One more point. Whether international institutions themselves – such as the United Nations and its agencies – should be bound by the rule of law remains controversial. This is curious because these agencies are among the most vocal defenders of the rule of law when it comes to applying it to nation-states. The restraint stems largely from an assessment of the importance of diplomatic immunity. United Nations officials fear that if they and their organizations are held legally responsible for crimes of various kinds related to peacekeeping activities, there is a risk that the entire basis of international action will be destroyed. However, the danger is probably exaggerated, and those who make this argument would not tolerate for a moment a similar argument in the realm of nation-states. So we need a baseline of expectations. The best account of the importance of legal expectations was given by the utilitarian philosopher Jeremy Bentham in a book entitled “Principles of the Civil Code”. Expectation, Bentham said, is “a chain that connects our present existence to our future existence.” F.A.

Hayek was an economist by training, but he also encouraged an interest in the relationship between legal structures and forms of economics. Hayek`s work on the rule of law took place in two phases: (1) from his war book The Road to Serfdom (1944) to the Constitution of Freedom (Hayek 1960); and (2) the somewhat different narrative of his trilogy Law, Legislation and Liberty (1973), a presentation more in keeping with the spirit of the common law and hostile to the role of legislation. As important as “legal paternalism” is to the question of the limits of the law, I will say very little, as it has its own entry elsewhere in this encyclopedia (G Dworkin, 2002). Suffice it to say here that Feinberg is not equally hostile to all forms of legal paternalism. He distinguishes between “soft paternalism” and “hard paternalism.” In many cases, the violent implementation of a person`s will can coincide with their personal autonomy. Feinberg describes these cases as “soft paternalism” and contrasts them with those with “hard paternalism” (Feinberg 1986, p. 26). This is the “hard” variant that Feinberg opposes, the violent coercion of a person against his will for his own good. It excludes this for reasons of legitimacy.

In fact, he does not believe that “soft” paternalism is in fact paternalism, rightly called, and therefore ceases to include it in his list of potentially legitimizing reasons for legal coercion. Nagel does not refer directly to the consent of coercion. Because you can`t just allow someone to refuse to give their actual consent to block the application of the law, regardless of the basis of the point of view. In his view, it might be permissible to force someone to serve a purpose if that person can be given sufficient reason to share the end, even if they do not accept it. Giving someone proper justification does not simply mean relying on the views of others. There are two particularly influential philosophical accounts of the rule of law: those of Fuller (1969) and Raz (2009:210-29). Both view the rule of law narrowly and as an important legal ideal. The peculiarity of the two reports is that they propose two (very different) ways of harmonising the requirements of the rule of law. There is much to learn, both from the reports themselves and from their limitations.

Rule of law theorists like to make lists of the principles that make it up. These principles are of a different nature, which can be loosely divided into principles dealing with formal aspects of governance by law; the principles relating to its procedural aspects; and principles that encompass certain substantive values. On the other hand, is it preferable to consider that the legislature should, as a matter of principle, be denied recourse to certain moral premises based on the good life, not because the premises are bad, but to dispel the feeling that partisan notions of goodness, which are held only by some, are particularly favoured? The problem here soon arises that, if one avoids full recourse to truth in political arguments, one tends to encounter clumsy opponents who sometimes have unpleasant opinions, who like to make their arguments public, like to subject them to “reasonable rejection,” and the happiest to all claim that their principles cannot reasonably be rejected. The debate will continue for some time. In general, the type of neutrality most often supported by proponents of this view is neutrality of justification rather than neutrality of effect. Neutrality of justification implies that the justification of laws should not include reference to judgments about the relative merits of these different lifestyles (Mulhall and Swift 1996, p. 30). For example, imagine a group that loves nature and another that loves television.