Term
| According to Socrates in Crito, he cannot escape from prison because to do so would commit an in justice. Against whom would he be committing an injustice and why? |
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Definition
| Socrates cannot escape prison because he'd be committing an injustice against the state. Because he lives in the state, he agrees to abide by its laws. Unless he proves otherwise, his obligation as a citizen is to abide by those laws. If he breaks the law, he is undermining the state, which is an injustice that is not allowed. |
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Term
| In "Eight Ways to Fail to Make Law," Fuller describes the imaginary King Rex's failure to make law. Explain one of the ways in which Rex fails to make law. |
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Definition
| Rex fails to make the law understandable. In order for his people to follow the law, they need to be able to understand what the rules are that they're to follow |
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Term
| What definition of "law" does St. Thomas Aquinas give? This definition has four distinct parts- explain the reasons Aquinas gives in support of ONE of these parts. |
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Definition
| Aquinas' definition of law is: "An ordinance of reason, for the common good, made by he who cares for the community, and promulgated." In order for a law to guide action, it must be a rule. In order for it to be a rule, it must be known by the people. |
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Term
| In the selections from The Province of Jurisprudence Determined that we read in class, how does John Austin's conception of the law explain our duty to follow it? |
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Definition
| Austin believes that the law is a command, and with this command come the correlative idea of duty. We have a duty to follow the law because there is a threat of evil that it carries, and someone can hurt us if we don't. |
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Term
| According to John Austin, when does superiority equate to sovereignty, such that the superior's commands are to be considered laws? |
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Definition
| Superiority equates to sovereignty when the people are in habitual obedience/submission to a determinate common superior. The determinate superior must also not be in obedience to any other human determinate superior |
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Term
| To which of the tenets of historical positivism does HLA Hart chiefly object in "Positivism and the Separation of Law and Morals"? Explain one of his reasons for objecting to this tenet. |
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Definition
| Hart objects to the tenet that states that the law is a command. One of his reasons for stating this is because the law as a command calls for habitual to a determinate superior. This does not fit well with many of today's modern societies. |
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Term
| According to HLA Hart in "Law as the Union of Primary and Secondary Rules," what is the Rule of Recognition, and why is it essential to the law? |
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Definition
| The Rule of Recognition establishes a what features are required for primary rules to be authoritative. This rule is the ultimate criterion for legal validity. |
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Term
| In the selection entitled "Natural Law Jurisprudence", Mark Murphy defends the Weak Thesis of Natural Law Theory. |
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Definition
| This thesis is a thesis about KINDS- laws are the KINDS of things that are reasonable guides to actions. If they fail to guide us in our actions, then they are defective as laws |
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Term
| According to R. Dworkin, what are legal claims (what do propositions of law amount to and what makes them true?) |
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Definition
| Legal claims are interpretative judgments that interpret contemporary legal practices of the unfolding political narrative. They contain past legal decisions and the schemes of principles necessary to justify them. They are true if the follow the principles of justice, fairness, and procedural due process that provide the best constructive interpretation of the legal practices. |
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Term
| According to Jerome Frank in "Legal Realism", when someone asks her lawyer, "What is the law in this case?: what does she mean by this (what is she asking), and what does the lawyer's answer amount to? |
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Definition
| When a person asks "What is the law in this case," she is asking not what the courts have already decided, but what the courts will decide in the future. The lawyer's answer will then by a prophecy or prediction of judicial action |
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Term
| According to Jeremy Waldron in "Does Law Promise Justice", what is the connection between morality and the law? |
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Definition
| The law promises a concern for or interest in justice (though not substantive justice). A legal system offers/secures the coordination that makes the pursuit of justice possible. |
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Term
| According to John Stuart Mill, what is wrong with Temperance Laws? |
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Definition
| Mill claims that Temperance laws are a way for people to claim that others are violating their social rights, when really they just aren't behaving in the way that others want them to. Mills also claims that these laws neglect the understanding of self-regarding actions. |
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Term
| According to John Stuart Mill, what is wrong with Temperance Laws? |
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Definition
| Mill claims that Temperance laws are a way for people to claim that others are violating their social rights, when really they just aren't behaving in the way that others want them to. Mills also claims that these laws neglect the understanding of self-regarding actions. |
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Term
| In "Beyond the Harm Principle," Arthur Ripstein introduces an alternative to Mill's "Harm Principle." Explain this principle. |
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Definition
| Ripstein's alternative to the Harm Principle is the Sovereignty Principle. This principle claims that the only legitimate restrictions on conducts are those that secure the mutual independence of free peoples from each other. With this principle, wrongdoing takes place in the form of domination, which explains away self-harm, voluntarily undertaking harm, and harm resulting from a fair contest. |
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Term
| What counts as "paternalism", according to G. Dworkin? |
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Definition
| Paternalism is the interference in a person's liberty of action justified by reasons referring to the welfare, good, needs, values, etc., of the person being coerced. It is also recognized as the use of coercion to achieve good that the person being coerced does not recognize. |
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