Explores how Martin Luther King, Jr built his advocacy on moral claims of love, justice and human nature.

Powerful emotion and pursuit of self-interest have many times led people to break the law with the belief that they are doing so with sound moral reasons. This study is a comprehensive philosophical and legal analysis of the gray area in which the foundations of law and morality clash. In examining the extent of the obligations owed by citizens to their government, Greenawalt concentrates on the possible existence of a single source of obligation that reaches all citizens and all laws.

The law sometimes permits what ordinary morality, or widely-shared notions of right and wrong, reproaches. Rights to Do Grave Wrong explores the relationship between law and common morality to clarify law's reliance on society's broad presumption that people will exercise their rights responsibly. More concretely, he argues that certain legal rights rest on tacit sociological assumptions as to who will exercise them, under what circumstances, and how frequently. Further, he argues that we depend on stigma and shame to reduce and circumscribe the law's use. Some examples: though reneging on a debt is considered wrong, the law allows you to declare personal bankruptcy; international law allows museums to retain some masterworks looted from their rightful owners; in many countries abortion is permitted as a means of birth control. Using these examples and more, Osiel presents a "social scientific" analysis of law's interaction with social mores and the extent to which they limit our exercising rights to do wrong. The paradox he intends to elucidate is when and why it is appropriate for societies to champion de jure entitlements even as they successfully limit their de facto usage.--

The laws are not silent in war, but what should they say? What is the moral function of the law of armed conflict? Should the law protect civilians who do not fight but help those who do? Should the law protect soldiers who perform non-combat functions or who may be safely captured? How certain should a soldier be that an individual is a combatant rather than a civilian before using lethal force? What risks should soldiers take on themselves to avoid harming civilians? When do inaccurate weapons become unlawfully indiscriminate? When does 'collateral damage' to civilians become unlawfully disproportionate? Should civilians lose their legal rights by serving, voluntarily or involuntarily, as human shields? Finally, when should killing civilians constitute a war crime? These are the questions that Law and Morality at War answers, contributing to a cutting-edge international debate. Drawing on the concepts and methods of contemporary moral and legal philosophy, the book develops a normative framework within which the laws of war and international criminal law can be evaluated, criticized, and reformed. While several philosophical works critically examine the moral status of civilians and combatants, this book fills a gap, offering both an account of the laws of war and war crimes, and proposing how the law could be improved from a moral point of view. Finally, it explores when, if ever, the emotional pressures under which soldiers act should partially or wholly excuse their wrongful actions --Flap of book cover.

This is a work on the role of morality in the various components of the criminal justice system. Specifically the role of defense counsel and prosecutor, the role of the police, the court, corrections, probation and parole officers, and the victims of crimes themselves as well as related issues.

Since its first publication in 1996, Law and Morality has filled a long-standing need for a contemporary Canadian textbook in the philosophy of law. Now in its third edition, this anthology has been thoroughly revised and updated, and includes new chapters on equality, judicial review, and terrorism and the rule of law. The volume begins with essays that explore general questions about morality and law, surveying the traditional literature on legal positivism and contemporary debates about the connection between law and morality. These essays explore the tensions between law as a protector of individual liberty and as a tool of democratic self-rule, and introduce debates about adjudication and the contribution of feminist approaches to the philosophy of law. New material on the Chinese Canadian head tax case is also featured. The second part of Law and Morality deals with philosophical questions as they apply to contemporary issues. Excerpts from judicial decisions as well as essays by practicing lawyers are included to provide theoretically informed legal analyses of the issues. Striking a balance between practical and more analytic, philosophical approaches, the volume's treatment of the philosophy of law as a branch of political philosophy enables students to understand law in its function as a social institution. Law and Morality has proved to be an essential text in both departments of philosophy and faculties of law and this latest edition brings the debates fully up to date, filling gaps in the previous editions and adding to the array of contemporary issues previously covered.