Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-gxg78 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-25T10:27:17.357Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Justice: Distributive and Corrective

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 February 2009

W. D. Lamont
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

In this paper I shall explain what I take to be the nature of justice; and the method which I shall follow is that of attempting to infer the essential nature of justice from an examination of its actual practical operation. Perhaps the reader will be able to follow the drift of the argument more easily, and be more on his guard against possible misstatements of fact or erroneous inferences, if I mention at the outset the main conclusions to which I hope to lead him.

Type
Articles
Information
Philosophy , Volume 16 , Issue 61 , January 1941 , pp. 3 - 18
Copyright
Copyright © The Royal Institute of Philosophy 1941

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

page 4 note 1 Salmond, , Jurisprudence (8th edition), pp. 39 ffGoogle Scholar.

page 4 note 2 Ibid., pp. 58 ff.

page 5 note 1 The distinction here drawn between ‘civil’ and ‘criminal,’ while sufficiently accurate for our purposes, is not entirely correct. See Kenny, , Outlines of Criminal Law (14th edition), chap. iGoogle Scholar.

page 6 note 1 Oppenheim, , International Law, vol. ii (5th edition), p. 4 note, and p. 64Google Scholar.

page 8 note 1 This section and the following section on “Rights and Interests” are summary statements of conclusions at which I have arrived from a much more elaborate consideration of rights and duties in a work as yet unpublished.

page 8 note 2 I am aware that my view on this point is not universally accepted; but its soundness can be completely demonstrated. The argument is, however, too lengthy to be included in this paper.

page 13 note 1 Mr. Mabbott, arguing in favour of a Retributive theory of punishment, asserts (Mind, 04 1939, pp. 161–164Google Scholar) that punishment is a corollary of law-breaking, and that a legislator does not choose whether he shall punish breaches of the law. This assertion is quite inconsistent with the facts. The vast majority of ‘civil’ actions aim at proving breach of law and securing reparation, the question of punishment not being raised at all.

page 15 note 1 For somewhat more elaborate treatment of this subject—from the ethical and legal aspects—the reader should consult the excellent article by DrEwing, A. C. in Mind, 07 1927Google Scholar, and the first few chapters of Kenny's Criminal Law.

page 15 note 2 Kenny, (Criminal Law, p. 4)Google Scholar asserts that rights are not always involved, but the instances he gives are, to my mind, cases in which rights are clearly involved.