Promoting Justice after Lisbon: Prospects for a New Philosophy of EU Law

Abstract

This paper treats values, including specifically ‘legal’ and ‘professional’ values, as distinct from the normative standards of legal and professional ethics as commonly understood. It treats values as powerful motivating and aspirational constructs, an important element both of individual identity construction, and of what defines and holds our academic and professional communities together. Values help us to negotiate the complex web of social roles and commitments, and are important in understanding the dynamic way in which lawyers (and others) respond to morally complex or challenging situations.