“Natural Law Reasoning in Applied Ethics: Four Paradigms” in Cambridge Companion to Natural Law ed. Robert George and George Duke, CUP, Cambridge, 2017, pp. 216-245.
Natural Law, Comparative Law and Eugenics
“Natural Law, Comparative Law and Eugenics”, Journal of Comparative Law 8 (2014) 209-237.
On the Function and Purpose of an Inquest
Neither justice nor public confidence has been served by the costly three month inquest into Mark Duggan’s death. Part of the problem is that the inquest has been used as the vehicle for an examination of matters more appropriate, at least in cases like these, to the criminal process. The inquest has a function that is in part procedural: to permit appropriate matters to be heard in a criminal court. What we have now is a finding that Duggan though unarmed was not unlawfully killed by the police who shot him. No-one is likely to come before a criminal court charged with his homicide and questions remain in the minds of many that justice has not been done. What should have been a straightforward matter heard by a jury in a criminal court now has the appearance of an institutionally protected police hit job.
Continue reading “On the Function and Purpose of an Inquest”The Natural Law Reader
The Natural Law Reader, eds. Jacqueline A. Laing & Russell Wilcox (Wiley-Blackwell, Oxford, 2013).
“A treasure trove of excerpts, some revelatory, and all of them inspired choices. For those afflicted by caricatures of the natural law tradition, this book is the cure.”
–John Gardner, Professor of Jurisprudence, University of Oxford
“With their generous vision, Laing and Wilcox open up the idea of law in Western thought beyond today’s limits of analytical liberalism and positivism.”
–Anthony Carty, Sir Y K Pao Chair of Public Law, University of Hong Kong
Continue reading “The Natural Law Reader”A Useful Natural Law Resource
My new book co-edited with Russell Wilcox is now out. The book aims to supply a useful resource for courses in philosophy and law.
The Natural Law Reader, eds. Jacqueline A. Laing & Russell Wilcox (Wiley-Blackwell, Oxford, 2013).
“A treasure trove of excerpts, some revelatory, and all of them inspired choices. For those afflicted by caricatures of the natural law tradition, this book is the cure.”
–John Gardner, Professor of Jurisprudence, University of Oxford
“With their generous vision, Laing and Wilcox open up the idea of law in Western thought beyond today’s limits of analytical liberalism and positivism.”
–Anthony Carty, Sir Y K Pao Chair of Public Law, University of Hong Kong
Continue reading “A Useful Natural Law Resource”Public Order Act Amendments Confer Few Article 9 Protections
Proposed amendments to the Public Order Act aim to protect from prosecution, although perhaps not job loss, those who believe same-sex marriage to be contrary to public interest. These amendments highlight an important conceptual problem. In Eweida and Others v. UK four Christian applicants challenged employment tribunal decisions against them largely on Article 9 (freedom of belief) grounds. Although Nadia Eweida’s case in favour of wearing a small cross to work at British Airways was successful in the ECHR, three other applicants failed. In particular, Lillian Ladele lost her job as a registrar for failing to perform civil partnerships once the Civil Partnerships Act 2004 was enacted.
Continue reading “Public Order Act Amendments Confer Few Article 9 Protections”Not in My Name
A recent report by a Commission on Assisted Suicide funded by euthanasia advocates, Terry Pratchett and Bernard Lewis, ushered in by euthanasia supporter and Labour peer, Charles Falconer, and sponsored by Dignity in Dying (formerly the Voluntary Euthanasia Society), has found, predictably, that a legal framework should be investigated that would allow medical complicity in suicide. The fact that the 11-strong commission was made up of nine well-known proponents of euthanasia, led, inexorably, to an early-stage boycott of the inquiry by over 40 organisations, including the British Medical Association.
Continue reading “Not in My Name”Infanticide: A Reply to Giubilini and Minerva
In this article I reply to Alberto Giubilini and Francesco Minerva’s recent infanticide proposal which, I argue, is predicated on their personism and actualism. According to these related ideas, human beings achieve their moral status in virtue of the degree to which they are capable of laying value upon their lives or exhibiting certain qualities or being desirable to third-party family members. This article challenges these criteria, suggesting that these and related ideas are rely on arbitrary and discriminatory notions of human moral status. Our propensity to sleep, fall unconscious, pass out and so on, demonstrates that we often exhibit our status as ‘potential persons’ who are not in the condition of attributing any value to their own existence. Our abilities, age and desirability can and do fluctuate. The equal dignity principle, distinguished in turn from both the excesses of vitalism and consequentialism, is analysed and defended in the context of human rights logic and law. The normalisation of non- and involuntary euthanasia, via such emerging practices as the self-styled Groningen Protocol, is considered. Substituted consent to the euthanasia of babies and others is scrutinised and the implications of institutionalising non-voluntary euthanasia in the context of financial, research and political interests are considered. The impact on the medical and legal professions, carers, families and societies, as well as public attitudes more generally, is discussed. It is suggested that eroding the value of human life carries with it significant destructive long-term implications. To elevate some, often short-term, implications while ignoring others demonstrates the irrational nature of the effort to institutionalise euthanasia.
The Philosophy of War and Peace
“The Philosophy of War and Peace” Journal of Applied Philosophy 26 (2009) 114-116.
Law, Liberalism, and the Common Good
“Law, Liberalism, and the Common Good” Human Values: New Essays on Ethics and Natural Law Edited by David S. Oderberg and T.D.J. Chappell, London, Macmillan, 2004, pp. 184-216. ISBN 4039-1810-4.