Law Commons^™

Refugee Law In Context: Natural Law, Legal Positivism And The Convention, Isaac Kfir

Isaac Kfir

The contemporary international refugee system was product of a desire to provide protection and assistance to those who have a well-founded fear of persecution, a somewhat sophistic term in the twenty-first century, which may explain why the system has become cumbersome, incoherent and divisive. One explanation for the tension within the refugee regime is that states—mainly western states—seek to reduce refugee applications while adhering and upholding their international obligations. Another explanation is that it is tensions between two legal traditions—natural law and legal positivism—that are shape the international refugee law that have led to the crisis, preventing a clear legal …

Natural Law, Natural Rights, And Same Sex Marriage, Shannon Holzer

Shannon Holzer

ABSTRACT The Definition of Rights and Same-Sex Marriage The claim that same-sex couples have the right to be married needs to be explained according to particular theories of rights. This presents a problem for same-sex marriage (SSM) advocates for two reasons. First, if SSM advocates suggest that they have a natural right to be married (as rights were understood by Thomas Jefferson in the Declaration of Independence), then they have the burden to prove that this is the case. Yet, Natural Rights entail Natural Law (NL), and NL tends to support teleological definitions of marriage. Thus, the SSM advocate must …

Suicide Killing Of Human Life As Human Right - The Continuing Devolution Of Assisted Suicide Law In The United Kingdom, William Wagner

William Wagner

SUICIDE KILLING OF HUMAN LIFE AS A HUMAN RIGHT

The Continuing Devolution of Assisted Suicide Law

in the United Kingdom

PROF. WILLIAM WAGNER, PROF. JOHN KANE, AND STEPHEN P. KALLMAN

ABSTRACT

Since the beginning of time, divine, natural, and positive law traditions of the United Kingdom reflected an inviolable standard that people should not assist in the killing of human life. This article reviews and analyzes the ancient inviolable benchmark, explaining why the common and statutory law of Britain historically reflected its moral reference point to prohibit assisted suicide. We then proceed to analyze a contemporary jurisprudential shift in Britain’s …

Natural Law Bibliography 1990-2010, Mario Šilar

Mario Šilar

No abstract provided.

Outfoxed: Pierson V. Post And The Natural Law, Josh Blackman

Josh Blackman

Think back to first year property class. You are a bright-eyed 1L, and one of the first cases you read deals with hunting foxes on the beaches of Long Island, New York. The fact pattern seems obscure enough, but Pierson v. Post is the seminal case used to teach generations of law students about the acquisition of property. The interest in Pierson has recently been reinvigorated thanks to the uncovering of the original record of this case. Last year the Law and History Review dedicated an entire issue to this famous foxhunt. The holding in Pierson v. Post has been …

Never Say Never: Searching For Common Ground Between Muslim And Western Nations On The Issues Of Human Dignity And Human Rights, Travis Weber

Travis Weber

Travis Weber 3736 Silina Drive Virginia Beach, VA 23452 703-470-5411 tsweber@gmail.com May 4, 2010 To Whom It May Concern: Enclosed is an abstract for my article, entitled Never Say Never: Searching for Common Ground Between Muslim and Western Nations on the Issues of Human Dignity and Human Rights. My article examines the gap between Islamic and Western views of human rights, explores how this gap developed, and briefly reviews how different theories of jurisprudence would approach this gap. Due to the current world-wide increase in religious activity, including the prominence of Islam, and the version of morality that Islam brings …

A Lockean Defense Of The Political Question Doctrine's Application In War Powers Cases, Matthew Jordan Cochran

Matthew Jordan Cochran

This article provides a social contract explanation of and justification for the political question doctrine's application in war powers disputes. Natural legal principles demonstrate that even if the doctrine stands on unsure footing in some respects, it properly renders non-justiciable any supposed conflict between Congress and the President. As a detailed look into John Locke's work reveals, the intervening of a judiciary power into war decisions robs a government of the touchstone of its legitimacy.

Ernest J. Weinrib’S Legal Formalism And The Philosophies Of Aristotle, Kant And Hegel, Dr Burns

Dr Burns

This paper may be seen as a contribution to a symposium on the legal theory of Hegel which was first published in Cardozo Law Review in 1988-89: 10 Cardozo L. Rev. (1988-89). (Hegel and Legal Theory Symposium, I). It presents a critique of the doctrine of ‘legal formalism,’ as this is presented in the writings of Ernest J. Weinrib. Weinrib associates legal formalism with the legal philosophies of Aristotle, Kant and Hegel. So far as Aristotle is concerned, the paper argues that Weinrib is wrong to argue that Aristotle is a forerunner of the legal philosophy of Kant or of …

Secular Natural Law And The Normative Justification Of The State, Jeffery L. Johnson

Jeffery L Johnson

The article argues that a plausible normative justification of law and government can be constructed along the lines of the ancient natural law tradition. Rather than assuming the God of western theism, however, the article endorses a biologically based, and thoroughly secular, metaphysical basis for natural law.

The Irreduceable Moral Nature Of Human Action, Mario Šilar, José María Torralba

Mario Šilar

No abstract provided.

Prolegomena To A Process Theory Of Natural Law, Mark C. Modak-Truran

Mark C Modak-Truran

Two contemporary quandaries in legal theory provide an occasion for a revival of interest in natural law theories of law. First, the debate about legal indeterminacy has made it clear that law cannot function autonomously—as a self-contained set of rules—but requires a normative justification of judges’ decisions in hard cases. In addition, Steven D. Smith has persuasively argued that there is an "ontological gap" between the practice of law, which presupposes a classical or religious ontology, and legal theory, which presupposes a scientific ontology (i.e., scientific materialism) that rejects religious ontology. This article demonstrates how the process philosophy of Alfred …

A Process Theory Of Natural Law And The Rule Of Law In China, Mark C. Modak-Truran

Mark C Modak-Truran

The Rule of Law faces critical challenges both at home and abroad. At home, legal indeterminacy and the ontological gap between legal theory and practice defy resolution by contemporary normative theories of law. Legal indeterminacy raises the specter that judicial decisions in hard cases are illegitimate (political not legal) because judges must rely on personal political, moral, or religious beliefs. The “ontological gap” between the practice of law, which presupposes a classical or religious ontology, and legal theory, which presupposes a scientific ontology (i.e., scientific materialism), further reveals the irrelevance of legal theory (including conceptions of the rule of law) …

Political Liberalism And Public Reason, Mario Šilar

Mario Šilar

The paper explores John Rawls´s idea of public reason, as reflected in Political Liberalism and The Idea of Public Reason Revisited. In Rawls’s later works, public reason acquires fundamental significance as a criterion by which the principles to be assumed from the outset in a theory of political justice may be determined. The starting-point for Rawls´s theory -the idea of citizens as free and equal reveals- that this abstraction falls short of an authentic conception of human beings as social by nature. A brief study of key issues concerning marriage and the family shows the difficulties that underlie this question. …

The Practical Value Of Natural Law Theory In The Work Of St Thomas Aquinas, Mario Šilar

Mario Šilar

No abstract provided.

The Dao Of Jurisprudence: The Art And Science Of Optimal Justice, Daniel J. Boyle

Daniel J Boyle

The law intersects with reality in order to influence or control behavior in an evolutionary process that filters or mediates society through the voices and influences of the actors affected. By modeling this system at the highest levels of generalization, we can explore notions of optimality.

The Status Of Classical Natural Law: Plato And The Parochialism Of Modern Theory, Eric Heinze

Prof. Eric Heinze, Queen Mary University of London

The concept of modernity has long been central to legal theory. It is an intrinsically temporal concept, expressly or implicitly defined in contrast to pre-modernity.

Legal theorists sometimes draw comparisons between, on the one hand, various post-Renaissance positivist, liberal, realist or critical theories, and, on the other hand, the classical natural law or justice theories of antiquity or the middle ages, including such figures as Aristotle, Cicero, Augustine or Aquinas. Many theorists, however, while acknowledging superficial differences among the various classical theories, fail to appreciate the variety and complexity of pre-modern thought. Unduly simplifying pre-modern understandings of law, they end …

The Problem Of Moral Dirigisme: A New Argument Against Moralistic Legislation, Mario Rizzo

Mario Rizzo

This Article applies a theory of rational choice to moral decisionmaking. In this theory, agents act primarily on local and personal knowledge to instantiate moral principles, virtues and moral goods. The State may seek to prevent them from acting as they independently determine by prescribing or proscribing certain conduct by formal legal means. If its purpose is to ensure that people act morally or become better persons, we call this “moral dirigisme.” Our thesis is that the need to use decentralized knowledge to determine the moral status of an act makes the task of the moral dirigiste well-neigh impossible. The …