Ill-Gotten Gains: Evasion, Blackmail, Fraud, and Kindred Puzzles of the Law [Hardcover]

Leo Katz (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0226425932 | ISBN-13: 978-0226425931 | Publication Date: April 15, 1996 | Edition: 1

In Ill-Gotten Gains, Leo Katz describes the underlying principles that not only guide the law but also moral decisions. Mixing wit with insight, anecdotes with analysis, Katz uncovers what is really at stake in crimes such as insider trading, blackmail, and plagiarism. With its startling conclusions and myriad twists, this book will fascinate all those intrigued by the perplexing relationship between morality and law.

"An ambitious and well-written book of legal and moral theory to overthrow both utilitarianism and its cousin, the economic approach to law."—Richard A. Posner, New Republic

"A good, well-written book full of interesting examples."—Library Journal

"[An] elegant defense of circumvention and subterfuge . . . a heroically counterintuitive book."—Malcolm Gladwell, New Yorker

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

One of the things that attracts some people to lawyers and repels the rest of us is their ability to see and create loopholes. If the law is an ass, it is a very clever one. This book, by a University of Pennsylvania law professor, investigates the loophole phenomenon to a fare-thee-well. Want to use damaging information about a competitor to keep her away from an interview for a job you're both vying for, but don't want to violate the extortion statutes? Then see p. 2. Mad enough at your son to want to burn his house down with him in it but don't want to get convicted of first-degree murder? The recipe for that is on p. 38. Katz serves up a rich variety of examples and their variations to arrive at a general theory of what lawyers are doing when they -- legally -- walk their clients around a law. Truth be told though, the examples are a lot more compelling than the theory.

From Library Journal

Criminal law performs two useful functions: it defines certain conduct as so harmful to the individual or the community as to justify society's forbidding that conduct, and it provides a method of punishment for those whose conduct violates society's norms. Katz (law, Univ. of Pennsylvania) examines three forms of conduct-tax evasion, blackmail, and fraud-that he terms related mysteries and that all involve legality and morally puzzling forms of theft. All three involve some form of ill-gotten economic gain. Wanting us to consider why this conduct should be deemed criminal at all, Katz argues that these three forms of theft are the most prominent examples of the nonutilitarian character of much of our legal and moral thinking. He even shows that this conduct might be justified on purely economic grounds, particularly where there is no harm to other individuals or the community at large. While this is a good, well-written book full of interesting examples, it will probably appeal to a limited group of better-educated readers.
Jerry E. Stephens, U.S. Court of Appeals Lib., Oklahoma City
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 308 pages
• Publisher: University Of Chicago Press; 1 edition (April 15, 1996)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0226425932
• ISBN-13: 978-0226425931
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.4 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.5 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #461,894 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars I like the way he thinks, July 22, 2001

By 

John S. Ryan "Scott Ryan" (Cuyahoga Falls, OH) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Ill-Gotten Gains: Evasion, Blackmail, Fraud, and Kindred Puzzles of the Law (Paperback)

I'm turning into quite a fan of Leo Katz. I was so impressed by his _Bad Acts and Guilty Minds_ that I picked this one up almost at once. And it's just as good.

This time around, Katz's plan is to deal with what he calls "three related mysteries": the moral problem of "avoision" (i.e., what counts as morally bad evasion and what merely as legitimate avoidance); the moral nature of e.g. blackmail and insider trading (i.e., what, if anything, justifies our all but universal moral intuitions that these and other similar acts are genuinely wrong); and the problem of "undeserved glory" (and what's wrong with appropriating someone else's fame).

I won't try to spell out Katz's examples and arguments under each of these headings, for I could not do so if I tried: his discussions are very well organized, but they pass from one subtopic to another with such rapidity and ease that I would have a hard time deciding just what to select. In general I shall say only that even where I disagree with him (as I sometimes do), his lively and provocative analysis is a sheer joy to read.

His most prominent theme is also one of which I heartily approve. There are some lawyers, philosophers, and especially economists who think it is possible to be both a libertarian and a utilitarian. Katz forcefully disagrees (as do I). And one purpose of this volume is to hammer that point home.

Himself apparently a libertarian, Katz argues repeatedly and at length that libertarianism requires a deontological foundation; utilitarianism is simply inadequate in every respect. Along the way he also mounts a striking _deontological_ defense of the role of the attorney (in helping clients to avoid malignant moral outrages by "capitalizing on the deontological properties of legal rules," p. 131; you'll have to read the book to find out just what this means). And in one brief passage that one could wish were longer, he follows Amartya Sen to a striking conclusion: libertarianism is _also_ incompatible with complete freedom of contract. As in his earlier book, Katz's own outlook seems to be a sort of self-critical intuitionism along the lines of Judith Jarvis Thomson (whose "trolley problem" also gets a further workout here).

I wrote in my review of Katz's previous book that it was all but unique. I am happy to say that isn't entirely so; this book is a lot like it. Highly recommended.