Philosophical Perspectives

Extract

Because of the disparate character of these papers, we have decided that Professor Gewirth and I would throw the discussion open immediately to the audience.

Dr. Gewirth, I was curious that you ended up opposing laws, on the one side, and morality, on the other. And you brought them into relationship by making morality a question of whether or not to obey the law. When you described the laws to us, it seemed that you had practically thrown them into the kingdom of utter darkness. You say they are transitory, etc. I was wondering why you did not use, as a critique of law, some kind of legal principle like justice. And, on the other side, when you talked about morality, it turned out to be something very abstract, very philosophical, very theoretical, and having little to do with actual morals. So, I am interested in the question of the relation between morals, on the one side, and law and justice and wealth. You see, in presenting morality you give no guidance to the poor lawmaker. All you do is tell us to disregard his law when he does it wrong.