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The article argues that lawyers who failed several bar examination before passing it are more likely to be disciplined for ethical violations including lack of diligence. Topics discussed include the primary causes of attorney discipline, ethical rules in client neglect and incompetence cases, evidence linking the failure of entrance examinations and subsequent discipline in other professions, the types of public discipline in Tennessee and permanency of disbarment in Tennessee.

Refusal of lifesaving treatment, and such refusal by advance directive, are widely recognized as ethically and legally permissible. Voluntarily stopping eating and drinking (VSED) is not. Ethically and legally, how does VSED compare with these two more established ways for patients to control the end of life? Is it more questionable because with VSED the patient intends to cause her death, or because those who assist it with palliative care could be assisting a suicide?In fact the ethical and legal basis for VSED is virtually as strong as for refusing lifesaving treatment and less problematic than the basis for refusing treatment by advance directive. VSED should take its proper place among the accepted, permissible ways by which people can control the time and manner of death. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article I present and defend the claim that law and morality cannot be considered to be valid simultaneously. This claim is the result of the combination of two theses, normative monism and legal/moral incompatibilism. The first thesis maintains that we can only make sense of norms if we consider them to be part of one normative system. The second thesis claims that law and morality cannot form part of one normative system. The result of the combination of both theses produces what I call the normative jinx: if we take law to be valid, then there is no moral point of view from which to assess the law; if we consider morality to be valid, there cannot possibly be valid law that could be the object of moral assessment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The media and academic dialogue surrounding high-stakes decisionmaking by robotics applications has been dominated by a focus on morality. But the tendency to do so while overlooking the role that legal incentives play in shaping the behavior of profit-maximizing firms risks marginalizing the field of robotics and rendering many of the deepest challenges facing today's engineers utterly intractable. This Essay attempts to both halt this trend and offer a course correction. Invoking Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes's canonical analogy of the "bad man . . . who cares nothing for . . . ethical rules," it demonstrates why philosophical abstractions like the trolley problem--in their classic framing--provide a poor means of understanding the real-world constraints robotics engineers face. Using insights gleaned from the economic analysis of law, it argues that profit-maximizing firms designing autonomous decisionmaking systems will be less concerned with esoteric questions of right and wrong than with concrete questions of predictive legal liability. Until such time as the conversation surrounding so-called "moral machines" is revised to reflect this fundamental distinction between morality and law, the thinking on this topic by philosophers, engineers, and policymakers alike will remain hopelessly mired. Step aside, roboticists--lawyers have this one. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines a little-known archive of illustrated children’s stories written by a nineteenth-century Michigan jurist, James Valentine Campbell. Despite his public reputation as a sober-minded judge and law professor who resisted interjecting his personal views into his decisions, Campbell’s domestic life as an author and performer of children’s stories served as an outlet for criticizing the excesses of the legal profession and proposing alternative methods of dispute resolution. His tales urged children to avoid laws and lawyers and instead to cultivate their own ethical and imaginative capacities for solving problems. His public and private activities intersected in his work as a founding professor at the University of Michigan Law School, training students to remain participants in the democratic process and resist mindlessly applying the law without understanding the deeper social and historical contexts of their work. This case study demonstrates the complexity of American legal subjectivity in the nineteenth century and the importance of considering archives beyond the published legal record. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Several US jurisdictions have recently passed laws that raise the minimum age of sale for tobacco products and electronic cigarettes to 21 years (Tobacco 21 laws). Although these laws have been demonstrated to be an effective means to reduce youth smoking initiation, their passage and potential expansion have provoked controversy. Critics have objected to these laws, claiming that they unduly intrude on individual freedom and that they irrationally and paternalistically restrict the freedom of those aged 18 to 20 years, who were previously able to legally purchase tobacco products. We have examined the ethical acceptability of Tobacco 21 laws. First, we have described ethical support for such a restriction grounded in its public health benefit. We have then offered arguments that raise doubts about the soundness of critics' objections to these regulations and described an additional ethical justification arising from concern about preventing harm to others. On the basis of this analysis, we conclude that Tobacco 21 laws are ethically justifiable. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While considerable work has been devoted to delineating the ways in which practices may give rise to legal norms, far less attention has been paid to the patterns of repeated behaviour that feed (and result from) such practices, for, as Shapiro puts it, 'habits are not the ... sort of things that can impose obligations'. This article first exposes the dualist presuppositions that underlie such a statement, then highlights both the conceptual and normative benefits that flow from developing a non-reductive naturalist understanding of the two-way relationship between law and habits. The article argues that such a naturalist account (for which Hart had clear intellectual affinities) is necessary to make sense of one of Hart's key insights: because of the specificity of its institutional structure, an established legal system is conducive to a society that is 'deplorably [and perilously] sheeplike'. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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Does the moral status of an action provide in itself a non-instrumental, pro-tanto reason for a corresponding legal status—a reason that applies regardless of whether the law promotes a value that is independent of the law, such as preventing wrongdoing or promoting utility or distributive or retributive justice, regardless of the consequences of doing so? While the relation between morality and law is a familiar topic, this specific question is rarely discussed explicitly. Yet it seems to be controversial. The article highlights and considers this question, while focusing on the criminal law. It concludes that the answer is negative—there is no necessary relation between morality and law in this respect. Rather, there is a reason in favor of incorporating morality into the law only when this incorporation promotes a moral value that is independent of the law. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The “positivist turn” in legal ethics has found many scholars in the Anglo-American common-law world relating the duties of lawyers to the rights and duties assigned by the law to their clients. On this view, the role of lawyers should be understood as contributing to the law’s function of resolving conflict and establishing a framework for cooperation in a pluralist society. Critics of positivist legal ethics have suggested that it is impossible for lawyers to avoid resorting to moral considerations when representing clients. These critics claim that the guidance provided by law runs out at critical moments, leaving a lawyer no choice but to fall back on the moral considerations supposedly pre-empted by positive law. In particular they argue that the law cannot determine its own application, and normative questions remain regarding the interpretive attitude lawyers ought to take when representing clients. This paper responds to critics of positivist legal ethics by returning to foundations, specifically the values underpinning the rule of law as a practice of giving reasons based on norms established in the name of the political community. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Conceptual analysis remains the methodology of much contemporary mainstream jurisprudence. The last fifteen years have seen significant contributions addressing the nature of conceptual analysis in legal theory, but many questions have not been answered in a satisfactory way. These questions can be more clearly addressed if we appreciate: a) that there is a central case of conceptual analysis; and b) the ways in which non-paradigmatic cases of conceptual analysis differ from the central one. Among other things, the article argues that conceptual analysis is necessary but not sufficient to a full understanding of the nature of law. Some knowledge about law is impervious to conceptual analysis but not to empirical social science. The reverse is also true. In explaining the meaning of ‘conceptual analysis’ the article also enacts conceptual analysis: the method the article uses to clarify the nature of conceptual analysis is precisely the method known as ‘conceptual analysis’. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Kant has a distinctive account of the particular laws of nature, such as the laws concerning what causes what. His account is a surprising package-view: restrictive inflationism. It includes a simple inflationary account of what particular laws of nature are: they are ways in which the natures of different kinds of things necessitate what the things do. And it restricts our knowledge: outside of a special kind of exceptional case, we cannot achieve knowledge but can only increasingly approximate knowledge of the particular laws of nature. I argue that this unusual combination brings some surprising philosophical advantages from which we can learn about otherwise hidden features of the philosophical terrain underlying continuing debates about the laws of nature. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the author's views about philosophy as a tool for tax lawyers as of 2017, and it mentions the tax-related views of the late scholars Adam Smith, John Rawls, and John Stuart Mill, as well as information about a Moral Philosophy concept involving the relationship between justice and tax laws. A positive law Legal Philosophy is addressed in relation to the theory of taxation. Law and Economics is assessed, as well as a Philosophy of Science involving causation and taxation.

The article focuses on fairness in testing and equality of school programs or loyalty and honoring life-changing sacrifice of the lawyers. It mentions individual resolution of this issue sometimes turns on the person's life experience and codification of ethics of lawyers which results in absolute legal moralism to every person in every circumstance.

The laws of war are under mounting pressure and yet recent developments in the ethics of war have encouraged a growing disjunction between ethics and the law. Is this a problem, and does just war have a responsibility to address it? How then should we think about the relationship between ethics and law in war? Focusing on the debates between orthodox and revisionist theorists about principles of liability and immunity in war, I argue that these are actually about competing conceptions of justness. Revisionists privilege a 'best ethics' approach to justness, whereas orthodox theorists tend to work within a more rounded conception that embraces the legal and political dimensions of the regulation of war. I argue that there is a danger that those revisionist theorists, despite their impressive ethical innovations, nonetheless operate in a reductive way that does little to assist with the contemporary plight of law, and may inadvertently offer but 'miserable comfort' to those caught up in the battlefield. In contrast, the just war tradition generally is rooted in a practice that makes greater allowance for a politically configured concept of war, and takes more seriously the requirement for effective law. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article begins by recognizing that many of the common law and statutory provisions regarding charity law take their meaning from social and economic contexts of their time and, as a consequence, critically considers the relevance of the ancient charitable legal concepts in modern day society from the jurisdictions of Australia, New Zealand, England, and Wales. The author chose to concentrate on the charitable purpose of the advancement of religion to explore this issue. This examination illustrates that the courts from these jurisdictions do not shy away from considering the challenge of understanding the relevance of religion and charity in contemporary society. What is also illustrated is that while charity law finds its roots in ancient history, its concepts are equally as appropriate in contemporary society as they were in past times. Therefore, while at first sight, one may question the appropriateness of trying to apply ancient concepts today, the notion of charity is far from the ancient relic struggling to adapt to contemporary societal pressures. Rather, charity law, at least under the auspices of the advancement of religion, is just at home today as it was back in Roman, or even Elizabethan times. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This essay answers two questions that continue to drive debate in moral and legal philosophy; namely, 'Is a risk of harm a wrong?' and 'Is a risk of harm a harm?'. The essay's central claim is that to risk harm can be both to wrong and to harm. This stands in contrast to the respective positions of Heidi Hurd and Stephen Perry, whose views represent prominent extremes in this debate about risks. The essay shows that there is at least one category of risks - intentional impositions of risk on unconsenting agents - which can be both wrongful and harmful. The wrongfulness of these risks can be established when, on the balance of reasons, one ought not to impose them. The harmfulness of these risks can be established when the risks are shown to set back legitimate interests. In those cases where risks constitute a denial of the moral status of agents, risks set back agents' interest in dignity. In these ways, the essay shows that there are instances when a risk can constitute both a wrong and a harm. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper has four aims. First it distinguishes two kinds of philosophical accounts of the ‘formal’ features of rights: models and theories. Models outline the ‘conceptually basic’ types of rights (if indeed a given model deems there to be more than one), their differences, and their relationships with duties, liabilities, etc. Theories of rights posit a supposed ultimate purpose for all rights and provide criteria for determining what counts as ‘a right’ in the first place. Second, the paper argues that Monistic rights models (ones positing only a single basic type of right) are under-inclusive. They wrongly exclude and cannot explain relevant data, i.e., ordinary and legal linguistic practices. The third aim is to show that certain Pluralistic models are over-inclusive in terms of what they count as ‘rights’. Fourth, the paper begins to touch upon, but does not provide, criteria for determining what counts as ‘a right’. Two candidate factors will be addressed. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This two-part article addresses the “Who?” question in the hate speech debate: namely, which characteristics, social identities or statuses should or should not be treated as protected characteristics within a body hate speech laws? Using United Kingdom incitement to hatred laws as a focal point, the article outlines and critically appraises five broad approaches to specification. Part 1 deals with consistency specification, which highlights norms of consistency both within incitement to hatred law itself and in relation to other laws, practical specification, which focuses on the ostensible goals or apparent aims of incitement to hatred laws, and formal specification, which looks at the formal qualities of the characteristics themselves and to the different forms of people’s relationships with those characteristics. And Part 2 considers functional specification, which concentrates on the underlying or real functions, purposes or objectives of incitement to hatred laws, and democratic specification, which appeals to democratic procedures as well as to democratic values, norms and principles that speak to the proper scope of incitement to hatred laws. Along the way I shall also critically assess a range of substantive arguments about which particular characteristics should or should not be covered by incitement to hatred laws given the aforementioned approaches. My main conclusion shall be that each of the approaches has its strengths and weakness and that, partly because of this, no single approach is adequate by itself as a tool for specifying the proper scope of incitement to hatred laws, but also, by the same token, no approach should be ruled out entirely. Instead, the best strategy is one that combines together all five approaches in reasonable ways given the law, the characteristic and the context. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The purpose of the essay is to recover a correct conception of natural law and goodness in the ethics of Saint Thomas Aquinas. It suggests that the dominant interpretation of Thomism known by legal philosophers—that of John Finnis—is importantly at variance with Aquinas’s true account. Against the dominant interpretation, a true account of natural law must (i) differentiate between natural law and ethics in the full sense (moral theology), and (ii) interpret references to human good as references to virtuous goodness rather than non-moral goodness. The main body of the essay explores the place of these concepts in Aquinas’s account of ethics. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In this paper the author delineates between ethics and morality as it relates to the development of an ethical attitude in clinical practice. Drawing on the image of Antigone’s decision to bury her brother, the author helps the reader discriminate between following the law and becoming ethical. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Human rights, born once to limit power and to guarantee respect for all human persons, over time have evolved clearly. Those postmodern rights, known as «new rights» or the «fourth generation of rights», have some traits that make difficult to understand them as just a further step, the last so far, of that evolution. The role of the person in these postmodern liberties has changed to such an extent that those new rights can end up working as instruments of political power, or as a new Ethics imposing duties on people, but seldom, if ever, as political liberations of the citizen. New rights are so diverging from the original purpose of human rights. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Estudios de Derecho is the property of Estudios de Derecho and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The article discusses the author's views about the moral aspects of proportionality in criminal sentencing in Canada as of 2017, and it mentions potential reforms involving judicial discretion and mandatory minimum sentences. The Supreme Court of Canada's (Court's) ruling in the case firearms possession case R v. Nur is examined, along with punishment, prosecutorial decision making, and the relationship between the Court and Canada's Parliament.

Many recent theories of coercion broaden the scope of the conceptcoercionby encompassing interactions in which one agent pressures another to act, subject to some further qualifications. I have argued previously that this way of conceptualizing coercion undermines its suitability for theoretical use in politics and ethics. I have also explicated a narrower, more traditional approach—“the enforcement approach to coercion”—and argued for its superiority. In this essay, I consider the prospects for broadening this more traditional approach to cover some cases that don’t seem to fit this approach, but nonetheless seem coercive, such as the demands routinely made on people by credit card companies, demands on students by higher educational institutions, and demands made by European financial institutions on the government of Greece. I analyze the similarities and differences of these compared to more central cases of coercion, discussing what lessons can be drawn from this analysis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many countries in the British Commonwealth do not recognize proportionality as a general ground for judicial review. In the Cayman Islands, a British Overseas Territory, the 2009 Constitution provides that decisions of public authorities must, among other things, be proportionate. In the United Kingdom, by virtue of the Human Rights Act 1998 (‘HRA’), domestic courts must take into account Strasbourg jurisprudence, which applies the proportionality principle in cases involving the European Convention on Human Rights. This article examines the extent to which proportionality may have become, if at all, a general ground for review in the Cayman Islands. The answer to this question is likely to influence the interpretation of other constitutions (and statutes in general) in the Commonwealth which have codified some aspects of judicial review. The extent to which the HRA is relevant to the interpretation of human rights provisions in the British Overseas Territories is also considered. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In the following article we will analyze the ethical juridical philosophy of Eugeniu Sperantia based on his work, Course of Philosophy of the Law, published in 1936. Sperantia's book draws on Idealism, materialism, Lebensphilosophy and the natural science, to build a definition of the law based on normativity and biologist competition. His key concept is the struggle for the values with the so-called "limited belonging", a term which reveals the exclusivity and finite character of those values. However, Sperantia tries to deconstruct nihilistic biologism in showing that law has a more positive teleology (i.e. sociality). We will also compare the work of Sperantia with insights from Martin Heidegger, Jose Ortega y Gasset and Michel Foucault. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]