Justice, Punishment, Ethics: Philosophy and the Law I

Philosophy of Law at Waseda University Law School, 2007

Friday, May 04, 2007

Introduction: Philosophy of Law

Law and Philosophy
Waseda School of Law

1.1 Introduction to the Philosophy of Law

What is Philosophy?
The question “what is philosophy?” is itself a philosophical question. The etymology of the term philosophy sheds a little light: it is a Greek term meaning “love of wisdom” ( philos means love, sophia means wisdom) . This does not mean that to love wisdom makes you wise, of course.
Robert Lane, professor of philosophy at the University of West Georgia, defines philosophy as follows:

Philosophy (definition) the area of inquiry that attempts to discover truths involving fundamental concepts, such as concepts of God, knowledge, truth, reality, the mind and consciousness, free will, right and wrong. (Lecture notes, PHIL:4110).


I find this too ambitious. Whenever philosophy hits upon actual evidence (a requisite of truth), it ceases to be philosophy. It becomes science. I would say that philosophy is the analysis of any issue worth discussing that cannot be answered through science alone. The best we can do with philosophy is to clarify any given debate.

In this course we will be considering a number of philosophical questions pertinent to law, in particular issues in ethics and politics. I will not assume that there is a single answer to these questions, but this is not to say that all answers are equally valid. We need to think of the various standard philosophical answers to these questions, and we need to have some way of assessing them.

Philosophy of Law concerns the following questions . I have included the names of some thinkers who have attempted to answer these questions.

•Why is law important?
•Wouldn’t we be better off without any laws? (Anarchy) . Ian Hinckfuss
•What would society be like without laws?
•Could there be a society without law? (Thomas Hobbes).
•Does anyone have an obligation to obey the law? If so, what is the source of this
obligation? (Plato’s Socrates).
•In the absence of a world government, is international law possible? (Kant).
•What is the nature of law itself, and in particular, what is the relationship between law
and morality? (Natural Law Theory vs. Legal Positivists).
•What is the nature of legal reasoning? (Legal Formalists vs. Legal Realists vs.
Constructivists).
•What are the different types of freedom and liberty? (Isaiah Berlin).
•How might freedom of speech be defended? (Mill).
•How might religious freedom be defended? (Locke).
•What is a right?
•What is the correct scope of the right to privacy? Does it cover abortion?

0 Comments:

Post a Comment

<< Home