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Full-Text Articles in Law
Obligation To Obey The Law: A Study Of The Death Of Socrates, Anthony D'Amato
Obligation To Obey The Law: A Study Of The Death Of Socrates, Anthony D'Amato
Faculty Working Papers
Do we have an obligation to obey any law, no matter how unjust or evil, provided only that it is in fact a valid rule of the legal system in which we happen to be physically located? Reassessment of the relation between law and ethics justifies a new look at the classic statement of legal obligation: the death of Socrates found in the dialogues of Plato. Three possible bases for an ethical obligation to obey the law are examined.
How Must A Lawyer Be? A Response To Woolley And Wendel, David Luban
How Must A Lawyer Be? A Response To Woolley And Wendel, David Luban
Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works
In Legal Ethics and Moral Character, 23 GEO. J. LEGAL Ethics, Alice Woolley and W. Bradley Wendel argue that theories of legal ethics may be evaluated by examining the kind of person a lawyer must be to conform to the normative demands of the theory. In their words, theories of legal ethics musts answer questions not only of what a lawyer must do, but how a lawyer must be. Woolley and Wendel examine three theories of legal ethics—those of Charles Fried, William Simon, and myself—and conclude that the theories they discuss impose demands on agency that are not realistic, functional, …
David Luban, Review Of Daniel Markovits, A Modern Legal Ethics: Adversary Advocacy In A Democratic Age, David Luban
David Luban, Review Of Daniel Markovits, A Modern Legal Ethics: Adversary Advocacy In A Democratic Age, David Luban
Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works
Daniel Markovits offers a novel defense of the traditional partisan advocate’s role, based on the demands of personal integrity. Although he insists that the adversary system requires lawyers to lie and cheat (regardless of the particular ethics rules in place), it is possible to redescribe these lawyerly vices as the virtue of fidelity to a client, expressed through what John Keats called “negative capability”—a suppression of the self in order to allow someone else’s story to shine forth. These are first-personal moral ideals, and Markovits argues against the primacy of second- and third-personal moral ideals (such as Kantianism and utilitarianism) …