Legal Studies

Morality and the Nature of Law explores the conceptual relationship between morality and the criteria that determine what counts as law in a given society the criteria of legal validity. Is it necessary condition for a legal system to include moral criteria of legal validity? Is it even possible for a legal system to have moral criteria of legal validity?The book considers the views of natural law theorists ranging from Blackstone to Dworkin and rejects them, arguing that it is not conceptually necessary that the criteria of legal validity include moral norms. Further, it rejects the exclusive positivist view, arguing instead that it is conceptually possible for the criteria of validity to include moral norms. In the process of considering such questions, this book considers Raz's views concerning the nature of authority and Shapiro's views about the guidance function of law, which have been thought to repudiate the conceptual possibility of moral criteria of legal validity.

Should the criminal law be used to deter and punish corruption in politics: from employing family members at public expense to improper spending on elections, lobbying, and cronyism? How did so many MPs avoid facing charges after the 2009 government expenses scandal? In this book, Jeremy Horder tackles these questions and more. As well as offering the first treatment of the history, philosophy, and politics of the application of the offence of misconduct in office to Members of Parliament in England and Wales, Horder explains how political corruption might be dealt with in future, and how politicians could be held accountable for their actions so that they are deterred from betraying the public's trust. Use of the criminal law should not be the sole or even the main way to remedy all corruption in politics. Nevertheless, for too long the offence of misconduct in a public office has had an ambiguous status in the political realm. If we are to preserve the good health of government it must be seen as a constitutional fundamental.

This book examines ethics at the intersection of law and justice. If law and justice are concerned with collectively establishing the general terms on which the plurality called "we" share the earth as social beings, then ethics concerns the individual Self's particular moral relationship with the Other. Law, the acknowledged offspring of politics, represents the kind of might that most people accept as legitimate, at least most of the time. Justice, on the other hand, is supposed to vigilantly stand guard over law: to protect us against its biases and excesses, or, at the very least, to rise up and reproach the law whenever it permits or encourages injustice. But what if the belief that a particular legally-authorized state of affairs is "just" - a common enough feeling, especially amongst the privileged - or even "unjust" and in need of correction, were itself in need of a vigilant guardian? This book argues that ethics can and should stand guard over whatever image of justice and/or just law one happens to believe in.

As the legal profession undergoes structural changes, longstanding principles of ethics still govern the day-to-day lives of practicing lawyers. This new Hornbook on professional responsibility provides both a snapshot of ongoing systemic changes and a thorough examination of the fundamentals of lawyer and judicial ethics. As a multi-dimensional work by scholarly experts in several fields, the Hornbook (1) begins with the changing environment in which legal services are provided in the modern economy; (2) continues with a theoretical grounding of legal ethics in moral philosophy; (3) offers empirical evidence and discussion about professional formation and moral development; (4) provides a comprehensive analysis of the law of lawyer ethics; (5) includes a rich discussion of the modern law of legal malpractice, and (6) concludes with exploration of the rules of judicial ethics.