Administrative / Constitutional Law

Law is a Moral Practice

By Scott Hershovitz
Harvard University Press January 2024

Specifications

ISBN-13
9780674258556
Publisher
Harvard University Press
Publication
January 2024
Format
Hardback

Details

A powerful argument for the essential role of morality in law, getting at the heart of key debates in public life.

What is law? And how does it relate to morality? It’s common to think that law and morality are different ways of regulating our lives. But Scott Hershovitz says that this is a mistake: law is a part of our moral lives. It’s a tool we use to adjust our moral relationships. The legal claims we advance in court, Hershovitz argues, are moral claims. And our legal conflicts are moral conflicts.

Law Is a Moral Practice supplies fresh answers to fundamental questions about the nature of law and helps us better appreciate why we disagree about law so deeply. Reviving a neglected tradition of legal thought most famously associated with Ronald Dworkin, Hershovitz engages with important legal and political controversies of our time, including recent debates about constitutional interpretation and the obligations of citizens and officials to obey the law.

Leavened by entertaining personal stories, guided by curiosity rather than ideology, moving beyond entrenched dichotomies like the opposition between positivism and natural law, Law Is a Moral Practice is a thought-provoking investigation of the philosophical issues behind real-world legal debates.

Scott Hershovitz is Thomas G. and Mabel Long Professor of Law at the University of Michigan, where he directs the Law and Ethics Program. He served as a law clerk for Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg of the U.S. Supreme Court and is the author of Nasty, Brutish, and Short: Adventures in Philosophy with My Kids, an NPR Best Book of 2022.

Table of Contents

Introduction: That Is Not a Rule
1. A Moral Practice
2. A Tale of Two Textualists
3. Not a Set of Norms
4. An Immoral Practice?
5. Stop! In the Name of Law
6. Roy Moore and the Rule of Law
7. Lawyers and Morality
Conclusion: Law Is a Moral Practice
Appendix: Frequently Asked Questions
Notes
Acknowledgments
Index
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