In this work, I contribute to the debate on the status and legitimacy of principled disobedience in a democratic polity. After introducing the notion, I move to argue that principled disobedience can be framed not only as a moral and political stance but also, and without contradiction, as a legal requirement. As a result, it will be maintained that not only can we engage in principled disobedience without necessarily violating our legal obligations, but these obligations may actually mandate principled disobedience. This framing of the problem of principled lawbreaking makes the proposed discussion distinctive and original in virtue of its claim—namely, that we may have not only a moral justification to disobey the law but a legal obligation to do so, an obligation to break the law on principled legal grounds.

This paper argues that what scholars call ‘the free speech principle’ is not one principle but a slew of principles, and that these principles harbour several important differences that have remained largely unremarked upon, namely: (i) extending vs. limiting principles; (ii) comparative vs. non-comparative principles; and (iii) monistic vs. pluralistic principles. The paper also critically assesses certain generalisations that people might be tempted to make about these different principles, such as that one kind of free speech principle is harder to defend than another. Finally, the paper teases out the practical as well as theoretical implications of these insights, including degrees of complexity, the logical relationship between free speech principles and free speech policy dilemmas, and the virtue of compromise over free speech principles.

Discussions of Nazi law tend to centre upon Fuller’s desiderata of the rule of law. Whilst not disputing this connection, this essay argues that tyranny and oppression are marked by the (ab)use of law to invade the domain proper to individual moral thinking, and to transform citizens into models of conformity to whatever values the tyrant cherishes. Its main consideration is how a community can recover from periods of tyranny, and how the law can recover its dignity having shown itself capable of evil uses. So, it is focused more on ‘substantive’ rather than ‘procedural’ morality.

Matthew Kramer’s theory of right-holding is a major contender in the debate about rights. Kramer proposes a version of the Interest Theory that amends the Basic Idea of the Interest Theory—that rights protect interests—by incorporating Bentham’s Test, an algorithm that identifies the party to whom an existing duty is owed. It is argued that Kramer’s methodological approach in devising Bentham’s Test as a tool to answer questions about right-holding leads into a dilemma: Either Kramer is left with no theory at all or with one that has alarmingly implausible implications. It is suggested that organizing conceptual investigations around a notion of normalcy may provide a way of avoiding both this unsatisfactory approach and the problems that affect other versions of the Interest Theory.

Equity has traditionally been understood as a judicial corrective to the generality of statutory law caused by the limited foresight of legislatures. Because of the ad hoc and corrective character of equity, many scholars have seen a tension between the morality of equity and the positivity of law. Equity, John Gardner once suggested, is “justice’s rebellion against law”—insofar as the positive law does not usually authorise the exercise of equity by judges. In this article, I argue that while the exercise of equity requires the exercise of an equitable power, there are good reasons for the law to allow this power. I do so while showing the conditions under which the positive law could implement the two main historical ways of exercising equity in adjudication: ‘equitable interpretation’ and ‘equitable suspension’ of the law. In defending this argument, I also offer a brief historical sketch of equity and its connection with the modern approach to the study of implicit exceptions in the law: legal defeasibility.

The revolution in Western family law over the past 50 years—often described as ‘liberalization’—involves a decrease in the importance of fault-based factors alongside an increase in the significance of marital contracts. While these two trends generally complement each other, they may conflict when a couple seeks to assign economic consequences to sexual fault through a contract. Should such an agreement be legally enforceable? Which aligns more with a ‘true liberal’ perspective: advocating against fault or for the use of contracts? This paper suggests a new approach that goes beyond simply determining which trend should prevail. We illustrate how the perceived conflict between proponents of sexual liberalization and proponents of contractual liberalization could be resolved by identifying the underlying reasons that motivate each ‘camp’, proposing potential legal mechanisms and specific legal contexts in which broad agreement might be reached, and explicating the multidimensionality of family law liberalization.

This paper enquires into the relationship between democracy, law, and revolution in the Marxist works of Harold J. Laski (1893-1950). It is a helpful study to sketch the way in which British Socialists interpreted Marxian categories in the early twentieth century. Laski’s theses on legal pluralism, the opposition of ‘revolution’ and ‘counter-revolution’, and the incompatibility between capitalism and democracy will be discussed by emphasising their interaction with his notion of ‘revolution by consent’. I will also show that Laski’s conception of law and revolution might shed light on his interpretation of the relationship between the economic structure and the politico-legal superstructure, and particularly on his thesis of the reciprocal influence of those two layers of society as giving crucial importance to democratic methods. These conclusions, in the end, might be profitably compared with some conventional readings of Marx’s ideas about revolution, in order to examine and discuss their interpretive validity and stress their implications concerning the transformation of legal systems.

Consider the following argument: (1) Whether, or the degree, persons are morally culpable ultimately depends on the (final) reasons that motivate their actions; (2) The degree to which persons are morally culpable should be a central concern of criminal law; (3) Criminal law in many countries focuses more on the beliefs and intentions of agents and less on their motivating reasons; therefore (4) Criminal law in many countries is unjust and should be revised. The premises of this argument are appealing and widely accepted, yet its conclusion is radical. Therefore, the argument is interesting and important. However, the argument is not entirely clear in several respects, and the attempt to clarify it reveals several significant (although not necessarily decisive) doubts regarding its soundness. In this paper, I examine these doubts as well as a related, more general, lesson concerning normative arguments about the law.

This article applies van Gennep’s structure of the ritual to the patent application process, arguing that information undergoes several ontological transformations on the way to patentability. The second half of the article applies Turner’s focus on the liminal space. From this perspective, the ‘pure possibility’ of the liminal space is essential to patent law, because it helps negotiate between strong boundaries (as a form of property) and the almost improvisational way in which general rules are applied to specific patents. Taken together, these two approaches provide a more nuanced understanding of how patent law comes into existence and how the patents themselves operate as distinct social and cultural artefacts. The analysis does not intend to replace the economic understanding of patent law, but instead seeks to reflect more completely how it actually functions.

Given the distinction between knowing-that and knowing-how, one could claim that legal knowledge is eminently practical: One who knows the law enjoys some form of knowing-how, namely, how to exercise certain intellectual faculties, or how to perform such activities as interpreting legal texts or arguing a case. I present some arguments to the effect that legal knowledge is not practical, being rather propositional in nature, as knowing-that instead of knowing-how. This is not to deny, however, that such activities as interpretation and argumentation are extremely important in the legal domain. I also consider whether legal knowledge is practical in a different sense—namely, with a view to decision and action. I contend that it is not practical in this sense either, even if it is mainly used for practical purposes.