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Full-Text Articles in Law
The Liberal Commons, Hanoch Dagan, Michael A. Heller
The Liberal Commons, Hanoch Dagan, Michael A. Heller
Articles
Following the Civil War, black Americans began acquiring land in earnest; by 1920 almost one million black families owned farms. Since then, black rural landownership has dropped by more than 98% and continues in rapid decline-there are now fewer than 19,000 black-operated farms left in America. By contrast, white-operated farms dropped only by half, from about 5.5 million to 2.4 million. Commentators have offered as partial explanations the consolidation of inefficient small farms and intense racial discrimination in farm lending. However, even absent these factors, the unintended effects of old-fashioned American property law might have led to the same outcome. …
How To Argue About Health Care, Don Herzog
How To Argue About Health Care, Don Herzog
Articles
Despite the aggressive title of this article, my goals are modest. I begin by explaining briefly what should at any rate be obvious: that health care policies inescapably raise moral and political difficulties, difficulties that no technical fix could resolve. I move on to puzzle over the connections between some of the more abstract issues of moral and political theory and medical policy: here I urge that we develop a more sustained taste for exploring the moral conflicts embedded in our current practices. Finally, I suggest a strategy for making nitty-gritty facts-from the concrete world of third-party payment, expensive technology, …
Law's Halo, Donald H. Regan
Law's Halo, Donald H. Regan
Articles
Like many people these days, I believe there is no general moral obligation to obey the law. I shall explain why there is no such moral obligation - and I shall clarify what I mean when I say there is no moral obligation to obey the law - as we proceed. But also like many people, I am unhappy with a position that would say there was no moral obligation to obey the law and then say no more about the law's moral significance. In our thinking about law in a reasonably just society, we have a strong inclination to …
What A Sensible Natural Lawyer And A Sensible Utilitarian Agree About And Disagree About: Comments On Finnis, Donald H. Regan
What A Sensible Natural Lawyer And A Sensible Utilitarian Agree About And Disagree About: Comments On Finnis, Donald H. Regan
Articles
Before I start, let me say two things. First of all, to the extent that John Finnis is entering a plea for more attention to what is a relatively neglected tradition (in the narrow his message a hundred percent. And you courd learning about the natural law tradition than by reading his book, Natural Law and Natural Rights. My second introductory observation is that Finnis and I agree about many more things than you might expect if you just think of him as a natural law theorist and me as a utilitarian. I am very eccentric as a utilitarian. He …
On Preferences And Promises: A Response To Harsanyi, Donald H. Regan
On Preferences And Promises: A Response To Harsanyi, Donald H. Regan
Articles
John C. Harsanyi sketches an entire normative and metaethical theory in under twenty pages. Combining breadth and brevity, his essay is useful and interesting. It reveals the interrelations between Harsanyi's positions on various issues as no longer work or series of articles could do. But by virtue of its programmatic nature, the essay creates a dilemma for a commentator, at least for one who finds many things to disagree with. If I responded to Harsanyi in the same sweeping terms in which he argues, we would end up with little more than opposing assertions. At the other extreme, I could …
Suicide And The Failure Of Modern Moral Theory, Donald H. Regan
Suicide And The Failure Of Modern Moral Theory, Donald H. Regan
Articles
The question I want to address is when and why suicide is morally wrong. There is something peculiar in my writing on this question at all. It will soon become apparent that although I think suicide involves genuine moral issues. I also think that the moral problem of suicide is a problem which most people answer correctly. That is, I think that in the vast majority of cases where people ought not to commit suicide, they do not. They are not even tempted. Conversely, most people who do commit suicide, or who want to, are either justified or at least …
On The Relevance Of Philosophy To Law: Reflections On Ackerman's Private Property And The Constitution, Philip E. Soper
On The Relevance Of Philosophy To Law: Reflections On Ackerman's Private Property And The Constitution, Philip E. Soper
Articles
To turn to moral philosophy these days for help in trying to decide "what to do" is a bit like turning to recipe books for help in a famine. One soon discovers that most philosophers avoid ultimate questions about actual choices in actual cases, preferring to concentrate instead on a preliminary problem: how to go about thinking about what to do. One also discovers that philosophers who have written about this preliminary problem of the structure of moral inquiry are neatly divided, as logically they must be, into precisely two camps: those who do and those who do not think …