Skip to main content Accessibility help

We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.

Close cookie message
×
Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-lnqnp Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-19T13:07:26.325Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

I - Settling Moral Controversy

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 June 2012

Larry Alexander  and
Emily Sherwin
Larry Alexander
Affiliation:
University of San Diego School of Law
Emily Sherwin
Affiliation:
Cornell University Law School, New York
Get access

Summary

Settlement

The need for legal reasoning comes about when members of a community confer authority on certain individuals to settle moral controversies. The controversies that concern us arise in a community whose members agree on moral values at a fairly high level of generality and accept these values as guides for their own action. Individuals who are fundamentally like-minded and well intentioned may nevertheless differ about the specific implications of moral values, or they may be uncertain about the best ways to realize shared values. Recognizing that controversies of this kind are inevitable, the community can reduce the moral costs of disagreement and uncertainty by delegating a power of settlement to a chosen authority.

Settlement, as we use the term, is not simply choice of a solution. It entails reasoning, by which we mean conscious, language-based deliberation about reasons for the choice ultimately made. The members of our imagined community have not agreed to flip a coin; they have selected a human authority to translate the values that serve as reasons for action within the community into solutions to practical problems. Given the flaws of human reasoning, the solutions the authority endorses may not be justified in the sense that they are morally correct. But, because the authority's task is to settle what the community's values require in practice, its conclusions must be susceptible to justificatory argument. They cannot refer to intuition alone.

Type
Chapter
Information
Demystifying Legal Reasoning , pp. 9 - 26
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2008

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Alexander, Larry and Sherwin, Emily, The Rule of Rules: Morality, Rules, and the Dilemmas of Law 11–15 (Durham: Duke University Press 2001)CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Raz, Joseph, Ethics in the Public Domain 187–92 (Oxford: Clarendon Press 1994)Google Scholar
Eisenberg, Melvin Aron, The Nature of the Common Law 4–7 (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press 1988)Google Scholar
Kavka, Gregory S., Why Even Morally Perfect People Would Need Government, 12 Soc. Phil. & Pol'y 1 (1995).Google Scholar
Sloman, Steven A., Two Systems of Reasoning, in Heuristics and Biases: The Psychology of Intuitive Judgment 379–96 (Gilovich, Thomas, Griffin, Dale, and Kahneman, Daniel, eds., Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 2002)Google Scholar
Haidt, Jonathan, The Emotional Dog and Its Rational Tail: A Social Intuitionist Approach to Moral Judgment, 4 Psychological Review 814, 818 (2001)Google Scholar
Blackburn, Simon, Think 193–232 (Oxford: Oxford University Press 1999)Google Scholar
Schauer, Frederick, Playing by the Rules: A Philosophical Examination of Rule-Based Decision-Making in Life and Law 53–54 (Oxford: Clarendon Press 1991)Google Scholar
Raz, Joseph, The Morality of Freedom 57–62 (Oxford: Clarendon Press 1986)Google Scholar
Raz, Joseph, The Authority of Law 16–19, 22–23, 30–33 (Oxford: Clarendon Press 1979).Google Scholar
Alexander, and Sherwin, , The Deceptive Nature of Rules, 142 U. Pa. L. Rev. 1191, 1192–93 (1994)Google Scholar
Schauer, Frederick, Prescriptions in Three Dimensions, 82 Iowa L. Rev. 911, 916–18 (1997)Google Scholar
Hurd, Heidi M., Moral Combat 214–21 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 1999)CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Campbell, Tom D., The Legal Theory of Ethical Positivism 6, 50, 53, 58 (Aldershot: Dartmouth Publishing 1996)Google Scholar
Coleman, Jules L., Authority and Reason, in The Autonomy of Law: Essays on Legal Positivism 304–5 (George, Robert P., ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press 1996)Google Scholar
Regan, Donald H., Authority and Value: Reflections on Raz's Morality of Freedom, 62 S. Calif. L. R. 995, 1006–10 (1989)Google Scholar
Postema, Gerald J., Coordination and Convention at the Foundation of Law, 11 J. Legal Stud. 165, 172–86 (1982).Google Scholar
Hart, H. L. A., The Concept of Law 78–79, 89–96 (Oxford: Clarendon Press 1961).Google Scholar
Sunstein, Cass R., Legal Reasoning and Political Conflict 27–28 (New York: Oxford University Press 1996)Google Scholar
Kaplow, Louis, Rules versus Standards: An Economic Analysis, 42 Duke L.J. 557, 560–62 (1992)Google Scholar
Powers, William, Structural Aspects of the Impact of Law on Moral Duty within Utilitarianism and Social Contract Theory, 26 U.C.L.A. L. Rev. 1263, 1270–93 (1979)Google Scholar
Ehrlich, Isaac and Posner, Richard A, An Economic Analysis of Legal Rulemaking, 3 J. Legal Stud. 257, 261–71 (1974)Google Scholar
Fumerton, Richard A., Reason and Morality: A Defense of the Perspective 208–23, 234–39 (Ithaca: Cornell University Press 1990)Google Scholar
Hurd, Heidi M., Challenging Authority, 100 Yale L.J. 1011 (1991)Google Scholar
Kavka, Gregory, The Toxin Puzzle, 43 Analysis 33 (1983)Google Scholar
Kavka, Gregory, Some Paradoxes of Deterrence, 75 J. Phil. 285 (1978)Google Scholar
Shapiro, Scott J., The Difference That Rules Make, in Analyzing Law 33, 45–54 (Bix, Brian, ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press 1998)Google Scholar
Gauthier, David, Commitment and Choice: An Essay on the Rationality of Plans, in Ethics, Rationality, and Economic Behavior 217 (Farina, Francesco, Hahn, Frank, and Vanncucci, Stefano, eds., Oxford: Clarendon Press 1996)Google Scholar
McClennon, Edward F., Pragmatic Rationality and Rules, 26 Phil. and Pub. Aff. 210 (1997)Google Scholar
Murphy, Mark C., Surrender of Judgment and the Consent Theory of Political Authority, 16 Law and Phil. 115 (1997).Google Scholar
Alexander, Larry, The Gap, 14 Harv. J. L. & Pub. Pol. 695 (1991)Google Scholar
Schauer, Frederick, Rules and the Rule of Law, 14 Harv. J. L. & Pub. Pol. 645, 676 n. 66 (1991)Google Scholar
Postema, Gerald J., Positivism, I Presume? … Comments on Schauer's Rules and the Rule of Law, 14 Harv. J. L. & Pub. Pol. 797, 815–16 (1991).Google Scholar
Hurd, Heidi M., Justifiably Punishing the Justified, 90 Mich. L. Rev. 2203, 2279–334 (1992).Google Scholar
Greenawalt, Kent, Law and Objectivity 34–89 (New York: Oxford University Press 1992)Google Scholar
Coleman, Jules L. and Leiter, Brian, Determinacy, Objectivity, and Authority, 142 U. Pa. L. Rev.549 (1992)Google Scholar
Solum, Lawrence B., On the Indeterminacy Crisis: Critiquing Critical Dogma, 54 U. Chi. L. Rev. 462 (1987).Google Scholar
Altman, Andrew, Legal Realism, Critical Legal Studies and Dworkin, 15 Phil. & Pub. Aff. 205 (1986)Google Scholar
D'Amato, Anthony, Pragmatic Indeterminacy, 85 Northwestern U. L. Rev. 171–74 (1990)Google Scholar
Kairys, David, Law and Politics, 52 G.W. L. Rev. 243 (1984)Google Scholar
Singer, Joseph, The Player and the Cards: Nihilism and Legal Theory, 94 Yale L.J. 1 (1984)Google Scholar
Weinreb, Lloyd L., Legal Reason: The Use of Analogy in Legal Argument 88–91, 103–5 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 2005)CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Burton, Steven J., An Introduction to Law and Legal Reasoning 18–20, 44, 52–57 (Boston: Little, Brown 1995)Google Scholar
Llewellyn, Karl, The Bramble Bush: On Our Law and Its Study 72–75 (Dobbs Ferry, N.Y.: Oceana Publishing 1960)Google Scholar
Llewellyn, Karl N., The Common Law Tradition: Deciding Appeals 11–12, 178–235 (Boston: Little, Brown 1960).Google Scholar
Kripke, Saul A., Wittgenstein on Rules and Private Language: An Elementary Exposition (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press 1982)Google Scholar
Radin, Margaret Jane, Reconsidering the Rule of Law, 69 B.U. L. Rev. 781, 797–811 (1989)Google Scholar
Westen, Peter, The Logic of Consent: The Diversity and Deceptiveness of Consent as a Defense to Criminal Conduct (Aldershot: Ashgate 2004)Google Scholar
Wertheimer, Alan, Consent to Sexual Relations (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 2003).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fuller, Lon L., Positivism & Fidelity to Law: A Reply to Professor Hart, 71 Harv. L. Rev. 630, 663–69 (1958).Google Scholar
Bix, Brian H., Natural Law: The Modern Tradition, in Oxford Handbook of Jurisprudence and Philosophy of Law 61 (Coleman, Jules and Shapiro, Scott, eds., New York: Oxford University Press 2002)Google Scholar
Perry, Stephen R., Interpretation and Methodology, in Law and Interpretation: Essays in Legal Philosophy 97 (Marmor, Andrei, ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press 1995).Google Scholar

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure [email protected] is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×