Scholars of culture, humanities and social sciences have increasingly come to an appreciation of the importance of the legal domain in social life, while critically engaged socio-legal scholars around the world have taken up the task of understanding "Law's Empire" in all of its cultural, political, and economic dimensions. The questions arising from these intersections, and addressing imperialisms past and present forms the subject matter of a special symposium issue of Social Identities under the editorship of Griffith University's Rob McQueen, and UBC's Wes Pue and with contributions from McQueen, Ian Duncanson, Renisa Mawani, David Williams, Emma Cunliffe, Chidi Oguamanam, W. Wesley Pue, Fatou Camara, and Dianne Kirkby. This paper introduces the volume, forthcoming in late 2007. The central problematique of this issue has previously been explored through the 2005 Law's Empire conference, an informal but vibrant postcolonial legal studies network.

Law's Empire

Conclusions and Recommendations, are particularly interesting in view of the controversies aroused by the Warnock Report. Many of the recommendations contained here are similar to Warnock's (for example, concerning the legitimacy of AID children, the need for a licensing authority to supervise the work ofAID and IVF centres, etc), but others are at odds with the corresponding Warnock recommendations. In general, the authors place higher value on the family as an institution than did the Warnock Committee and display a much livelier awareness of the possible social dangers of the new techniques. One weakness of the book is that since its authors are approaching these topics from the standpoint of social scientists, their recommendations for legislative action which surely must be based on properly ethical considerations, not merely sociological ones seem devoid of any satisfactory rational support. For example, they concede that experimentation on human embryos is an objectionable practice, since 'the material acting as the subject of the experimentation is a human being at the beginning of its individual development' (p 178); but the practical recommendation which they make concerning this practice is disappointingly feeble:

https://jme.bmj.com/content/medethics/12/3/165.full.pdf

Ethics and the Limits of Philosophy

The Morality of Happiness

https://pure.uva.nl/ws/files/52460641/Computer_Law_and_Security_Review_2020.pdf

Who is the fairest of them all? Public attitudes and expectations regarding automated decision-making

Inter-Legality and the Protection of the Marine Ecosystems

This chapter argues that a neo-Aristotelian approach can play a valuable role in accounting for reciprocity in adjudication. It can solve the central flaws that an “adjudication as applied moral theory” approach faces. In addition, the author asserts that a neo-Aristotelian approach to adjudication needs the concept of civic friendship in order to really account for reciprocity in adjudication. Citizens will have a reason to accept the painful burden of a particular judicial decision if the decision is made by a judge who is both judicially wise and a civic friend.

A neo-Aristotelian notion of reciprocity: about civic friendship and (the troublesome character of) right judicial decisions

How best to account for moral quality in adjudication? This article proposes a six-pack of judicial virtues as part of a truly virtue-centred account of moral quality in adjudication. These judicial virtues are presented as both constitutive and indispensable for realizing moral quality in adjudication. In addition, it will be argued that in order to honour the inherent relational dimension of adjudication a judge should not only possess the judicial virtues to a sufficient degree, he should also have the attitude of a civic friend. The Aristotelian concept of civic friendship will be proposed as an important complement to a virtue-ethical approach to adjudication.

Moral Quality in Adjudication: On Judicial Virtues and Civic Friendship

How best to account for moral quality in adjudication? This article proposes a six-pack of judicial virtues as part of a truly virtue-centred approach to adjudication. These virtues are presented as both constitutive and indispensible for realizing moral quality in adjudication. In addition, it will be argued that in order to honour the inherent relational dimension of adjudication a judge should not only possess these judicial virtues to a sufficient degree, he should also have the attitude of a civic friend. The Aristotelian concept of civic friendship will be proposed as an important complement to a virtue-ethical approach to adjudication.

/pdf/moral-quality-in-adjudication-on-judicial-virtues-and-civic-2mveb5ccux.pdf

Moral quality in adjudication. On judicial virtues and civic friendship

Up until today the way judges perceive has received little attention in legal discourse. Adjudication is most often conceptualized as a practice in which judges apply rules and principles. The focus has predominantly been on the actual decisions judges take, the underlying justificatory rules and principles and the meaning of the decision for the legal system. This paper by contrast puts judicial perception at the centre of adjudication. It offers a philosophical account of judicial perception that understands it as a special ethical, character dependent - skill that a judge needs in order to adequately cope with the case he is confronted with. In this account ‘thick (legal) concepts’ play a vital role. Throughout the text Ian McEwan’s novel The Children Act is used as illustrative source.

https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/Delivery.cfm/SSRN_ID2831133_code1251851.pdf?abstractid=2831133&mirid=1&type=2

The Perceptive Judge

Although tragic choices are a common phenomenon in human experience, dominant conceptions of legal reasoning in Western constitutional democracies do not account for the tragic character of legal choices. These conceptions are therefore highly reassuring both for the legal system as a whole as well as for the legal agents concerned.In this paper it is argued that conceptions of legal reasoning should make room for the concept of tragic legal choice. In order to grasp the substantial bearing of this claim, the main characteristics of the concept of a tragic legal choice will also be fleshed out.

Iris van Domselaar

Papers

A neo-Aristotelian notion of reciprocity: about civic friendship and (the troublesome character of) right judicial decisions

Moral Quality in Adjudication: On Judicial Virtues and Civic Friendship

Moral quality in adjudication. On judicial virtues and civic friendship

The Perceptive Judge

Tragic Choice as a Legal Concept