‘That Man is You!’ The Juristic Person and Faithful Love

“The science of law,” it has been said, “must be drawn from man’s inmost nature.” The science of obligation – the dimension of jurisprudence that concerns duties – must be founded upon the experiences of humanity. It should draw upon insight into human flourishing, and it should base its conclusion upon the basic goods involved in human life. Similar recommendations might be suggested for the “science,” if it is one, of love. This paper aims to pursue those projects. The story of David, Bathsheba, and Nathan sheds much light on man’s inmost nature, and on obligation, love, and law. Nathan’s comments must have given David much food for thought. Nathan reminded David of his duty. Of course the Torah forbids adultery, and David had committed it. Nathan’s comments surely led David to reflect about obligation and to ponder the Law. Nathan’s comments likely led David also to reflect upon himself: to consider where he stood in relation to the Law, and to consider where anyone governed by law must stand. Nathan’s observations further invite the hearer to deliberate about himself, and perhaps about people in general. Such is the force of his statement: “That man is you!” Part II of this article considers duty. It proposes that thought, belief, and character develop along certain lines in a person who accepts obligation. It commends what it terms the “juristic person.” It discusses what might be called the “anthropology of the juristic person”: the relationship between obligation and character. It describes several goods involved in being a juristic person and in acting upon obligation. It proposes that the juristic person is best suited to governance by the law. David’s situation also involved love. Nathan, describing the poor man and his lamb, referred to Uriah’s love for Bathsheba. David also loved Bathsheba, at least erotically. Torah has much to say about love. When Nathan states, “That man is you!” he may invite consideration of the meaning and value of various kinds of love. Part III of this paper explores love and its relation to obligation. Some kinds of erotic love lead to the repudiation of obligation, Part III observes, but other forms of love support it. Devoted, faithful love displays a strong affinity for obligation, and in many ways even resembles it. This paper proposes that the juristic person is best suited to love, and that the person who loves, in the higher sense of that term, participates especially well in the goods of obligation. It proposes that the obligation-bearing, obligation-accepting man or woman resembles a lover. Part IV of this paper sketches some implications for the law. David’s anger at the rich man, and his hasty demand for capital punishment, display his shortcomings as a judge

The Ethical Bases of Human Rights

Human rights have become the grounding of human solidarity. They are, today, the substance of the brotherhood of man. They take the place once occupied by our common clay, our common ancestry, and our common relationship with the Deity. This being the case, it is important to understand what, in turn, grounds human rights. There is nothing approaching a consensus: indeed, the impressive edifice on which much of the political order of the world now rests has been constructed based on the conscious decision by its principal authors to prescind from asking this basic question. Unsurprisingly under these circumstances, more and more rights are being proposed, and many divergent theories are propounded as to their bases. This Essay considers four proposed bases and rejects them. It proposes an account according to which the ethical basis for human rights is the protection of fundamental human attributes

The Seduction of Lydia Bennet: Toward a General Theory of Society, Marriage, and the Family

This article sketches the foundation for a general theory of society. Rejecting portrayals that make society a field of exploitation and dominance, it proposes instead an account that locates the foundation of society in its service of certain basic goods. Society is a kind of friendship. It is to be defined based on the goods of friendship and the projects that serve those goods. Its elements, including those of obligation, office, shame, and rehabilitation, further those goods. The society that emerges from this account is a society of life. This article also proposes the concept of components of society, reflecting the observation that society is comprised not only of individuals, but also of villages, towns, business organizations, leagues, and alliances that further interests and ideologies, and even perhaps clubs and teams for sport and recreation. Such groups are not the same thing as society as a whole. Some may have no connection with it-a few even work against it-but many can rightly be considered components of society. Building on its account of the society of life, this article identifies the elements that make an association a component of society. This article then sketches the outline of a morality of components of society, which morality indicates when a smaller association should regard itself-and be regarded by others-as a component institution. This article proposes that marriage and the family are properly regarded as components of the society of life, reflecting and instilling basic goods of society. This may further the project, recommended by Cardinal Trujillo, of relocating marriage in its place as a natural institution

Educational Justice and the Recognition of Marriage

This article describes a fundamental dimension, ignored in the literature, of the ethical basis of the fiduciary relationship. It considers and rejects an account of the fiduciary relationship based on contract. It develops, instead, a virtue-based approach to the fiduciary relationship founded upon the goods of faithfulness, beneficence, clarity of thought, and dedication to the truth. This article proposes that the relationship between teacher and student is fiduciary. It develops the thesis that a primary or secondary school teacher has especially high duties to the student: obligations, resembling those of a guardian, a trustee, an executor, and an attorney, of fidelity, zealous devotion to the well-being of the other party, and full disclosure. This article does not endorse this approach for the positive law. It is not here proposed that teachers be held legally liable for violations of those obligations. The topic of this article, rather, is ethics. The teacher, it is here proposed, is morally a fiduciary. Teachers in primary and secondary schools are ethically fiduciaries in a special way because they exercise, exemplify, and transmit fiduciary virtues and, preeminently, the intellectual virtues. This Article sketches a few implications of virtue-based fiduciary ethics and proposes some implications for teachers pertinent to the recognition of marriage

Procreative Justice and the Recognition of Marriage

This paper proposes that fully procreatively just affiliations -– the ones which satisfy the criteria developed here -- deserve special support and recognition. It proposes that procreative justice requires such recognition. This paper proposes that it is unjust to conflate and revise the usual categories so as to confuse procreatively just affiliations with other forms. It discusses the harm that ensues

The Promotion of Personhood is a Principal Good of Law

A great good promoted by a well constructed legal system is the protection and promotion of character. Many other purposes prove to be justifiable, if at all, based on their instrumentality to this good.When guided by this thesis, jurisprudence brings the discussion of law – what law is and what law ought to be – into constant conversation with anthropology: the perennial inquiry which our species conducts into the nature of the person

Parent, Child, Husband, Wife: When Recognition Fails, Tragedy Ensues

This article develops the concept of recognition with special attention to the Greek analogue of that term, and the appearance and weight in Greek tragedy. It then applies the concept to the project of Legal recognition, drawing examples from US and Canadian family law

Just Like Little Dogs : The Law Should Speak with Veracity and Respect

This article proposes veracity and respect as basic guides for law. It thus supplements dominant lines of thought which emphasize instrumentalist criteria such as promoting efficiency, maximizing utility, and deterring and remedying harm. This article proposes that it is a great good for a judge, a legislator, and all who speak as the law to exercise the virtue of veracity and to speak with respect, and that it is especially bad in the case of such legal officers to depart from those practices. It points out some implications for family law