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Law and Philosophy

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Legal theory

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Full-Text Articles in Jurisprudence

Faultless Guilt: Toward A Relationship Based View Of Criminal Liability, Amy Sepinwall Dec 2016

Faultless Guilt: Toward A Relationship Based View Of Criminal Liability, Amy Sepinwall

Amy J. Sepinwall

There is in the criminal law perhaps no principle more canonical than the fault principle, which holds that one may be punished only where one is blameworthy, and one is blameworthy only where one is at fault. Courts, criminal law scholars, moral philosophers and textbook authors all take the fault principle to be the foundational requirement for a just criminal law. Indeed, perceived threats to the fault principle in the mid-Twentieth Century yielded no less an achievement than the drafting of the Model Penal Code, which had as its guiding purpose an effort to safeguard faultless conduct from criminal condemnation. …


The Jewel In The Crown: Can India’S Strict Liability Doctrine Deepen Our Understanding Of Tort Law Theory?, Deepa Badrinarayana Dec 2016

The Jewel In The Crown: Can India’S Strict Liability Doctrine Deepen Our Understanding Of Tort Law Theory?, Deepa Badrinarayana

Deepa Badrinarayana

The evolution of tort law in former British colonies is not only fascinating; it also holds clues into the age old question of whether law or any discrete area of law can be universal. The exploration into doctrinal divergences and convergences is part of a larger quest: to capture the theoretical underpinnings of tort law and, in that process, discover the universal core of tort law, if there is one. For example, is the central purpose of tort law efficient resource allocation, corrective justice, or simply a compensatory system for wrongs? To answer these questions, theorists have generally considered tort …


»A Kőkorszak Metafizikája« És A »Szép Új Világ«: Herbert Hart A Jog Emberképéről [‘The Metaphysics Of The Stone Age’ And The ‘Brave New World’: Hart On The Law’S View Of Man], Péter Cserne Dec 2013

»A Kőkorszak Metafizikája« És A »Szép Új Világ«: Herbert Hart A Jog Emberképéről [‘The Metaphysics Of The Stone Age’ And The ‘Brave New World’: Hart On The Law’S View Of Man], Péter Cserne

Péter Cserne

This paper analyses H.L.A. Hart’s views on the epistemic character of the law’s assumptions about human behaviour, as articulated in Causation in the Law and Punishment and Responsibility. Hart suggests that the assumptions behind legal doctrines typically combine common sense factual beliefs, moral intuitions, and philosophical theories of earlier ages with sound moral principles, and empirical knowledge. An important task of legal theory is to provide a ‘rational and critical foundation’ for these doctrines. This does not only imply conceptual clarification in light of an epistemic ideal of objectivity but also involves legal theorists in ‘enlightenment’ about empirical facts, ‘demystification’ …