Responsibility in Law and Morality - Hardcover

Cane, Peter

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1841133213 ISBN 13: 9781841133218

Publisher: Hart Publishing, 2002

Synopsis

Lawyers who write about responsibility focus on criminal law at the expense of civil and public law. Philosophers tend to treat responsibility as a moral concept, and either ignore the law or consider legal responsibility to be a more or less distorted reflection of its moral counterpart. This book aims to counteract both of these biases. By adopting a comparative institutional approach to the relationship between law and morality, it challenges the common view that morality stands to law as critical standard to conventional practice. It shows how law and morality interact symbiotically, and how careful study of legal concepts of responsibility can add significantly to our understanding of responsibility more generally.

About this title

From the Author:

Peter Cane is a Senior Research Fellow at Christ's College, Cambridge. He was previously Distinguished Professor of Law at the Australian National University College of Law, and before that a Professor of Law at Corpus Christi College, Oxford. He is the author of numerous books on law, including Atiyah's Accidents, Compensation and the Law (8th ed, 2013), Responsibility in Law and Morality (2003), The Anatomy of Tort Law (1997), Tort Law and Economic Interests (2nd ed, 1996), and Administrative Law (5th ed, 2011).

Review:

.an impressive and comprehensive discussion of the treatment of responsibility in the law-a discussion that ranges across nearly every field of law, and across jurisdictions, supported by detailed references to cases and supplemented by knowledgeable summaries of commentary by lawyers, legal philosophers, and moral philosophers. Brian H. Bix Ethics Oct 06 Peter Cane has written an impressively wide-ranging and illuminating booka truly commendable piece of work. Cane's book deserves a large audience among legal, moral, and political philosophers. Matthew H. Kramer, Cambridge University Philosophical Review May 2005 .it offers a notably clear and robust formulation of a social approach towards responsibility. he has plenty of interesting and illuminating insights to offer.lawyers and philosphers alike will learn a great deal from this careful dissection of topics. Jeremy Watkins Oxford Journal of Legal Studies, Vol 26, No 3 (2006), pp 593-608 This is a wide-ranging, highly sophisticated work which looks at concepts of responsibility in law across a range of areas. Alan Norrie Adelaide Law Review May 2002 'Responsibility in Law and Morality' is a challenging and valuable book. Although I have criticised Cane's account of responsibilty in this review, I do not wish to leave the reader with the impression that his book is anything but valuable and rewarding it is an illuminating study of responsibilty in law. It is my view that modern lawyers have a great deal to learn from its approach. Accordingly, apart from being essential reading for anyone interested in legal theory, the book has much to teach any lawyer with even the smallest interest in the justifications of legal liability. Allan Beever Melbourne University Law Review May 2002

About this edition

• Publisher: Hart Publishing
• Publication date: 2002
• ISBN 10: 1841133213
• ISBN 13: 9781841133218
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 2
• Number of pages: 320