Where Law and Morality Meet

Erscheinungsjahr 2004
ISBN: 978-0-19-927419-2
Verlag: OUP Oxford

Buch, Englisch, 312 Seiten, Format (B × H): 161 mm x 240 mm, Gewicht: 634 g

How are law and morality connected, how do they interact, and in what ways are they distinct?

In Part I of this book, Matthew Kramer argues that moral principles can enter into the law of any jurisdiction. He contends that legal officials can invoke moral principles as laws for resolving disputes, and that they can also invoke them as threshold tests which ordinary laws must satisfy. In opposition to many other theorists, Kramer argues that these functions of moral principles are consistent with all the essential characteristics of any legal system.

Part II reaffirms the legal positivist argument that law and morality are separable, arguing against the position of natural-law theory, which portrays legal requirements as a species of moral requirements. Kramer contends that even though the existence of a legal system in any sizeable society is essential for the realization of fundamental moral values, law is not inherently moral either in its effects or in its motivational underpinnings.

In the final part, Kramer contests the widespread view that people whose conduct is meticulously careful cannot be held morally responsible for harmful effects of their actions. Through this argument, he reveals that fault-independent liability is present even more prominently in morality than in the law.

Through a variety of arguments, Where Law and Morality Meet highlights both some surprising affinities and some striking divergences between morality and law.

Zielgruppe

Scholars and students of jurisprudence, legal philosophy, political philosophy, moral philosophy and ethics, political theory, and political science.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Kramer, Matthew H.

Fachgebiete

• Sozialwissenschaften Politikwissenschaft Politikwissenschaft Allgemein Politische Theorie, Politische Philosophie
• Geisteswissenschaften Philosophie Sozialphilosophie, Politische Philosophie
• Rechtswissenschaften Recht, Rechtswissenschaft Allgemein Rechtsphilosophie, Rechtsethik
• Geisteswissenschaften Philosophie Rechtsphilosophie, Rechtsethik
• Geisteswissenschaften Philosophie Ethik, Moralphilosophie

Über Autor(innen)

Matthew H. Kramer is Professor of Legal and Political Philosophy at the University of Cambridge, Fellow of Churchill College, and Director of the Cambridge Forum for Legal and Political Philosophy.