Consult Your Heart

In this article, I explore the authority of the heart (qalb) as a potential locus for the individual moral knowledge and normativity in Islamic ethics. To do so, I discuss the two ḥadīths that ostensibly suggest one’s “self” as a source of moral judgment. These ḥadīths raise renewed questions about the sources of moral judgment, the nature of moral judgment and the ethical capacity of the “self” (conscience)—“consult your heart and consult your self …”; “righteousness is good conduct, and sin is that which rankles in your chest and which you would hate for other people to look upon.” There are rich debates in the Islamic tradition on the place and authority of the bāṭin (inward) in generating moral knowledge, which correspond to contemporary discourses in Western ethics on the place of conscience in the moral formation of the individual. In this article, I argue that although Islamic legal tradition as a discipline has focused on qualified external actions of individuals and the ijtihād (independent legal reasoning) of mujtahids (jurists), it did not ignore the authority of the bāṭin for moral assessment and the ijtihād of common individuals. I propose that the inward dimension has always occupied an important space within the interdisciplinary field of Islamic ethics but has been overshadowed by the overarching theological disputes between the Muʿtazilīs and Ashʿarīs over the sources of knowledge. The article starts by exploring the relevant aḥādīth (reports) and their interpretation in ḥadīth commentaries, followed by an analysis of discussions in the fields of Islamic jurisprudence and Sufism.

Removing the Cog in the Waqf Wheels: A Policy Formulation for Nigeria

The Nigerian state is the most populous African nation with a sizeable number of Muslims. While other countries with a significantly fewer number of Muslims benefit from the visible dividends of a thriving waqf institution, the same cannot be said of Nigeria. The institution of waqfs in the country is almost non-existent or, at best, described as comatose. Therefore, this study attempts to formulate workable prescriptions for waqf development in Nigeria. Data were gathered from relevant documents, such as related local regulations and the result of previous studies. Considering the normative characteristics for the functionality of waqf institution, the data were analysed using documentary enquiry, legal reasoning, descriptions, narratives, and critical studies on the waqf system in Nigeria. The findings indicate a dire need for dedicated legislation for waqf operations in the country that will expedite establishing a sound and well-functioning waqf system. This future law should incorporate the policy briefs contained in this paper.==================================================================================================== ABSTRAK – Menghilangkan Hambatan Perputaran Wakaf: Formulasi Kebijakan untuk Nigeria. Nigeria adalah negara di Afrika yang terpadat dengan jumlah Muslim yang cukup besar. Tidak seperti negara-negara lain yang bahkan jumlah penduduk Muslimnya jauh lebih sedikit, Nigeria hampir tidak bisa mendapatkan keuntungan apapun dari adanya sistem wakaf dalam Islam. Eksistensi lembaga wakaf hampir tidak terlihat di negara ini, atau, dapat dikatakan sedang mati suri. Oleh karena itu, kajian ini berupaya untuk menghilangkan hambatan-hambatan operasionalisasi wakaf dengan merumuskan formulasi yang dapat diimplementasikan untuk Nigeria. Data penelitian dikumpulkan dari studi dokumentasi seperti undang-undang dan peraturan terkait serta hasil-hasil kajian yang relevan. Dengan pertimbangan karakteristik normatif fungsi lembaga wakaf, analisis dokumen dilakukan dengan penalaran hukum, telaah deskriptif, naratif, dan studi kritis terhadap fungsi wakaf di Nigeria. Hasil kajian menyimpulkan bahwa ada kebutuhan mendesak bagi Nigeria untuk membentuk undang-undang khusus wakaf yang dapat mempercepat pembentukan sistem wakaf yang sehat dan fungsional. Formulasi policy brief dari kajian ini dapat digunakan sebagai bahan pembentukan aturan dimaksud.

Legal reasoning in bachelor of laws education in Vietnam

Este artigo trata das questões de prática, treinamento e formação do raciocínio jurídico na educação de bacharelado em Direito no Vietnã. A análise e comparação da prática, educação e formação do raciocínio jurídico na educação jurídica em algumas universidades do mundo e no Vietnã mostram que as atividades educacionais de bacharelado em Direito no Vietnã estão em fase de desenvolvimento em termos da quantidade das matrículas. Não tem havido nenhum programa educacional e práticas instrucionais projetadas para o raciocínio jurídico. Como consequência, o raciocínio jurídico dos estudantes ainda não se desenvolveu. No atual contexto de integração internacional, é muito necessário acrescentar o raciocínio jurídico como filosofia indispensável para concretizá-lo na estrutura dos programas educacionais de bacharelado em Direito. Esta mudança é considerada necessária para diminuir a lacuna na educação de bacharelado em Direito no Vietnã com outros países.

Capturing the Basics of the GDPR in a Well-Founded Legal Domain Modular Ontology

The primary goal of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) is to regulate the rights and duties of citizens and organizations over personal data protection. Implementing the GDPR is recently gaining much importance for legal reasoning and compliance checking purposes. In this work, we aim to capture the basics of GDPR in a well-founded legal domain modular ontology named OPPD (Ontology for the Protection of Personal Data). Ontology-Driven Conceptual Modeling (ODCM), ontology layering, modularization, and reuse processes are applied. These processes aim to support the ontology engineer in overcoming the complexity of the legal knowledge and developing an ontology model faithful to reality. ODCM is used for grounding OPPD in the Unified Foundational Ontology (UFO). Ontology modularization and layering aim to simplify the ontology building process. Ontology reuse focuses on selecting and reusing Conceptual Ontology Patterns (COPs) from UFO and the legal core ontology UFO-L. OPPD intends to overcome the lack of a representation of legal procedures that most ontologies encountered. The potential use of OPPD is proposed to formalize the GDPR rules by combining ontological reasoning and Logic Programming.

Dialectical Approach to Legal Arguing and Legal Argumentation

The article is devoted to legal argumentation, namely to its research by dialectical approach. The aim of the article is to determine characteristic features of dialectical approach to legal argumentation. Dialectical approach to the research of legal argumentation should include philosophical, theoretical, empirical components. Philosophical component of legal argumentation research consists in the critical conception of rationality i.e. the philosophical axiomatic idea about rationality of legal argumentation, which is systematically tested within discourse or critical discussion. Dialectical theoretical model of legal argumentation ensures mutual acceptability of legal argumentation by the parties. Dialectical approach deals with legal argumentation mainly in the “context of justification.” Dialectical approach to legal arguing implies specific standard of soundness of the argumentation – acceptability standard. Empirical component of legal argumentation includes reconstruction of argumentation and its weighting (analytic component) as well as analysis of particular legal reasoning (practical component). Dialectical approach highlights hermeneutical nature of legal reasoning. Dialectical approach to legal argumentation lets us assume some ontological issues concerning legal argumentation. Legal argumentation is considered as the form of rational communication of particular persons to reach mutual acceptability of legally important conclusions within the procedure of discussion. Legal argumentation is the result of such impact embodied in acceptability of legally binding issues within the procedure of rational discussion.

Legal philosophy and the study of legal reasoning

In this paper, I argue that legal philosophers ought to focus more on problems of legal reasoning. This is a field with many philosophically interesting questions to consider, but also, a field in which legal philosophers can contribute the most to the study and the practice of law. Neither legal practitioners nor legal scholars reason with the same care and precision as philosophers do. Against this background, I suggest that the following three types of questions regarding legal reasoning are especially worthy of serious consideration. The first is that of the relevance of the theory of reasons holism to legal reasoning. The second is the question of how to analyze (first-order) legal statements in a way that does not undermine the rationality of legal reasoning. And the third is the question of whether legal arguments are to be understood as deductive arguments, inductive arguments, or both, and if so how.

Back to Hart

The essay addresses two different senses of important “problems” for contemporary legal philosophy. In the first case, the “problem” is having forgotten things we learned from H.L.A. Hart, and, partly as a result, encouraging pointless metaphysical inquiries in other directions that take us very far from questions about the nature of law and legal reasoning. In the second case, the “problem” is to attend more carefully to Hart’s views and his philosophical context to think about the problem of theoretical disagreement, and to understand the way in which later commentators have misunderstood his behaviorist (Rylean) analysis of “accepting a rule from an internal point of view.”