Jeffrie Murphy

(1940 - 2020)

In this revised edition, two distinguished philosophers have extended and strengthened the most authoritative text available on the philosophy of law and jurisprudence. While retaining their comprehensive coverage of classical and modern theory, Murphy and Coleman have added new discussions of the Critical Legal Studies movement and feminist jurisprudence, and they have strengthened their treatment of natural law theory, criminalization, and the law of torts. The chapter on law and economics remains the best short introduction to that difficult, controversial, and influential topic.Students will appreciate the careful organization and clear presentation of complicated issues as well as the emphasis on the relevance of both law and legal theory to contemporary society.

This is a slightly revised text of Jeffrie G. Murphy’s Presidential Address delivered to the American Philosophical Association, Pacific Division, in March 2006. In the essay the author reconsiders two positions he had previously defended—the liberal attack on legal moralism and robust versions of the retributive theory of punishment—and now finds these positions much more vulnerable to legitimate attack than he had previously realized. In the first part of the essay, he argues that the use of Mill’s liberal harm principle against legal moralism cannot be cabined in such a way as to leave intact other positions that many liberals want to defend—in particular, certain fundamental constitutional rights and character retributivism in criminal sentencing. In the second part of the essay, he expresses serious doubts—some inspired by Nietzsche—about the versions of character retributivism that he had once enthusiastically defended and now describes himself as no more than a reluctant retributivist

The central or dominant intellectual model which provided the structure of social and political thought in the 18th century was the "social contract". Both hume and kant felt obliged to assess it carefully-Hume coming out an opponent and kant a supporter of the model. This opposition is particularly interesting for the following reason: hume's attack on social contract theory is directed primarily against hobbes and locke, And it is interesting to see if post-Humean social contract theories (especially kant's and that of our own contemporary john rawls) succeed in avoiding his very powerful objections to this line of thought

Achilles is vindictive; he wants to get even with Agamemnon. Being so disposed, he sounds rather like many current crime victims who angrily complain that the American system of criminal justice will not allow them the satisfactions they rightfully seek. These victims often feel that their particular injuries are ignored while the system addresses itself to some abstract injury to the state or to the rule of law itself – a focus that appears to result in wrongdoers being treated with much greater solicitation and respect than their victims receive. If the actual victims are noticed at all, they will likely be told that there is another branch of law – tort law – that has the job of dealing with private injuries and grievances and that, if they pursue this route at their own expense, they might ultimately get some financial compensation for the wrongs done to them. However, just as Achilles felt that mere compensation was inadequate to the kind of injury done to him by Agamemnon, many of these victims will often claim that the injuries they have suffered do not admit of financial compensation. How, they might ask, can a dollar value be set on the humiliation and degradation they have experienced? They might also note that those who injure them tend, unlike Agamemnon, to be judgment-proof – so lacking in resources as to be unable to make any meaningful contribution to any compensation package that the victim may win.

Internal and External Questions. The most profound questions in ethics, social philosophy, and the philosophy of law are foundational; i.e., they are questions that call the entire framework of our ordinary evaluations into doubt in order to determine to what degree, if at all, that framework can be rationally defended. Such questions, called “external” by Rudolf Carnap, are currently dominating my own philosophical reflections and are forcing me to rethink a variety of positions I have in the past defended.

There are certain recurring objections to Locke's theory of legitimate government and the conception of natural rights on which it is based. These objections generally take the form of showing that most of Locke's claims in the Second Treatise stand largely as ad hoc assertions, defended—if at all—not by philosophical argumentation but by appeals to theology or intuition. These criticisms might be called external criticisms of Locke's theory because they focus, not upon the coherence of the theory or the perplexities which prompted Locke to adopt it, but rather upon the justifications for that theory. Important as these criticisms are to an ultimate evaluation of Locke's success, my purpose here is neither to reiterate them nor to defend Locke against them. Rather I want to develop a purely internal criticism of his view. For I shall argue that upon any acceptable interpretation of at least one of Locke's central natural rights claims, this claim will not be able to perform the crucial task envisioned for it by Locke—namely, provide a key premise for the moral justification for passing from a pre-civil society to a civil society that is responsible to its citizens.

Introduction. For the most part, Kant’s moral philosophy is no longer taught. What is taught instead is a parody of Kant’s moral philosophy. His views, generally used as a foil for some other view like utilitarianism, are summed up in a few popular cliches which have achieved the status of interpretive dogma. Small wonder that undergraduates go away thinking that Kant is, at worst, a moral fanatic or, at best, a well-intentioned bungler who allowed his right-wing political views and Pietist upbringing to get in the way of his philosophical acumen.

We have all been victims of wrongdoing. Forgiving that wrongdoing is one of the staples of current pop psychology dogma; it is seen as a universal prescription for moral and mental health in the self-help and recovery section of bookstores. At the same time, personal vindictiveness as a rule is seen as irrational and immoral. In many ways, our thinking on these issues is deeply inconsistent; we value forgiveness yet at the same time now use victim-impact statements to argue for harsher penalties for criminals. Do we have a right to hate others for what they have done to us? Providing a nuanced approach to a proper understanding of the place of our strongest emotions in moral, political, and personal life, and using lucid, easily understood prose, this volume is a classic example of philosophical thinking applied to a thorny, everyday problem.

This book focuses on the degree to which certain moral and legal doctrines are rooted in specific passions that are then institutionalised in the form of criminal law. A philosophical analysis is developed of the following questions: when, if ever, should hatred be overcome by sympathy or compassion? What are forgiveness and mercy and to what degree do they require - both conceptually and morally - the overcoming of certain passions and the motivation by other passions? If forgiveness and mercy indeed are moral virtues, what role, if any, should they play in the law?

This book focuses on the degree to which certain moral and legal doctrines are rooted in specific passions that are then institutionalised in the form of criminal law. A philosophical analysis is developed of the following questions: when, if ever, should hatred be overcome by sympathy or compassion? What are forgiveness and mercy and to what degree do they require - both conceptually and morally - the overcoming of certain passions and the motivation by other passions? If forgiveness and mercy indeed are moral virtues, what role, if any, should they play in the law?