The Law and Ethics Collection focuses on academic theses concerned by ethical aspects in law.

Recent Submissions

  • Intervention and Control of Peoples’ Privacy and Its Connection with the Judiciary, Jurisprudence, and Criminal Policy

    Saeed Ekradi; Reza Nikkhah Saenaghi; siamak jafarzadeh (Semnan University, 2021-11-01)
    Privacy is directly associated with the individuals’ rights and freedoms and considered as an example of human rights in Islam. The necessity to recognize the privacy concepts and examples inevitably propels us to peruse the law and investigate how the judge intervenes in it in the judiciary. The transcendent form this will not be realized except by knowing the privacy concepts and realm as well as its connection with jurisprudence and ethical issues besides the new criminal policy data. Apart from the “Privacy Protection” plan, waiting in the approval queue for almost 15 years, no definition of privacy is found in Iran’s legislative criminal policy, and supporting this legal phenomenon has been just sporadically emphasized only through stating some examples of privacy. After exploring the privacy concept and legislative issues, this study considers the “central freedom” approach under “governing principles” in laws as the best model proposed according to the Islamic principles and rules in order for the privacy of individuals to be protected under the shadow of clear laws. To achieve the goal, the present paper addresses the issue by correlation/harmony method and library method through basic research type.
  • Freiheitsgrade: Zur Differenzierung praktischer Freiheit

    Stederoth, Dirk (transcript VerlagDEUBielefeld, 2024-02-19)
    Die Diskussionen um die Existenz einer Freiheit des menschlichen Willens, die in den letzten Jahren u.a. zwischen Philosophie, Kognitiver Neurowissenschaft, Psychologie und Rechtswissenschaft geführt wurden, mündeten fast immer in die bipolaren Antworten "Ja" oder "Nein". Diesem Dualismus begegnet Dirk Stederoth mit einem differenzierten philosophischen Modell unterschiedlicher Grade von Freiheit, das zugleich die Befunde der Einzelwissenschaften mit berücksichtigt. Dabei ermöglicht die graduelle Entfaltung der drei Dimensionen "Kognitive Ebenen", "Handlungsphasen" und "Entwicklungspsychologische Niveaus" neue und überraschende Perspektiven auf die zentralen Probleme von Freiheit und Verantwortung.
  • Mandatory Anti-Bias CLE: A Serious Problem Deserves a More Meaningful Response

    Sirota, Rima (Scholarship @ GEORGETOWN LAW, 2024-01-01)
    This essay addresses the problematic convergence of two recent trends: (1) the expansion of jurisdictions requiring anti-bias training (ABT) as part of mandatory continuing legal education (CLE), and (2) the growing recognition among social scientists that such training, at least as currently practiced, is of limited effectiveness. Forty-six American states require continuing legal education (CLE), and eleven of these states now require lawyer ABT as one facet of CLE requirements. I have previously criticized the mandatory CLE system because so little evidence supports the conclusion that it results in more competent lawyers. The central question tackled by this essay is whether there is any reason to believe that ABT requirements have had or will have any more impact on bias in the law than general CLE requirements have had on lawyer competence. The answer, unfortunately, seems to be no, or at least not as ABT requirements are currently defined and regulated. Part I of this essay summarizes the very real problems that mandatory lawyer ABT aims to address: bias in the legal profession and bias against individuals caught up in the legal system. Part II describes the debate over mandatory lawyer ABT and the various requirements imposed by adopting states. Part III addresses the lack of empirical evidence or other reason to believe mandatory lawyer ABT is an effective response to bias in the law. Finally, Part IV considers an alternative path for mandatory lawyer ABT, one that engages in ABT research and responds to that research in ways that result in more intentional and meaningful ABT going forward.
  • Conflicting Rights and the Outbreak of the First World War

    Katz, Leo (Penn Carey Law: Legal Scholarship Repository, 2001-01-01)
  • Teaching the Newly Essential Knowledge, Skills, and Values in a Changing World

    Vorenberg, Eliza; Adcock, Cynthia F.; Harrington, Eden E.; Kane, Elizabeth; Bliss, Lisa; Boyle, Robin; Johnson, Conrad; Schechter, Susan; Udell, David (Scholarship Archive, 2015-01-01)
    This chapter of Building on Best Practices: Transforming Legal Education in a Changing World has contributions from many authors: Section A, Professional Identity Formation, includes: Teaching Knowledge, Skills, and Values of Professional Identity Formation, by Larry O. Natt Gantt, II & Benjamin V. Madison III, Integrating Professionalism into Doctrinally-Focused Courses, by Paula Schaefer, Learning Professional Responsibility, by Clark D. Cunningham, and Teaching Leadership, by Deborah L. Rhode. Section B, Pro Bono as a Professional Value, is by Cynthia F. Adcock, Eden E. Harrington, Elizabeth Kane, Susan Schechter, David S. Udell & Eliza Vorenberg. Section C, The Relational Skills of the Law, includes: Teaching Relational Skills: The Evidence, by Susan Daicoff, and Cultivating Students' Relational Skills, by Susan L. Brooks. Section D, Teamwork, is by Linda Morton & Janet Weinstein. Section E, Intercultural Effectiveness, is by Mary A. Lynch with Robin Boyle, Rhonda Magee & Antoinette Sedillo López. Section F, Social Justice Across the Curriculum, is by Susan Bryant. Section G, Problem-Solving and Conflict Resolution, includes: Teaching Students to Be Healers: The Comprehensive Law Movement, by Susan Daicoff, Teaching Alternative Dispute Resolution, by Andrea Kupfer Schneider, and Integrating Alternative Dispute Resolution and Problem-Solving Across the Curriculum, by Jill Gross & John Lande Section H, Interprofessional Education, is by Lisa Radtke Bliss, Sylvia B. Caley, Patty Roberts, Emily F. Suski & Robert Pettignano. Section I, Technology in the Profession, is by Conrad Johnson. Section J, Business and Financial Literacy, is by Dwight Drake. Chapter 1 is available at: http://ssrn.com/abstract=2637100 Chapter 2 is available at: http://ssrn.com/abstract=2637068 Chapter 3 is available at: http://ssrn.com/abstract=2637102 Chapter 4 is available at: http://ssrn.com/abstract=2637490 Chapter 5 is available at: http://ssrn.com/abstract=2637495 Chapter 7 is available at: http://ssrn.com/abstract=2637541 Chapter 8 is available at: http://ssrn.com/abstract=2637544 The content of this SSRN posting is material that was published in the book Building on Best Practices: Transforming Legal Education in a Changing World, Maranville, et al., Lexis Nexis 2015. The content has been posted on SSRN with the express permission of Lexis Nexis and of Carolina Academic Press, publisher of the book as of January 1, 2016.
  • U podstaw myśli etycznej Leszka Kołakowskiego

    Olczyk, Adam (Uniwersytet im. A. Mickiewicza w Poznaniu Wydział Nauk Społecznych, Instytut Filozofii UAM, 2017-02-13)
    The article discusses primary matters of Leszek Kołakowski’s
 ethical thought. For that purpose, the analysis focuses on the need
 to justify the content of natural law. Kołakowski maintains that
 the development of communication and growth of cities are foundations
 of the justification process. In line with this idea the intuition
 of evil (related with such terms like tabu, sacrum, profanum
 or sin) is the major determinant for the distinction between good
 and evil. Kołakowski’s theory also explores a connection between
 the experience of evil and human dignity.
  • Irregular migration as a challenge for democracy

    Kużelewska, Elżbieta; Weatherburn, Amy; Kloza, Dariusz (Intersentia, 2018)
    To what extent does the status quo of irregular migration to Europe pose a challenge for democracy? The surge of people moving, predominantly from war-torn, repressed and impoverished countries in the Middle East and Africa to the outer borders of Europe, which started in the early 2010s and which intensified in the summer of 2015 – and the implications for the Old Continent that this massive flow of people has caused – gave an impetus to the present book. It seeks to contribute to the contextualisation, better understanding of and drawing of lessons from the status quo of irregular migration to Europe and its relation to the values and principles on which Europe has been built. Migration in Europe (i.e. within, to and away from), as anywhere in the world, is by no means a novel phenomenon. Immigration to the Old Continent once again gained its momentum and – consequently – public attention in the aftermath of the so-called Arab Spring. A sequence of protests against authoritarian political regimes in Africa and the Middle East that broke out on 17 December 2010 in Tunisia resulted in democratisation for some of them, but in others led to political unrest and even civil war. The latter caused an intensified emigration therefrom, largely towards Europe. The Italian island of Lampedusa – located less than 120 km from the Tunisian shore – and the vessels that have sunk around that island have become symbolic. Lampedusa perhaps marked the first sign that this influx of people constituted a serious problem and hence people started naming it a ‘crisis’. Subsequent events only magnified the problem: perhaps the biggest mark has been left by the ongoing Syrian civil war.
  • Introduction : Asking big questions : migrants ante portas and what to do with them?

    Kużelewska, Elżbieta; Weatherburn, Amy; Kloza, Dariusz; Kużelewska, Elżbieta; Weatherburn, Amy; Kloza, Dariusz (Intersentia, 2018)
    To what extent does the status quo of irregular migration to Europe pose a challenge for democracy? The surge of people moving, predominantly from war-torn, repressed and impoverished countries in the Middle East and Africa to the outer borders of Europe, which started in the early 2010s and which intensified in the summer of 2015 – and the implications for the Old Continent that this massive fiow of people has caused – gave an impetus to the present book. It seeks to contribute to the contextualisation, better understanding of and drawing of lessons from the status quo of irregular migration to Europe and its relation to the values and principles on which Europe has been built. Migration in Europe (i.e. within, to and away from), as anywhere in the world, is by no means a novel phenomenon. Immigration to the Old Continent once again gained its momentum and – consequently – public attention in the aftermath of the so-called Arab Spring. A sequence of protests against authoritarian political regimes in Africa and the Middle East that broke out on 17 December 2010 in Tunisia resulted in democratisation for some of them, but in others led to political unrest and even civil war. The latter caused an intensified emigration therefrom, largely towards Europe. The Italian island of Lampedusa – located less than 120 km from the Tunisian shore – and the vessels that have sunk around that island have become symbolic. Lampedusa perhaps marked the first sign that this influx of people constituted a serious problem and hence people started naming it a ‘crisis’. Subsequent events only magnified the problem: perhaps the biggest mark has been left by the ongoing Syrian civil war.
  • What is wrong with human rights?

    Colen, J. A. (Interpretation, Inc., 2018)
    The modern state in ordering social life aims only at granting “human rights” and all “rule of action” is
 now-days but an obstacle to the free realization of individual desires. Pierre Manent looks into human
 rights theories and sees at its core a Hobbesian lawless world. His work redraws the relationship
 between the modern state and rights but departs from the authors who influenced him the most in two
 ways. It minimizes the “novelty” of human rights in the 20th century by ignoring the “third wave of
 modernity” that leads present charts of human rights to dispense all justifications (God, Nature, Reason);
 the criterion of conformity of a regime with natural law is inferred from a set of motifs that pervade all
 action, minimizing the role of uncertainty, hic et nunc, to which both Raymond Aron and Leo Strauss
 were sensitive. It is probably Manent’s most ambitious and original work.
  • For Richer or Poorer: The Warren Court's Relationship to Socioeconomic Class

    Jonassen, Nicole (Scholarship @ Claremont, 2024-01-01)
    The U.S. Constitution does not enshrine socioeconomic rights. Why does this matter? Many argue that socioeconomic rights have value in and of themselves because they secure certain minimum conditions of human dignity, but socioeconomic rights also have instrumental value because abject material deprivation often makes traditional political and civil rights meaningless. In this thesis, I explore the relationship between U.S. constitutional law and socioeconomic rights through an analysis of the Warren Court’s decisions regarding socioeconomic class. In Chapter 1, I present existing literature on socioeconomic rights, socioeconomic rights in the American context, and what many scholars see as the Warren Court’s exceptional role in advancing the recognition of constitutional socioeconomic rights. In Chapter 2, I closely examine five Warren Court cases that implicated socioeconomic class and, possibly, socioeconomic rights, and I identify three distinct rights-based arguments related to socioeconomic class advanced by the Court. In Chapter 3, I argue that the Warren Court did not, in fact, come very close to the recognition of constitutional socioeconomic rights but, rather, pursued another important goal, guaranteeing the worth of political and civil rights for people of low socioeconomic class. I also invoke Dworkin’s concept of law as integrity, arguing that an accurate understanding of the Warren Court’s relationship to socioeconomic class shows that the Warren Court advanced integrity in the law. Ultimately, this thesis seeks to correct what I argue are misunderstandings of the Warren Court’s legacy as it relates to rights.
  • Die Naturrechtsdebatte: Geschichte der Obligatio vom 17. bis 20. Jahrhundert

    Hartung, Gerald (Verlag Karl AlberDEUBaden-Baden, 2024-01-23)
    Die Neuzeit ist von einer Krise des Naturrechts und der Verbindlichkeit von Moral geprägt. Hartung zeigt anhand der Begriffe Obligation, Schuld und Verantwortlichkeit die Wurzeln der Krise auf. Er verfolgt die Entwicklung der Begriffe in der deutschen Aufklärung, die er bis in die ersten Jahrzehnte unseres Jahrhunderts datiert: von Pufendorf bis Wolff und von Kant bis hin zu Max Weber. Es wird deutlich dass viele Probleme der neueren Ethik und Rechtsphilosophie nur aus ihrer Herkunftsgeschichte im neuzeitlichen Naturrecht verständlich zu machen sind. Obligatio: mithin ein Schlüsselwort der neuzeitlichen moralphilosophischen Begriffswelt.
  • The Creator Sovereign in Christ: Dietrich Bonhoeffer and Protestant Natural Law Retrieval

    Adam C Clark (17643900) (2016-08-19)
    This dissertation responds to recent Christian natural law retrievals by two leading evangelicals—J. Daryl Charles and David VanDrunen—with wider theological, ecumenical, and sociopolitical relevance. Charles and VanDrunen agree that the natural law is ontologically and epistemologically universal, that it provides initial knowledge of what is “good” and “right” to church and world, and that it gives societies a shared life, morality, and praxis of justice, including rights. Yet for Charles, redemption in Christ affects church and world, while for VanDrunen, the world remains in the “Noahic Covenant,” which provides only creational preservation. Charles converges with Catholic Thomism, while VanDrunen aims at “a distinctively Protestant” natural law. Our thesis: Charles and VanDrunen are right to point to the normative relevance of creation, but Dietrich Bonhoeffer shows the only life, reality, and good of church and world is the history God elects for creation in directing it in/to Christ; this makes direct appeals to natural law problematic and gives ethics and politics a different form—even as it calls into question aspects of Bonhoeffer’s approach. We pursue this thesis as follows: Chapter One outlines Charles and VanDrunen. Chapter Two demonstrates the basic thesis over against them. Chapter Three argues that Bonhoeffer’s doctrine of creation shows they do not attend properly to divine sovereignty, glorification and election while their focus on natural goods inhibits acceptance of God’s permission of suffering. Likewise, Bonhoeffer’s notion of sin problematizes their approach further, while his recognition of the unanticipatable interplay of creation, sin, and Christ challenges their treatment of sin/preservation and redemption as “principles.” Chapter Four highlights Bonhoeffer’s recognition that God commands specific histories to specific people. This, it is argued, demands a different foundation for all ethical-political discourse, even as it calls into question a reconfiguration of the “orders” concept by Bonhoeffer. Chapters Five and Six highlight Bonhoeffer’s argument that God commands a christological lifeform focused on reconciliation and loving response to divine and human Others, which enables recognition of God’s specified commands and, with a little help, fundamentally repositions the place and meaning of natural goods, rights, duties, and justice.
  • What Lawyers Can and Should Do about Mendacity in Politics

    Feldman, Heidi Li (Scholarship @ GEORGETOWN LAW, 2018-07-01)
    Donald Trump has brought new attention to the mendacity of politicians. Both major national newspapers have reported tallies of Trump's false and misleading claims. On November 14, 2017, The Washington Post reported that in the 298 days that President Trump has been president, he had made 1,628 false or misleading claims, telling them at a rate of nine per day in the thirty-five days prior to November 14. Trump, the Post reported, has made fifty false or misleading claims “that he as repeated three or more times.” The Post also catalogued scores of “flip-flops” from Trump. In general, from 2016 into 2017, journalistic political fact-checking has surged in frequency and scope. Newspapers and magazines regularly run articles, columns, and features on Trump's record-breaking lying. Though the frequency and blatancy with which Trump lies is exceptional, he is not the only elected political leader active today whose mendacity has been documented. Catalogues exist for Speaker of the House Paul Ryan, Vice President Mike Pence, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, and Senate Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi. Trump cabinet members and White House spokespeople have also come under scrutiny for their untruthfulness. Clearly, not all mendacity is of equal concern. Some mendacity is not even troubling at all. Small white lies told to protect another's feelings about a trivial matter are at one end of the scale, while serial deception to defraud investors out of their life savings or to sustain two families, each kept secret from the other, are at another. Similarly, political hype or bluster may not be troublesome, whereas lying about criminal activity or scientific fact seems clearly so. Most political mendacity falls into a middle ground. Understanding when and how middle-ground mendacity is dangerously harmful is crucial. Decrying all mendacity is overkill, yet narrowing the field is difficult. Press tallies and online databases vary in what they count as lies. Entries run the gamut of fibs to whoppers, fudges to half-truths or falsehoods. Yet even calibrated catalogues of mendacious statements from politicians do not identify when and how mendacity from politicians should alarm us. Fact-checkers spot mendacity and sometimes put it on a scale of deceptiveness, but this is not the same as identifying harmful mendacity. With mendacity in politics receiving so much attention, it is important to figure out which mendacity is dangerous and why. Lawyers, I will demonstrate, have a particular expertise in parsing mendacity. They can and should put that expertise to use in identifying the political mendacity that is particularly problematic for the health of representative democracy.
  • Utilitarianism and Christian Theology

    Vesa Hautala; Dominic Roser (St Andrews Encyclopaedia of Theology, 2023-07-01)
    Utilitarianism is one of the most straightforward ethical theories: it simply calls for the greatest welfare for the greatest number. Despite its early links to theological reasoning, this moral view has often been sharply contrasted with the outlook of Christians. This entry presents the key features and history of utilitarianism and explores its relationship to Christian theology. Utilitarianism is famous for its radical recommendations when applied to beginning and end of life issues, animal welfare, and poverty. These are discussed and contrasted with Christian approaches. The entry ends by discussing effective altruism, a movement strongly influenced by utilitarian ideas.
  • By Nature Common: Foundations for a Natural Law Theory of the Convention of Property

    Liam de los Reyes (17642934) (2021-06-09)
    Why and in what ways is it permitted to humans to own anything at all, privately or otherwise? This dissertation draws out and systematizes general principles from across the Christian tradition to answer this fundamental question. It offers, in other words, a Christian theory of property: identifying key principles from patristic discourse; how these principles are explicated and systematized in twelfth- and thirteenth-century canon lawyers and theologians; and why this tradition offers a compelling lens to interpret Catholic Social Teaching. For the Christian tradition, property is a political and only secondarily an economic institution, aimed at the achievement and preservation of political and moral ends in human social life and only secondarily at economic values like productivity, efficiency, and development. The foundational principles are consistent across Basil, Ambrose, Augustine, and Chrysostom: the Earth and all things belong to God (Psalm 24:1); God has given all things for the sustenance of each person; and property is a power of distribution and not personal use. Grounded in these principles, the scholastics hold that property is something invented by humans to preserve God’s intentions for the world. Property is, in other words, a convention, aimed at preserving the principles of natural equity and equality and the sufficiency and liberty of each person—what I call in this dissertation the natural law of common dominion. Catholic Social Teaching’s (CST) position on property suffers from a lack of clarity and clear connection to this long Christian tradition. Since Leo XIII’s use of a Lockean labor-mixing theory of property in Rerum novarum, there is a tendency to read CST on property as Lockean. In the penultimate chapter I show why Locke offers an unsuitable lens for interpreting CST: his approach is logically incoherent, conducive to imperialist thought and practice, and, contrary to the patristic and scholastic traditions, holds that property is primarily a power of personal use. In the final chapter, I offer an interpretation of CST from Rerum novarum to Fratelli tutti, showing how the theory of property I recover from early church and medieval sources can make sense of this diverse body of literature and many of its diverse commitments, from the social character of property to its commitment to the self-determination of peoples.
  • “Is“ and “ought” reconciled:The contribution of Stein’s essentialism and existentialism to postmodern ethics

    Andrews, Michael F.; Calcagno, Antonio; Wulf, Mariéle (Springer Science, 2022-03-01)
    The “is-ought”—conclusion is—according to David Hume—forbidden. But the is-ought-question rises at each moment when thinking is transferred into action: an “is” is set into being, it is preserved or destroyed. This is where ethics is needed. The good action depends on how one understands the “is”. Thomas of Aquinas considered it as the essence—and so does Edith Stein. In St. Thomas, the “ought” is given by creation; Stein gains it by taking into account the value which she reveals by an existential approach. By revealing the essence, the truth of this thing, and its existential relevance, the value, Stein justifies two major aspects which need to be regained in postmodern ethics.
  • “Is“ and “ought” reconciled:The contribution of Stein’s essentialism and existentialism to postmodern ethics

    Andrews, Michael F.; Calcagno, Antonio; Wulf, Mariéle (Springer Science, 2022-03-01)
    The “is-ought”—conclusion is—according to David Hume—forbidden. But the is-ought-question rises at each moment when thinking is transferred into action: an “is” is set into being, it is preserved or destroyed. This is where ethics is needed. The good action depends on how one understands the “is”. Thomas of Aquinas considered it as the essence—and so does Edith Stein. In St. Thomas, the “ought” is given by creation; Stein gains it by taking into account the value which she reveals by an existential approach. By revealing the essence, the truth of this thing, and its existential relevance, the value, Stein justifies two major aspects which need to be regained in postmodern ethics.
  • The Challenges of Developing Cross-Cultural Legal Ethics Education, Professional Development, and Guidance for the Legal Professions

    Genty, Philip (Scholarship Archive, 2011-01-01)
    The broad goal of this paper is to describe the need, and provide a framework, for engaging in cross-cultural conversations among lawyers, law teachers, and others, who are using legal ethics as a vehicle for improving the legal professions and the delivery of legal services. All legal cultures struggle with the question of how to educate students and lawyers to be ethical professionals and how to regulate the legal profession effectively. The purpose of the cross-cultural conversations discussed in this paper would be to develop principles of legal ethics education, professional development, and regulation of the legal professions that can be applied across cultural contexts. The paper is not primarily concerned with the ethics of transnational practice, an issue that has been analyzed very well by others. While the current U.S. ethical rules have relatively little to say about transnational practice, the Council of Bars and Law Societies of Europe (hereafter "CCBE") has dealt with this in a sustained and comprehensive manner. The CCBE has promulgated the Code of Conduct for European Lawyers and the Charter of Core Principles of the European Legal Profession. The Code of Conduct was first promulgated in 1988, while the Charter was adopted much more recently, in 2006. As of 2008, forty-one countries had signed on to the CCBE Charter and Code of Conduct. A review of national codes of legal ethics reveals the influence of the CCBE approach. There is a good deal of uniformity among these, and the CCBE Charter and Code of Conduct are apparently the models for many of the recently enacted or amended Codes.

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