Law Evenings - Seminar 1
'The moral importance of legal morality'
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Date |
Wednesday 15 February 2012 |
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Time |
5:30pm to 7:30pm, refreshments provided |
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Venue |
Bradley Forum, Level 5, Hawke Building |
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Presented by |
Prof Allan Beever, Professor of Law, University of South Australia |
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Sorry, registrations for this seminar are now closed |
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We tend of think of law as a regulatory system designed to produce
desired ends. Thus, we say that law making is guided by policy.
On this view, though law is an impediment in life, it is one that
hopefully heads off larger evils and encourages good. We tend of think
of law as a regulatory system designed to produce desired ends. Thus, we
say that law making is guided by policy.
It is worth noticing, however, that this is an only very recent view of
law. Most of the leading thinkers of the not too distant past thought of
law in a quite different way: not as a necessary evil but as a positive
good; not as an impediment to but as a means for achieving human
freedom.
This seminar criticises the modern view of law, suggesting that it is
immoral, reflecting the idea that law is the mechanism by which the
powerful rule the powerless, albeit ideally in an enlightened fashion.
It maintains also that the law can be seen as our predecessors saw it.
In that regard, it focuses on the famous judgment of Lord Atkin in the
case of Donoghue v Stevenson, showing how it presents an opportunity for
law to develop in ways that will enrich the lives of citizens.