Against Obligation
Against Obligation

Author: Abner S. Greene

Publisher: Harvard University Press

Published: 2012-04-25

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13: 9780674064416

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Do citizens of a nation such as the United States have a moral duty to obey the law? Do officials, when interpreting the Constitution, have an obligation to follow what that text meant when ratified? To follow precedent? To follow what the Supreme Court today says the Constitution means? These are questions of political obligation (for citizens) and interpretive obligation (for anyone interpreting the Constitution, often officials). Abner Greene argues that such obligations do not exist. Although citizens should obey some laws entirely, and other laws in some instances, no one has put forth a successful argument that citizens should obey all laws all the time. Greene’s case is not only “against” obligation. It is also “for” an approach he calls “permeable sovereignty”: all of our norms are on equal footing with the state’s laws. Accordingly, the state should accommodate religious, philosophical, family, or tribal norms whenever possible. Greene shows that questions of interpretive obligation share many qualities with those of political obligation. In rejecting the view that constitutional interpreters must follow either prior or higher sources of constitutional meaning, Greene confronts and turns aside arguments similar to those offered for a moral duty of citizens to obey the law.

On Political Obligation
On Political Obligation

Author: Judith N. Shklar

Publisher: Yale University Press

Published: 2019-03-26

Total Pages: 264

ISBN-13: 0300214995

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A compelling set of lectures on political obligation that contributes to ongoing debates in political theory and intellectual history This stimulating collection of lectures by the late Judith Shklar on political obligation is paired with a scholarly introduction that offers an overview of her life, illuminates the connections among her teaching, research, and publications, and explains why her lectures still resonate with us and contribute to current debates in political theory and intellectual history.

Against Obligation
Against Obligation

Author: Abner Greene

Publisher: Harvard University Press

Published: 2012-04-13

Total Pages: 346

ISBN-13: 0674065174

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Do citizens of a nation such as the United States have a moral duty to obey the law? Do officials, when interpreting the Constitution, have an obligation to follow what that text meant when ratified? To follow precedent? To follow what the Supreme Court today says the Constitution means?These are questions of political obligation (for citizens) and interpretive obligation (for anyone interpreting the Constitution, often officials). Abner Greene argues that such obligations do not exist. Although citizens should obey some laws entirely, and other laws in some instances, no one has put forth a successful argument that citizens should obey all laws all the time. Greene's case is not only "against" obligation. It is also "for" an approach he calls "permeable sovereignty": all of our norms are on equal footing with the state's laws. Accordingly, the state should accommodate religious, philosophical, family, or tribal norms whenever possible. Greene shows that questions of interpretive obligation share many qualities with those of political obligation. In rejecting the view that constitutional interpreters must follow either prior or higher sources of constitutional meaning, Greene confronts and turns aside arguments similar to those offered for a moral duty of citizens to obey the law.

Model Rules of Professional Conduct
Model Rules of Professional Conduct

Author: American Bar Association. House of Delegates

Publisher: American Bar Association

Published: 2007

Total Pages: 216

ISBN-13: 9781590318737

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The Model Rules of Professional Conduct provides an up-to-date resource for information on legal ethics. Federal, state and local courts in all jurisdictions look to the Rules for guidance in solving lawyer malpractice cases, disciplinary actions, disqualification issues, sanctions questions and much more. In this volume, black-letter Rules of Professional Conduct are followed by numbered Comments that explain each Rule's purpose and provide suggestions for its practical application. The Rules will help you identify proper conduct in a variety of given situations, review those instances where discretionary action is possible, and define the nature of the relationship between you and your clients, colleagues and the courts.

Is There a Duty to Obey the Law?
Is There a Duty to Obey the Law?

Author: Christopher Wellman

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2005-07-25

Total Pages: 216

ISBN-13: 1316582965

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The central question in political philosophy is whether political states have the right to coerce their constituents and whether citizens have a moral duty to obey the commands of their state. In this 2005 book, Christopher Heath Wellman and A. John Simmons defend opposing answers to this question. Wellman bases his argument on samaritan obligations to perform easy rescues, arguing that each of us has a moral duty to obey the law as his or her fair share of the communal samaritan chore of rescuing our compatriots from the perils of the state of nature. Simmons counters that this, and all other attempts to explain our duty to obey the law, fail. He defends a position of philosophical anarchism, the view that no existing state is legitimate and that there is no strong moral presumption in favor of obedience to, or compliance with, any existing state.

Understanding Moral Obligation
Understanding Moral Obligation

Author: Robert Stern

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2011-12-15

Total Pages: 293

ISBN-13: 1139505017

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In many histories of modern ethics, Kant is supposed to have ushered in an anti-realist or constructivist turn by holding that unless we ourselves 'author' or lay down moral norms and values for ourselves, our autonomy as agents will be threatened. In this book, Robert Stern challenges the cogency of this 'argument from autonomy', and claims that Kant never subscribed to it. Rather, it is not value realism but the apparent obligatoriness of morality that really poses a challenge to our autonomy: how can this be accounted for without taking away our freedom? The debate the book focuses on therefore concerns whether this obligatoriness should be located in ourselves (Kant), in others (Hegel) or in God (Kierkegaard). Stern traces the historical dialectic that drove the development of these respective theories, and clearly and sympathetically considers their merits and disadvantages; he concludes by arguing that the choice between them remains open.

On Constitutional Disobedience
On Constitutional Disobedience

Author: Louis Michael Seidman

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2012

Total Pages: 175

ISBN-13: 0199898278

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In On Constitutional Disobedience, leading constitutional scholar Louis Michael Seidman explains why constitutional disobedience may well produce a better politics and considers the shape that such disobedience might take. First, though, he stresses that is worth remembering the primary goals of the original Constitution's authors, many of which were unseemly both then and now. Should we really feel obligated to defend our electoral college or various other features that arguably lead to unjust results? Yet many of our political debates revolve around constitutional features that no one loves but which everyone feels obligated to defend. After walking through the various defenses put forth by proponents of the US Constitutional system, Seidman shows why none of them hold up. The solution, he claims, is to abandon our loyalty to many of the document's requirements and instead embrace the Constitution as a 'poetic' vision of a just society. Lest we worry that forsaking the Constitution will result in anarchy, we only need to remember Great Britain, which functions very effectively without a written constitution. If we were to do this, we could design sensible institutions that fit our own era and craft solutions that have the support of today's majorities. Seidman worries that if we continue to embrace the anachronistic commands of a centuries-old document, our political and institutional dysfunction will only increase. The answer is not to abandon the Constitution in its entirety, but to treat it as an inspiration while disobeying the many particulars that deserve to go into history's dustbin.

Law, Obligation, Community
Law, Obligation, Community

Author: Daniel Matthews

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2018-06-27

Total Pages: 325

ISBN-13: 1351403699

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Against an ever-expanding and diversifying ‘rights talk’, this book re-opens the question of obligation from not only legal but also ethical, sociological and political perspectives. Its premise is that obligation has a primacy ahead of rights, because rights attach to practices and modes of being that are already saturated with obligations. Obligations thus lie at the core not just of law but of community. Yet the distinctive meanings, range and situations of obligation have tended to remain under-theorised in legal scholarship. In response, this book examines the sense in which we are multiply ‘bound beings’, to law and legal institutions, as much as we are to place, community, memory and the various social institutions that give shape to collective life. Sharing this set of concerns, each of the international group of scholars contributing to this volume traces the specificity of the binding force of obligations, their techniques and modes of expression, as well as their centrally important role in giving form to lawful relations. Together they provide an innovative and challenging contribution to legal scholarship: one that will also be of relevance to those working in politics, philosophy and social theory.

Against Ethics
Against Ethics

Author: John D. Caputo

Publisher: Indiana University Press

Published: 1993-10-22

Total Pages: 304

ISBN-13: 025311487X

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A brilliant and witty postmodern critique of ethics, framed as a contemporary restaging of Kierkegaard’s Fear and Trembling. John D. Caputo undertakes a passionate, poetic, and satiric search for the basis of an ethics in the postmodern situation. Restaging Kierkegaard’s Fear and Trembling, Caputo defends the notion of obligation without ethics, of responsibility without the support of ethical foundations. Retelling the story of Abraham and Isaac, he strikes the pose of a postmodern-day Johannes de Silentio, accompanied by communications from such startling figures as Johanna de Silentio, Felix Sineculpa, and Magdalena de la Cruz. In dialogue with the thought of Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, Derrida, and Lyotard, Caputo forges a challenging, original account of what is possible and what is not possible for a continentalist ethics today. “Against Ethics is a bold work. . . . A counterethics whose multiple voices will be heard long after the trivializing arguments of many analytic ethicists have vanished and the arcane formulations of many postmoderns have been jettisoned.” —Edith Wyschogrod “Caputo provides a brilliant new analysis of the limits of ethics. . . . Essential reading for anyone concerned with the philosophical issues raised in postmodernity.” —Drucilla Cornell “One of the most important works on philosophical ethics written in recent years. . . . Caputo speaks with a passion and concern that are rare in academic philosophy.” —Mark C. Taylor “Against Ethics is beautifully written, clever, learned, thought-provoking, and even inspiring.” —Theological Studies “Writing in the form of his ideas, Caputo offers the reader a truly exquisite reading experience. . . . His iconic style mirrors a truly refreshing honesty that draws the reader in to play.” —Quarterly Journal of Speech

God and Moral Obligation
God and Moral Obligation

Author: C. Stephen Evans

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2013-02-28

Total Pages: 210

ISBN-13: 0199696683

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C. Stephen Evans defends the claim that moral obligations are best understood as divine commands or requirements; hence an important part of morality depends on God. God's requirements are communicated in a variety of ways, including conscience, and that natural law ethics and virtue ethics provide complementary perspectives to this view.