I do solemnly swear : the moral obligations of legal officials

by Sheppard, Steve

Type Book

Rate 0.0 /5

Details

Buy

Comments

Download

Summary

What should the people expect from their legal officials? This book asks whether officials can be moral and still follow the law, answering that the law requires them to do so. It revives the idea of the good official - the good lawyer, the good judge, the good president, the good legislator - that guided Cicero and Washington and that we seem to have forgotten. Based on stories and law cases from America's founding to the present, this book examines what is good and right in law and why officials must care. This overview of official duties, from oaths to the law itself, explains how morals and law work together to create freedom and justice, and it provides useful maxims to argue for the right answer in hard cases. Important for scholars but useful for lawyers and readable by anybody, this book explains how American law ought to work.

Titles

Full Title: I do solemnly swear : the moral obligations of legal officials/ Stephen Michael Sheppard.

Notes

Title from publisher's bibliographic system (viewed on 05 Oct 2015).
Law and office -- The stakes : the interests of others in official actions -- Officials' obligations arise from more than the law alone -- The moral obligations of legal officials -- Patterns of relationship between legal and moral obligations -- Breaching obligations -- Tools for the trade : maxims and fallacies.

Identifiers

Isbns: 9780511626678; 0511626673; 9780521513685; 0521513685; 9780521735087; 0521735084
Doi: 10.1017/CBO9780511626678
Oclc Number: (OCoLC)967485808

Publication Statement

Place: Cambridge
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Date: 2009

Physical Description

Extent: 1 online resource (xxviii, 276 Seiten)

Law and office -- The stakes : the interests of others in official actions -- Officials' obligations arise from more than the law alone -- The moral obligations of legal officials -- Patterns of relationship between legal and moral obligations -- Breaching obligations -- Tools for the trade : maxims and fallacies.

Summary

What should the people expect from their legal officials? This book asks whether officials can be moral and still follow the law, answering that the law requires them to do so. It revives the idea of the good official - the good lawyer, the good judge, the good president, the good legislator - that guided Cicero and Washington and that we seem to have forgotten. Based on stories and law cases from America's founding to the present, this book examines what is good and right in law and why officials must care. This overview of official duties, from oaths to the law itself, explains how morals and law work together to create freedom and justice, and it provides useful maxims to argue for the right answer in hard cases. Important for scholars but useful for lawyers and readable by anybody, this book explains how American law ought to work.