MacIntyre and Law
Document Type
Book Chapter
Publication Date
2020
Abstract
From the Introduction
The law now has little to do with justice. Like a couple in a long, unhappy marriage, they spend a lot of time together but rarely actually talk with one another. That is not to say that the content of the law is unjust or even that the law does not regularly help bring about results that many would rightly consider just. Rather, in most contemporary societies, neither the articulation, the administration, nor the study of the law proceed from or even meaningfully interact with a systematic understanding of what justice requires. As a law professor teaching real estate transactions to second- and third-year students, I would struggle to lead a class discussion focusing on justice as such. I would scarcely find it more difficult to have them relate the law of land sales and mortgages to chastity. In class, we talk of duties; we talk of rights. But justice is presumed to result from the clear and careful delineation of boundaries between individuals. Despite this estrangement from justice, the law has never been more important than it has been in the previous century. Indeed, nothing has occasioned this primacy of law so much as the marginalization of justice.
Recommended Citation
Kelly, James J. Jr., "MacIntyre and Law" (2020). Book Chapters. 1.
https://scholarship.law.nd.edu/book_chapters/1
Publication Information
in Learning from MacIntyre, 280 (Ron Beadle & Geoff Moore eds., 2020).
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