Legal Directives and Practical Reasons by Noam Gur

Legal Directives and Practical Reasons by Noam Gur

This book investigates the way law can affect practical reasons. What difference can legal requirements - be they traffic rules, tax laws, work safety regulations, or others - make to normative reasons relevant to our action? Do they give reasons for action that should be weighed among all other reasons that were applicable before their enactment? Or can they, instead, exclude and take the place of some other reasons? The book critically examines some of the existing answers and puts forward an alternative account of the relation between law and practical reason.At the outset, two competing positions are pitted against each other: first, the view taken by Joseph Raz, that when the law satisfies certain conditions that endow it with legitimate authority, it acquires pre-emptive force, namely it constitutes reasons for action that exclude and take the place of some other reasons; second, an antithetical position, according to which legal requirements cannot exclude otherwise applicable reasons, but can at most provide us with reasons that operate, and compete with opposing reasons, in terms of their weight. These two positions are examined from several perspectives, such as justified disobedience cases, law's conduct-guiding function, and the phenomenology associated with authority. It is found that, although each of the above positions offers insight into the relation between law and practical reasons, they both suffer from significant flaws. These observations lay the basis on which, in the final part of the book, an alternative position is put forward and defended. On this position, the existence and operation of a reasonably just and well functioning legal system constitutes some reasons that are neither ordinary reasons for action nor pre-emptive ones, but rather reasons to adopt a disposition that will generally incline its possessor towards compliance with the system's requirements.

I give Gur's book my highest recommendationThe topic of the book is both interesting and important, the discussion of the various questions is at all times subtle and illuminating, and in addition, Gur is a very good stylist. Having read this book, I understand the ideas and arguments involved much better than I did before. * Torben Spaak, Jurisprudence *
Noam Gur has written a lucid and leading contribution to the rationalist strain of legal theory. ... I heartily recommend the entirety of the book to anyone interested in the rationalist project. * N. P. Adams, The Modern Law Review *
This very readable book is about the kind of reasons to comply with the law that law can provide and - under favorable conditions - does provide ... Gur carefully criticizes the two positions as inadequate before developing a refreshingly different sort of answer. The reader will be surprised to learn what this difference implies about the law and its authority. * Barbara Baum Levenbook, JOTWELL *

Noam Gur is a lecturer in law at Queen Mary University of London. He specializes in jurisprudence and legal theory, and has further research interests in political theory and in tort law. He previously held a post-doctoral position at the University of Oxford, where he also earned his doctorate and master's degrees in law. He obtained his first degree in law from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, after which he clerked at the Supreme Court of Israel and worked as a lawyer in a private firm.

SKU	Unavailable
ISBN 13	9780199659876
ISBN 10	0199659877
Title	Legal Directives and Practical Reasons
Author	Noam Gur
Condition	Unavailable
Binding Type	Hardback
Publisher	Oxford University Press
Year published	2018-11-29
Number of pages	252
Cover note	Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary.