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675Authority, Law and MoralityThe Monist 68 (3): 295-324. 1985.H. L. A. Hart is heir and torch-bearer of a great tradition in the philosophy of law which is realist and unromantic in outlook. It regards the existence and content of the law as a matter of social fact whose connection with moral or any other values is contingent and precarious. His analysis of the concept of law is part of the enterprise of demythologising the law, of instilling rational critical attitudes to it. Right from his inaugural lecture in Oxford he was anxious to dispel the philosop…Read more
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114The truth in particularismIn Brad Hooker & Margaret Olivia Little (eds.), Moral particularism, Oxford University Press. pp. 48--78. 2000.Particularism's model of explanation is challenged on the ground that a sensible intelligibility principle requires that there must be an explanation for the difference between a good and a bad action. Raz is concerned with what it is to be guided by reason, as well as with the results of the fact that reason can often undermine particular outcomes. What determines the moral status of an action must extend beyond what the agent's reason for acting is. It is argued that there is a clear distincti…Read more
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246Reasons : Practical and adaptiveIn David Sobel & Steven Wall (eds.), Reasons for Action, Cambridge University Press. 2009.The paper argues that normative reasons are of two fundamental kinds, practical which are value related, and adaptive, which are not related to any value, but indicate how our beliefs and emotions should adjust to fit how things are in the world. The distinction is applied and defended, in part through an additional distinction between standard and non-standard reasons (for actions, intentions, emotions or belief).
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194Voluntary Obligations and Normative PowersAristotelian Society Supplementary Volume 46 (1). 1972.
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1064Human rights without foundationsIn J. Tasioulas & S. Besson (eds.), The Philosphy of International Law, Oxford University Press. 2010.Using the accounts of Gewirth and Griffin as examples, the article criticises accounts of human rights as those are understood in human rights practices, which regard them as rights all human beings have in virtue of their humanity. Instead it suggests that (with Rawls) human rights set the limits to the sovereignty of the state, but criticises Rawls conflation of sovereignty with legitimate authority. The resulting conception takes human rights, like other rights, to be contingent on social con…Read more
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83My remarks will focus primarily on the connection between the thesis of the Guise of the Good, and actions under the Guise of the Bad. I distinguish and discuss separately two versions of the Guise of the Bad thesis. The normative version claims that it is possible to perform an action that one believes to be bad (to have bad-making features) and for the reason that it is, as the agent believes, bad. The motive version claims that an agent can, without having any relevant false beliefs, perform …Read more
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179Engaging Reason: On the Theory of Value and ActionOxford University Press UK. 1999.Joseph Raz presents a penetrating exploration of the interdependence of value, reason, and the will. These essays illuminate a wide range of questions concerning fundamental aspects of human thought and action. Engaging Reason is a summation of many years of original, compelling, and influential work by a major contemporary philosopher.
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6The concept of a legal systemClarendon Press. 1970.What does it mean to assert or deny the existence of a legal system? How can one determine whether a given law belongs to a certain legal system? What kind of structure do these systems have, that is--what necessary relations obtain between their laws? The examination of these problems in this volume leads to a new approach to traditional jurisprudential question, though the conclusions are based on a critical appraisal, particularly those of Bentham, Austin, Kelsen, and Hart.
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16Thinking and doing: The philosophical foundations of institutions, by Hector-Neri Castañeda (review)Philosophical Books 18 (2): 81-83. 1977.
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142VII*—Value Incommensurability: Some PreliminariesProceedings of the Aristotelian Society 86 (1): 117-134. 1986.Joseph Raz; VII*—Value Incommensurability: Some Preliminaries, Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, Volume 86, Issue 1, 1 June 1986, Pages 117–134, https://
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6Multikulturalismus: eine liberale PerspektiveDeutsche Zeitschrift für Philosophie 43 (2): 307-327. 1995.
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244What is special about legal reasoning? In what way is it distinctive? How does it differ from reasoning in medicine, or engineering, physics, or everyday life? The answers range from the very ambitious to the modest. The ambitious claim that there is a special and distinctive legal logic, or legal ways of reasoning, modes of reasoning which set the law apart from all other disciplines. Opposing them are the modest, who claim that there is nothing special to legal reasoning, that reason is the sa…Read more
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20The Purity of the Pure TheoryIn Stanley L. Paulson (ed.), Normativity and Norms: Critical Perspectives on Kelsenian Themes, Oxford University Press. pp. 441. 1999.A critical discussion of Kelsen's philosophy of law
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130Liberalism, Autonomy, and the Politics of Neutral ConcernMidwest Studies in Philosophy 7 (1): 89-120. 1982.
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379The Myth of Instrumental RationalityJournal of Ethics and Social Philosophy 1 (1): 28. 2005.The paper distinguishes between instrumental reasons and instrumental rationality. It argues that instrumental reasons are not reasons to take the means to our ends. It further argues that there is no distinct form of instrumental reasoning or of instrumental rationality. In part the argument proceeds through a sympathetic examination of suggestions made by M. Bratman, J. Broome, and J. Wallace, though the accounts of instrumental rationality offered by the last two are criticised
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6¿ Por qué interpretar?Isonomía. Revista de Teoría y Filosofía Del Derecho 5 25-40. 1996.discussion of the nature and aims of interpretation
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150Explaining normativity: On rationality and the justification of reasonRatio 12 (4). 1999.Aspects of the world are normative in as much as they or their existence constitute reasons for persons, i.e. grounds which make certain beliefs, moods, emotions, intentions or actions appropriate or inappropriate. Our capacities to perceive and understand how things are, and what response is appropriate to them, and our ability to respond appropriately, make us into persons, i.e. creatures with the ability to direct their own life in accordance with their appreciation of themselves and their en…Read more
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Columbia UniversityProfessor (Part-time)
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King's College LondonProfessor (Part-time)
London, London, City of, United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland
Areas of Specialization
Meta-Ethics |
Philosophy of Law |
Social and Political Philosophy |
Value Theory, Misc |