The philosophy-of-law tag has no wiki summary.
1
vote
1answer
41 views
How do philosophers distinguish between rights that beg legislation vs. those that not?
I have over the years seen podcasts or iTunes lectures from Michael Sandel's justice lectures at Harvard. He asks many profound questions. The problem I have is that most of them seem to be based ...
1
vote
1answer
75 views
Are there two fundamental views of rights?
I once saw a cartoon / infographic that attempted to explain the differences between liberals and conservatives. It had plenty of details that were subjective questions or might be said to be due to ...
1
vote
2answers
116 views
Can one ask for more than they deserve?
I would appreciate if answers can cite the individuals or religious-paradigm that derive the answer.
The concept of being 'deserving' suggested an availability, if not a right, to something. ...
3
votes
3answers
157 views
Should attempted murder be a lesser crime than murder?
It is often the case that a person convicted of attempted murder receives a lesser punishment than if they had been successful in committing the crime. As far as I am aware, there are four main ...
3
votes
1answer
79 views
Collecting any formalisations of morality
I'm collecting formalizations of "morality" of any philosophical school.
(My special wishes is anything for Kant, which I don't understand and for whom I didn't find anything seriously formal, at ...
4
votes
0answers
61 views
Is Nozick's Criticism of Rawls correct?
When Nozick says distributive justice 'marks a shift from the classical liberal notion of self ownership to a notion of property rights in others', is this a fair criticism of Rawls and distributive ...
3
votes
2answers
63 views
Violation of everyday rights or “whose right to what did I violate today?”
The idea of rights seems to be strongly, if not inextricably, connected to the idea of duties. As far as I remember in philosophy of law this is referred to as "reciprocity". If I must do something, ...
1
vote
0answers
44 views
Did Kant believe the enlightened and moral republican public could make up for legislative and executive institutions? [closed]
Kant's theoretical work Perpetual Peace could be seen as limited insofar as he didn't really provide any detailed thoughts on the legislative and executive institutions that would make international ...
3
votes
1answer
100 views
What are Kant's Permissive Laws?
My new term brings new questions, this time concerning Kant's "Perpetual Peace" (you can read most of it here).
The preliminary articles can be differentiated: All of them are prohibitive rules, but ...
1
vote
1answer
101 views
What is the intrinsic difference between freedom of speech and freedom of deeds?
What are philosophical reasons for approving of freedom of speech but not of freedom of deeds? If teasing the others by speech is allowed, why not by deeds? If freedom of deeds is wrong, then why ...
1
vote
1answer
80 views
Alternative to Illegalisation
The problem of illegalisation is that crimes have to be controlled and prevented by the state (police) and this assignment can never be concluded (of course crime will still happen and not every ...
2
votes
3answers
539 views
Is unauthorized downloading of music stealing?
On the one hand, when you download music you are merely making a copy of something. You aren't depriving someone of a physical object. You aren't really taking anything.
On the other hand, when you ...
9
votes
5answers
336 views
If the “right to life” is denied in abortion, isn't it also denied in the use of the death penalty?
Many people who support death penalty are also against abortion, and vice-versa.
What is the moral difference between the two? In both cases, isn't the "right to life" of another being violated?
...
6
votes
8answers
2k views
When is it right to break the rules? [closed]
Not really an history question but the ethics/philosophy question came about while thinking of history.
Lincoln violated the constitution a few times and although he's universally recognized as a ...
7
votes
1answer
116 views
Which if any contemporary philosophers have written about the potential negative effects of “reverse” discrimination?
In many cases when I talk about how I think, I find it useful to abstract the messy real sources of inspiration into a pure dialogue with my friend Matt. In this case, Matt and I were talking about ...
9
votes
2answers
164 views
Is it ethical for governments to compel their citizens to lead healthy lives?
Dr Peter Agre(MD) recently said this at the Lindau Meeting (Original full text from Ars Technica)
Agre also noted that many of the
biggest public health problems are a
result of lifestyle ...
7
votes
1answer
218 views
What are the fundamental philosophical questions reflected in the American legal system?
I am interested in the link between philosophy and legal systems, in particular the American legal system (and English heritage) and the underlying ideas in play.
At a high-level, it seems to me ...
6
votes
3answers
2k views
What are prominent attacks of Rawls' “veil of ignorance” argument? Which liberal philosophers have advanced it?
In John Rawls' A Theory of Justice, he argues that morally, society should be constructed politically as if we were all behind a veil of ignorance; that is, the rules and precepts of society should be ...
