Legal Paternalism and Legal Moralism: Devlin, Hart and Ten*

Abstract
H. L. A. Hart in his Law, Liberty, and Morality (1963) defended the view that legal paternalism and legal moralism can be clearly distinguished from each other. Hart also stated that while legal moralism is always unacceptable, paternalistic laws are often justifiable. In this paper it is argued that Hart held the right view for the wrong reasons. Hart defended legal paternalism by claiming, against J. S. Mill, that for various psychological reasons individuals do not know their own interests best. It will be shown in the paper that if this view is taken, it is impossible to reject legal moralism. The fact that paternalism is sometimes justifiable while moralism is not can be more firmly founded on a distinction made by C. L. Ten (1971). Ten's point is that in matters which concern only the individuals themselves, their actions cannot be legitimately restricted by appeals to the consequences of their action alone. Paternalistic control can be justified only if the decision-making abilities of the controlled individual are temporarily diminished.     

Hart,Raz and the Concept of a Legal System

An underpinning assumption of modern legal positivism isthat the question of how legal standards differ fromnormative standards in other spheres of human thoughtis resolved via the concept of a legal system and thenotion of internal logic, through use of contextualdefinition. This approach is seen to lead to anuntenable form of structuralism altogether atodds with the positivist's intentions. An alternativestrategy is offered which allows the positivists toretain their deepest insights, though at a price.     

法律实证主义与审议式民主——从哈特到哈贝马斯的法律现代性省思

本文通过对哈特<法律的概念>一书所隐含的、由拉兹最先发掘和发展出来的,通过"权威"和法律渊源论证法律实证主义基本立场的理论进路进行梳理和评价,指出了法律实证主义理论背后隐藏着法律的现代性问题,而哈特和拉兹等人在处理法律的权威性问题时,由于受"承认规则"理论的束缚和干扰,使得他们对法律的权威性认识出现了一定的偏差,将用来打破法律体系刚性结构的司法权当作了说明法律权威刚性结构的典型情境.其后通过回归法律现代性问题的实质内涵和形式内涵,强调从哲学上解决法律现代性内容内涵方面的规范性困境对于坚持法律现代性之形式内涵的重要性.最后,通过引入哈贝马斯处理法律现代性问题的方案,强调一种规范性的法律实证主义进路的可能性,以及此种规范性的法律实证主义与审议式民主之间的关系.同时也介绍和评价了哈贝马斯的法律现代性方案对于今后法哲学发展的启发.     

哈特/德沃金之争与法律实证主义的分裂——基于“分离命题”的考察

哈特与德沃金之争及其所开放出来的问题构成了当今英美法律哲学研究的理论坐标。哈特/德沃金之争的核心在于法律与道德有无必然的关联,哈特认为法律与道德不存在必然的关联;而德沃金认为,承认规则既无法识别原则也不是一个社会规则,法律与道德存在必然的关联。法实证主义在回应德沃金的批判时,在承认规则识别法律之判准的内容上发生了分歧,分裂为排他性与包容性的法实证主义。     

H. L. A. Hart on Legal Obligation*

Abstract. The author discusses Hart's concept of legal obligation, especially his contention that there is an obligation to obey the law which is peculiarly legal, i.e., non-moral. This view is held to be mistaken. What is denied is that legal rules, merely by their being issued, offer a justification for the use of coercion to ensure compliance with them. Although moral and other social (customary) rules are considered self-justifying, that is not the case of legal rules. Any analogy between these two types of rules in justifying their implementation by force is deemed wrong.**     

越南乡规民约的法社会学解析

越南乡规民约是基于越南乡村这一特定区域内人们的共同意志,在生产、生活的实践中形成的,由乡民自愿遵行以调节乡民之间关系的行为规范。它具有突出的自发性、民间性、地域性特征,国家的指导或批准程序并非其必要属性。越南乡规民约产生于乡土社会,规范、体现着乡土社会的秩序,只要乡土社会存在,乡规民约就有了存在、深入发展的可能性和必要性,而不是被消融,甚或否弃。在乡土社会中,乡规民约表征着乡民自治。随着国家社会保障体制的完善,城乡二元结构的松懈,越南乡规民约在内容、作用不断完善的同时,调整的范围必将日益缩小。     

Legal rules and the basis for evaluating economic losses

Damages or a loss in economic well-being can be measured by either the maximum sum people would pay to avoid the loss, or by the minimum compensation they would require to accept it. These alternative bases for evaluation have been assumed to yield fully equivalent measurements, and as a consequence no discrimination is usually made between them in assessment procedures. However, contrary to this presumption recent evidence from survey studies and from real exchange experimental tests shows that measures of values vary widely depending on which of the two bases is used. As an accounting of losses in economic welfare often figures prominently in the settlement of disputes and in the establishment of legal rules, this disparity can cause considerable ambiguity and lead to unintended and undesired outcomes: it can undermine negligence and nuisance determinations and project feasibility judgments, can bring about seriously incorrect assessments of losses and inadequate indemnification of damages, and can bias determinations over a range of other instances where measures of economic values are used.     

Social justice and legal justice

The main aim of this paper is to challenge the validity of the distinction between legal justice and social justice. It is argued that what we usually call legal justice is either an application of the more fundamental notion of social justice to legal rules and decisions or is not a matter of justice at all. In other words, the only correct uses of the notion of legal justice are derivative from the notion of social justice and, hence, the alleged conflicts between criteria of social and legal justice result from the confusion about the proper relationship between these two concepts. Two views about the social justice/legal justice dichotomy are of particular importance and will provide the focus for the argument: this dichotomy is sometimes identified with a classical distinction between distributive and commutative justice and sometimes with the distinction between substantive and procedural justice.     

Formal rationality,substantive justice,and discrimination

This study examines the extent to which a juvenile court uses legal, substantive, and discriminatory criteria in assessing dispositions. The indicators of legal criteria are the seriousness of offense and the extent of prior arrest record, of substantive criteria, the presence of family and school problems, and of discriminatory criteria, race and social class. An examination of the dispositions accorded to a sample of 464 fourteen and fifteen year old arrestees in one juvenile court shows that, while discrimination in sentencing is minimal, the court is more likely to use substantive than formal criteria of decisionmaking. These findings suggest that studies of the juvenile court should be reoriented away from their traditional focus on legal and extralegal determinants of decision making toward a focus on substantive criteria.This study was supported by Ford Foundation under grant no. 73-96. We are grateful to Jackson Toby, principal investigator, for his aid in all phases of this study. William Smith and Antonia Steegen provided invaluable research assistance. This is a thoroughly revised version of a paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Society of Criminology, November, 1977.     

Social position,ideology, and distributive justice

This paper addresses two important questions regarding distributive justice. First we ask whether people use standards or principles of distributive justice regarding the allocation of income. The study confirms our expectation that there are at least two principles, viz., the merit and the need principle. Our data show that there is no generally held consensus about the applicability of these two principles. Second, we looked for explanations to explain variations in adherence to these principles. The literature suggests five different theses: 1. self-interest; 2. ideology; 3. enlightenment; 4. historical shift; and 5. gender. Results provide qualified support for the Theses 1, 2 and 4. Class, ideology, and age affect the preferences for the principles of justice. Further elaboration suggests the data point to a specific version of the self-interest thesis, viz., the underdog thesis. Theses 3 and 5 are not confirmed. Implications of these findings are discussed.     

Hart,Radbruch and the Necessary Connection Between Law and Morals

Law and Philosophy - Legal positivism maintains a distinction between law as it is and law as it ought to be. In other words, for positivists, a law can be legally valid even if it is immoral. H....