Law as a Model for Solving Ethical Issues

Abstract

The author discusses the thesis proposed by H. Hazlitt that jurisprudence has developed such methods and principles of solving legal problems that could also serve as a guide in solving ethical problems. The article critically reviews the reasoning behind this thesis made by H. Hazlitt and L. Yeager. A special attention is paid to the influence of J. Bentham’s utilitarian ideas on the formation of Hazlitt’s conception. Not being a lawyer, Hazlitt in the work The Foundations of Morality argued that the law affects morality. In Hazlitt’s ethical theory judicial precedents affect the formation of moral rules. Hazlitt compares the formation of general rules in the sphere of morality and law. Using the formula of evaluation of moral rules proposed by Hazlitt, situations should be considered from three positions: subject of action, object of action, and impartial observer. Even though Yeager develops the ideas of Hazlitt, the former uses different arguments to substantiate the main thesis. Yeager believes that the laws have to declare the norms of morality. However, the arguments of Hazlitt and Yeager should be considered critically, as some researchers have done. As an additional argument to support the article’s main thesis, it is proposed to use the mechanism of conciliation procedures as a model for solving ethical problems. The article concludes that the thesis proposed by Hazlitt is valid but requires further reasoning and research by the philosophers of law.