Law for and from the Natural World

Document Type

Book Chapter

Publication Date

2018

Publication Information

in Theology and Ecology Across the Disciplines: On Care for our Common Home 213 (Celia Deane-Drummond & Rebecca Artinian-Kaiser eds., 2018).
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Abstract

Chapter 14
Humanity’s earliest attempts to protect the natural world have combined theological, philosophical, scientific, economic, and legal concepts. As the 2015 Paris talks on climate change demonstrated, law is currently the most important, readily available means for putting ideas with global impact into action. At the same time, the law is only as effective as our commitment to it allows.

This chapter looks at one factor in improving law compliance: the decline of long-held assumptions as to why anyone should obey legal rules.

Answers did emerge from outside the legal, field, particularly economics. Economic theory of law, known as “law and economics, “ has become the prevailing legal theory in United States law schools and increasingly beyond the United States.

Theologians once supplied reasons for compliance, as well as the objects and purpose of law. Theology, however, has declined as a source of answers to questions of legal theory. This chapter will show how economic theories of law that prevail today are insufficient to fill theology’s former role.

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