- Title Pages
- Editors’ Preface
- Acknowledgments
- List of Abbreviations
- List of Contributors
- Introduction
- 1 Value: a Menu of Questions
- 2 Finnis on Well-being
- 3 Reasoning about the Human Good, and the Role of the Public Philosopher
- 4 On the Most Fundamental Principle of Morality
- 5 What is Natural Law Like?
- 6 Intention and Side Effects
- 7 Intention and Side Effects
- 8 John Finnis on Thomas Aquinas on Human Action
- 9 On Moral Philosophy and Kinds of Human Actions<sup>*</sup>
- 10 Finnis on Justice
- 11 Retributivism in the Spirit of Finnis<sup>*</sup>
- 12 The Nature of Limited Government
- 13 Pure Perfectionism and the Limits of Paternalism
- 14 ‘Lawful Mercy’ in <i>Measure for Measure</i>
- 15 The Basis for Being a Subject of Rights
- 16 Constitutional and Other Persons
- 17 Bioethics after Finnis
- 18 A New Father for the Law and Ethics of Medicine
- 19 Value, Practice, and Idea
- 20 The Irony of Law
- 21 Ideas of Easy Virtue
- 22 Law and Its Theory
- 23 Finnis on Legal and Moral Obligation
- 24 Constitutional Principle in the Laws of the Commonwealth
- 25 Intention and the Allocation of Risk
- 26 The Right to Religious Liberty and the Coercion of Belief
- 27 Natural Law and the Transcendent Source of Human Fulfillment
- 28 Reflections and Responses
- Bibliography of the Published Works of John Finnis
- Index Introductory Note
Finnis on Legal and Moral Obligation
Finnis on Legal and Moral Obligation
- Chapter:
- (p.379) 23 Finnis on Legal and Moral Obligation
- Source:
- Reason, Morality, and Law
- Author(s):
Maris Köpcke Tinturé
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
This chapter unpacks and evaluates Finnis' intriguing claim that law and legal obligation are ‘isolated’ from moral reasoning. Properly understood, Finnis' idea of law's ‘isolation’ provides a crucial complement to his general argument about the law's moral purpose. It explains the idea of law's ‘isolation’ as a combination of ideas of positivity, ease of identification, determinacy, and conclusiveness. Together, these features render a legal system uniquely capable of carrying out the complex social coordination that is required in order to promote justice in a large human community. It is therefore morally necessary that the law is thus ‘isolated’ from morality — or, put somewhat differently, it is morally necessary that legal validity not primarily turn on moral considerations. The chapter concludes by casting doubt on Finnis' view that the law does not claim to be morally obligatory.
Keywords: legal obligation, legal validity, coordination, positivity of law, isolation of law, moral claim, determinacy, conclusiveness, identification
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- Title Pages
- Editors’ Preface
- Acknowledgments
- List of Abbreviations
- List of Contributors
- Introduction
- 1 Value: a Menu of Questions
- 2 Finnis on Well-being
- 3 Reasoning about the Human Good, and the Role of the Public Philosopher
- 4 On the Most Fundamental Principle of Morality
- 5 What is Natural Law Like?
- 6 Intention and Side Effects
- 7 Intention and Side Effects
- 8 John Finnis on Thomas Aquinas on Human Action
- 9 On Moral Philosophy and Kinds of Human Actions<sup>*</sup>
- 10 Finnis on Justice
- 11 Retributivism in the Spirit of Finnis<sup>*</sup>
- 12 The Nature of Limited Government
- 13 Pure Perfectionism and the Limits of Paternalism
- 14 ‘Lawful Mercy’ in <i>Measure for Measure</i>
- 15 The Basis for Being a Subject of Rights
- 16 Constitutional and Other Persons
- 17 Bioethics after Finnis
- 18 A New Father for the Law and Ethics of Medicine
- 19 Value, Practice, and Idea
- 20 The Irony of Law
- 21 Ideas of Easy Virtue
- 22 Law and Its Theory
- 23 Finnis on Legal and Moral Obligation
- 24 Constitutional Principle in the Laws of the Commonwealth
- 25 Intention and the Allocation of Risk
- 26 The Right to Religious Liberty and the Coercion of Belief
- 27 Natural Law and the Transcendent Source of Human Fulfillment
- 28 Reflections and Responses
- Bibliography of the Published Works of John Finnis
- Index Introductory Note
