The ethics of Hercules : $b A study of man's body as the sole determinant of ethical valuesGivler, Robert Chenault
Philosophy
The ethics of Hercules : $b A study of man's body as the sole determinant of ethical values
Givler, Robert Chenault
Ethics; Psychophysiology
Having looked at the picture of legal rights from one angle, let us
now look at it from another. While in strict logic the statement of
these rights in the form of a hypothetical imperative gives them an
undeniable strength, it must now be admitted that from the pragmatic
point of view it signifies at times a discouraging weakness. For it
has often been the case that the establishment of claims and the
protection of interests has in practice depended upon such vexatious
variables as the pet theories of experts (e. g., alienists), the
hunger, fatigue, and stubbornness of jurymen, the internal secretions
of judges, a crowded or empty condition of the jails, current
sociological theory, and even such astonishing things as one’s
affiliation with secret societies, or one’s political “pulls,” not to
mention, except by a passing remark, the determination of a litigant
to carry his case to the higher courts clear beyond the ability of
his antagonist’s purse to follow him there. So that if we ask whether
some particular claim or interest can and will be established or
protected, the real answer in a large number of border-line cases is,
“Nobody knows.” Justice, who carries in her hand a balance whereby
to weigh the evidence fairly, has also her eyes blindfolded against
seeing what manner of weights are put into either pan. This defect of
law, however, is not to be wondered at when we remember that legal
theory cannot anticipate all of the innumerable claims and interests
which either honest or knavish persons are likely to support as
valid. If the theory of law had been as complicated as human society
has become, it could not have accomplished the half of what it has
already achieved.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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