scholarly journals Natural Justice, Law, and Virtue in Hobbes’s Leviathan

2019 ◽  
Vol 32 (2) ◽  
pp. 179-208
Author(s):  
J. Matthew Hoye
Keyword(s):  
Virtue Ethics ◽  
Natural Law ◽  
Legal Philosophy ◽  
Natural Laws ◽  
Natural Justice ◽  
General Significance ◽  
Natural Person ◽  
Natural Law Theory ◽  
Theory Of Law

Scholars debate whether Hobbes held to a command theory of law or to a natural law theory, and to what extent they are compatible. Curiously, however, Hobbes summarizes his own teachings by claiming that it is “natural justice” that sovereigns should study, an idea that recalls ancient virtue ethics and which is seemingly incompatible with both command and natural law theory. The purpose of this article is to explicate the general significance of natural justice in Leviathan. It is argued that below the formal and ideological claims regarding the law’s legitimacy, the effective ground of the legitimacy of both the civil and natural laws is sovereign virtue. In turn, it is argued that the model for this idea was found in Aristotle. As such, this article constitutes a general recasting of Hobbes’s legal philosophy with a focus on the natural person of the sovereign.

scholarly journals Anti-metaphysical foundation of contemporary theory of natural law: Theory of law and practical rationality in works of John Mitchel Finnis

2017 ◽  
Vol 60 (1) ◽  
pp. 5-27
Author(s):  
Dejan Stankovic
Keyword(s):  
Natural Law ◽  
Practical Rationality ◽  
Theoretical Concept ◽  
Legal Positivism ◽  
Legal Philosophy ◽  
Moral Philosopher ◽  
Natural Law Theory ◽  
Socially Relevant ◽  
Theory Of Law ◽  
John Mitchel

The contemporary natural law theory was grounded in the philosophical and the jurisprudential work of Australian legal and moral philosopher John Mitchell Finnis. He reaffirmed the natural law and also corrected some of false notions about it which were dominant through the history of legal philosophy. Finnis moral and legal philosophy could be understood by the specific theoretical figure - moral argument for law. This theoretical concept implies unity of two mutually connected moments which are necessary for a philosophical treatment of any socially relevant phenomena: methodological and epistemological as well as practical. The meeting point of these two philosophically relevant dimensions is theory of practical rationality exposed in the philosophy of John Mitchell Finnis. By grounding his concept of natural law on the theory of practical rationality, John Finnis historically contextualize it. He made some sort of specific anti metaphysical concept of natural law theory that is alternative to the classical natural law as well as to the legal positivism, which mainly exposed in the legal theories of Hans Kelsen and H.L.A Hart.

On the Artifactual—and Natural— Character of Legal Institutions

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Corrado Roversi
Keyword(s):  
Natural Law ◽  
Common Ground ◽  
Legal Positivism ◽  
Legal Institutions ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Legal Realism ◽  
Natural Law Theory ◽  
The Law ◽  
Theory Of Law

Are legal institutions artifacts? If artifacts are conceived as entities whose existence depends on human beings, then yes, legal institutions are, of course, artifacts. But an artifact theory of law makes a stronger claim, namely, that there is actually an explanatory gain to be had by investigating legal institutions as artifacts, or through the features of ordinary artifacts. This is the proposition explored in this chapter: that while this understanding of legal institutions makes it possible to find common ground between legal positivism and legal realism, it does not capture all of the insights offered by these two traditions. An artifact theory of law can therefore be necessary in explaining the law, but it will not suffice to that end. This chapter also posits that legal artifacts bear a relevant connection to certain conceptions of nature, thus vindicating one of the original insights behind natural law theory.

PERSONS PURSUING GOODS

Legal Theory ◽  
2007 ◽  
Vol 13 (3-4) ◽  
pp. 285-313 ◽  
Author(s):  
Steven D. Smith
Keyword(s):  
Practical Reason ◽  
Natural Law ◽  
Natural Rights ◽  
Legal Authority ◽  
Basic Goods ◽  
Natural Law Theory ◽  
Law And Morality ◽  
Basic Good ◽  
Theory Of Law

John Finnis's powerfully and deservedly influential modern classic, Natural Law and Natural Rights, expounds a theory of law and morality that is based on a picture of “persons” using practical reason to pursue certain “basic goods.” While devoting much attention to practical reason and to the goods, however, Finnis says little about the nature of personhood. This relative inattention to what “persons” are creates a risk—one that Finnis himself notices—of assuming or importing an inadequate anthropology. This essay suggests that the “new natural law” developed by Finnis suffers in places from the inadvertent adoption of (or, more likely, acquiescence in) a flawed anthropology—an anthropology under the thrall of modern individualistic commitments. To explain this suspicion, this article discusses three difficulties (or so they seem to me) in his natural law theory: difficulties in accounting for the basic good of friendship, for obligations we owe to others, and for legal authority. These difficulties may seem disconnected, but this article suggests that they may all reflect an inadequate anthropology—one that Finnis does not exactly embrace (in fact, I suspect that he would reject it) but that is pervasive today and that in places may affect his theorizing.

Natural Law and Public Reason in Kant's Political Philosophy

1996 ◽  
Vol 26 (3) ◽  
pp. 389-411 ◽  
Author(s):  
Daniel M. Weinstock
Keyword(s):  
Political Philosophy ◽  
Social Contract ◽  
Natural Law ◽  
Public Reason ◽  
The State ◽  
Legal Philosophy ◽  
The Social ◽  
Human Good ◽  
Natural Law Theory

My intention in this essay will be to explore the role that consent-based arguments perform in Kant's political and legal philosophy. I want to uncover the extent to which Kant considered that the legitimacy of the State and of its laws depends upon the outcome of intersubjective deliberation. Commentators have divided over the following question: Is Kant best viewed as a member of the social contract tradition, according to which the legitimacy of the state and of the laws it promulgates derives from the consent of those people over whom it claims authority, or should he be read as having put forward a secularized version of natural law theory, according to which the state and its laws are legitimate to the extent that they are attained by standards of sound reason and supported by an objective account of the human good?

The Illusion of Freedom Separated From Moral Virtue

2007 ◽  
Vol 19 (1) ◽  
pp. 19-39
Author(s):  
Raymond L. Dennehy ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Virtue Ethics ◽  
Natural Law ◽  
Liberal Democracy ◽  
Moral Virtue ◽  
Moral Vision ◽  
Pluralistic Society ◽  
Individual Character ◽  
Natural Law Theory ◽  
The Individual

This essay proposes that liberal democracy cannot survive unless a monistic virtue ethics permeates its culture, A monistic philosophical conception of virtue ethics has its roots in natural law theory and, for that reason, offers a rationally defensible basis for a unified moral vision in a pluralistic society. Such a monistic virtue ethics--insofar as it is a virtue ethics--forms individual character so that a person not only knows how to act, but desires to act that way and, moreover, possesses the integration of character to be able to act that way. This is a crucial consideration, for immoral choices create a bad character that inclines the individual to increasingly worse choices, A nation whose members lack moral virtue cannot sustain its commitment to freedom and equality for all.

Natural Law in the Positive Laws: A Legislative or Adjudicative Issue?

1993 ◽  
Vol 55 (1) ◽  
pp. 5-34 ◽  
Author(s):  
Russell Hittinger
Keyword(s):  
Political Theory ◽  
Natural Law ◽  
Natural Justice ◽  
Positive Law ◽  
Single Method ◽  
Natural Law Theory ◽  
Written Law ◽  
Carry Over ◽  
Philosophical Questions ◽  
Different Levels

Debates over natural law routinely confuse three quite different sets of issues. First, there are the properly philosophical questions of (i) whether a natural law exists, and (ii) whether positive laws are valid completely apart from their moral specifications. Second, there are questions that properly belong to political theory. These include, (iii) how a constitution ought to allocate responsibility to make natural justice effective, and (iv) how a particular system of positive law handles this issue. Third, assuming that a judiciary is limited by written law, it can still be asked whether this necessarily prohibits judicial uses of natural law theory. Questions at these different levels are sufficiently different that what it takes to solve a question at one level does not necessarily carry over to the others. It is vain, therefore, to search for a single method that brings closure on these issues.

Hegel’s Philosophy of Law

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thom Brooks
Keyword(s):  
Significant Influence ◽  
Natural Law ◽  
Common Law ◽  
Legal Philosophy ◽  
Philosophy Of Law ◽  
Novel Theory ◽  
Natural Law Theory ◽  
The Common ◽  
Law And Morality ◽  
Legal Theorist

Hegel was neither a lawyer nor primarily a legal theorist, but his writings make a significant influence to the understanding of legal philosophy. Nevertheless, there is disagreement about where Hegel’s importance lies. This chapter argues that Hegel’s philosophy of law is best understood as a natural law theory. But what is interesting about Hegel’s view is that it represents a distinctive alternative to how most natural law theories are traditionally conceived. Hegel’s philosophy is remarkable for providing an entirely new way of thinking about the relation between law and morality than had been considered before. It is the distinctiveness of his legal philosophy that has rendered so difficult a categorization into standard jurisprudential schools of thought. There is little that is standard in Hegel’s innovative understanding of law. This has importance for other areas of his thinking, such as his novel theory of punishment and understanding of the common law.

What the Sovereign Can’t Do

2014 ◽  
Vol 27 (2) ◽  
pp. 191-198
Author(s):  
Michael Sevel
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Natural Law ◽  
Political Obligation ◽  
Legal Validity ◽  
Oxford University ◽  
Natural Law Theory ◽  
Theory Of Law ◽  
The One ◽  
Oxford University Press

One of the central claims of Larry May’s Limiting Leviathan (Oxford University Press, 2013) is that Hobbes’s theory of law is best understood as a kind of “procedural natural law” theory akin to the one developed by Lon Fuller in the mid-twentieth century. May’s interpretation of Hobbes suggests at least two different views of the role of equity as a constraint on legal validity; neither of them bears any important affinities with Fuller’s theory. May however makes a stronger case that Hobbes and Fuller share broadly similar views about how and why citizens have an obligation to obey the law; the affinities between the two are therefore found in their theories of political obligation rather than in their theories of law.

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