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Full-Text Articles in Social and Behavioral Sciences

The Union Of Legal And Political Theory, Noel B. Reynolds Feb 2010

The Union Of Legal And Political Theory, Noel B. Reynolds

Noel B Reynolds

This paper explores the social science concept of conventions as a way of understanding law that would bridge the enduring gap between natural law and legal positivist legal theories. It further finds in the conventionalist approach a promising account of the rule of law—both in how it may be characterized and in how it can be assessed in particular legal systems.


The Separation Of Law And Morals, Noel Reynolds Nov 1986

The Separation Of Law And Morals, Noel Reynolds

Noel B Reynolds

The classic opposition of legal positivism and natural law theory resurfaces continually and reminds us that we have yet to resolve this key conflict in our ways of understanding the moral authority of law. The strengths and weaknesses of the two theories are reviewed—both have fatal flaws. Conventionalism is proposed as a means of finding internal standards in a man-made system of law. The naturally emerging standards for a conventionalist system of law turn out to be the already familiar principles of the rule of law.


George Orwell: Socialist Or Liberal? Big Brother And The Abuse Of Power, Noel B. Reynolds Jun 1984

George Orwell: Socialist Or Liberal? Big Brother And The Abuse Of Power, Noel B. Reynolds

Noel B Reynolds

For although he was too strongly independent in his thinking to accept the Marxist or socialist dogmas of his associates, because they did not seem to square with experience, and though he admired the tough resistance of English character and legal institutions to tyranny, Orwell never did tumble to the understanding of man and government which had shaped each over the centuries. Failing to see the constants in human nature as the key to the political problem, he looked around the world both as he perceived it and his literary fellows portrayed it, and concluded that power lust was the …