Rob Mullins (The University of Queensland – T.C. Beirne School of Law) has posted Protected Reasons and Precedential Constraint (Legal Theory, Forthcoming) on SSRN. Here is the abstract:
According to the prioritized reason model of precedent, precedential constraint is explained in terms of the need for decision-makers to reconcile their decisions with a settled priority order extracted from past cases. The prioritized reason model of precedent departs from the view that common law rules comprise protected reasons for action. In this article I show that a model utilizing protected reasons and the prioritized reason model of precedential constraint are, in an important sense, equivalent. I then offer some reflections on the philosophical significance of this result. I argue that the protected reason model is consistent with the phenomenology of precedential constraint. I suggest an account of precedential reasoning that reconciles the prioritized reason and protected reason models.
Highly recommended.