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"rule of law" has become a shibboleth of American democracy, but the
emphasis on procedural and abstract rather than substantive justice
that is embedded both in the workings of our judicial system and in
the writings of our leading philosophers of law, John Anderson argues,
had led to much real injustice. This book draws inspiration from Aristotle's
notion of "natural justice" found in communities based on ties of
friendship to point the way toward a more humane practice of law.
Starting with concrete examples of injustice produced in our legal
system, the author examines the distorting effects of legal argumentation
and strategy on affirmative action, overzealous prosecutions, abusive
enforcement of the tax code, sexual harassment litigation, and many
other issues troubling our society. The jurisprudence of Ronald
Dworkin, with his notion of a "community of principle," is identified
as best articulating the justification for our current system and
is subjected to a thorough critique from an Aristotelian perspective.
Kant's "kingdom of ends" is located at the root of rights-based
notions of justice and is also argued to be inadequate because it
lacks the flexibility allowed by the classical understanding of
epieikeia (equity).
What issues from this investigation of the faults of our present
legal regime is a set of proposals for reform that include abolition
of the legal profession and term limits for judges as well as politicians. |
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