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Full-Text Articles in Social and Behavioral Sciences
Rule Of Law In Legal And Economic Theory, Noel B. Reynolds
Rule Of Law In Legal And Economic Theory, Noel B. Reynolds
Faculty Publications
Legal positivism, the leading version of legal theory, has shown that a concentration on the meanings and logical relations of legal concepts, however much supplemented by intuition, common sense and legal experience, is not adequate to make full sense out of the human experience of law, and the traditional understandings of legal obligation and rule of law in particular. However, modern economic science has advanced a radically individualistic theoretical approach which has propelled economics to the fore as the most successful of the social sciences. And its basic theoretical stance is proving both attractive and adaptable to all the other …
Morality And The Rule Of Law, Noel B. Reynolds
Morality And The Rule Of Law, Noel B. Reynolds
Faculty Publications
This paper lays out the logic of a conservative view of liberty and morality based on an understanding of human nature as both social and rational on the one hand, and radically individual and self-seeking on the other. Without public virtue, a people cannot govern itself as a free people. But neither virtue nor moral truth can be legislated. The rule of law under constitutionalism is the most successful human arrangement for providing freedom and allowing moral action on the part of individuals.