zornow, B.A., J.D.
ESSAY
Fiduciary Political Theory: A Critique
ETHAN J. LEIB & STEPHEN R. GALOOB
[125 YALE L.J. 1820 (2016)]
ABSTRACT. Fiduciary political theory
is a burgeoning intellectual project that uses fiduciary principles to analyze public law. This Essay provides a framework for assessing the usefulness and limitations of fiduciary political theory. Our thesis is that fiduciary principles can be fruitfully applied to many domains of public law. However, other domains are incompatible with the basic structure of fiduciary norms. In these domains, fiduciary political theory is less likely to be viable.
One contribution of this Essay is to describe the underlying structure of fiduciary norms. We identify three features of these norms that differentiate them from norms of contract, tort, and criminal law. First, fiduciary norms impose deliberative requirements: they make specific types of demands on an agent’s deliberation in addition to her behavior. Second, complying with fiduciary norms requires a special conscientiousness. Living up to a fiduciary obligation depends not only on how an agent behaves and deliberates, but also on whether she does so for the right reasons. Third, fiduciary norms impose robust
demands, which require the fiduciary to seek out and respond appropriately to new information about the interests of her beneficiaries.
We use these insights to assess applications of fiduciary principles to theories of judging, administrative governance, and international law. A fiduciary theory of judging can explain certain aspects of the norms of judging better than alternative theories offered by Ronald Dworkin and Judge Richard Posner. The viability of a fiduciary theory of administrative governance is an open question. Whether this kind of fiduciary political theory is superior to alternatives (like the instrumentalist theory of administrative governance developed by Adrian Vermeule) turns on a deeper dispute about whether administrative law reflects a culture of justification. Finally, a fiduciary political theory of international law (like the one defended by Evan Fox-Decent and Evan Criddle) is unlikely to succeed. Fiduciary norms are structurally incompatible with the domain of international law because compliance with international-law norms is a function of how states behave, rather than how they deliberate or why they behave as they do.
AUTHORS. Ethan J. Leib is a Professor of Law, Fordham Law School. Stephen R. Galoob is an Assistant Professor of Law, University of Tulsa College of Law. We thank our home institutions for research support. Thanks to participants in the Fiduciary Law Workshop at McGill Law School, as well as audiences at the Law & Society Association Annual Meeting in Seattle, the Legal Ethics Schmooze at Stanford Law School, the Pace Law School faculty workshop, and the Oklahoma Junior Scholars Workshop for their reactions and comments. Thanks in particular to Craig Agule, Vincent Chiao, Evan Criddle, Seth Davis, Evan Fox-Decent, Andrew Gold, Abner Greene, Sam Halabi, Adam Hill, Chris Kutz, Thomas Lee, Janet Levit, Paul Miller, Aaron Saiger, Amy Salyzyn, Alex Sarch, William Simon, Gordon Smith, Steve Thel, Brad Wendel, and Ben Zipursky for their comments. Thanks also to the editors of the Yale Law Journal and several referees, whose careful engagement with our manuscript improved our arguments.
ESSAY CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION
Fiduciary political theory
is an intellectual project that uses fiduciary principles to analyze aspects of public law.¹ The idea that fiduciary principles apply to public offices (rather than solely to relationships in private law, where fiduciary norms originate) has a long pedigree, with roots in the writings of Cicero, Grotius, Locke, and The Federalist Papers.²
In recent years, legal scholars and political philosophers from around the globe have revived this tradition. Several fiduciary political theorists address environmental and Indian law,³ where legal doctrines most explicitly invoke fiduciary concepts. Democratic theorists also invoke fiduciary principles to analyze the inevitability of discretion and the need for constraint that arise in basic questions of political representation and political legitimacy.⁴ More recent efforts of fiduciary political theorists investigate domains such as constitutional law,⁵ international law,⁶ administrative law,⁷ election law,⁸ the law governing public officials,⁹ and even the basic structure of political authority.¹⁰
This Essay provides a framework for analyzing the usefulness and limitations of fiduciary political theory. Our thesis is that fiduciary principles can be fruitfully applied to many domains of public law. However, other domains are incompatible with the basic structure of fiduciary norms. In these domains, fiduciary political theory is not viable. The main contributions of this Essay are to reveal the underlying structure of fiduciary norms and to show when fiduciary political theorizing is likely (or unlikely) to work.¹¹
Toward these ends, we highlight three features of fiduciary norms that differentiate them from norms of contract, tort, and criminal law. First, fiduciary norms impose deliberative requirements: they make specific types of demands on an agent’s deliberation in addition to her behavior. Second, complying with fiduciary norms requires a special conscientiousness. Living up to a fiduciary obligation depends not only on how an agent behaves and deliberates, but also on whether she does so for the right reasons. Third, fiduciary norms impose what Philip Pettit calls robust
demands,¹² which require the fiduciary to seek out and respond appropriately to new information about the interests of her beneficiaries.
Fiduciary political theory is not viable in public-law domains where any of these core features of fiduciary norms are inapposite. In other words, fiduciary political theorizing is unlikely to work in legal contexts where behavior, rather than deliberation, is the coin of the realm; where any way of conforming to a norm counts as living up to it; or where norms do not impose robust demands.
Part I of this Essay develops the claim that fiduciary norms should be applied only in public-law contexts that are compatible with the basic structure of fiduciary norms. It then provides a framework for determining whether and when fiduciary political theorizing is likely to be viable.
Part II analyzes several recent efforts to apply fiduciary principles to domains of public law through the framework developed in Part I: judging,¹³ administrative governance,¹⁴ and international law.¹⁵ We conclude that fiduciary theories of judging explain certain aspects of judicial norms better than prominent theories offered by Ronald Dworkin¹⁶ and Judge Richard Posner.¹⁷ By contrast, the viability of fiduciary theories of administrative governance is an open question. Whether the fiduciary theory is superior to alternatives (like the instrumentalist theory of administrative governance developed by Adrian Vermeule)¹⁸ turns on a deeper dispute about whether administrative law reflects a culture of justification. Finally, our analysis suggests that fiduciary political theories of international law are unlikely to succeed. Fiduciary norms are structurally incompatible with the domain of international law because compliance with international-law norms is a function of how states behave, rather than how they deliberate or why they behave as they do.
I. FIDUCIARY POLITICAL THEORY: A PRECEPT AND A FRAMEWORK
This Part first offers a limiting precept for fiduciary theorizing about public law (in Section I.A) and then (in Section I.B) provides a framework to analyze when fiduciary norms are compatible with a domain of public law.
A. Limiting the Expansion of Fiduciary Norms
A fiduciary relationship traditionally emerges in contexts where one person (the fiduciary) has discretionary power over the assets or legal interests of another (the beneficiary).¹⁹ Standard private-law examples of fiduciary relationships include attorney-client, trustee-beneficiary, corporate officeholder-shareholder, and guardian-ward.²⁰ In such relationships, the fiduciary has discretion to act on behalf of the beneficiary. The beneficiary is vulnerable to the fiduciary’s predatory or self-dealing actions within this discretionary sphere, yet must still repose her trust in the fiduciary. The fiduciary is obligated to prioritize the beneficiary’s interests over her own.²¹ At least three general indicia characterize fiduciary relationships: discretion, trust, and vulnerability. In relationships exhibiting these indicia, a fiduciary is subject to specific duties—usually, duties of loyalty and care—that govern her actions on behalf of the beneficiary.
There are several good reasons to interpret public-law relationships in light of fiduciary norms. First, there is considerable historical precedent for thinking about public-law relationships in this way.²² Second, the architecture of the fiduciary relationship often fits the obligations of public officeholders, allowing fruitful analogies from private law to public law. Third, fiduciary political theories are grounded in inherent features of authority, rather than the consent of the governed. Thus, the fiduciary political theorist can address fundamental questions about political authority while avoiding issues related to consent that have befuddled political theorists (particularly those in the social-contract tradition) for hundreds of years.²³ In identifying what makes an exercise of power legitimate, the fiduciary political theorist focuses on how that power is actually used, rather than solely on the etiology of the institutions that purport to exercise it.
Despite these synergies, some scholars doubt the viability of fiduciary political theory on the basis of putative disanalogies between public and private law.²⁴ However, this kind of skepticism reaches only some types of fiduciary political theory—namely, those that seek to analogize private-law fiduciaries with public-law actors. Such skepticism does not indict fiduciary political theory as such. Our focus here is on a broader, more structural concern. The most serious possible objection to fiduciary political theory—one that threatens the enterprise as such—is that private-law fiduciary norms are fundamentally incompatible with the structure of public-law norms.
B. The Structure of Fiduciary Norms
What, then, are the features of fiduciary norms that determine the viability of fiduciary political theory? Attempts to answer this question have proven contentious. Scholars of fiduciary law disagree about the contours and content of fiduciary norms. For example, they disagree about the bases of fiduciary norms, what obligations they impose, and how fiduciary norms differ from nonfiduciary norms.²⁵ Some contend that fiduciary norms have a uniform content or structure, while others argue that notions like loyalty and care vary substantially across contexts.²⁶ Further, commentators disagree about whether the legal instantiations of fiduciary notions like loyalty resemble nonlegal analogues of those concepts.²⁷ Our goal here is not to resolve these debates.
Rather, abstracting from disagreements about the substance of fiduciary norms exposes important structural features of fiduciary norms. In this Section we identify three such structural features that are crucial to understanding how fiduciary norms differ from other kinds of legal norms. Our analysis does not presuppose any particular substantive account of the grounds, contours, or content of fiduciary norms. As such, each of the features we identify can be appreciated by almost all fiduciary legal and political theorists.²⁸
First, fiduciary norms govern deliberation in addition to behavior (Section I.B.1). An agent who does not deliberate in the way that a fiduciary norm calls for thereby fails to live up to that norm, no matter how she behaves. Second, fiduciary norms impose standards of conscientiousness (Section I.B.2). Some ways of conforming one’s behavior and deliberation to the requirements imposed by a fiduciary norm nevertheless violate that norm. As a result, fiduciary norms invite what are sometimes called wrong kinds of reason
problems. Third, fiduciary norms are robustly demanding (Section I.B.3). The requirements they impose morph based on changes to the world and to the beneficiary’s circumstances. One implication of the robustness of fiduciary norms is that they impose an updating
requirement: a fiduciary must be disposed to monitor changes to the world relevant to promoting a beneficiary’s interests or ends and also be disposed to revise her efforts in light of these changes.
Although some of these features characterize other types of legal norms, fiduciary norms are unique in being simultaneously characterized by all three. In the remainder of this Section, we explain each of these features and their implications. To demonstrate why the coincidence of these features is distinctive to fiduciary norms, we provide comparisons to other types of legal norms, particularly the norms of contract, tort, and criminal law.
1. Deliberation
Norms typically govern behavior.²⁹ However, some norms are deliberation sensitive³⁰—that is, they can bear[] upon what goes on inside people’s heads
by demand[ing] that we have or form certain attitudes and that we think or deliberate in certain ways.
³¹ When a norm is deliberation sensitive, whether someone lives up to it depends on whether she forms the attitudes, thinks, or deliberates in the ways that the norm requires.³²
Several scholars have noticed that fiduciary norms are deliberation sensitive.³³ For example, according to the shaping account
of fiduciary loyalty that we have articulated in previous work, a fiduciary acts loyally only if she attributes nonderivative significance to the interests of her beneficiary.³⁴ A fiduciary whose deliberation is not shaped by the beneficiary’s interests does not live up to the duty of loyalty, regardless of how she otherwise behaves.³⁵ Likewise, what Paul Miller calls the principle of prudence
construes the fiduciary duty of care as deliberation sensitive.³⁶ According to Miller, this principle requires that the fiduciary show due care when acting as fiduciary . . . in pursuing the objects which ground her authority,
which in turn imposes deliberative and attitudinal ideals that vary across fiduciary contexts.³⁷ In Miller’s argument the fiduciary duty of care is equivalent to a duty to be careful; in failing to be careful, a fiduciary fails to live up to the norm.³⁸
Other types of legal norms are not deliberation sensitive in the ways that fiduciary norms are. For example, tort-law norms are, in general, deliberation insensitive: violation of a tort-law duty of care is triggered by an action, and (for the purposes of tort law) an act is an external manifestation of an actor’s will.
³⁹ Likewise, default contractual norms are generally deliberation insensitive: usually, whether one lives up to her contractual obligations is a matter of how she behaves.⁴⁰
Criminal-law norms, by contrast, are usually sensitive to deliberation in the form of mens rea. How an individual deliberates determines, in part, whether she is subject to criminal liability. However, the deliberation sensitivity of criminal norms differs from that of fiduciary norms. In judging whether someone has lived up to a criminal norm, behavior is a threshold issue. An agent’s deliberation is relevant only insofar as her behavior does not conform to that prescribed by the norm; deliberation is not relevant independently of behavior.⁴¹ The same conclusion does not apply to fiduciary norms, where deliberation is a freestanding requirement.
To illustrate the special deliberation sensitivity of fiduciary norms, consider a modified version of an example developed by Ken Simons⁴²:
Operation: A medical procedure involves cutting a tendon. This procedure is highly risky: there is a thirty percent chance of injury to the patient even if the procedure is performed correctly, and a far higher chance of injury when the procedure is performed incorrectly. Danielle Doctor is a physician who has badly botched every such procedure that she has performed to date. Unaware of Danielle’s history of failure, Paul Patient asks Danielle to perform the procedure on him, and Danielle agrees. During the procedure, Danielle, by luck, guesses the correct tendon to cut and thus performs the procedure in exactly the way that a competent physician would. However, Paul is among the unlucky thirty percent of patients who sustain injury when the procedure is performed correctly.
The Operation case illustrates the deliberative aspects of criminal and fiduciary norms, regardless of whether either type of norm actually applies to physicians like Danielle in this (or any) legal system.
Simons contends that Danielle would not be subject to criminal liability in Operation. General incompetence like Danielle’s does not violate criminal norms, because a free-floating incapacity or incompetence is never relevant to criminal liability.
⁴³ To the extent that a physician is ever criminally liable for negligence, it is not [her] general incompetence that justifies punishment,
so much as the highly deficient skill revealed in [a] particular operation.
⁴⁴ Because, as a matter of luck, Danielle’s performance in this operation did not manifest her lack of skill, criminal liability would be unwarranted.
⁴⁵
Simons’s comments suggest that criminal norms adopt what we will call a manifestation requirement: mental states (e.g., how an agent deliberates, what she intends, what she disregards) and their absence matter to criminal liability only insofar as they are connected with an agent’s behavior. As Gideon Yaffe puts it, "mens rea is essential to judgments of liability for violating criminal norms,
but it isn’t relevant unless it’s manifested" in behavior.⁴⁶ This requirement explains the criminal-law nostrum that punishment should be for acts, rather than for status: to punish in the absence of an action is to punish an agent for her presumed mental state, even though it has not caused her to behave in any particular way. It also explains the general disdain for so-called thought crimes,
since these crimes punish for mental states that have not been manifested in an agent’s behavior.⁴⁷
The Operation case illustrates that fiduciary norms are sensitive to deliberation in a different way than criminal norms are. If fiduciary norms applied to Danielle, then she would have failed to live up to them because her faulty pattern of deliberation is an instance of both carelessness and disloyalty. Fiduciary norms therefore reject the manifestation requirement. Disloyalty or carelessness can constitute a violation of these norms, regardless of whether or how these mental states are revealed in behavior.⁴⁸
Consider an alternative version of the Operation scenario in which Paul does not suffer any injury from the procedure. Since fiduciary norms reject the manifestation requirement, it follows that Danielle would violate her fiduciary duties in this alternative scenario.⁴⁹ Because of the way that fiduciary norms are sensitive to deliberation, someone can violate these norms solely through a faulty pattern of deliberation, regardless of whether this deliberation manifests in behavior.
Our analysis so far has concerned negligence, or the failure to appreciate a substantial and unjustifiable risk of which one should have been aware. However, our conclusions seem even stronger when applied to more involved mental states, like the mens rea of purpose that forms the core of attempt liability. There is no such thing as tort or contract liability for attempt. In general, failed attempts to harm someone do not violate tort norms. Likewise, someone who tries his best to breach a contract but winds up performing anyway does not necessarily violate contractual norms.
Criminal norms, of course, prohibit attempts. Someone who tries but fails to assault another person commits a crime—namely, the crime of attempt, rather than the crime of assault. Fiduciary norms seem to prohibit attempts as well. A fiduciary who tries to betray her principal has been disloyal, regardless of whether these efforts succeed.⁵⁰ Thus, both criminal and fiduciary norms regarding attempts are deliberation sensitive. Here, too, there are differences in how deliberation matters, as demonstrated by the following scenario:
Wicked Operation: Assume the same medical procedure and protagonists as in Operation. Paul Patient asks Danielle Doctor to perform the operation on him. Danielle determines that she dislikes Paul, and she forms a plan to cut the wrong tendon during the operation, which will cause Paul excruciating pain. To remind herself of this plan (which she is likely to forget given her busy schedule), Danielle writes Cut tendon to injure Paul during operation
into her notebook, and affixes her personal seal to the page. Danielle’s policy is to be fully committed to carrying out any plan to which she affixes her seal.
Has Danielle attempted to harm Paul in Wicked Operation? If traditional criminal norms applied in this case, then Danielle would almost certainly not have violated them at the point where the scenario cuts off. In general, criminal norms prohibiting attempts require not only that the defendant have the purpose to commit an object crime, but also that she take some action toward the commission of that crime.⁵¹ Danielle’s plan to injure Paul during the procedure would satisfy the mental-state requirement for attempt. Her behavior, however, would not satisfy any existing formulation of the act requirement for attempt. In the language of criminal law, writing the plan in the notebook and affixing the seal would likely be considered mere preparation,
rather than behavior constituting a substantial step toward the result of injuring Paul.⁵² One explanation for this conclusion is that criminal norms embrace the manifestation requirement: Danielle has not attempted to injure Paul because her plan has not yet been manifest in her behavior.⁵³ Merely planning to harm someone is not equivalent to trying to harm him.
Fiduciary norms do not support the same conclusion. Regardless of whether she has attempted to harm Paul, Danielle has violated a fiduciary obligation to him. More generally, evidence that you have merely
planned to betray someone is sufficient to establish that you are disloyal toward her. It does not matter whether your intention is ever manifest in behavior leading toward a result. Intuitively, then, having a firm plan to harm someone who has trusted you is not merely an attempted betrayal; it is a betrayal. Beyond these intuitions, the rejection of the manifestation requirement coheres with several structural features of fiduciary norms. For example, because of the so-called prophylactic
nature of fiduciary rules against conflicts of interest, a conflict of interest violates the fiduciary’s duty regardless of whether it has any causal effect on the actions that the fiduciary takes on behalf of the beneficiary.⁵⁴
Therefore, fiduciary norms (like criminal norms, but unlike norms of contract and tort) are deliberation sensitive. They impose demands on both behavior and deliberation. Unlike criminal norms, however, fiduciary norms reject the manifestation requirement. Specific patterns of deliberation can violate fiduciary norms regardless of how (or whether) they are connected with behavior.
2. Conscientiousness
Norms have conditions of success. We use the term compliance
to describe success in living up to a norm and breach
or violation
to describe failure to live up to a norm.⁵⁵ There are several possible modes of complying with a norm. Two modes that are most relevant to our discussion are following
and conforming.
⁵⁶ Someone follows a norm when she not only behaves or deliberates as the norm requires, but also justifies these actions by the fact that the norm requires these behaviors or deliberations.⁵⁷ Someone conforms to a norm when she behaves or deliberates as the norm requires, not because of the norm, but because of other considerations associated with the norm.
⁵⁸ Following a norm is more demanding, since it imposes second-order standards regarding how the norm figures into one’s practical deliberation. Because following is so demanding, some commentators see conformity as the default mode of complying with a norm.⁵⁹
Different norms impose different standards for compliance. For certain types of norms, following is irrational or self-defeating, so conformity is the best (and perhaps only) way to comply.⁶⁰ For other types of norms, following is the requisite mode of compliance.⁶¹ An agent would violate this type of norm if her behavior and/or deliberation matched the requirements of the norm, but she lacked the requisite practical orientation toward the norm. Still other types of norms are agnostic about compliance: conforming works just as well as following, and any route to compliance is just as successful as any other route.
Fiduciary norms impose standards of compliance. Complying with the fiduciary duty of loyalty requires a special conscientiousness regarding the interests or ends of the beneficiary. Patterns of behavior or deliberation that lack this conscientiousness breach fiduciary norms.⁶² Thus, not just any token of conformity counts as complying with a fiduciary norm. There are many possible ways to describe the conscientiousness that fiduciary norms require. In previous works, we argued that it is impossible to act loyally by accident. If an agent’s behavior and/or deliberation happen to match the pattern specified by a fiduciary norm, but the interests or ends of the principal do not influence the agent’s practical deliberation in the right way, then the agent has not complied with the fiduciary norm.⁶³ Paul Miller contends that all fiduciary norms contain a principle of fidelity,
according to which an agent must manifest [a] commitment to the fate of the purpose or person to the extent that same is within the control of the fiduciary in the exercise of her powers.
⁶⁴ By implication, to behave or deliberate in a way that does not manifest this commitment (or to lack the commitment altogether) is to breach the fiduciary norm. In the legal domain, the conscientiousness necessary to live up to a fiduciary duty is sometimes termed a requirement of good faith.
⁶⁵ Each of these formulations suggests that fiduciary norms are not agnostic about compliance: certain ways of conforming to fiduciary duties do not count as living up to fiduciary norms.⁶⁶
By contrast, the other types of norms that we have considered so far do not impose standards of conscientiousness. For these norms, all modes of conforming are equally successful. Suppose that criminal norms prevent a particular course of action (Y-ing), but do not prohibit another course of action (X-ing). However, Adam thinks that X-ing is prohibited by criminal norms, and he forms and executes an elaborate plan to X. (Suppose also that Adam is disposed to break the law: if he knew that only Y-ing is criminally prohibited, he would Y.) According to the notion of pure
legal impossibility, Adam does not breach any criminal norm by X-ing, even though he believes that he does.⁶⁷ Adam is an accidental complier with criminal norms because his behavior happens to conform to the law. Yet this happenstance is sufficient for Adam to live up to the criminal norm.
Given these standards of conscientiousness, fiduciary norms are subject to what some philosophers call the wrong kinds of reasons
problem.⁶⁸ This problem arises, among other places, in discussions of fitting attitudes
accounts of value, which define value as that which we have reason to value. Some reasons to value an object have nothing to do with the object’s value. These are not good reasons to value an object.⁶⁹ The same basic argument applies to a variety of attitudes and beliefs. That someone is generous is the right kind of reason to admire her; that her benefactor will pay me to admire her is the wrong kind of reason.⁷⁰
Mark Schroeder has argued that the wrong kinds of reason
problem applies to any activity that is subject to standards of correctness.⁷¹ For Schroeder, these standards of correctness give rise to sets of reasons that are shared by all participants in the activity. Only the reasons within this set are the right kinds of reasons. Some (otherwise licit) considerations, however, might motivate performance of an action, despite being outside this shared set of reasons for the activity. Despite their motivational efficacy, these are nonetheless the wrong