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Respon'sible,liable to be called to account or render satisfaction: answerable: capable of discharging duty: able to pay. The old Chambers's dictionary gives a behavioristic view of responsibility: in terms of action, not thought or belief. "Lust in the heart" is not equated to lustin flagrante. It is this view I shall explore in this essay, rather than the more subjective notion ofmoralresponsibility, as in, "I feel moral responsibility (i.e.,guilt) for not doing anything to save the Tutsis [Hutus, ethnic Albanians, etc.]." My presumption is that responsibility implies capability: you cannot be held responsible for something over which you have no control (Hutus, ethnic Albanians, etc.). There is obviously uncertainty in some cases—where control is less than total, where the degree of potential control depends on our own efforts, where we cannot know if we have control until we try to exert it, etc. The relation between responsibility and degree of control is a separate topic which I shall not treat here.

Comments on Patricia Wald's (2003) article on social science's utility to judges. In reviewing Wald's work, surprise is registered at her lack of attention to amicus curiae briefs for synthesizing, digesting, & presenting social science data for judges. It is then argued that Wald's ideas have implications for the choices that political scientists make if her view that judicial decisions would be well served if judges were better able to use social scientific evidence were shared. The relevance of "who judges" in terms of background is discussed, arguing that what judges know derives from their legal & judicial education; specialist training for judges is looked at briefly. It is concluded that political scientists can make themselves more accessible as public intellectuals to judges & employ institutional analysis to help guide the construction of the legal system for the best possible legal decision making. 21 References. J. Zendejas

Stoett reviews 'Our Children's Toxic Legacy: How Science and Law Fail to Protect Us from Pesticides' by John Wargo.

In Daubert v. Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals, Inc., the U.S. Supreme Court made its first major pronouncement on the evaluation of scientific evidence, calling on judges to act as gatekeepers for scientific knowledge and validity, despite lack of scientific training among judges. Daubert offers the science studies community a case study for examining how judges (and scientists acting as experts) engage in boundary-work and construct scientific validity. In constructing scientific validity under Daubert, judges must evaluate the scientific method behind a particular scientific claim, and will look to the parties' experts and the relevant scientific community for assistance. To combat the oft-cited problem of the battle of the experts, judges may be tempted to obtain assistance from court-appointed neutral experts, an inquisitorial (rather than adversarial) system in the civil law tradition of many European countries. The judicial evaluation of scientific evidence, the resulting construction of scientific validity, and the push for a greater use of court-appointed experts reveal judges' desire to segregate "objective" scientific facts from aspects of the legal process that are infused with adversaries' values. Yet the scientific and judicial construction of validity mixes empirical results and research methods with the personal, political, and institutional values of judges and scientists.

Although science and law employ different methods to gather and weigh evidence, their conclusions are remarkably convergent with regard to the effect that workplace stress has on the health of employees. Science, using the language of probability, affirms that certain stressors predict adverse health outcomes such as disabling anxiety and depression, cardiovascular disease, certain types of injury, and a variety of immune system disorders. Law, using the language of reasonable foreseeability, affirms that these adverse outcomes are predictable under certain conditions, typically defined in relation to what a reasonable person should know. Society is arguably in a position to establish standards for the abatement of certain types of workplace stress. As part of this process, we need to conceptualize an ideal form of conduct that exemplifies the standards to which both law and science urge us to aspire. For this purpose, the concept of the neighbor at work is proposed.

The notion that the risk problems confronting contemporary society are trans-scientific in character - that is, that while they can be posed to science, they cannot be solved by science alone - has gained currency since Alvin Weinberg coined the term over thirty years ago. His prescription in such circumstances - that recourse must be had to legal procedures in order to find an answer - perhaps invests law with more ability than it actually possesses to deal with such issues. What is it about law that ensures that such problems are not also trans-legal? This article considers this question by examining the relationship between science and law, between the realms of the factual and of the normative, in order to determine what happens when the two come into contact, or communicate, in the context of regulation or of litigation. Focusing on this crucial interface leads to the conclusion that traditional - formal and substantive - paradigms of law are ill adapted to cope with risk issues and that a procedural orientation of law is preferable. The question is then to choose among the leading alternatives available: Habermas's procedural paradigm based on the theory of communicative action or Teubner's reflexive law based on the theory of autopoiesis.

Intro -- Contents -- Leon Lipson and Stanton Wheeler / Introduction -- 1. Sally Falk Moore / Legal Systems of the World: An Introductory Guide to Classifications, Typological Interpretations, and Bibliographical Resources -- 2. Richard D. Schwartz / Law and Normative Order -- 3. Edmund W. Kitch / Law and the Economic Order -- 4. Marc Galanter / Adjudication, Litigation, and Related Phenomena -- 5. David R. Mayhew / Legislation -- 6. Jeffrey L. Jowell / Implementation and Enforcement of Law -- 7. Jack P. Gibbs / Punishment and Deterrence: Theory, Research, and Penal Policy -- 8. Richard L. Abel / Lawyers -- 9. Stewart Macaulay / Private Government -- 10. Austin D. Sarat / Access to Justice: Citizen Participation and the American Legal Order -- 11. Phoebe C. Ellsworth and Julius G. Getman / Social Science in Legal Decision-Making -- 12. Shari Seidman Diamond / Methods for the Empirical Study of Law -- Index of Names -- Index of Cases -- Index of Subjects