Jurisprudence

Paper Summary:

A legal system reflects the priorities and issues of the society it serves. This paper considers the views of John Stuart Mill, the Hart/Devlin debate and Marxism to determine whether a legal system can or should be morally neutral.
Outline
Introduction
Mill on Individualism and Morality
The Hart-Devlin Debate
Dworkin
Marxism and Legal Morality
Concluding Comments

From the Paper:

"John Stuart Mill was a prominent and prolific nineteenth century economist and philosopher. It is submitted that of all his published work it was his essay On Liberty , published in 1859 that inspired most profound reaction and longest-lived controversy. Mill's primary assertion was that individuals should only be morally accountable to themselves, unless their actions touch deleteriously upon the interests of society at large. Mill's thesis is that we should only seek to coerce others in self-defense - either to defend ourselves, or to shield others from harm. Since Mill's influential and ground breaking work was published the freedom of the individual has come to the fore and has been advocated as an essential component of a sympathetic, equitable and advanced legal system."

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