Law “at its core”
In a recent thread, commenter “Rufus T. Firefly” has made an interesting point about abortion:
…[A]t its core it’s not a legal or political issue. I hate that our society has turned it into a political war with slogans, chants and parades.
I agree that “at its core” it’s not a primarily or basically legal or political issue. But that’s true of just about all the big legal questions except procedural matters (and even some of them represent larger philosophical issues).
When I was in law school so many years ago, my favorite course was something called “Philosophy of Law.” It was a new name for a course that in olden times was required but now was optional, previously known as “Jurisprudence.” It was a course that stepped back from the finer points of statutes and cases and looked at the underpinnings of our legal system and others around the world. It not only was of intense interest to me, but it was the only course in law school that I felt that way about.
That was one of the reasons I never became a lawyer; I realized that I was temperamentally unsuited for it. I couldn’t figure out a way to parlay an interest in “Philosophy of Law” into anything else besides becoming a law professor, and for a host of reasons that was off the agenda for me.
I didn’t foresee an activity known as “blogging,” but here we are.
Law is a system whereby a society tries to make rules to deal with things that sometimes can be extremely difficult to make decisions about, issues that often have very deep philosophical underpinnings. Whether there should be a presumption of guilt or a presumption of innocence is one. What constitutes murder is another: when is murder not murder but self-defense, are there mitigating circumstances and what might they be, does intent matter and when, and even what constitutes a human life and when does it begin? That last one, of course, affects abortion law.
The answers a person – and ultimately a society – might give depend on a host of things that are not law-related, although they are expressed though approval or disapproval of a certain law or a certain bill or support for a certain candidate or certain court decision. Politics and law are the practical expressions of the philosophical and even spiritual viewpoints people hold, and the codification thereof within a society.
And therein is one of the problems with “ multiculturalism “. When their is vast differences within the “ philosophical and even spiritual viewpoints” of the people, it is hard to find common ground.
While one of the most obvious clashes would be between Western Democratic societies and Islamic law and culture the greater issue comes from within, when a significant portion of the population rapidly rejects the very notions that were once considered common ground.
And then those same people, who have made a hard left turn, accuse people who have not moved of being the “ extremist” .
I thought the whole point of the law, or the philosophy was to keep society “fair” and consistent. IE people should be able to expect that whatever the rules are that the rules are the same for everybody and that you don’t get treated differently by the legal system because of who you are or if you’re popular or not. That way lies madness and revolution when droves of people get sick of being treated differently because they don’t have the right friends. I know, in reality people are treated differently but the hope is everyday we get closer to the ideal.
I can understand your fascination with Philosophy of Law. Because I was trained as a historian, I learned over the years about a number of different legal systems (and associated philosophies), beginning with the Law of Moses (which viewed transgressions as offenses against God as well as other humans) and moving along through Roman law (from the Twelve Tables up through Justinian’s Corpus Juris Civilis), English common law (the source of our own legal system), and the French Code Napoléon— which still influences civil law in Louisiana– no other U.S. state can say that! I made the same decision you did– I don’t have the temperament to become a practicing lawyer– but I have no regrets about studying the history of law. It gave me a wider perspective that helps to keep me (relatively) calm amid the current culture war’s preoccupation with legislation.
“It was a course that stepped back from the finer points of statutes and cases and looked at the underpinnings of our legal system and others around the world. It not only was of intense interest to me, but it was the only course in law school that I felt that way about.”
Metaphysics is always the first question. What is foundational? What are the baseline assumptions? From where do we begin the conversation? Too often we get our knickers in a twist about conclusions, logical outcomes etc…but metaphysics is always first & often ignored.
Neo…I don’t know you from Adam’s house cat outside your writing…but you do a fine job of digging back to that.
“It was a course that stepped back from the finer points of statutes and cases and looked at the underpinnings of our legal system” neo
The left is intent upon divorcing “the underpinnings of our legal system” from “the finer points of statutes and cases”.
‘Do What Thou Wilt Shall Be The Whole Of The Law’ the satanic mantra created by the early-1900s occultist, Aleister Crowley.
“The 20th century Christian philosopher, Francis Schaeffer, noted in 1978 that when the natural cohesion of the Christian consensus in society disappears, the chaos that results will ultimately require the imposition of an external control by a manipulative elite. And yes, he used the term ‘Technocrat’ to describe such an elite.”
We have another story concerning these variously intertwined subject matters — politics, pieties, faiths, nomos [law, custom, ways of life], human governance, on the one hand . . . and on the other hand, philosophy, and the things philosophers do, such as the study of nature [phusikes], first philosophy [Aristotelian so-called “metaphysics”, meaning by that the study to be taken up by students of Aristotle after [meta] physics, or, again in another subject, the study of human nature, with a particular emphasis on politics itself, as exhibited in what is betimes referred to as Socrates’ second sailing. This latter was primarily the concern of Socrates as well as of his students Plato and Xenophon.
Socrates was executed you know. This event (along with many others, I suppose), in this second story I here attempt to convey is crucial to its telling: Socrates’ death at the decision of his jurors indicates an irreconcilable difference between the city and philosophy. They are not compatible, to put it somewhat starkly. At war? Well, sort of so.
We moderns tend to have forgotten this story, and that for a number of reasons . . . but only “tend”, I say, since the account of the story is still around, available to our gaze if we choose to see it. One such place is in Allan Bloom’s translation of Plato’s Republic, along with Bloom’s interpretive essay there. There are many other such places.
Anyhow, I don’t wish to bore anyone any further with this, but thought it worth a merely suggestive initial presentation.
John Guilfoyle, I thought I was the only one to know about Bartholomeow, Adam’s orange and white tomcat, that turned in Lilith, for the real piece of work that she was.
Neo: Great post (as always). Your take on Jurisprudence is much appreciated; my own hankerings were not dissimilar. We all seek order and, not quite the same thing, repose: where all the laws harmonize and rest on solid ground. But the real world demands trimming and jamming and compromise; and too many lawyers.
PS: Very glad your eye is working better. Brilliant and heartfelt description of how the world came back into focus.
GB – Many thanks. I had forgotten that bit of Crowley…again proves the old, “When people stop believing in God they don’t believe in nothing, they’ll believe in anything.”
“…when the natural cohesion of the Christian consensus in society disappears, the chaos that results…” Welcome to 2022.
SCOTTtheBADGER,
Bartholomeow? Lillith?
You lost me. Please enlighten.
“…Technocrat…”
Related:
“How Disagreement Became ‘Disinformation’;
“America’s enlightened influencers mistake their interpretations of the facts for the facts themselves, giving themselves an excuse for censorship.”—
https://www.wsj.com/articles/how-disagreement-became-disinformation-misinformation-nina-jankowicz-governance-board-czar-11652450632?mod=opinion_lead_pos5
H/T Instapundit
Key graf (of many):
“…One of the great ironies of American political life in the 2020s is that the people most exercised about the spread of false information are frequently peddlers of it. Their lack of self-understanding arises from the belief that the primary factor separating their side from the other side isn’t ideology, principle or moral vision but information—raw data requiring no interpretation and no argument over its importance. It is a hopelessly simpleminded worldview—no one apprehends reality without the aid of interpretive lenses. And it is a dangerous one….”
The left – anyone from the center out that direction – is sure that ‘American Democracy’ is dying. They are really upset with the democrats in Washington DC who have refused (been unable) to turn all of America into a giant ‘woke’
“safe space”.
I’ll save you the pain of reading the posts. But I can provide the web address if anyone wants it.
…and when the “centre cannot hold”….
From the “There’s-a-Time-to-Destroy-And-a-TIme-to-Obliterate” File:
“Here’s How Biden’s Radical Rewrite Of Key Civil Rights Law Will Fundamentally Change America”—
https://libertyunyielding.com/2022/05/14/heres-how-bidens-radical-rewrite-of-key-civil-rights-law-will-fundamentally-change-america/
H/T Blazingcatfur blog.
Key grafs:
‘The Department of Education is expected to roll out new Title IX rules that will expand the definition of sex to include gender identity;
‘“What we saw with Lia Thomas at the NCAA Championships will now be happening at schools and colleges across the country,” Heritage Foundation legal fellow Sarah Perry said.;
‘Through the Title IX rule change, the Biden administration aims “to change culture, not just discriminatory treatment,” said Max Eden, a research fellow for the American Enterprise Institute.’
Apparently, there’s not quite enough hate, litigiousness, dismay, confusion, desperation, violence and lawlessness in “Biden”‘s America. Gotta ramp it up!!
Article IV., section 4:
Heaven forfend they should ever trouble themselves to read the document.
might as well be brandishing a cross in the face of a vampire, they don’t believe in check and balances on their authority,
its just a coincidence they’ve known about the shooter since last june,
https://t.me/iceagefarmer/2802
Funny how the resources are available to track parents at school board meetings and incarcerate trespassers from January 6, 2020, but they seem utterly unable to follow through with the left wing accused murderer of Buffalo, potential felons (current SCOTUS justices protestors), or the hundreds of BLM/Antifa from Portland OR. A profound mystery of priorities.
much like the Russian Okrana, which our Organs are converging toward, which failed to spot the assassin of Stolypin, Soltzhenisyn, suspected it was enemy action not accident, which enabled Azev’s wing of the Social Revolutionaries, it was about as much as settling scores, because I am a masochist, I skimmed through Secretary Asper’s cya disguised as a memoir, one is struck so called Antifa, is only mentioned once in passing, and with the passing disdain MSNBC contributors would consider their reign of fire,
Yes, it is absolutely maddening (disheartening? demoralizing? sickening? disgusting?) how much the military elites are complicit in “Biden”‘s plot to “transform” the country…(not to mention the DOJ/FBI, CIA, etc…).