An Epistemic Case for Legal Moralism

Ignorance of the law is no excuse, or so we are told. But why not? The statute books run to hundreds of volumes. How can an ordinary citizen know what is in them? The best way might be for law (at least in its wide-scope duty-conferring aspects) to track broad moral principles that ordinary citizens...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Oxford journal of legal studies 2010-12, Vol.30 (4), p.615-633
Main Author: GOODIN, ROBERT E.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Common law
Criminal law
Customary international law
Legislation
Legislators
Moral principles
Moralism
Positive laws
Rule of law
Statutory law
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Summary:Ignorance of the law is no excuse, or so we are told. But why not? The statute books run to hundreds of volumes. How can an ordinary citizen know what is in them? The best way might be for law (at least in its wide-scope duty-conferring aspects) to track broad moral principles that ordinary citizens can know and apply for themselves. In contrast to more high-minded and deeply principled arguments, this epistemic argument for legal moralism is purely pragmatic—but importantly so. For law to do what law is supposed to do, which is to be action-guiding, people need to be able to intuit without detailed investigation what the law is for most common and most important cases of their conduct, and to intuit when their intuitions are likely to be unreliable and hence that they need to investigate further what the law actually is.
ISSN:0143-6503
1464-3820
DOI:10.1093/ojls/gqq026