The Elusive Morality of Law

Some critics of Professor Fuller\u27s earlier writing, troubled as I am by this bizarre use of the concept of morality, assume that he is using that concept in a special and generous way. They believe he means by morality nothing more than strategy, so that he would recognize a special morality of building a bridge or making a model airplane or doing anything else that it might come into one\u27s head to do. I have chosen to reject this belittling interpretation of Professor Fuller\u27s book. Instead I take his argument to be this: The eight canons themselves state moral principles (using moral in a perfectly conventional sense). This is illustrated by the fact that some of the most notorious examples of political immorality - in Nazi Germany and South Africa, for example - involved gross violations of one or more of these canons. We associate with each of these such injustices as retroactive capital offenses, trumped-up charges, and secret penal statutes. So we can conclude that these canons are in themselves moral principles. But we know from the history of Rex (as well as the history of Tex) that no legislator, even a despot, can disregard these canons entirely and succeed. It follows that some compliance with moral principles is necessary to make law, even bad law

The Case for Law – A Critique

Pound\u27s Valparaiso address-The Case for Law-is not a strong piece; it is more a restatement of old themes than a fresh adventure. But it does illustrate the main features of his intellectual profile. His exuberant erudition sweeps us from Babylon through Rome and Plantagenet England to Colonial America, Imperial France and yesterday. His philosophical sense is deployed, cutting across dogmatism and opening up lines of analysis with logical distinctions between law and laws, rules and principles, justice and utopia. But his lack of discipline is also at work, and prevents him from carrying his insights and distinctions far enough to make them pay their way

Whistleblowing, MNCs, and Peace

This Article examines the relationship among whistleblowing, corporations, and international peace. The Author attempts to establish that whistleblowing is a vital part of transparency and good government. In Part II, the Author examines the rationale for whistleblowing. Part III addresses the cultural dimensions of whistleblowing and its practicability for global organizations. Finally, the Author looks at the advantages of whistleblowing in relation to both corporations and peace efforts

Law, Liberty and the Rule of Law (in a Constitutional Democracy)

In the hunt for a better--and more substantial--awareness of the “law,” The author intends to analyze the different notions related to the “rule of law” and to criticize the conceptions that equate it either to the sum of “law” and “rule” or to the formal assertion that “law rules,” regardless of its relationship to certain principles, including both “negative” and “positive” liberties. Instead, he pretends to scrutinize the principles of the “rule of law,” in general, and in a “constitutional democracy,” in particular, to conclude that the tendency to reduce the “democratic principle” to the “majority rule” (or “majority principle”), i.e. to whatever pleases the majority, as part of the “positive liberty,” is contrary both to the “negative liberty” and to the “rule of law” itself

Global equality of resources and the problem of valuation

The principle that every individual on the planet has a claim to an equal share of Earth’s natural resources has an intuitive attraction. Yet the Principle of Natural Resource Equality is not without its problems. This article focuses on the problem of valuation. Unless and until its adherents are able to develop an adequate theoretical mechanism for determining the comparative value of two or more bundles of natural resources the principle lacks applicability and persuasive force. Three adequacy constraints on such a mechanism are presented and then applied to a theorisation of the Principle of Natural Resource Equality that I have already expounded elsewhere: Global Equality of Resources. In each case I try to argue that Global Equality of Resources could satisfy the adequacy constraint, provided that both this theory and the relevant constraint are properly understood