Moral Aspects Of Legal Theory: Essays On Law, Justice, And Political Responsibility

David Lyons is one of the preeminent philosophers of law active in the United States. This volume comprises essays written over a period of twenty-two years in which Professor Lyons outlines his fundamental views about the nature of law and its relation to morality and justice. The underlying theme of the book is that a system of law has only a tenuous connection with morality and justice. Contrary to those legal theorists who maintain that no matter how bad the law of a community might be, strict conformity to existing law automatically dispenses "formal" justice, Professor Lyons contends that the law must earn the respect that it demands. Moreover, we cannot, as some would suggest, interpret law in a value-neutral manner. Rather, courts should interpret statutes, judicial precedents, and constitutional provisions in terms of values that would justify those laws. In this way officials can promote the justifiability of what they do to people in the name of law and can help the law live up to its moral pretensions. Moral aspects of legal theory Moral aspects of legal theory Essays on law, justice, and political responsibility DAVID LYONS Susan Linn Sage Professor of Philosophy & Professor of Law and Philosophy Cornell University CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS Cambridge, New York, Melbourne, Madrid, Cape Town, Singapore, Sao Paulo Cambridge University Press The Edinburgh Building, Cambridge CB2 8RU, UK Published in the United States of America by Cambridge University Press, New York www. Cambridge. org Information on this title: www.cambridge.org/9780521432443 © Cambridge University Press 1993 This publication is in copyright. Subject to statutory exception and to the provisions of relevant collective licensing agreements, no reproduction of any part may take place without the written permission of Cambridge University Press. First published 1993 A catalogue recordfor this publication is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloguing in Publication data Lyons, David, 1935Moral aspects of legal theory : essays on law, justice, and political responsibility / David Lyons. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references. ISBN 0-521-43244-8 (he). - ISBN 0-521-43835-7 (pb) 1. Law and ethics. 2. Justice. 3. Justice, Administration of. I. Title. BJ55.L954 1993 340'.112-dc20 92-28985 CIP ISBN 978-0-521-43244-3 hardback ISBN 978-0-521-43835-3 paperback Transferred to digital printing 2007 To the memory of ROBERT NEMIROFF Contents Preface Acknowledgments 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 page ix xiii The internal morality of law On formal justice Legal formalism and instrumentalism - a pathological study Moral aspects of legal theory Formal justice and judicial precedent Derivability, defensibility, and the ju