Some recent ideas in substantive moral philosophy and their relevance to law

Abstract

Bolstered by the writings of Ronald Dworkin, moral philosophy recently has enjoyed something of a renaissance in jurisprudence. Of course, moral philosophy has always been of vital concern to natural law theorists, who view law and morality as conceptually related. Moral philosophy has also been a vital reform weapon for several writers in feminist jurisprudence1 and critical legal studies.2 Even legal positivists who view law and morality as conceptually distinct are aware of developments in moral philosophy and depend on these developments to defend their separability thesis.3 Serious legal theorists cannot ignore the development of ideas in moral philosophy. The collection Liability and Responsibility4 brings together a dozen essays on moral philosophy by influential philosophers and legal