Commodification in Law: Ideologies, Intractabilities, and Hyperboles
Continental Philosophy Review, Vol. 42, No. 1, 2009
29 Pages Posted: 22 Apr 2009
Date Written: February 27, 2009
Abstract
In this paper I first aim to identify, from a perspective mindful of both analytic and Continental traditions, the central normative issues at stake in the various debates concerning commodification in law. Although there now exists a wealth of thoughtful literature in this area, I often find myself disoriented within the webs of moral criteria used to analyze the increasingly ubiquitous practice of converting legal goods into monetary values. I therefore attempt to distinguish and organize these often conflated conceptual distinctions across several registers of moral analysis. Second, I formulate what I consider the most illuminating questions regarding the criteria used to evaluate commodification in law. Critiques of commodification in law face what I call problems of ideology, intractability, and hyperbole, and identifying these issues helps to explain the momentum of the law and economics movement.
Keywords: Commodification, Law, Marx, Adorno, Simmel
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