Virtue Jurisprudence
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Paul Horwitz (University of Alabama School of Law) has posted Judicial Character (and Does it Matter) (Constitutional Commentary (forthcoming)) on SSRN. Here is the abstract: This Essay, forthcoming in Constitutional Commentary, discusses three recent books about judicial decision making: Richard A. Posner's How Judges Think, H. Jefferson Powell's Constitutional Conscience: The Moral Dimension of Judicial…
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Introduction Normative legal theory is concerned with the ends and justifications for the law as a whole and for particular legal rules. Previous entries in the legal have examined exemplars of the three great traditions in normative theory–consequentialist, deontological, and aretaic (or virtue-centered) perspectives. There are important differences between these three families of theories at…
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Ekow Yankah (Cardozo) has posted Virtue’s Domain on SSRN. Here is the abstract: If at the end of your life you were told you had fulfilled all your moral duties, you would be proud. If you were told you only fulfilled your moral duties, you would be less proud. We all aim to do more…
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Christopher W. Gowans (Philosophy, Fordham University) has posted Virtue and Nature on the Internet. Here is the abstract: The Neo-Aristotelian ethical naturalism of Philippa Foot and Rosalind Hursthouse purports to establish a naturalistic criterion for the virtues. Specifically, by developing a parallel between the natural ends of nonhuman animals and the natural ends of human…
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It is 9:00 a.m. PDST, and I am blogging from the American Philosophical Association’s Pacific Division Meeting in Pasadena California. It’s especially nice to be here–I grew up in Monterey Park a few miles to the south and lived for many years just a few blocks from the conference hotel. If only the session could…
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I’m in the Denver airport, changing planes on my way back from Tucson to Washington, DC (where I’m visiting at Georgetown this semester). I just wanted to say thank you to my hosts at the University of Arizona, where I presented "Virtue Jurisprudence: An Aretaic Theory of Law," at the law schools colloquium series. I…
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Kieran Setiya (Pittsburg, Philosophy) has posted Is Efficiency a Vice? on the web. Here is the abstract: Argues against the form of instrumentalism on which being practically rational is being efficient in the pursuit of one’s ends. The trait of means-end efficiency turns out to be a defect of character, and therefore cannot be identified…
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Over at the Mirror of Justice, Thomas Berg has a post entitled "Can the Secular State Forgive People?" He quotes John McCullough, who asks: My question is whether or not the state has a moral obligation to forgive those that commit unlawful acts. Should the state, at some point, forgive an individual who has repented…
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Legal Theory Lexicon: Virtue Jurisprudence Introduction Law students with a background in philosophy are sure to notice the strong influence of moral philosophy on legal thinking. Theories like Kant’s have had a profound influence on the idea of fairness in legal theory and on the conception of rights that is at the heart of deontological…
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Legal Theory Lexicon: Virtue Ethics Introduction The Legal Theory Lexicon already includes posts on Deontology and Utilitarianism–representing two important families of ethical theory. This week, the Lexicon provides an introduction to virtue ethics. As always, the Lexicon provides a quick and dirty summary with an eye to law students (especially first-year law students) with an…