Christianity and the Laws of Conscience

Christianity and the Laws of Conscience PDF Author: Jeffrey B. Hammond
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1108835384
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 471

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Book Description
This book explores the Christian theological, legal, constitutional, historical, and philosophical meanings of conscience for both scholarly and educated general audiences.

Christianity and the Laws of Conscience

Christianity and the Laws of Conscience PDF Author: Jeffrey B. Hammond
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1108835384
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 471

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Book Description
This book explores the Christian theological, legal, constitutional, historical, and philosophical meanings of conscience for both scholarly and educated general audiences.

Cultivating Conscience

Cultivating Conscience PDF Author: Lynn Stout
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 140083600X
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 319

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Book Description
How the science of unselfish behavior can promote law, order, and prosperity Contemporary law and public policy often treat human beings as selfish creatures who respond only to punishments and rewards. Yet every day we behave unselfishly—few of us mug the elderly or steal the paper from our neighbor's yard, and many of us go out of our way to help strangers. We nevertheless overlook our own good behavior and fixate on the bad things people do and how we can stop them. In this pathbreaking book, acclaimed law and economics scholar Lynn Stout argues that this focus neglects the crucial role our better impulses could play in society. Rather than lean on the power of greed to shape laws and human behavior, Stout contends that we should rely on the force of conscience. Stout makes the compelling case that conscience is neither a rare nor quirky phenomenon, but a vital force woven into our daily lives. Drawing from social psychology, behavioral economics, and evolutionary biology, Stout demonstrates how social cues—instructions from authorities, ideas about others' selfishness and unselfishness, and beliefs about benefits to others—have a powerful role in triggering unselfish behavior. Stout illustrates how our legal system can use these social cues to craft better laws that encourage more unselfish, ethical behavior in many realms, including politics and business. Stout also shows how our current emphasis on self-interest and incentives may have contributed to the catastrophic political missteps and financial scandals of recent memory by encouraging corrupt and selfish actions, and undermining society's collective moral compass. This book proves that if we care about effective laws and civilized society, the powers of conscience are simply too important for us to ignore.

Conscience and Conviction

Conscience and Conviction PDF Author: Kimberley Brownlee
Publisher: OUP Oxford
ISBN: 0191645923
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 430

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Book Description
The book shows that civil disobedience is generally more defensible than private conscientious objection. Part I explores the morality of conviction and conscience. Each of these concepts informs a distinct argument for civil disobedience. The conviction argument begins with the communicative principle of conscientiousness (CPC). According to the CPC, having a conscientious moral conviction means not just acting consistently with our beliefs and judging ourselves and others by a common moral standard. It also means not seeking to evade the consequences of our beliefs and being willing to communicate them to others. The conviction argument shows that, as a constrained, communicative practice, civil disobedience has a better claim than private objection does to the protections that liberal societies give to conscientious dissent. This view reverses the standard liberal picture which sees private 'conscientious' objection as a modest act of personal belief and civil disobedience as a strategic, undemocratic act whose costs are only sometimes worth bearing. The conscience argument is narrower and shows that genuinely morally responsive civil disobedience honours the best of our moral responsibilities and is protected by a duty-based moral right of conscience. Part II translates the conviction argument and conscience argument into two legal defences. The first is a demands-of-conviction defence. The second is a necessity defence. Both of these defences apply more readily to civil disobedience than to private disobedience. Part II also examines lawful punishment, showing that, even when punishment is justifiable, civil disobedients have a moral right not to be punished. Oxford Legal Philosophy publishes the best new work in philosophically-oriented legal theory. It commissions and solicits monographs in all branches of the subject, including works on philosophical issues in all areas of public and private law, and in the national, transnational, and international realms; studies of the nature of law, legal institutions, and legal reasoning; treatments of problems in political morality as they bear on law; and explorations in the nature and development of legal philosophy itself. The series represents diverse traditions of thought but always with an emphasis on rigour and originality. It sets the standard in contemporary jurisprudence.

The Sacred Rights of Conscience

The Sacred Rights of Conscience PDF Author: Daniel L. Dreisbach
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 720

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Book Description
This compilation of primary documents provides a thorough and balanced examination of the evolving relationship between public religion and American culture, from pre-colonial biblical and European sources to the early nineteenth century, to allow the reader to explore the social and political forces that defined the concept of religious liberty and shaped American church-state relations. --from publisher description.

Conscience and Love in Making Judicial Decisions

Conscience and Love in Making Judicial Decisions PDF Author: Alexander Nikolaevich Shytov
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN: 9401597456
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 377

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Book Description
THE CONSCIENCE OF JUDGES AND APPLICA nON OF LEGAL RULES The book is devoted to the problem of the influence of moral judgements on the result of judicial decision-making in the process of application of the established (positive) law. It is the conscience of judges that takes the central place in the research. Conscience is understood in the meaning developed in the theory of Thomas Aquinas as the complex capacity of the human being to make moral judgements which represent acts of reason on the question of what is right or wrong in a particular situation. The reason why we need a theory of conscience in making judicial decisions lies in the nature of the positive law itself. On the one hand, there is an intrinsic conflict between the law as the body of rigid rules and the law as an living experience of those who are involved in social relationships. This conflict particularly finds its expression in the collision of strict justice and equity. The idea of equity does not reject the importance of rules in legal life. What is rejected is an idolatrous attitude to the rules when the uniqueness of a human being, his well being and happiness are disregarded and sacrificed in order to fulfil the observance of the rules. The rules themselves are neither good or bad. What makes them good or bad is their application.

The Conscience of the Constitution

The Conscience of the Constitution PDF Author: Timothy Sandefur
Publisher: Cato Institute
ISBN: 1939709040
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 217

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Book Description
The Conscience of the Constitution: The Declaration of Independence and the Right to Liberty documents a forgotten truth: the word “democracy” is nowhere to be found in either the Constitution or the Declaration. But it is the overemphasis of democracy by the legal community–rather than the primacy of liberty, as expressed in the Declaration of Independence–that has led to the growth of government power at the expense of individual rights. Now, more than ever, Sandefur explains, the Declaration of Independence should set the framework for interpreting our fundamental law. In the very first sentence of the Constitution, the founding fathers stated unambiguously that “liberty” is a blessing. Today, more and more Americans are realizing that their individual freedoms are being threatened by the ever-expanding scope of the government. Americans have always differed over important political issues, but some things should not be settled by majority vote. In The Conscience of the Constitution, Timothy Sandefur presents a dramatic new challenge to the status quo of constitutional law.

Shocking the Conscience of Humanity

Shocking the Conscience of Humanity PDF Author: Margaret M. DeGuzman
Publisher:
ISBN: 0198786158
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 241

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Book Description
The literature and jurisprudence of international criminal law relies on the claim that international crimes are exceptionally grave. They 'shock the conscience of humanity'. They are 'atrocities'. Yet what makes international crimes especially grave is rarely explained. Addressing the balance, Margaret DeGuzman explains what affect the historical occurrences that led to the heavy reliance on the concept of gravity, including the atrocities of the World War II era, and the crimes of Yugoslavia and Rwanda, had on international law. DeGuzman demonstrates how, in later decades, gravity has been used to obscure controversial value choices. This book looks to build the legitimacy of the international criminal law regime by exposing the value choices that the rhetoric of 'gravity' entails, and poses a new framework for assessing the legitimacy of international criminal law. Instead of solely relying on 'gravity', DeGuzman looks to wider values to ensure the continued legitimacy of international criminal law.

The Conscience Wars

The Conscience Wars PDF Author: Michel Rosenfeld
Publisher:
ISBN: 1107173302
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 515

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Book Description
Explores the multifaceted debate on the interconnection between conscientious objections, religious liberty, and the equality of women and sexual minorities.

In the Smaller Scope of Conscience

In the Smaller Scope of Conscience PDF Author: C. Timothy McKeown
Publisher: University of Arizona Press
ISBN: 0816526877
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 290

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Book Description
In the Smaller Scope of Conscience is a thoughtful and detailed study of the ins and outs of the four-year process behind the creation of NMAIA and NAGPRA . It is a singular contribution to the history of these issues, with the potential to help mediate the ongoing debate by encouraging all sides to retrace the steps of the legislators responsible for the acts.

Equity

Equity PDF Author: Irit Samet
Publisher:
ISBN: 0198766777
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 241

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Book Description
The law of equity is a unique junction where doctrinal private law, moral theory, and social perceptions of justice meet. By exploring the general principles that underlie equity's intervention in the common law, the book argues that equity should be preserved as a separate body of law which aims to align moral and legal duties in private law.