Category Archives: Deontology and Moral Responsibility
Symposium: Natural Property Rights, Texas A&M Journal of Property Law (2023)
Natural Property Rights: An Introduction (Eric R Claeys) Too Simple Rules for a Complex World? Prior Appropriation Water Rights as Natural Rights (Vanessa Casado-Pérez) Balancing the Inequities in Applying Natural Property Rights to Rights in Real or Intellectual Property (Lolita Darden) Business Organizations as Natural Objects of Ownership (Kevin Douglas) How Far Does Natural Law […]
Rachael Walsh, ‘Specifying Interpersonal Responsibilities in Private Law: Property Perspectives’
ABSTRACT Recognizing Wrongs reflects an ongoing challenge within private law theory: once an ideal of interpersonal responsibility and accountability is recognised at private law’s centre, how are these dimensions of private law to be developed in a manner that does not unduly undermine systemic predictability and clarity? This article responds to this challenge from the […]
Kimberly Kessler Ferzan, ‘NDAs: A Study in Rights, Wrongs, and Civil Recourse’
ABSTRACT According to John Goldberg and Ben Zipursky (‘Goldursky’), there are two central pillars to tort law, pillars that are best explicated by civil recourse theory. Torts are legally recognized wrongs, and the power to seek redress is part of the Lockean bargain. Using the recent question of whether nondisclosure agreements (NDAs) should be permitted, […]
Symposium – Recognising Wrongs – John Goldberg and Ben Zipursky
Justifying Civil Recourse for Wrongs (Sandy Steel) Relational Wrongs vs. Wrongs Period: Personal Accountability vs. Accountability to the Moral Community (Stephen Darwall) There is Nothing Tort Law is About: Comment on Goldberg and Zipursky’s Recognizing Wrongs (David Enoch) Which Wrongs Make a Right? Goldberg and Zipursky on Tort (Jeffrey S Helmreich) Duty of Noninjury, Duty of Care, […]
Brian Quigley, ‘Equity is a Virtue’
ABSTRACT Recent years have seen contentious debate over the meaning and application of the term ‘equity’. One of President Biden’s first acts in office was to sign an executive order On Advancing Racial Equity and Support for Underserved Communities Through the Federal Government. It defines equity as ‘the consistent and systemic fair, just, and impartial […]
Verónica Rodríguez-Blanco, ‘Revising the Puzzle of Negligence: Transforming the Citizen towards Civic Maturity’
ABSTRACT Corrective justice theorists tell us that to resort to features or characteristics alien to the internal structure of corrective justice and the law of negligence undermines the intelligibility of the phenomena, ie, the interaction between the plaintiff and the defendant. Like friendship or love which can only be understood by reasons of love or […]
Steven Vaughan, ‘Existential Ethics: Thinking Hard About Lawyer Responsibility for Clients’ Environmental Harms’
ABSTRACT This paper challenges the conventional understanding among many legal ethicists that environmental harm can be a necessary, if regrettable, collateral effect of lawyerly work. It argues that lawyers sometimes do things that cost society too much and that legal ethics (being the rules of ethical conduct set out by regulators of lawyers and broader […]
Lucia Ann Silecchia, ‘Property and Moral Responsibilities: Some Reflections on Modern Catholic Social Theory’
ABSTRACT Professor Eric Claeys’ forthcoming book, Natural Property Rights, offers a deep perspective on property rights principles. However, while the law tends to focus – as I believe it must – on property rights, rights are inextricably intertwined with duties or responsibilities. The natural rights framework for property is, as Claeys says, ‘good enough for […]
Fiorella Tomassini, ‘Property and the Will: Kant and Achenwall on Ownership Rights’
ABSTRACT This article examines Kant’s theory of property through a comparative analysis of Gottfried Achenwall’s justification of ownership rights. I argue that at the core of Achenwall’s and Kant’s understanding of ownership rights lies the idea that rights are to be acquired through a juridical act (factum iuridicum, rechtlichen Act) of the will. However, while […]
Sandy Steel, ‘Deterrence in Private Law’
ABSTRACT Non-consequentialist justifications of private law liability foreground the role of the law in setting out, part-constituting, and providing enforcement of interpersonal moral rights and duties at the suit of right-holders. The justificatory role of deterrence is either explicitly rejected or hardly mentioned. The impression given is that deterrence is somehow necessarily inconsistent with the […]