Abstract
Posner proposes that federal appellate judges' income from judicial work and moonlighting is maximized within the constraint of time spent on leisure: he argues that judges' voting behavior be conceptualized as consumption, and that judges avoid the hard work and hassle involved in writing opinions. I propose that the terms entering the judicial utility function be simplified to judicial and non-judicial income, and consumption, some of which is enjoyed during leisure time but a proportion of which is enjoyed in working time (voting, reputation, avoidance of criticism, etc.) Moreover, the extent to which a judge experiences judicial work as laborious and hassling depends upon his cognitive style: adaptors and innovators are expected to conceptualize and experience the detailed work of opinion writing in different ways and thus to have distinct preferences for competing sources of utility.
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Foxall, G.R. What judges maximize:toward an economic psychology of the judicial utility function. Liverpool Law Review 25, 177–194 (2004). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10991-004-2877-9
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10991-004-2877-9