Yonathan A. Arbel, A Status Theory of Defamation Law (Alabama Working Paper Series 2022).

Defamation law is best understood in substantial part as the law of social status rather than solely as protection of honor, dignity, or property

Professor Yonathan Arbel claims, in “A Status Theory of Defamation Law” on pages 1–4, that the enduring human concern with a good name is best explained by social status: one’s relative position in a community and the esteem or deference attached to it. Honor, dignity, and property capture pieces of the picture but do not explain the tort’s full architecture. Reading defamation as substantially the law of status supplies a unifying account. This is significant because it reframes the interest that can justify restricting speech. It connects to defamation theory, social status, good-name interests, tort justification, First Amendment limits, and interpretive coherence.

The central thesis identifies social status as the missing concept capable of integrating doctrine, behavior, and normative evaluation.

defamation theory
social status
good-name interests
tort justification
First Amendment limits
interpretive coherence

The article expressly treats status as a substantial but nonexclusive explanation of defamation law and leaves economic reputation to other work.

The abstract and opening pages contrast status with honor, dignity, and property and announce a status theory of defamation law.


Status theory improves defamation law descriptively, functionally, and normatively

Professor Yonathan Arbel claims, in “A Status Theory of Defamation Law” on page 1, that status theory has three distinct payoffs. Descriptively, it renders puzzling doctrinal features sensible; functionally, it reveals that decisions sustain some status norms while weakening others; normatively, it makes judicial value choices visible and offers guidance in difficult cases. The theory is therefore not merely a new label for reputational harm. This is significant because a successful account must explain both existing rules and their social consequences. It connects to doctrinal fit, functional analysis, normative theory, judicial transparency, hard cases, and law reform.

The three-part framework states the criteria by which the paper asks status theory to outperform rival accounts.

doctrinal fit
functional analysis
normative theory
judicial transparency
hard cases
law reform

The abstract announces these advantages; the later parts supply the doctrinal and case-study support.

The abstract separately describes the theory’s descriptive, functional, and normative contributions.


Proposals to reform defamation law need a defensible account of the tort’s purpose before altering its constitutional balance

Professor Yonathan Arbel claims, in “A Status Theory of Defamation Law” on pages 1–6, that contemporary reform pressure—from judges, presidents, scholars, and pundits—proceeds without agreement about what defamation law is for. A doctrine that routinely overcomes First Amendment interests cannot be redesigned coherently merely by asking whether speakers or plaintiffs deserve more protection. Reform requires an account of the interest being protected and the mechanisms by which law protects it. This is significant because institutional reform without a destination risks arbitrary doctrinal movement. It connects to New York Times v. Sullivan, constitutional balancing, Restatement projects, libel reform, institutional purpose, and the Cheshire Cat problem.

The claim makes theoretical clarity a prerequisite to responsible reform rather than an academic afterthought.

New York Times v. Sullivan
constitutional balancing
Restatement projects
libel reform
institutional purpose
Cheshire Cat problem

The article does not comprehensively evaluate every pending reform proposal; it offers the status framework with which to evaluate them.

The abstract and introduction catalogue reform demands and argue that they lack a clear statement of defamation law’s purpose.


The pursuit of relative social status is a fundamental and consequential form of human behavior

Professor Yonathan Arbel claims, in “A Status Theory of Defamation Law” on page 3, that people seek elevated positions in social hierarchies for esteem and deference that cannot be reduced to money. Clothes, speech, cultural tastes, associations, gait, and vocal pitch can all function as moves in serious competitions for standing. Because people may sacrifice wealth and even safety to preserve status, law cannot treat these contests as frivolous. This is significant because defamation threatens a basic social good for which people invest heavily. It connects to status motivation, hierarchy, esteem, deference, identity performance, and social competition.

The behavioral premise explains why injuries to social standing can motivate litigation and justify institutional attention.

status motivation
hierarchy
esteem
deference
identity performance
social competition

The examples establish ubiquity and intensity, not that every individual values status equally or consciously.

The introduction describes status as a primary human motive expressed through ordinary choices and serious status games.


Legal scholarship’s neglect of status is especially costly in defamation, where loss of standing is central to the injury

Professor Yonathan Arbel claims, in “A Status Theory of Defamation Law” on page 4, that law has paid far less attention to status maximization than to wealth maximization, partly because open discussion of class and rank is taboo. That omission is consequential because status affects motivation, welfare, and opportunity. It is most acute in defamation, whose distinctive injury is the loss of one’s standing in others’ eyes. This is significant because the discipline has neglected the very social mechanism its doctrine regulates. It connects to law and sociology, class taboo, behavioral law, reputational injury, interdisciplinary method, and status inequality.

The claim explains why borrowing from sociology and economics may clarify a doctrinal field that legal analysis has found anomalous.

law and sociology
class taboo
behavioral law
reputational injury
interdisciplinary method
status inequality

The paper focuses on social-status loss and does not deny that defamation can also cause economic or emotional injury.

Page 4 contrasts legal attention to wealth with neglect of status and identifies status loss as the essence of defamatory harm.


Status theory can rationalize much of defamation doctrine as the product of a long-standing but unarticulated concern with social standing

Professor Yonathan Arbel claims, in “A Status Theory of Defamation Law” on page 4, that much of defamation’s apparent doctrinal morass disappears when the tort is viewed through social status. Publicity, community judgment, relational harm, and other features become parts of a coherent architecture rather than historical anomalies. The fit is so strong that the theory may articulate an intuition already embedded in the tort rather than invent a wholly new rationale. This is significant because interpretive success can recover latent legal structure. It connects to doctrinal reconstruction, common-law evolution, legal anomalies, status loss, interpretive fit, and theoretical parsimony.

The claim treats status theory as a reconstruction of doctrine’s implicit logic, strengthening its descriptive credibility.

doctrinal reconstruction
common-law evolution
legal anomalies
status loss
interpretive fit
theoretical parsimony

The article claims to explain a fair portion rather than every doctrinal rule or every kind of reputational interest.

Page 4 says the morass can be cleared by treating defamation as the law of status and suggests that an unarticulated status idea has long been present.


Defamation law has ex ante behavioral effects on the status games people choose and the effort they invest in them

Professor Yonathan Arbel claims, in “A Status Theory of Defamation Law” on page 5, that the familiar compensatory account casts defamation as passively repairing completed harm and misses its incentive effects. Protecting a personal good name, like protecting a trademark, changes investments made before any lawsuit. By making the returns from some routes to status more durable, defamation law affects both the games people enter and the intensity with which they compete. This is significant because the tort regulates conduct upstream of publication and injury. It connects to ex ante incentives, personal brands, trademark analogy, investment protection, status games, and behavioral effects.

The ex ante account supplies the paper’s bridge from interpretation to regulation and institutional design.

ex ante incentives
personal brands
trademark analogy
investment protection
status games
behavioral effects

The effect is marginal and operates alongside many nonlegal forces that stabilize or destabilize social standing.

Page 5 contrasts Gertz’s compensatory view with the effects of good-name protection on personal-brand and status investments.


The social value of status competition depends on the games through which status is earned

Professor Yonathan Arbel claims, in “A Status Theory of Defamation Law” on page 5, that societies flourish when people compete for standing through scholarship, art, philanthropy, and reform, but suffer when standing is pursued through duels, harmful body practices, reckless displays, inherited privilege, or ethnic hierarchy. Status seeking is therefore neither inherently beneficial nor inherently wasteful. Its welfare effect turns on the rules of the game and the spillovers produced. This is significant because law can influence which competitive energies enrich society and which entrench harm. It connects to positional competition, positive externalities, negative externalities, social flourishing, rent seeking, and legal norms.

The distinction supplies the normative criterion for choosing which status games law should protect or disrupt.

positional competition
positive externalities
negative externalities
social flourishing
rent seeking
legal norms

Classifying mixed or culturally contested status games is difficult, and the paper later urges institutional caution.

Page 5 juxtaposes socially productive status pursuits with destructive competitions and links judicial decisions to their preservation.


Bigoted defamation claims should fail because they seek legal reinforcement of an illegitimate status game, not because prejudice causes no actual status harm

Professor Yonathan Arbel claims, in “A Status Theory of Defamation Law” on pages 6–7, that falsely associating a plaintiff with a disfavored race, religion, sexuality, or identity can cause real loss of privilege inside a bigoted community. Courts distort reality when they deny that harm exists. The sounder reason to reject the suit is that the claimed standing arose from a racist, homophobic, antisemitic, misogynistic, or comparable hierarchy that law should destabilize rather than insure. This is significant because it reaches an egalitarian result without erasing continuing prejudice. It connects to bigoted defamation, racial hierarchy, illegitimate privilege, antidiscrimination, social harm, and doctrinal candor.

The claim converts a doctrinal embarrassment into the paper’s clearest example of status-based adjudication.

bigoted defamation
racial hierarchy
illegitimate privilege
antidiscrimination
social harm
doctrinal candor

Rejecting defamation protection does not eliminate the status game and does not foreclose other torts for threats, harassment, or emotional injury.

Pages 6–7 contrast historical enforcement and modern denial of prejudice with the status-theory rationale for refusing to protect bigoted privilege.


Courts already select among status games, and acknowledging that role is necessary for accountability and principled doctrine

Professor Yonathan Arbel claims, in “A Status Theory of Defamation Law” on page 8, that status theory does not newly empower judges to regulate social rank; it exposes choices they already make when deciding whose lost standing counts. Cloaking those choices as objective findings of community harm produces confusion, hides normative commitments, and prevents serious evaluation of institutional competence. An explicit vocabulary of status games would make the judicial role contestable and guide future cases. This is significant because transparency is itself a constraint on value-laden adjudication. It connects to judicial accountability, objective-harm rhetoric, community norms, institutional competence, doctrinal transparency, and common-law reasoning.

The paper’s institutional claim is that candor about regulation improves legitimacy even before courts agree on substantive outcomes.

judicial accountability
objective-harm rhetoric
community norms
institutional competence
doctrinal transparency
common-law reasoning

Acknowledgment does not resolve how aggressively judges should intervene or which contested games deserve protection.

Page 8 says courts already pick status games under neutral-sounding harm language and calls for explicit recognition and evaluation of that function.


A complete status account must separate social status from economic reputation and must not claim to exhaust defamation law

Professor Yonathan Arbel claims, in “A Status Theory of Defamation Law” on page 9, that the status framework is deliberately partial. It does not cover the economic domain of defamation, and it refines rather than displaces earlier insights about dignity and civility. The paper also previews a technical critique of the assumption that every defamatory status loss is a net social harm. This is significant because the theory’s explanatory ambition is bounded rather than totalizing. It connects to economic reputation, social status, Robert Post, civility norms, theoretical pluralism, and scope conditions.

The limitations keep the paper from conflating all good-name interests or overstating the novelty of its contribution.

economic reputation
social status
Robert Post
civility norms
theoretical pluralism
scope conditions

The paper leaves commercial reputation largely outside its status analysis and does not present an empirical test of the technical model.

Page 9 expressly excludes the economic domain, situates the theory near Post’s civility account, and describes the harm argument’s limited aim.


The conventional claim that defamation protects reputation from harm leaves an interpretive gap about the nature, boundaries, and success of the tort

Professor Yonathan Arbel claims, in “A Status Theory of Defamation Law” on pages 10–11, that Supreme Court formulations describing defamation as preventing or compensating reputational injury restate the problem rather than solve it. They do not define reputation, explain why it outweighs speech, distinguish defamation from adjacent wrongs, establish doctrinal boundaries, or specify how success should be measured. Robert Post correctly identified this as an intellectual gap. This is significant because a constitutional privilege cannot be justified by an undefined interest. It connects to Rosenblatt v. Baer, Gertz v. Welch, state interests, reputation, First Amendment doctrine, and interpretive theory.

The critique shows why the generic language of reputational harm is too thin to direct doctrine or reform.

Rosenblatt v. Baer
Gertz v. Welch
state interests
reputation
First Amendment doctrine
interpretive theory

The critique targets the sufficiency of the conventional explanation, not the existence of real private injuries from defamatory speech.

Pages 10–11 quote leading Supreme Court formulations and explain the questions that their harm language leaves unanswered.


The dominant tripartite theory treats defamation as protecting honor, property, and dignity but leaves serious internal gaps

Professor Yonathan Arbel claims, in “A Status Theory of Defamation Law” on page 11, that Robert Post’s influential reconstruction identified honor, property, and dignity as the values hidden inside reputation. That ecumenical menu shaped modern understanding, but it was a descriptive history of common-law concepts rather than a solution to their inconsistencies. Reformers therefore inherited a taxonomy without a unified account of why particular rules fit or how the tort should develop. This is significant because identifying values is not the same as explaining an institution. It connects to Robert Post, honor, property, dignity, common-law history, and conceptual pluralism.

The claim respectfully locates the interpretive gap inside the dominant scholarly account rather than dismissing its insights.

Robert Post
honor
property
dignity
common-law history
conceptual pluralism

Arbel treats the three values as incomplete, not irrelevant; parts of them reappear within status theory.

Page 11 summarizes Post’s three values and notes that his descriptive project did not resolve their incoherencies.


Honor defined as inherited social station is normatively obsolete and doctrinally mismatched to defamation’s focus on false factual assertions

Professor Yonathan Arbel claims, in “A Status Theory of Defamation Law” on pages 11–12, that honor, understood as rank assigned by birth or station, cannot plausibly ground modern defamation. Contemporary society has little legitimate interest in preserving pedigree-based hierarchy. Challenges to honor also frequently take the form of true disclosures or insulting opinions, while defamation generally requires a false statement of fact. This is significant because the honor account both protects the wrong social order and predicts the wrong doctrinal domain. It connects to inherited rank, aristocratic honor, falsity, fact-opinion doctrine, social mobility, and democratic equality.

The mismatch removes one of the traditional pillars of the tripartite account while preserving the possibility that esteem-related ideas evolved into status.

inherited rank
aristocratic honor
falsity
fact-opinion doctrine
social mobility
democratic equality

The paper acknowledges richer modern concepts of honor and possible overlap between honor and status.

Pages 11–12 define Post’s honor as social station, call it obsolete, and note its poor fit with falsity and opinion limits.


Goodwill may be valuable and cultivated without becoming property in other people’s favorable opinions

Professor Yonathan Arbel claims, in “A Status Theory of Defamation Law” on pages 12–13, that the property metaphor for reputation mistakes value and investment for ownership. People can invest in public images and markets can price goodwill, but the favorable judgment belongs to the audience, not its subject. Fans may change tastes without wrongfully taking an actor’s property, and doctrine itself refuses to treat bare reputation as Fourteenth Amendment property or a posthumously surviving asset. This is significant because property language obscures the relational character of a good name. It connects to goodwill, Lockean labor, audience autonomy, Paul v. Davis, relational interests, and property metaphors.

The claim separates economic value from an entitlement to control other people’s evaluations.

goodwill
Lockean labor
audience autonomy
Paul v. Davis
relational interests
property metaphors

Law can create property-like protection for intangible interests; the argument is that goodwill does not naturally establish the relevant ownership claim.

Pages 12–13 use market and celebrity examples and cite Paul v. Davis and nonsurvival rules against the property view.


Innate and equal dignity cannot explain why good name is losable, unequal, and sometimes legally exhausted

Professor Yonathan Arbel claims, in “A Status Theory of Defamation Law” on page 13, that dignity is the strongest conventional candidate but fits poorly when understood as an inherent, equal, and inalienable status of personhood. Defamation assumes that good name can be lost, that plaintiffs differ in prior standing, and that some people may be libel-proof because allegations can no longer lower them. Those premises conflict with dignity that everyone possesses equally and cannot forfeit. This is significant because a core doctrinal feature contradicts the proposed protected value. It connects to human dignity, libel-proof plaintiffs, equal worth, reputational baselines, innate rights, and doctrinal fit.

The contrast shows why social rank, not equal personhood alone, better describes the variable injury that defamation measures.

human dignity
libel-proof plaintiffs
equal worth
reputational baselines
innate rights
doctrinal fit

The paper retains a limited role for dignity and targets its adequacy as the principal explanation of American defamation law.

Page 13 contrasts dignity’s fixed equal status with the possibility of losing good name and the libel-proof doctrine.


Dignity is primarily personal, while defamation is a relational and community-dependent social tort

Professor Yonathan Arbel claims, in “A Status Theory of Defamation Law” on page 14, that an individual’s wounded feelings do not establish defamation; the tort asks how third parties react. Actionability depends on aversion, ostracism, lost esteem, or reduced willingness to associate, and standing can differ across subcommunities. That fragmented, audience-dependent structure is unlike dignity carried by a person across settings. This is significant because it identifies the fundamental unit of analysis as a social relationship rather than an isolated self. It connects to sociological torts, community judgment, relational harm, subcommunities, emotional distress, and social standing.

The social-personal distinction explains why naked insult and private humiliation fall outside defamation even when subjectively devastating.

sociological torts
community judgment
relational harm
subcommunities
emotional distress
social standing

Dignitary injury can accompany relational loss, but the article argues that it does not define the tort’s distinctive structure.

Page 14 emphasizes third-party reaction, social aversion, and fragmented community standing and concludes that dignity is personal while defamation is social.


A dignity theory cannot readily explain defamation’s publication, falsity, fact-opinion, monetary-remedy, and apology rules

Professor Yonathan Arbel claims, in “A Status Theory of Defamation Law” on pages 14–15, that several central rules are puzzling if the tort protects dignity. Private abuse can demean, true disclosures can humiliate more than lies, and opinions can be vicious, yet defamation requires publication, falsity, and ordinarily a factual assertion. Money also seems an indirect response to dignity, while apology is not a complete defense. This is significant because a theory that repeatedly needs exceptions has weak explanatory fit. It connects to publication, truth defense, opinion privilege, damages, retraction, and dignitary harm.

The cluster of mismatches motivates the search for a relational value that makes the same requirements necessary rather than anomalous.

publication
truth defense
opinion privilege
damages
retraction
dignitary harm

First Amendment doctrine also shapes these rules; the argument concerns their compatibility with the asserted private-law value.

Pages 14–15 test dignity against publication, falsity, opinion, monetary compensation, and apology and find each fit strained.


Defamation doctrine is both overinclusive and underinclusive relative to dignity because it follows relational standing rather than personal offense

Professor Yonathan Arbel claims, in “A Status Theory of Defamation Law” on page 15, that defamation covers commercially damaging statements that need not offend their target, yet excludes racist abuse, identity affronts, political mislabeling, and extreme parody when those communications do not assert actionable facts or lower relational standing. Damages doctrine likewise focuses on esteem in others’ eyes rather than the plaintiff’s emotional reaction. This is significant because the pattern is systematic once the protected interest is understood as relational status. It connects to Hustler v. Falwell, commercial disparagement, identity injury, relational damages, emotional distress, and doctrinal scope.

The over- and under-inclusion critique shows that dignity predicts the wrong set of cases in both directions.

Hustler v. Falwell
commercial disparagement
identity injury
relational damages
emotional distress
doctrinal scope

Some excluded injuries may be actionable under false light, privacy, or intentional-infliction doctrines rather than defamation.

Page 15 compares commercial recovery with excluded identity and parody harms and quotes the relational-interest approach to damages.


Good-name interests contain two distinct but interrelated goods: economic reputation and social status

Professor Yonathan Arbel claims, in “A Status Theory of Defamation Law” on page 16, that sociology and economics reveal two components of a good name. Reputation is broadly the desirability of transacting with a person or product because of expected quality; status is the desirability of affiliating with or deferring to a person because of social rank. A leading surgeon illustrates reputation, while a president illustrates status. This is significant because separating the concepts prevents one mechanism from being mistaken for the whole tort. It connects to reputation economics, affiliation, transactional quality, social hierarchy, interdisciplinary theory, and good-name interests.

The distinction defines the paper’s domain and explains why commercial and social branches of defamation need not share one theory.

reputation economics
affiliation
transactional quality
social hierarchy
interdisciplinary theory
good-name interests

The concepts overlap in practice, and the paper intentionally concentrates on status rather than developing a full theory of reputation.

Page 16 identifies reputation and status as distinct good-name pursuits and supplies economic and social shorthand definitions.


Status is a socially produced rank that brings prestige, power, and voluntary deference within a group

Professor Yonathan Arbel claims, in “A Status Theory of Defamation Law” on pages 16–17, that status is the prestige attached to an abstract position rather than a direct observation of current performance. Hierarchies arise across groups and sort members into unequal ranks, and higher rank elicits compliance, attention, and deference without coercion. Status is therefore both relational and behaviorally consequential. This is significant because losing a good name can alter not just feelings but the social power others confer. It connects to Weberian sociology, pecking orders, prestige, deference behavior, informal hierarchy, and social power.

The definition gives concrete content to the status interest that defamation law is said to protect.

Weberian sociology
pecking orders
prestige
deference behavior
informal hierarchy
social power

Status hierarchies vary across communities and can arise from legitimate achievement, arbitrary convention, or oppressive structures.

Pages 16–17 define status, describe its spontaneous emergence, and explain the deference and power associated with rank.


High status independently magnifies attention, evaluation, opportunity, and market advantage

Professor Yonathan Arbel claims, in “A Status Theory of Defamation Law” on pages 17–18, that hierarchy spills across domains. Military rank affects whose views dominate social interactions; prestigious scientists receive more citations for comparable ideas; elite firms can charge more independently of quality; and résumé markers associated with class affect interview invitations. Status does not merely signal merit—it changes how others evaluate and reward its holder. This is significant because status injury can compound through cumulative advantage. It connects to the Matthew effect, labor-market discrimination, elite institutions, prestige pricing, cumulative advantage, and status bias.

The examples show how a change in standing can reshape material opportunities even when underlying ability is constant.

Matthew effect
labor-market discrimination
elite institutions
prestige pricing
cumulative advantage
status bias

The cited studies illustrate mechanisms in particular settings and do not quantify defamation’s contribution to each disparity.

Pages 17–18 discuss aircrews, scientific citations, legal-service pricing, and elite-firm résumé screening as independent status effects.


Status seeking can be instrumental, intrinsically rewarding, or an evolved adaptation to group cooperation

Professor Yonathan Arbel claims, in “A Status Theory of Defamation Law” on page 18, that status competition admits at least three explanations. People may seek rank instrumentally for access to resources, as an end in itself because rank affects happiness and emotion, or because hierarchy evolved to coordinate social groups. The persistence of status across cultures and species supports treating it as a fundamental motive rather than a superficial taste. This is significant because legal protection can affect both material incentives and subjective welfare. It connects to instrumental value, terminal value, evolutionary psychology, group cooperation, comparative rank, and human motivation.

The plural account explains why status remains powerful even when it cannot be converted directly into wealth.

instrumental value
terminal value
evolutionary psychology
group cooperation
comparative rank
human motivation

The three explanations can coexist, and the article does not attempt to identify a single universal causal pathway.

Page 18 organizes sociological explanations of status pursuit into material, intrinsic, and evolutionary accounts.


Reputation is aggregated information that predicts future quality and permits its subject to capitalize on expected performance

Professor Yonathan Arbel claims, in “A Status Theory of Defamation Law” on pages 18–19, that reputation aggregates past experience into a community expectation about the quality of a person, product, or service. A favorable reputation is a prediction—a shadow cast by expected future performance—and its value lies in enabling transactions on better terms. This differs from status even though the two often overlap. This is significant because informational and positional harms follow different mechanisms and may require different doctrine. It connects to quality signals, market discipline, repeated transactions, consumer information, reputational capital, and prediction.

The definition prevents the paper’s status theory from swallowing the distinct economic function of reputation.

quality signals
market discipline
repeated transactions
consumer information
reputational capital
prediction

Reputation can fail or be distorted, and status can itself act as an imperfect quality signal.

Pages 18–19 define reputation as aggregated quality information, call it a prediction, and explain its transactional value.


Status and reputation differ in object, value, production, observability, and social meaning

Professor Yonathan Arbel claims, in “A Status Theory of Defamation Law” on pages 19–20, that reputation predicts quality while status ranks social standing; reputation is mainly instrumental while status is partly terminal; reputation accumulates from favorable experience while status accumulates through deference; and market demand makes reputation easier for outsiders to observe than subtle nonmarket status. Internally, reputation concerns what one expects to receive, while status concerns what others understand one should receive. This is significant because superficially similar good-name injuries can be structurally different. It connects to quality assessment, relative rank, deference, market signals, terminal goods, and conceptual taxonomy.

The multidimensional distinction creates a more precise vocabulary for analyzing defamation’s heterogeneous interests.

quality assessment
relative rank
deference
market signals
terminal goods
conceptual taxonomy

Meritocratic cultures deliberately link rank to competence, so real-world evidence often mixes the two concepts.

Pages 19–20 enumerate differences in measurement, motivation, accumulation, observability, and subjective meaning.


Status is necessarily relative, whereas an entire market can in principle enjoy good reputations for quality

Professor Yonathan Arbel claims, in “A Status Theory of Defamation Law” on page 20, that high status necessarily implies lower status elsewhere: leaders require followers and winners require lower-ranked competitors. Reputation need not have that zero-sum structure because every restaurant in a town could reliably provide excellent food, even if firms still compete to stand out. This is significant because status loss mechanically changes relational positions in ways that quality information does not. It connects to positional goods, zero-sum rank, nonzero-sum quality, social comparison, hierarchy, and welfare analysis.

The relative nature of status supplies the premise for the technical appendix’s redistribution argument.

positional goods
zero-sum rank
nonzero-sum quality
social comparison
hierarchy
welfare analysis

Competitive reputation can also be relative in practice; the argument is that relativity is conceptually necessary for status but not for quality reputation.

Page 20 contrasts hierarchical status pairs with the possibility that all restaurants could possess high quality reputations.


A Status Interpretation of Defamation Law

Defamation doctrine’s own vocabulary of standing, hatred, ridicule, avoidance, and relational injury is status-laden

Professor Yonathan Arbel claims, in “A Status Theory of Defamation Law” on pages 20–21, that the doctrine describes its protected interest in the language of social rank and affiliation. Supreme Court and common-law formulations ask whether speech lowers a person’s standing, exposes the person to hatred or ridicule, causes avoidance, or disrupts relational esteem. Those concepts track how a community allocates status, not merely how the plaintiff feels or how a market prices quality. This is significant because the doctrine’s ordinary vocabulary corroborates the theory without conceptual translation. It connects to Gertz v. Welch, social aversion, relational interests, community standing, doctrinal language, and status loss.

The linguistic fit is the first direct test of status theory against positive law.

Gertz v. Welch
social aversion
relational interests
community standing
doctrinal language
status loss

Status-laden rhetoric does not by itself prove that every rule or case rests exclusively on status concerns.

Pages 20–21 collect definitions referring to community standing, hatred, contempt, ridicule, shunning, and relational esteem.


The publication requirement follows necessarily from the social nature of status loss

Professor Yonathan Arbel claims, in “A Status Theory of Defamation Law” on page 21, that a private insult may wound dignity but cannot lower status unless someone else receives it. Status exists through others’ evaluations and deference, so a communication to a third party is not an arbitrary procedural hurdle; it is part of the causal mechanism of injury. This is significant because status theory derives a central element of defamation from first principles. It connects to publication, third-party communication, relational injury, causation, social evaluation, and private insult.

The derivation turns a rule that dignity theory struggles to explain into an unavoidable implication of the protected interest.

publication
third-party communication
relational injury
causation
social evaluation
private insult

Publication alone does not establish actionability; falsity, meaning, fault, privilege, and constitutional limits remain.

Page 21 contrasts private dignitary harm with the impossibility of losing social status outside the eyes of others.


Community judgment and the audience’s own standing are integral to measuring status harm

Professor Yonathan Arbel claims, in “A Status Theory of Defamation Law” on pages 21–22, that a statement is defamatory only if it changes estimation within a relevant community, and reaction from a respected audience can matter more than reaction from a marginal one. Dignity theory cannot easily explain why a spouse’s or loved one’s view alone may be insufficient, but status theory can: status emerges inside social systems and is conferred by participants whose own positions differ. This is significant because the audience is part of the entitlement, not merely evidence of damages. It connects to community standards, respectable minorities, audience status, relational measurement, social groups, and defamatory meaning.

The claim explains both community dependence and the doctrine’s controversial ranking of audience perspectives.

community standards
respectable minorities
audience status
relational measurement
social groups
defamatory meaning

Whether law should privilege some community judgments is a normative issue that status theory exposes rather than automatically resolves.

Pages 21–22 discuss Holmes’s community formulation and explain why the audience’s status affects the magnitude of status loss.


The libel-proof doctrine becomes intelligible if injury means a further decline from an already low status baseline

Professor Yonathan Arbel claims, in “A Status Theory of Defamation Law” on page 22, that a person may be status-proof even though no person is dignity-proof. If someone already occupies the lowest rung in the relevant community, a new false allegation may cause little additional relational decline; evidence of poor prior standing similarly mitigates damages. This is significant because variable baselines are natural to hierarchy but alien to equal inherent dignity. It connects to libel-proof doctrine, incremental harm, mitigation, prior reputation, hierarchical rank, and damages.

The status account rationalizes one of defamation’s starkest departures from equal-personhood reasoning.

libel-proof doctrine
incremental harm
mitigation
prior reputation
hierarchical rank
damages

Calling someone status-proof describes a doctrinal possibility, not a moral judgment about the person’s worth or a denial of other harms.

Page 22 links the libel-proof rule and mitigation for bad prior standing to the limited room for further status loss.


The truth defense protects the integrity of legitimate status games by allowing deserved claims to standing to be tested

Professor Yonathan Arbel claims, in “A Status Theory of Defamation Law” on page 22, that falsity is puzzling under honor or dignity because true accusations may humiliate more. Under status theory, truth is essential to a legitimate game: a person who claims standing for honesty, piety, scholarship, or another achievement must remain vulnerable to accurate exposure of dishonesty, impiety, or fraud. Defamation should protect the game against false moves without insulating false claims to status. This is significant because truth operates as an auditing rule for status allocation. It connects to truth defense, game integrity, merit, accountability, status claims, and factual verification.

The claim gives the falsity requirement a preconstitutional social function rather than treating it only as a speech-protective exception.

truth defense
game integrity
merit
accountability
status claims
factual verification

When the underlying status game is itself illegitimate, the article argues for disruption rather than accurate administration of its hierarchy.

Page 22 says status games require arbitration of truthful claims and uses honesty or piety as examples of status that must remain truthfully contestable.


Status theory’s fit suggests a proto-theory already embedded in law and a parsimonious refinement of earlier social accounts

Professor Yonathan Arbel claims, in “A Status Theory of Defamation Law” on page 23, that the ability to explain publication, community judgment, per se categories, monetary compensation, relational injury, and indifference to naked insult is probably not accidental. Courts may long have relied on an inchoate status intuition without the vocabulary to state it, and much of Robert Post’s account is consistent with that view. This is significant because consilience strengthens an interpretation that claims clarity more than novelty. It connects to proto-theory, Robert Post, doctrinal consilience, common-law intuition, explanatory power, and parsimony.

The paper positions its contribution as making implicit legal logic explicit rather than replacing doctrine wholesale.

proto-theory
Robert Post
doctrinal consilience
common-law intuition
explanatory power
parsimony

Good fit is evidence for an interpretation, not historical proof that judges consciously followed status theory.

Page 23 conjectures that a proto-status theory has operated for a long time and describes the contribution as a refinement of older ideas.


Status games are emergent rule systems governing how social rank is acquired, retained, lost, and translated into privileges

Professor Yonathan Arbel claims, in “A Status Theory of Defamation Law” on pages 23–24, that status is produced through games: spontaneous, often informal systems whose recognized rules determine acquisition, maintenance, deprivation, and the consequences of rank. The same act can be irrelevant in one community and devastating in another because each game values different traits and conduct. Status rules range from conspicuous consumption and titles to accents, manners, and body language. This is significant because defamatoriness depends on the social game that gives an allegation meaning. It connects to emergent norms, local meaning, etiquette, group hierarchy, rule systems, and social construction.

The definition identifies the mechanism through which speech changes standing and gives courts a concrete object of regulatory analysis.

emergent norms
local meaning
etiquette
group hierarchy
rule systems
social construction

Many participants experience native status rules as natural or invisible, making identification and evaluation difficult.

Pages 23–24 define status games and illustrate their community specificity and often informal or subconscious operation.


Cringe and gossip reveal and enforce otherwise invisible rules of status competition

Professor Yonathan Arbel claims, in “A Status Theory of Defamation Law” on pages 24–25, that a visceral response to a faux pas—cringe—can reveal a status rule that insiders rarely articulate. Gossip then circulates reports of violations and helps groups enforce those rules, while people often enjoy producing and consuming the reports. Because defamation law sanctions false social reporting, it intervenes in this enforcement mechanism. This is significant because everyday communication is the infrastructure of status allocation. It connects to gossip, cringe, informal sanctions, tabloid media, norm enforcement, and defamatory publication.

The claim locates defamation inside ordinary processes through which communities police rank rather than treating lawsuits as isolated speech events.

gossip
cringe
informal sanctions
tabloid media
norm enforcement
defamatory publication

Gossip can support cooperation or inflict unjust harm; the article does not treat all informal enforcement as desirable.

Pages 24–25 use faux-pas reactions to expose hidden rules and describe gossip as the diffusion mechanism for social fouls.


Status games can create positive spillovers by rewarding civility, philanthropy, prosocial signaling, and relative wage equality

Professor Yonathan Arbel claims, in “A Status Theory of Defamation Law” on page 25, that status competition can improve the lives of nonparticipants. Communities can reward politeness and patience; donors can compete for recognition through philanthropy; visible virtue signaling can normalize prosocial commitments; and workers’ concern with relative position can pressure firms toward pay equality. Self-regarding motives may therefore generate socially valuable conduct. This is significant because law need not condemn status seeking when it channels ambition toward public goods. It connects to positive externalities, civility, charitable giving, virtue signaling, wage compression, and prosocial norms.

The examples support selective protection of status games according to spillovers rather than the purity of participants’ motives.

positive externalities
civility
charitable giving
virtue signaling
wage compression
prosocial norms

Even beneficial games may consume excessive resources or distribute prestige unfairly, so positive examples do not establish optimality.

Page 25 identifies civility, philanthropy, virtue signaling, and relative-wage concerns as status mechanisms with third-party benefits.


Positional arms races can waste resources and increase danger without improving anyone’s final rank

Professor Yonathan Arbel claims, in “A Status Theory of Defamation Law” on pages 25–27, that status competition has a dark side when individual advantage triggers universal imitation. Oversized biological displays, standing on tiptoe at a concert, hockey players refusing helmets, conspicuous consumption, and keeping up with neighbors illustrate a positional treadmill: everyone bears higher costs while relative ordering remains largely unchanged. This is significant because individually rational status moves can reduce collective welfare. It connects to positional externalities, arms races, Schelling, conspicuous consumption, collective action, and deadweight loss.

The arms-race mechanism explains why public policy may justifiably alter the rules of some status competitions.

positional externalities
arms races
Schelling
conspicuous consumption
collective action
deadweight loss

The examples are analogies across biological and social settings; the welfare effect of any specific game requires contextual evidence.

Pages 25–27 develop the positional treadmill through Darwinian, concert, hockey, neighborhood, and consumption examples.


Defamation Law as a Regulator of Status Games

Status games are malleable enough that deliberate changes to rankings can redirect behavior toward social goods

Professor Yonathan Arbel claims, in “A Status Theory of Defamation Law” on page 27, that Ted Turner’s response to the Forbes 400 illustrates the malleability of status games. A wealth ranking could deter giving because donations cost position; creating the Slate 60 ranking of donors made generosity itself a source of elite standing and may have encouraged philanthropy. Changing what is counted can change what competitors do. This is significant because status institutions can harness ambition rather than merely suppress it. It connects to Ted Turner, Forbes 400, Slate 60, philanthropy, mechanism design, and ranking effects.

The example demonstrates a concrete way institutional design can redirect fixed competitive energy toward beneficial conduct.

Ted Turner
Forbes 400
Slate 60
philanthropy
mechanism design
ranking effects

The paper reports an association rather than causal proof that the new ranking produced the increase in giving.

Page 27 recounts Turner’s concern about wealth rankings and the creation of a public ranking of major donors.


Defamation law secures fragile returns on status investment and thereby encourages participation in the underlying game

Professor Yonathan Arbel claims, in “A Status Theory of Defamation Law” on pages 27–29, that status is a fragile return on costly effort because a vicious false rumor can rapidly destroy a name built over years. Without protection, a scholar may avoid innovation and pursue more defensible displays of property or power. Sanctioning the false speaker and compensating the target makes the return more durable, much as property or contract protection encourages investment. This is significant because defamation changes ex ante allocation of human effort. It connects to status anxiety, investment security, innovation incentives, rumor, legal enforcement, and return on investment.

The mechanism explains how private recovery can have public effects on the production of socially valued achievement.

status anxiety
investment security
innovation incentives
rumor
legal enforcement
return on investment

Legal protection affects participation only at the margin and can itself chill truthful or socially valuable speech.

Pages 27–29 use a Hobbesian scholar thought experiment and analogies to property and contract enforcement to explain status investment.


What defamation law protects it encourages, and what it excludes from protection it discourages

Professor Yonathan Arbel claims, in “A Status Theory of Defamation Law” on page 29, that legal coverage alters the expected durability of status. Protecting a scholar against false plagiarism claims encourages intellectual competition; declaring such claims categorically nonactionable would weaken it. The effect is not absolute because status games predate law, but at the margin the scope of liability changes both entry into a game and effort within it. This is significant because every boundary decision is also an incentive decision. It connects to legal protection, participation margins, plagiarism, status security, behavioral response, and regulatory scope.

The concise protection-encouragement principle translates individual adjudication into a general regulatory effect.

legal protection
participation margins
plagiarism
status security
behavioral response
regulatory scope

The direction and magnitude of response depend on enforcement, alternative norms, and the chilling costs of liability.

Page 29 states that protecting a status claim promotes the game while withdrawing protection discourages it, subject to marginal effects.


The familiar chilling-effects account is incomplete because liability can also secure valuable incentives within status games

Professor Yonathan Arbel claims, in “A Status Theory of Defamation Law” on page 29, that New York Times v. Sullivan properly attends to how stringent liability may deter participation in public debate, but recognizes only one side of the incentive ledger. Liability can also make socially useful status rewards more reliable by deterring false destruction of standing. Evaluating doctrine must therefore compare chilled speech with secured incentives rather than treating protection as purely reactive. This is significant because First Amendment analysis can overlook the behavioral benefits of good-name security. It connects to New York Times v. Sullivan, chilling effects, incentive balancing, public debate, status protection, and accident-law analogy.

The claim reframes the constitutional tradeoff as competing ex ante effects rather than speech liberty versus ex post compensation alone.

New York Times v. Sullivan
chilling effects
incentive balancing
public debate
status protection
accident-law analogy

The article does not quantify the relative size of chilled-speech costs and status-investment benefits in particular settings.

Page 29 says Sullivan sees deterrence of speech but not the way stringent standards secure returns in the underlying status game.


Individual defamation decisions inevitably encode judgments about service, chastity, bigotry, and other routes to status

Professor Yonathan Arbel claims, in “A Status Theory of Defamation Law” on pages 29–30, that courts regulate status games whenever they decide what allegations lower standing. Treating “slacker” as defamatory rewards military service; treating female promiscuity as defamatory reinforces chastity; refusing to protect bigoted claims weakens race- or sexuality-based hierarchies. The judicial act does more than identify existing community views—it helps stabilize or destabilize them. This is significant because apparently narrow holdings participate in constructing social norms. It connects to per se defamation, military valor, sexual morality, racial hierarchy, expressive law, and common-law regulation.

The examples make the paper’s regulatory mechanism visible in concrete doctrinal categories.

per se defamation
military valor
sexual morality
racial hierarchy
expressive law
common-law regulation

A single decision rarely determines a status game by itself, and holdings interact with culture, legislation, and constitutional constraints.

Pages 29–30 use slacker, female promiscuity, and bigoted-defamation cases to show how outcomes promote or weaken particular games.


Courts should openly protect status earned in socially legitimate games and refuse protection for status derived from games society condemns

Professor Yonathan Arbel claims, in “A Status Theory of Defamation Law” on pages 30–31, that judicial candor should lead to a substantive rule: extend defamation protection when the plaintiff’s standing arose from a status game society legitimately wishes to sustain, and withhold it when the game warrants opprobrium. On this view, harm is an instrument rather than the master criterion; loss of status should be remedied only when the underlying claim to status merits legal security. This is significant because it reconstructs adjudication from protecting status to regulating its sources. It connects to legitimate expectations, judicial candor, status regulation, normative screening, harm principle, and social policy.

The prescription converts the descriptive theory into a decision framework for defamation cases.

legitimate expectations
judicial candor
status regulation
normative screening
harm principle
social policy

The framework does not eliminate hard judgments about legitimacy and requires caution where social values are contested.

Pages 30–31 urge courts to admit their regulatory role and make protection turn on social approval of the underlying status game.


Which Status Games Are Worth Protecting?

Virtuous status games merit support when competition generates positive spillovers such as discovery, philanthropy, and art

Professor Yonathan Arbel claims, in “A Status Theory of Defamation Law” on pages 31–32, that courts can begin classification by examining external effects. Scholastic races encourage vaccines, discoveries, and theory; legacy competition can motivate enormous charitable gifts; and the pursuit of fame can generate art. Even when motivations include envy or narcissism, the resulting activity may enrich nonparticipants. This is significant because legal protection can subsidize status pursuits with public benefits. It connects to positive spillovers, scientific priority, philanthropy, artistic fame, social welfare, and virtuous competition.

The category illustrates how status theory can justify robust good-name protection rather than only narrowing defamation law.

positive spillovers
scientific priority
philanthropy
artistic fame
social welfare
virtuous competition

Positive effects do not prove that every feature or level of competition is efficient, and motives need not be socially admirable.

Pages 31–32 identify scholarship, philanthropy, and art as status games that create substantial benefits for others.


Ambivalent status games may warrant protection even when their ranking systems contain arbitrariness and bias

Professor Yonathan Arbel claims, in “A Status Theory of Defamation Law” on page 32, that occupational prestige illustrates an intermediate category. Communities rank surgeons, astronauts, bankers, barbers, migrant workers, and other occupations in ways that mix plausible valuations with racism, sexism, ageism, and arbitrary convention. Courts may still protect occupational standing so long as the general practice of assigning status to work remains accepted, while recognizing defects in the distribution. This is significant because normative classification is not binary. It connects to occupational prestige, labor hierarchy, implicit bias, social valuation, mixed externalities, and incremental reform.

The ambivalent category prevents the framework from demanding wholesale judicial approval of every norm within a protected game.

occupational prestige
labor hierarchy
implicit bias
social valuation
mixed externalities
incremental reform

The paper offers a tentative illustration, not a complete rule for separating acceptable imperfection from disqualifying injustice.

Page 32 reviews occupational-prestige rankings, notes race and gender effects, and suggests possible protection despite flaws.


Noxious status games built on pedigree or immutable identity should lose defamation law’s support

Professor Yonathan Arbel claims, in “A Status Theory of Defamation Law” on pages 32–33, that inherited legitimacy once made the label “bastard” deeply status-destroying, but doctrinal protection receded as society shifted from ascribed pedigree to achieved standing. Modern law should similarly reject games that rank people by race, ethnicity, sex, or comparable immutable traits. The question is not whether those hierarchies produce real consequences, but whether law should help preserve them. This is significant because doctrinal change can deliberately weaken oppressive stratification. It connects to ascribed status, achieved status, illegitimacy, immutable traits, democratic mobility, and noxious hierarchies.

The historical shift shows that defamation categories can change as society repudiates the game that gave an insult its force.

ascribed status
achieved status
illegitimacy
immutable traits
democratic mobility
noxious hierarchies

Society still tolerates some immutable-trait rankings, and disputed classifications may exceed confident judicial competence.

Pages 32–33 trace the decline of bastardy as defamation and place pedigree with racial, ethnic, and sex-based status systems.


Regulating Status Games: Legitimacy and Institutional Capacity

American egalitarian rhetoric conceals pervasive civility rules and status hierarchies rather than proving their absence

Professor Yonathan Arbel claims, in “A Status Theory of Defamation Law” on pages 33–36, that James Whitman’s picture of America as leveling civility downward mistakes less explicit hierarchy for no hierarchy. Personal-space norms, conversational rules, punctuality, class-coded leisure and language, workplace asymmetries, forms of address, and courtroom decorum all allocate respect and rank. American culture’s distinctive feature is often the pretense that class and status have vanished into merit and mobility. This is significant because cultural invisibility cannot defeat law’s legitimacy to address status games it already embodies. It connects to James Whitman, civility, American egalitarianism, class signaling, informal hierarchy, and cultural sociology.

The immigrant-observer examples rebut the claim that status regulation lacks an American social foundation.

James Whitman
civility
American egalitarianism
class signaling
informal hierarchy
cultural sociology

The argument establishes pervasive status norms, not that American and European civility regimes are identical.

Pages 33–36 contrast Whitman’s leveling-down thesis with examples of American personal-space, speech, class, workplace, and judicial norms.


American law already regulates status through contempt, bans on dangerous competitions, taxation, valor rules, Olympic exclusivity, and trademark doctrine

Professor Yonathan Arbel claims, in “A Status Theory of Defamation Law” on pages 36–38, that status regulation is not foreign to American law. Contempt sanctions protect judicial rank; law has suppressed duels, feuds, potlatch, and street racing; luxury and mansion taxes moderate conspicuous consumption; stolen-valor and Olympic rules ration prestige; and post-sale trademark doctrine protects exclusivity even when buyers are not confused. This is significant because defamation would join an existing legal practice rather than create a novel state role. It connects to contempt, positional taxation, Stolen Valor Act, Olympic marks, post-sale confusion, and status exclusivity.

The doctrinal inventory answers the legitimacy objection by showing broad and selective legal involvement in status allocation.

contempt
positional taxation
Stolen Valor Act
Olympic marks
post-sale confusion
status exclusivity

Some interventions are controversial or constitutionally limited, and historical suppression of cultural practices warns against unreflective regulation.

Pages 36–38 catalogue criminal, tax, speech, and trademark examples in which law maintains, moderates, or dismantles status games.


Courts and legislators should regulate status games cautiously and rarely, while recognizing that abstention is impossible in defamation cases

Professor Yonathan Arbel claims, in “A Status Theory of Defamation Law” on pages 38–39, that the strongest objection concerns institutional capacity and ideology: judges and legislators may misidentify games or impose contested values. His own prescription is caution and rarity, with larger pivots often better suited to legislatures. But defamation adjudication cannot be divorced from status regulation because every decision helps maintain or destabilize the game behind the plaintiff’s standing. This is significant because restraint must operate inside an unavoidable role rather than through fictional neutrality. It connects to institutional competence, judicial minimalism, legislative change, ideology, normative uncertainty, and unavoidable choice.

The claim supplies a limiting principle and candidly leaves substantial institutional questions unresolved.

institutional competence
judicial minimalism
legislative change
ideology
normative uncertainty
unavoidable choice

The article openly states that a deeper account of capacity and allocation between courts and legislatures exceeds its scope.

Pages 38–39 urge cautious, rare determinations, distinguish legislative pivots, and insist that case outcomes inevitably regulate status games.


Harm-centered doctrine handles bigoted defamation through artifice by ignoring actual prejudiced audiences or pretending bigotry has disappeared

Professor Yonathan Arbel claims, in “A Status Theory of Defamation Law” on pages 39–41, that courts once reinforced racism and homophobia by treating minority identity as defamatory, then escaped those results by narrowing the relevant audience to respectable or rational people and intuitively denying prejudice. Because real bigoted communities can inflict real status loss, the harm model forces courts either to validate hierarchy or falsify social conditions. This is significant because doctrinal subterfuge erases marginalized experience while hiding judicial norm choice. It connects to racial misidentification, sexual-orientation defamation, right-thinking audiences, empirical harm, judicial intuition, and social prejudice.

The case study exposes the practical cost of treating courts as passive reporters of community reaction.

racial misidentification
sexual-orientation defamation
right-thinking audiences
empirical harm
judicial intuition
social prejudice

Audience-based scholars offer alternative refinements within the harm framework; Arbel argues status theory is more direct, not that their critiques lack value.

Pages 39–41 trace historical enforcement, modern audience filtering, and implausible judicial findings that discriminatory attitudes had vanished.


Denying protection to bigoted status claims destabilizes majority privilege without denying the reality of prejudice

Professor Yonathan Arbel claims, in “A Status Theory of Defamation Law” on pages 41–42, that courts should openly refuse to reinforce racial, ethnic, or sexuality-based status games. Damages, deterrence, and vindication otherwise insure majority members against rumors that threaten claimed purity. Withholding defamation protection makes those gains fragile, while minority members lose no equivalent protection because truthful identification of their identity was never defamatory. This is significant because shrinking doctrine can asymmetrically weaken the privileged side of a hierarchy. It connects to racial privilege, game destabilization, truth defense, majority status, legal asymmetry, and antidiscrimination.

The mechanism explains how a denial of private recovery can serve a broader egalitarian regulatory purpose.

racial privilege
game destabilization
truth defense
majority status
legal asymmetry
antidiscrimination

The intervention modestly increases fragility; it cannot eradicate the underlying hierarchy and does not resolve claims involving deceptive passing.

Pages 41–42 explain how damages secure bigoted status, why denial destabilizes it, and why existing truth rules already exclude minority members from parallel protection.


Courts should reject informant-defamation claims because the relevant anti-cooperation status game is illegitimate, not because inmate communities are incapable of real harm

Professor Yonathan Arbel claims, in “A Status Theory of Defamation Law” on pages 42–43, that Saunders presented a genuine loss of inmate standing after a broadcast identified the plaintiff as an FBI informant. The court avoided validating hostility to cooperation by dismissing the views of the inmate community as deviant, even though defamation often recognizes small communities. A candid rationale would acknowledge the harm but refuse to support status earned through contempt for law enforcement or fidelity to violent organizations. This is significant because status theory avoids condescension and doctrinal inconsistency. It connects to informants, Saunders, minority communities, antisocial norms, law enforcement, and community standing.

The case shows how explicit evaluation of a game can replace selective manipulation of the relevant-audience requirement.

informants
Saunders
minority communities
antisocial norms
law enforcement
community standing

The status rationale addresses defamation recovery and does not deny possible negligence, safety, or emotional-distress claims arising from dangerous disclosure.

Pages 42–43 compare Saunders with recognition of other small communities and propose openly rejecting the anti-informant status game.


The irrebuttable per se rule for allegations of female unchastity cannot be explained as a neutral response to proven reputational harm

Professor Yonathan Arbel claims, in “A Status Theory of Defamation Law” on page 44, that modern doctrine presumes allegations of female promiscuity so damaging that the plaintiff need not prove harm. A simple harm-differential explanation fails because the presumption is irrebuttable, and the rule emerged through special legislation in the nineteenth century after chastity norms had begun declining rather than at their strongest point. This is significant because timing and structure reveal active norm reinforcement rather than passive compensation. It connects to slander per se, female chastity, irrebuttable presumptions, sexual double standards, legal history, and harm doctrine.

The anomalies create a historical test that the reactionary harm model cannot satisfy.

slander per se
female chastity
irrebuttable presumptions
sexual double standards
legal history
harm doctrine

The historical account is offered as an explanatory hypothesis about legal function, not proof that legislators consciously designed a status mechanism.

Page 44 describes the gendered per se rule, Post’s irrebuttability objection, and its delayed statutory emergence.


The unchastity rule reinforced a threatened sexist purity game by making chaste status easier to defend and sexual autonomy easier to punish

Professor Yonathan Arbel claims, in “A Status Theory of Defamation Law” on page 45, that the nineteenth-century per se rule is better understood as sustaining a status game in which women gained or lost rank through sexual conduct. As women entered labor markets and challenged social fetters, Parliament made it costly to falsely impugn a chaste woman while leaving a woman labeled promiscuous exposed. The rule thereby increased the social significance of sexual purity. This is significant because defamation can preserve a hierarchy precisely when cultural change threatens it. It connects to sexual autonomy, purity culture, Slander of Women Act, labor-market change, norm reinforcement, and gender hierarchy.

The status account explains the rule’s historical timing and its asymmetric incentives better than a static harm account.

sexual autonomy
purity culture
Slander of Women Act
labor-market change
norm reinforcement
gender hierarchy

The paper does not claim conscious legislative intent and recognizes that chastity had meanings more complex than sexual activity alone.

Page 45 links the rule to a sexist purity game, nineteenth-century social change, and the reinforcement of female sexual virtue.


Making the unchastity rule formally gender neutral entrenches the underlying status game instead of achieving sexual equality

Professor Yonathan Arbel claims, in “A Status Theory of Defamation Law” on pages 45–46, that the Second Restatement’s gender-neutral version of the unchastity rule mistakes equal application for genuine reform. The problem is not merely that women receive different protection; it is that law validates a game in which anyone’s status turns on consensual sexual autonomy. Equalizing shame across men and women resembles protecting gay and straight people equally from false attribution rather than rejecting sexuality hierarchy itself. This is significant because formal symmetry can reproduce a repugnant norm. It connects to gender neutrality, Second Restatement, formal equality, sexual autonomy, status abolition, and antisubordination.

The argument shows how status analysis changes the unit of reform from protected groups to the legitimacy of the game.

gender neutrality
Second Restatement
formal equality
sexual autonomy
status abolition
antisubordination

Other tort or privacy interests may address harmful sexual falsehoods even if the special status-based per se category is abolished.

Pages 45–46 criticize the Restatement’s sex-neutral formulation and argue that the chastity game, not unequal coverage alone, should end.


Status theory can support broader group-libel or hate-speech regulation when racist speech helps construct objective social hierarchies

Professor Yonathan Arbel claims, in “A Status Theory of Defamation Law” on pages 46–47, that the framework does not only contract liability. Jeremy Waldron’s dignity rationale for group libel depends partly on an individual target’s subjective experience of offense or denigration. Status theory instead asks whether racist speech helps create or enforce a racial hierarchy, an objective social effect that can exist even when a particular listener is unmoved. This is significant because regulation can target hierarchy production rather than personal sensitivity. It connects to hate speech, group libel, Jeremy Waldron, objective harm, racial hierarchy, and dignity theory.

The example demonstrates the status framework’s capacity to justify expansion as well as restriction of legal protection.

hate speech
group libel
Jeremy Waldron
objective harm
racial hierarchy
dignity theory

The paper offers a theoretical ground for regulation, not a full constitutional design or empirical demonstration of speech’s hierarchical effects.

Pages 46–47 contrast Waldron’s dignitarian rationale with the status harm of speech that constructs identity-based hierarchy.


Because status games are unavoidable, society should consciously nurture productive games and abandon hierarchies based on immutable identity

Professor Yonathan Arbel claims, in “A Status Theory of Defamation Law” on pages 47–48, that people cannot opt out of status games; ordinary speech, clothing, and work all carry status meaning. The relevant choice is which games institutions will support. Society can honor teachers, pro bono lawyers, artists, and activists while rejecting hierarchies based on race, ethnicity, sexuality, gender, or ancestry. Defamation law is one tool for making that selection. This is significant because neutrality toward status is impossible but principled direction remains available. It connects to social choice, productive status, caste, immutable identity, legal norms, and twenty-first-century reform.

The conclusion restates the theory as a conscious institutional choice about the kinds of social competition society wants.

social choice
productive status
caste
immutable identity
legal norms
twenty-first-century reform

Defamation law is only one influence on status games, and the article does not claim that legal doctrine alone can dismantle entrenched hierarchy.

Pages 47–48 describe status games as inescapable and call for nurturing beneficial games while abandoning identity-based hierarchies.


If status is zero-sum, defamatory status loss redistributes rank and may be socially neutral or beneficial rather than inherently harmful

Professor Yonathan Arbel claims, in “A Status Theory of Defamation Law” on pages 48–49, that the standard ex post justification overstates aggregate harm by treating the target’s status loss in isolation. Sociological and economic accounts define status as positional: one person’s movement down necessarily changes others’ relative positions. Defamation may therefore redistribute a fixed social good rather than destroy it, and its net effect can be neutral, beneficial, or harmful depending on the model. This is significant because private loss does not mechanically establish social loss. It connects to zero-sum status, positional goods, redistribution, welfare economics, ex post analysis, and aggregate harm.

The appendix challenges the protection rationale on its own static terms before reintroducing the paper’s preferred ex ante effects.

zero-sum status
positional goods
redistribution
welfare economics
ex post analysis
aggregate harm

The model deliberately ignores participation and incentive effects, assumes a closed status system, and is not an endorsement of defamatory speech.

Pages 48–49 state the redistribution thesis and derive it from the standard conception of status as relative and zero-sum.


In an ordinal model with identical utility from rank, defamation is welfare neutral because the target’s fall moves others upward

Professor Yonathan Arbel claims, in “A Status Theory of Defamation Law” on page 49, that when a community is strictly rank ordered and equally situated people derive utility from ordinal position, moving a target down by a given number of places moves the displaced people up. The set of ranked positions and total status utility remains unchanged. Defamation causes a serious distributional loss to the target but no aggregate loss under those assumptions. This is significant because compensation cannot be justified solely by summing ordinal rank effects. It connects to ordinal utility, rank displacement, welfare neutrality, redistribution, formal modeling, and identical preferences.

The corollary precisely demonstrates how individual harm and aggregate welfare can diverge in a positional system.

ordinal utility
rank displacement
welfare neutrality
redistribution
formal modeling
identical preferences

The result depends on identical utility functions and ordinal rank; heterogeneous preferences could produce a net increase or decrease.

Page 49 states and proves Corollary 1 by showing that every downward movement reassigns existing higher ranks to others.


In the cardinal-status model, marginal defamation increases modeled welfare when directed upward and reduces it when directed downward

Professor Yonathan Arbel claims, in “A Status Theory of Defamation Law” on pages 49–50, that a cardinal model can treat status as accumulated units of deference and utility as depending on distance from others. Destroying some of a target’s units hurts that person but also lowers the community average. Under the model’s convexity assumption, the aggregate marginal effect is positive for a person above mean status and negative for someone below it—formalizing the intuitions of punching up and punching down. This is significant because the target’s initial position changes the modeled social effect. It connects to cardinal status, deference units, punching up, punching down, convex utility, and welfare distribution.

The proposition supplies a more nuanced counterexample to the claim that every status loss is an aggregate harm.

cardinal status
deference units
punching up
punching down
convex utility
welfare distribution

The result is model-dependent, abstracts from truth, incentives, speech harms, and legal administration, and is not a policy instruction to defame high-status people.

Pages 49–50 define status units and distance utility and prove the punching-up and punching-down proposition under stated assumptions.


Within the stylized cardinal model, the welfare-maximizing modeled reduction in a high-status target’s standing continues until the target reaches the community mean

Professor Yonathan Arbel claims, in “A Status Theory of Defamation Law” on page 51, that the appendix’s assumptions imply a formal optimum: marginal modeled gains from reducing a high-status individual’s relative distance disappear when that person reaches average status. The stated expression solves for the amount of status reduction that equalizes the target with the community mean. This is a mathematical corollary of the redistribution model, not the article’s practical prescription for liability or speech. This is significant because it reveals the full—and deliberately provocative—implication of a purely ex post positional account. It connects to optimality conditions, mean status, marginal welfare, punching up, formal corollaries, and model boundaries.

The corollary underscores why static aggregate-harm reasoning cannot by itself provide a satisfactory legal theory of defamation.

optimality conditions
mean status
marginal welfare
punching up
formal corollaries
model boundaries

The calculation rests on restrictive stylized assumptions, excludes all ex ante and nonstatus effects, and should not be read as endorsing actual defamatory conduct.

Page 51 states Corollary 2 and solves the model’s optimum where the formerly high-status target reaches average status.