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Book Review: Michael J. Perry, Toward A Theory Of Human Rights: Religion, Law, Courts (2007), Mark C. Modak-Truran
Book Review: Michael J. Perry, Toward A Theory Of Human Rights: Religion, Law, Courts (2007), Mark C. Modak-Truran
Mark C Modak-Truran
This book review analyzes Michael J. Perry's most recent book Toward a Theory of Human Rights: Religion, Law, Courts. Perry's book brings together two previously separate aspects of his thoughtful and pioneering scholarship dealing with the proper relation of morality (especially religious morality) to law and human rights and the role of courts in protecting human rights. Perry's argument concentrates on three related issues: whether the morality of human rights has a religious or secular ground or both, the relation between the morality of human rights and the law of human rights, and the proper role of courts in protecting …
Introduction: Symposium On Religion, Religious Pluralism, And The Rule Of Law, Mark C. Modak-Truran
Introduction: Symposium On Religion, Religious Pluralism, And The Rule Of Law, Mark C. Modak-Truran
Mark C Modak-Truran
The articles and essays in this Symposium on Religion, Religious Pluralism, and the Rule of Law were presented for a Section on Law and Religion panel at the 2007 Annual Meeting of the Association of American Law Schools. The Symposium aims to move the debate about the relationship between law and religion beyond conflicts between secularists and religionists by focusing attention on presuppositions about religion, religious pluralism, and the rule of law. Focusing on these presuppositions helps get beyond the tendency of most legal scholars, judges, and lawyers to think through the law rather than about the law. The articles …
Prolegomena To A Process Theory Of Natural Law, Mark C. Modak-Truran
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
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) …
Beyond Theocracy And Secularism (Part I): Toward A New Paradigm For Law And Religion, Mark C. Modak-Truran
Beyond Theocracy And Secularism (Part I): Toward A New Paradigm For Law And Religion, Mark C. Modak-Truran
Mark C Modak-Truran
The continued vitality of religion has motivated many scholars in sociology, anthropology, political theory, international relations, and philosophy to revisit their assumptions about how religion relates to their disciplines. Despite this robust re-examination in other disciplines, two outmoded paradigms about the relationship between law and religion —theocracy (pre-modern) and secularism (modern)—continue to dominate legal theory. Under the modern paradigm, the secularization of law—that the law is or should be independent of any religious foundation or values—arguably constitutes the most widely-held but least-examined assumption in contemporary legal theory. My thesis is that two quandaries or crises for legal theory—legal indeterminacy and …