The Coerciveness of Law
Author: Grant Lamond
Publisher:
Published: 2010
Total Pages:
ISBN-13:
DOWNLOAD EBOOKOne of the central features associated with law is its coerciveness. A major source of our interest in law's coerciveness is that the use of coercion is thought to require moral justification - hence the liberal interest in the harm principle. This article seeks to contribute to the debate about the justifiable grounds for legal coercion by clarifying the ways in which law is coercive and demonstrating that coerciveness is a highly complex phenomenon. It argues that the legal authorization of physical force and sanctions, rather than the existence of enforcement institutions, is the appropriate focus for these enquiries. It considers the appropriate methodology for understanding the nature of coercion and goes on to argue that there are a group of nested conceptions of coercion which perform different roles in different contexts. The differences between these conceptions help to account for some of the disagreements over law's coerciveness. There is also an important contrast between laws which aim to coerce and those which merely have a coercive effect. All of these internal distinctions within coercion matter because they have considerable significance for the justification of coercive legal measures. Finally, it is argued that sanctions are neither necessary for the law to be coercive, nor always sufficient.
