Practical Reason in Law and Morality: (Law, State, and Practical Reason)

The concept of practical reason is central to contemporary thought on ethics and the philosophy of law - acting well means acting for good reasons. Explaining this requires several stages. How do reasons relate to actions at all, as incentives and in explanations? What are values, how do they relate to human nature, and how do they enter practical reasoning? How do the concepts of 'right and wrong' fit in, and in what way do they involve questions of mutual trust among human beings? How does our moral freedom - our freedom to form our own moral commitments - relate to our responsibilities to each other? How is this final question transposed into law and legal commitments? This book explores these questions, vital to understanding the nature of law and morality. It presents a clear account of practical reason, valuable to students of moral philosophy and jurisprudence at undergraduate or postgraduate levels. For more advanced scholars it also offers a reinterpretation of Kant's views on moral autonomy and Smith's on self-command, marrying Smith's 'moral sentiments' to Kant's 'categorical imperative' in a novel way. The book concludes and underpins the author's Law, State and Practical Reason series. Taken together the books offer an overarching theory of the nature of law and legal reason, the role of the State, and the nature of moral reason and judgement.

Table of Contents:
Preface Table of cases Introduction 1: Incentives and Reasons 2: Values and Human Nature 3: Right and Wrong 4: Questions of Trust 5: Autonomy and Reason 6: Obedience, Freedom and Engagement - or Utility? 7: Society, Property, and Commerce 8: On Justice 9: Using Freedom Well 10: Judging: Legal Cases and Moral Questions 11: Practical Reason, Law, and State Index

About the Author :
The late Neil MacCormick was Regius Professor of Public Law at Edinburgh University since 1972 where he served various terms as Dean of the Faculty of Law, Provost of the Faculty Group of Law and Social Sciences, and Vice-Principal (International). His previous posts were at Balliol College (Fellow and Tutor in Jurisprudence 1967-72) and St Andrew's University (Lecturer in Jurisprudence, Queen's College Dundee, 1965-7) From 1999 to 2004 he served as Member of the European Parliament (Scotland, Scottish National Party/European Free Alliance), and had the unusual experience of participating in the Constitutional Convention that drafted the currently derailed constitution for Europe. In 2007, Neil MacCormick was elected President of the 'IVR', the International association for the Philosophy of Law and Social Philosophy. This marks his rare international distinction as a leader in philosophy of law World-wide.

Review :
`This summary of the main themes addressed by MacCormick in Practical Reason in Law and Morality suffices to show how ambitious, rich in content, and broad in scope the book is.' Stefano Bertea - School of Law, University of Leicester. `...the most personal of his books, especially the first and last chapters, which read as something of a philosophical memoir.' James Lee, University of Birmingham, Jurisprudence `[MacCormick]...tackles here the deeper issues that he himself realised had been left open and uncertain in his salient works on legal theory...I would recommend this book to all those who, sharing in a way the liberal, social-democratic views of the author, have felt as acutely as he felt the doubts regarding the existence of a moral truth. These readers will find some good arguments enabling them to move from scepticism to the basic conviction that seeking the truth is meaningful, has prospects of success..., and is the fundamental rationale for discussion and disagreement.' Cristobal Orrego, Univeristy of the Andes, Chile, Jurisprudence