Legal Philisophy - Glossary of Philosophical Conceptsn (Printed)

LEGAL PHILOSOPHY
GLOSSARY OF PHILOSOPHICAL CONCEPTS

AESTHETICS The branch of Philosophy that is concerned with the
analysis of concepts such as beauty or beautiful as standards for
judging works of art.
AGNOSTICISM A claim of ignorance; the claim that Gods existence can
neither be proved nor disproved.
ANALYTIC PHILOSOPHY The philosophical school of thought associated
with Russel, Moore, Ryle, Carnap, Ayer, and Wittgenstein that emphasizes
the analysis of language and meaning. Specifically, it is the conviction
that philosophical problems, puzzles, and errors are rooted in language
and can be solved or avoided by a sound understanding of language.
ANARCHISM That theory that all forms of government are incompatible
with individual and social liberty and should be abolished.
ANIMISM The belief that many spirits inhabit the nature.
ANTHROMORPHISM The attribution of human qualities to human entities,
especially to God.
ANTIREALISM The doctrine that the objects of our senses do not exist
independently of our perceptions, beliefs, concepts, and languages.
ATHEISM The belief that a personal God does not exist. In the last two
centuries, some of the most influential atheistic philosophers have been
Karl Marx, Friedrich Nietzsche, Bertrand Russell, and Jean-Paul Sartre.
AUTHORITY A source of our theological knowledge, specifically for
philosophers and theologians who hold that the mysteries of faith
surpass the reach of human person.
AVIDYA In Buddhism, pertains to the cause of all sufferings and
frustrations; it means ignorance or unawareness that leads to clinging.
AXIOLOGY The study of the general theory of values, including their
origin, nature, and classification.
BECOMING In Hegelian thought, refers to the world in which everything
in our daily experiencepersons and thingscomes into being and passes
away.
BEHAVIORISM In Psychological Philosophy, it is the school of
psychology that restricts the study of human nature to what can be
observed rather than to states of consciousness.
BEING A general term in metaphysics referring to ultimate reality or
existence. True being, for Plato, is the realm of the eternal Forms.
BRAHMAN The Hindu concept of a personal Supreme Being; the source and
goal of everything.
BUDDHIST PHILOSOPHY Founded by Siddharta Gautama (Buddha), believes
that the ultimate goal of human being is the attainment of nirvana, the
state that is free from the causes of pain and suffering.
CATEGORICAL IMPERATIVE Immanuel Kants ethical formula: act as if the
maxim (the general rule) by which a person acts could be willed to
become a universal law; it is the belief that what is right for one
person is also right for everyone in similar circumstances. This is
compared with hypothetical imperatives, which permit exceptions.
PO2 DANILYN RICAFRENTE LIMBO
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CHINESE ROOM ARGUMENT A thought experiment offered by by Searle to

refute the claims of strong artificial intelligence advocates that
suitably programmed machines are capable of cognitive mental states.
COGITO Literally, in Latin, I think. Used by Descartes to describe
the self as a thinking thing.
COMMON SENSE REALISM The epistemological position that does not
distinguish between an object and an experience of it.
COMPATIBILISM The belief that both determinism and freedom of the will
are true; religion and reason are compatible with each other and do not
conflict.
CONCEPTUAL RELATIVIST VIEW IN EPISTEMOLOGY The view that the true
scientific theory is nothing more than a theory that coheres with the
conceptual framework accepted by a community of scientists.
CONDITIONED GENESIS The Buddha formula consisting of twelve factors
that summarize the principles of conditionality, relativity, and
independence.
CONFUCIANISM An ethical theory which asserts that human beings are
part of nature, who must live in accordance with the natural law that
governs and guides the movements of all things.
CONSEQUENTIALIST THEORY IN ETHICS The position that the morality of an
action is determined by its nonmoral consequences.
CORRESPONDENCE THEORY A theory concluding that truth is an agreement
between a proposition and a fact.
COSMOLOGICAL ARGUMENT An argument for the existence of God which
claims that there must be an ultimate causal explanation for why the
universe as a totality exists.
COSMOLOGY The study of the universal world processesthe process by
which the world unfolds and evolves. It studies the origin and nature of
the world.
CRITICAL PHILOSOPHY The analysis and definition of basic concepts and
the precise expression and criticism of basic beliefs.
DECONSTRUCTION A post-structuralist theory associated with Derrida
that attempts to sho that all pairs of opposite concepts in
philosophical systems are in fact self-refuting.
DEISM A belief in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries in a God
who, having created the universe, remains apart from it and administers
it through natural laws.
DEONTOLOGY Any position in ethics that claims that the rightness or
wrongness of actions depends on whether they correspond to our duty or
not. The word derives from the Greek word for duty, deon.
DESIGN ARGUMENT An argument for the existence of God that claims that
the order and purpose manifest in the working of things in the universe
require a God.
DETERMINISM The theory that everything that occurs happens in
accordance with some regular pattern or law. Accordingly, human beings
do not possess freedom of the will or the power to originate independent
or genuine choices.
DIALECTIC In general, the critical analysis of ideas to determine
their meanings, implications, and assumptions; as used by Hegel, a
method of reasoning used to synthesize contradictions.
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DIVINE COMMAND THEORY A single-rule, non-consequential normative

theory which says that we should always to the will of God. It asserts
that the rightness or wrongness of actions depends on whether or not
these actions correspond to Gods commands.
DOGMATISM The act of making a positive assertion without demonstration
by either rational argument or experience.
DOLORS Utilitarian unit of pain or displeasure. Its opposite is hedon,
a unit of pleasure.
DUALISM The theory that reality is composed of two different,
independent, irreducible substances so that neither one can be related
to the otherthus, spirit/matter, mind/body, good/evil. This is the
contrast of monism and pluralism.
DUTY THEORY In ethics, the position that a moral action is the one
that conforms with obligations accrued in the past, such as the
obligations or gratitude, fidelity, or justice.
ECLECTICISM A consequentialist ethical theory which contends that we
act morally when we act in a way that promotes our own best long-term
interest.
ECUMENICAL TRADITION In various religions, this tradition is
characterized by an openness to other religious traditions and a
willingness to explore overlapping areas of faith; this tradition is
often contrasted with fundamentalist and absolutist traditions in
religion.
EMERGENCE/EMERGENT EVOLUTION The view that in the development of the
universe, new life forms appear which cannot be explained solely by
analysis of previous forms.
EMOTIVISM The metaethical position that ethical statements primarily
express surprise, shock, or some other emotion. It holds that moral
judgments are simply expressions of positive or negative feelings.
EMPERICISM The position that knowledge has its origins in and derives
all of its content from experience, which denies that human beings
possess inborn knowledge or that they can derive knowledge through the
exercise of reason alone.
ENLIGHTENMENT (1)An intellectual movement in modern Europe from the
sixteenth to the eighteenth centuries that believed in the power of
human reason to understand the world and to guide human conduct. (2) For
Buddhists, the state of Enlightenment or nirvana is the goal of human
existence.
ENTITLEMENT THEORY A theory of social justice contending that
individuals are entitled to their properties and other holdings without
harming anyone in the process. This is expressed in the Latin maxim, sic
utere tuo ut alienum non laedas.
EPICUREANISM The belief in pleasure as the highest good.
EPIPHENOMENALISM The view that matter is primary and the mind is a
secondary phenomenon accompanying some bodily process.
EPISTEMOLOGY The branch of Philosophy which investigates the nature,
sources, limitations, and validity of knowledge.
ESSENCE The chief characteristic, quality, or necessary function that
makes a thing what it uniquely is.
ETHICAL ABSOLUTION/ABSOLUTISM In Ethics, the view that affirms the
existence of a single correct and universally applicable moral standard.
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ETHICAL EGOISM A moral theory that in its most common version

(universal ethical egoism) states that each person ought to act in his
or her own self-interest.
ETHICAL RELATIVISM Any view that denies the existence of a single
universally applicable moral standard. There are two types: (1)
DESCRIPTIVE ETHICAL RELATIVISM, which claims as a matter of fact that
different people have different moral beliefs, but it takes no stand on
whether those beliefs are valid or not; and (2) NORMATIVE ETHICAL
RELATIVISM, which claims that each cultures beliefs are right within
that culture and that it is impossible to judge validly another
cultures values from the outside.
ETHICS That branch of Philosophy which is the explicit reflection on
moral beliefs and practices. (1) A set of rules for human behavior; (2)
a study of judgments of valueof good and evil, right and wrong, or
desirable and undesirable; (3) theories of obligation or duty or why we
ought to behave in certain way.
EUDAEMONISM From Greek eudaimonia (flourishing; happiness), it is
the view that the goal of life is happinessthat is, complete, longlived kind of well-being.
EXCUSABILITY The concept that under certain circumstances, people are
nor morally responsible for their decisions and conduct.
EXISTENTIALISM A twentieth century philosophy by Sartre and MerleauPonty which denies any essential human nature; each of us creates our
own essence through free action.
FATALISM The view that events are fixed, that humans can do nothing to
alter them.
FORMALISM In Ethics, it is the view that moral acts from fixed moral
principles and do not change because of circumstances.
FREE WILL The theory that in some cases the will makes decisions or
choices independent of prior physiological or psychological causes.
FUNCTIONALISM A contemporary theory of mind-body problem that mental
events depend on networks, pathways, and the interconnection of mental
processes, but not on any specific material stuff that the brain is
composed of, such as neurons. It holds open the possibility that mental
events can occur in nonbiological systems, such as silicon chips.
FUNDAMENTALISM In various religious traditions, this is the belief
that correct religious belief and practice are determined by how close
they correspond to the basic texts and dogmas. In fundamentalistic
traditions, basic texts and rules are often interpreted very literally.
GESTALT THEORY The twentieth century psychological theory which states
that
our
perceptual
experience
consists
of
a
full
range
of
characteristicsform,
structure,
sense,
meaning,
and
valueall
simultaneously.
HEDONISM The doctrine that pleasure is the actual, and also the
proper, motive of every choice.
HERD MENTALITY A view in Nietzsches philosophy which states that
people are often reduced to a common level of mediocrity.
HINDUISM is a belief that the soul is the ultimate, eternal reality
but is bound by the law of karma (action) to the world of matter, which
it can escape only after spiritual progress through an endless series of
births; thus, the ultimate humanitys goal is the liberation (moksha) of
the spirit (jiva).
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IDEALISM The view that mind is the ultimate reality in the world, as
opposed tomaterialism, the view that all reality is composed of material
things.
IDEAL UTILITARIANISM First advanced by G.E. Moore in the nineteenth
century, is a form of utilitarianism which maintains that we ought to
act to maximize the realization of certain ideals, such as truth or
beauty.
IDENTITY THEORY A contemporary theory of mind-body problem associated
with Armstrong and Smart that reduces mental events to brain activity.
ILLUSION For Freud, it means a false belief growing out of a deep
wish; it is an erroneous impression, such as optical illusion.
IMPRESSION Humes term for experience consisting of sensations and
mental reflections.
INDETERMINISM The theory which states that in some cases the will
makes decisions or choices independent of prior physiological or
psychological causes.
INTEGRATIONISM A theory that attempts to reconcile apparently
conflicting tendencies or values into a single framework. Integrationist
positions are contrasted with separatist positions, which advocate
keeping groups (usually defined by race, ethnicity, or gender) separate
from each other.
INSTRUMENTALISM Deweys theory which states that thought is
instrumental insofar as it produces practical consequences.
INTUITION Direct and immediate knowledge of the self, the external
world, values, or other metaphysical truths, without the need to define
the notions, to justify a conclusion, or to build up inferences.
INTUITIONISM In metaphysics, the doctrine that intuition rather than
reason reveals the reality of things; in ethics, the doctrine that man
has an innate sense of right and wrong.
LOGICAL POSITIVISM The twentieth century movement in the analytical
tradition that rests on the verification principle.
MARXISM The materialist philosophy founded by Karl Marx, which
advanced the theory that (1) the existence of social and economic
classes is only bound up with historic phases in the development of
production; (2) the class struggle necessarily leads to the dictatorship
of the proletariat (working class); and (3) the dictatorship itself only
constitutes the transition to the abolition of all classes and to a
classless society with equal distribution of wealth.
MATERIALISM The view that matter constitutes the basis of all that
exists in the universe. Hence, combinations of matter and material
forces account for every aspect of reality, including the nature of
thought, the process of historical and economic events, and the standard
of values based on sensuous bodily pleasures and the abundance of
things; this view rejects the notion of the primacy of spirit or mind
and rational purpose in nature.
METAPHYSICS The branch of philosophy concerned with the question of
the ultimate nature of reality. Unlike the sciences, which focus on
various aspects of nature, metaphysics goes beyond particular things to
inquire about more general questions, such as what lies beyond nature,
how things come into being, what it means for something to be, and
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whether there is a realm of being that is not subject to change and that
is, therefore, the basis of certainty in knowledge.
MONISM
The
view
that
there
is
only
one
substance
in
the
universe. Idealism andMaterialism are monistic theories. Monism is the
contrast of Dualism and Pluralism.
MORAL ISOLATIONISM The belief that we ought not to be morally
concerned with, or involved with, people outside our own immediate
group. Moral isolationism is often a consequence of some versions of
moral relativism.
MORAL REALISM The belief that moral disagreements can, at least in
part, be resolved by appeals to facts about the natural order of things.
MORALITY The first-order beliefs and practices about good and evil by
means of which we guide our behavior. In contrast, ethics, the secondorder, is reflective consideration of our moral beliefs and practices.
NARCISSISM An excessive preoccupation with oneself. In mythology,
Narcissus was a beautiful young man who fell in love with his own image
reflected in a pool of water.
NATURAL LAW In ethics, believers in natural law hold that (1) there is
a natural order to the human world, (2) this natural order is good, and
(3) people therefore ought not to violate tbat order.
NIHILISM The view that there are no value or truth. According to
Nietzsche, death of God will be followed by the rejection of absolute
values and the rejection of the idea of an objective and universal moral
law.
NIRVANA In Hindu theory, a condition of happiness arising out of the
absolute cessation of desire.
NOUMENAL WORLD The real world as opposed to the world of appearance.
According to Kant, the noumenal world cannot be known.
NOUMENON In Kant, the ultimate reality, or Thing-in-itself, which can
be conceived by thought, but cannot be perceived in experience.
ONTOLOGICAL ARGUMENT A proof of Gods existence devised by Anselm,
such that God is defined as the greatest possible being, which
necessarily entails existence.
ONTOLOGY The study of existence and being, from the Greek ontos,
being, andlogos, science; related to the field of metaphysics.
PANTHEISM The doctrine that God is immanent in all things.
PHENOMENAL WORLD In Kants theory, the world of appearance versus the
noumenal world beyond our knowledge.
PHENOMENOLOGY A twentieth century philosophical movement by Husserl,
which states that in accounting for knowledge, we should not go beyond
the data available to consciousness derived from appearances.
PLURALISM The view that there are more than one or two separate
substances making up the world. It believes that there are multiple
perspectives to an issue, each of which contains part of the truth but
none of which contains the whole truth. This stands in contrast to
both monism and dualism. In ethics, ethical pluralism is the belief that
different moral theories each capture part of the truth of the moral
life, but none of those theories has the entire answer.
POSITIVISM A nineteenth century philosophical movement by Comte, which
asserts that we should reject any investigation that does not rest on
direct observation.
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POSTMODERNISM The theory in contemporary Continental philosophy which

rejects the Renaissance and Enlightenment assumption that the world can
be explained in a unified system.
POST-STRUCTURALISM The radical extension of the structuralist position
contending that novels and philosophical texts are completely closed
systems whose meanings derive from what individual readers bring to the
texts.
POSTULATE In Kants theory, it pertains to a practical or moral
principle that cannot be proved, such as the existence of God, the
freedom of the will, or immortality, which must be believed to make
possible our moral duty.
PRAGMATISM A twentieth century movement associated with Pierce, James,
and Dewey, contending that there is little value in philosophical
theories that do not somehow make a difference in daily life.
PREFERENCE UTILITARIANISM A moral theory that says we ought to act in
such a way as to maximize the satisfaction of everyones preferences.
RATIONALISM The philosophical view that emphasizes the ability of
human reason to grasp fundamental truths about the world without the aid
of sense impressions.
REDUCTIONISM The philosophical position that complex systems can be
understood by reducing them into their simplest components. The type of
reductionism espoused by some Pre-Socratic philosophers is called
Ontological Reductionism the idea that all matter consists of one or a
very
few
basic
substances
in
various
combinations
(hot/cold,
light/dark)..
RELATIVISM The view that there is no absolute knowledge, that truth is
different for each individual, social group, or historical period and
is, therefore, relative to the circumstances of the knowing subject.
RIGHTS These are entitlements to do something without interference
from other people (negative rights) or entitlements that obligate others
to do something positive to assist you (positive rights). Some rights
(natural rights, human rights) belong to everyone by nature or simply by
virtue of being human; some rights (legal rights) belong to people by
virtue of their membership in a particular political state; other rights
(moral rights) are based on acceptance of a particular moral theory.
SCHOLASTICISM The theological and philosophical method of learning in
medieval schools that emphasized deductive logic and the authority of
key figures such as Plato, Aristotle, and Augustine.
SKEPTICISM (1) the tendency to doubt some fundamental component of
knowledge; (2) the Ancient Greek school of thought associated with
Platos Academy, Pyrrho, and Sextus Empiricus. In Ancient Greek,
skeptics were inquirers dedicated to the investigation of concrete
experience and wary of theories that might cloud or confuse that
experience. In modern times, skeptics are wary of the trustworthiness of
sense experience. Thus, classical skepticism primarily distrusted
theories; whereas, modern skepticism primarily distrusts experience.
SOCIAL CONTRACT THEORY In social philosophy, the doctrine that
individuals give up certain liberties and rights to the state, which in
turn guarantees such rights as life, liberty, and the pursuit of
happiness.
SOLIPSISM From the Latin solus, alone and ipse, self; it is the
view that the self alone is the source of all knowledge of existence,
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which sometimes leads to the conclusion that the self is the only
reality.
SOPHISTS Wandering teachers in fifth-century Athens who especially
prepared young men for political careers, who hence emphasized rhetoric
and the ability to persuade audiences and win debates, and who were less
concerned with pursuing truths.
SOVEREIGN A person or state independent of any other authority or
jurisdiction.
STRUCTURALISM The theory in contemporary Continental philosophy
associated with Saussaure and Levi-Strauss that the meaning of a thing
is defined by its surrounding cultural structures, which in turn rely on
pairs of opposite concepts, such as light and dark.
SUBJECTIVISM An extreme version of relativism, which maintains that
each persons beliefs are relative to that person alone and cannot be
judged from the outside by any other person.
TAOISM Introduced by Lao Tzu, this philosophy of passivity and
transcendentalism, believes in supernatural explanations for anything,
to disregard the ephemeral things and concentrate on the eternal through
meditation, special diet, and sexual hygiene.
TELEOLOGY From the Greek telos, purpose; the study of purpose is
human nature and in the events of history.
TELEOLOGICAL SUSPENSION OF THE ETHICAL This is a term introduced by
Soren Kierkegaard to refer to those instances in which normal ethical
duties are overridden by a command from God. Kierkegaards principal
example of this is Gods command to Abraham to sacrifice his son Isaac.
TRANSCENDENTAL beyond the realm and reach of the senses.
UNIVERSALIZABILITY A Kantian term applied to the maxims, or subjective
rules, that guide our actions. A maxim is universalizable if it can be
consistently willed as a law that everyone ought to obey. The only
morally good maxims are those that can be universalized. The test of
universalizability ensures that everyone has the same moral obligations
in morally similar situations.
UTILITARIANISM An ethical and political economic theory associated
with Bentham and Mill that an action is morally good if it produces as
much good as or more good than any alternative behavior. This theory
states that whatever produces the overall greatest amount of pleasure
(hedonistic utilitarianism) of happiness (eudaimonistic utilitarianism)
is morally right. Act utilitarians claim that we should weigh the
consequences
of
each
individual
action,
whereas Rule
utilitarianism maintains that we should look at the consequences of
adopting particular rules of conduct.
VERIFICATION PRINCIPLE A principle in logical positivism contending
that a statement is meaningful if (1) it asserts something that is true
simply because the words used necessarily and always require the
statement to be true (as in mathematics) or (2) it asserts something
that can be judged as true or false by verifying it in experience.
VICE A weakness of character that prevents individuals from
flourishing (eudaimonia). According to Aristotle, vices typically
consist of having either too much or too little of a proper virtue. Thus
courage is the mean of foolhardiness (too much) and cowardice (too
little).
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VIRTUE A stretch of character, usually acquired through habit, that

promotes human flourishing. According to Aristotle, virtues represent a
middle ground between the two extremes of too much or too little.
VIRTUE EPISTEMOLOGY An epistemological theory that focuses on the
character traits of a person, rather than on the properties of a
persons belief.
VIRTUE THEORY A moral theory that focuses on the development of good
character traits, or virtues, rather than on rules for solving moral
dilemmas.
WAGER, PASCALS A contention by Pascal that, when reason is neutral on
the issue of Gods existence, we should be psychologically compelled to
believe based on the benefits of such belief.
Moral Law
MORAL LAW
(originally posted on 1 February 2008, at Elmer at Random)
I. Definition and Nature of Moral Law
Moral law may be defined as that kind of nonjural law which sets the
standards of good and commendable conduct. It is that rule to which
moral agents ought to conform all their voluntary actions, and is
enforced by sanctions equal to the value of the precept. It is the rule
for the government of free and intelligent action, as opposed to
necessary and unintelligent action. It is the law of liberty, as opposed
to the law of necessityof motive and free choice, as opposed to force
of every kind. Moral law is primarily a rule for the direction of the
action of free will, and strictly of free will only. But secondarily,
and less strictly, it is the rule for the regulation of all those
actions and states of mind and body that follow the free actions of will
by a law of necessity. Thus, moral law controls involuntary mental
states and outward action, only by securing conformity of the actions of
free will to its precept.
Moral law may be said to resemble divine and natural law. Divine law is
the law of the religious faith. Moral law, while also concerned with the
precepts of good and right conduct as the basis of its norms, is not
necessarily concerned with the law of religious faith. For a person may
not be religious and yet still be ethical. Moral and natural laws apply
equally to all persons everywhere and yet they are not identical: moral
law is ethical in foundation; natural law is strictly metaphysical.
Physical law is the totality of uniformities and orders of sequence
which combine together to govern physical phenomena. Moral law differs
from jural law insofar as enforcement is concerned. While jural law is
enforceable in the courts, moral law is enforced only by indefinite
authority for there are no courts in which it is administered as such.
II.
Essential
Attributes
of
Moral
Law
Subjectivity. It is an idea of reason, developed in the mind of the

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subject; an idea, or conception, of that state of will, or course of

action, which is obligatory upon a moral agent. No one can be a moral
agent, or the subject of moral law, unless he has this idea developed;
for this idea is identical with the law. It is the law developed, or
revealed within himself. Thus he becomes a law to himself, his own
reason affirming his obligation to conform to this idea, or law.
Objectivity. Moral law may be regarded as a rule of duty, prescribed by
the supreme Lawgiver, and external to self. If man has been given an
objective final end by the Creator, he will be under the obligation to
strive for it. And when he looks to that objective, an order which has
to be followed will become visible to him: the moral order. This moral
order is shown to us through the moral law.
Liberty, as opposed to Necessity. Kant formulated the idea of an
autonomous, independent morality. It means an ethics which is not only
free from any considerations of happiness and profit, but also free from
any demands imposed upon man by God. Moral goodness is the value in
itself, and it merits to be realized for the sake of its own dignity,
not for the sake of any external authority who wills it, be it even the
authority of God.
Fitness. Its precept must prescribe and require only those actions of
the will which are suitable to the nature and relations of moral beings.
Here, the social order must constantly yield to the good welfare of the
person. It strives for the fulfillment of the basic needs of food,
clothing, housing, and a life in peace and liberty. This is confirmed by
the conventions on human rights.
Universality. The conditions and circumstances being the same, it
requires, and must require, of all moral agents, the same things, in
whatever world they may be found.
Impartiality. Moral law is no respecter of personsknows no privileged
classes. It demands one thing of all, without regard to anything, except
the fact that they are moral agents. By this it is not intended, that
the same course of outward conduct is required of all; but the same
state of heart in allthat all shall have one ultimate intentionthat
all shall consecrate themselves to one endthat all shall entirely
conform, in heart and life, to their nature and relations.
Justice. That which is unjust cannot be law. Justice, as an attribute of
moral law, must respect both the precept and the sanction. Sanctions
belong to the very essence and nature of moral law. A law without
sanctions is no law; it is only counsel, or advice. Sanctions are the
motives which the law presents, to secure obedience to the precept.
Consequently, they should always be graduated by the importance of the
precept; and that is not properly law which does not promise, expressly
or by implication, a reward proportionate to the merit of obedience, and
threaten punishment equal to the guilt of disobedience. Law cannot be
unjust, either in precept or sanction: and it should always be
remembered, that what is unjust, is not law, cannot be law. It is
contrary to the true definition of law. Moral law is a rule of action,
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founded in the nature and relations of moral beings, sustained

sanctions equal to the merit of obedience, and the guilt
disobedience.
by
of
Practicability. The moral demand must be possible to the subject. A law

must be physically and morally possible. It is physically impossible if
it commands actions that are completely beyond the forces and means of a
person. Thus, a lunatic cannot be required to vote, and a dumb person
cannot be obliged to sing the national anthem. If however only a part of
a law is impossible, then the possible part must be fulfilled, as in the
case of taxation.
Independence. It is founded in the self-existent nature of God,
independent from the will of any being. It is an eternal and necessary
idea of the divine reason and the self-existent rule of the divine
conduct.
Immutability. Moral law can never change, or be changed. It always
requires of every moral agent a state of heart, and course of conduct,
precisely suited to his nature and relations. Moral law is not a
statute, an enactment, that has its origin or its foundation in the will
of any being. It is the law of nature, the law which the nature or
constitution of every moral agent imposes on himself, and which God
imposes upon us because it is entirely suited to our nature and
relations, and is therefore naturally obligatory upon us. It is the
unalterable demand of the reason, that the whole being, whatever there
is of it at any time, shall be entirely consecrated to the highest good
of universal being.
Unity. Moral law proposes but one ultimate end of pursuit: love or
benevolence. It is the idea of perfect, universal, and constant
consecration of the whole being, to the highest good of being.
Equity. Moral law demands that the interest and well-being of every
member of the universal family shall be regarded by each according to
its relative or comparative value, and that in no case shall it be
sacrificed or wholly neglected, unless it be forfeited by crime. Laws
must respect the demands of distributive justice. It must distribute
burdens and privileges equally and according to the capacities of the
subjects. This is particularly true for the laws of taxation.
Exclusiveness. That is, moral law is the only possible rule of moral
obligation. A distinction is usually made between moral, ceremonial,
civil, and positive laws. This distinction is in some respects
convenient, but is liable to mislead and to create an impression that
something can be obligatory, in other words can be law, that has not
been the attributes of moral law. Every other rule is absolutely
excluded by the very nature of moral law. Surely there can be no law
that is or can be obligatory upon moral agents but one suited to, and
founded in their nature, relations, and circumstances. This is the law
of right.
11 | P a g e
III. Moral Law Discussed by Justice Vitug through His Dissenting Opinion
in ESTRADA VS. ESCRITOR, AM O-02-1651; August 4, 2003
Philippine laws are veritable repositories of moral laws that sanction
immoral conduct which, at first glance, could appear to be private and
to cause no harm to larger society but nevertheless dealt with. Examples
of such instances include general references to good moral character
as a qualification and as a condition for remaining in public office,
and sex between a man and a prostitute, though consensual and private,
and with no injured third party, remains illegal in this country. Until
just about a month ago, the United States Supreme Court has outlawed
acts of sodomy or consensual sexual relations between two consenting
males, even if done in the privacy of the bedroom. Are moral laws such
as these justified? Do they not unduly impinge on ones own freedom of
belief?
Law and Morals
Law and morals, albeit closely connected, may proceed along different
planes. Law is primarily directed at mans behavior while morals are
directed at his animus or state of mind. While the law often makes
reference to ones state of mind, it does not, however, punish the
existence of immoral intent without more. It requires only that at the
risk of punitive sanctions for disobedience, one must refrain from the
temptation to act in accordance with such intent to the detriment of
another. The ethical principle is generally cast, affirmatively or
negatively, in the form of a direct command, whereas the legal rule
peaks, generally, of the consequences that attend the violation of a
duty. As to purpose, law and morals further diverge. Morals strive for
individual perfection, while law aim at harmony in the community.
Not all societal mores are codified into laws. We have yet to see a law
outlawing vanity, pride, gluttony or sloth. Nor are all laws necessarily
moral. Slavery is outlawed but not so in our distant past. Laws allowing
racial segregation prejudicial to blacks or denying the right to
suffrage to women may seem to be relics of a long gone uncivilized
society if one forgets that the abolition of these immoral laws is but
less than a century ago.
The observation brings to the fore some characteristics of morals, which
make it unwise to insist that it be, at all times, co-extensive with law
First, morals are not entirely error free. To insist that laws should
always embody the prevailing morality without questioning whether the
morals sought to be upheld are in themselves right or wrong would be a
dangerous proposition. Second, morals continuously change over time,
often too slowly to be immediately discerned. To ensure that laws keep
pace with the ever-changing moralities would be quite a perplexed, if
not a futile, an endeavor. Third, standards of morality vary. Modern
society is essentially pluralist. People of different faiths owe common
allegiance to the State. Different moral judgments flow from varying
religious premises that, obviously, the law cannot all accommodate.
The Common Origin of Morality and the Law
That law and morals are closely intertwined is a traditionally held
belief. One school of thought even go as far as calling a law without
morality as not law at all; but naked power, and that human beings not
only have a legal, but also the moral obligation to obey the law. It
suggests that where law clashes with morality, it can impose no
obligation, moral or otherwise, upon anyone to obey it; one may actually
12 | P a g e
be morally bound to disobey such law. The ancient role held by the
Christian Church as being the ruler of both spiritual and temporal
affairs of men has laid that groundwork for the impression. The JudaicChristian God is thought to be the source of both law and morality and
man has come to know of His law and morals through the human soul, the
human conscience and the human mind. With the rise of the secular state
in the 16th and 17th centuries and the corresponding decline in the
authority of the Church, legal thinkers such as Pufendorf, Vattel, and
Burlamaqui would establish legal systems based on scientific principles
deduced from the nature of men and things, that would guide the behavior
of the metaphysical man in directions that promote political order and
assure a measure of protected individual dignity. Such treatises on
natural law have offered model political systems based on scientific
principles logically deduced from the nature of man and the nature of
things, serving to give a kind of scientific legitimacy to the newly
formed nation states emerging in the 17th and 18th centuries under human
sovereigns. Not surprisingly, sovereigns of that era promulgated natural
law codes consisting of religious commandments, quasi-human moral values
and civic virtues all couched in the language of legal proscriptions
proclaimed and enforced by secular states. Human conduct condemned by
Gods law and forbidden by the sovereigns law would be said to be
morally, as well as legally, reprehensible or malum in se.
As the law of the state became inexorably intertwined with higher moral
law, based on both divine law and the law of nature, so, also, human law
was seen to carry the moral authority of both. Jurisprudential
ramifications could hardly be contained.
In the last 19th century, legal reformers have consciously inculcated
moral concepts such as fault, intent, and extenuating circumstances into
both civil and criminal law. Law and morals have been drawn closer
together so that legal accountability, more accurately than not, would
likewise reflect moral culpability. Vestiges of these reforms are still
enshrined in our laws. In the Revised Penal Code, for example,
mitigating, extenuating or aggravating circumstances that may either
decrease or increase the penalties to be meted on an offender are all
based on the moral attributes of the crime and the criminal.
The academic polemic
With the emergence of the secular state, the greatest contribution of
liberals to the issue is not the discovery of a pre-existing, necessary
distinction between law and morality; rather, it is their attempt at
separation, the building of the wall to separate law from morality,
whose coincidence is sublimely monstrous. Liberals attempt to divorce
law from morality by characteristically adhering to some form of harm
principle: public authority may justly use law as coercive factor only
to prevent harm to non-consenting third parties. More specifically, the
main distinguishing feature of liberalism is its opposition to morals
law or the legal interference up to and including (sometimes)
prohibition of putatively victimless immoralities such as sodomy,
prostitution,
fornication,
recreational
drug
use,
suicide
and
euthanasia. Liberals argue that moral laws are, in principle, unjust.
This surge of liberalism has set the trend in the courts to adopt a
neutral and disinterested stand in cases involving moral issues, often
at the expense of obscuring the values which society seeks to enforce
through its moral laws. This matter brings to mind the case of Grisworld
13 | P a g e
vs. Connecticut where the US Supreme Court, despite a presupposition

that contraception is always wrong, nevertheless, has invalidated that
states anti-contraceptive law. In so deciding, the US Supreme Court has
not met head-on the issue of whether the use of contraception is immoral
but instead has struck down the law as being invalid on the ground of
marital privacy. Should Grisworld then be taken to sanction a moral
right to do a moral wrong?
Into the Twentieth Century: the Devlin-Hart Debate
On September 1957 in England, the Committee on Homosexual Offenses and
Prostitution chaired by Sir John Wolfenden has recommended in its report
to the British Parliament that homosexual behavior between two
consenting adults in private should no longer be a criminal offense. The
thesis holds that it is not the duty of the law to concern itself with
immorality as such. The report has proposed to resolve questions of the
legitimacy of legally enforcing moral obligations by distinguishing
immoralities that implicate public interests from immoralities that are
merely private. The Wolfenden Report would spark an academic debate that
persists to this day.
Patrick Devlin, then a High Court judge, has argued at the British
Academys 1959 Maccabaean Lecture that it would be a mistake to posit a
private sphere of immorality into which the law ought not to venture.
Devlins legal moralism hinges on the theory that moral offenses insofar
as they affect common good are fit subjects for legislation. Whether
behavior, private or public may affect common good in such a manner that
endanger the fabric of society and should thus be suppressed by law is a
question of fact, which can be answered only after a full consideration
of the conditions prevailing in a given society. To Devlin, morals are
not merely a matter of private judgment; society should be in a position
to enforce its moral standards as a means of self-preservation,
whatever its morality happens to be. Devlin would thus become the
forerunner of ethical relativism which suggests that there is no right
and wrong in any absolute sense, that right or wrong depend entirely
on the culture in which one happens to live. Devlin then would tolerate
individual freedom only as far as possible and as long as it is
consistent with the integrity of society. Hence, while privacy is
respected, it may be forfeited where one person injures another.
H.L.A. Hart refutes Devlins suggestion that immorality, even if
private, can be likened to treason, against which it is permissible for
society to take steps to preserve itself. Hart sees Devlins view of
people living in a single society as having common moral foundation as
overly simplistic. To Hart, societies have always been diverse. With the
rise of democracy, society could more accurately be called a
collectivity of ideas and attitudes, an assemblage or gathering of
people who live together and work together and govern themselves
collectively in spite of the great diversities that divide them. Hart
places emphasis on the right to privacy and freedom of action which
ought to be protected and should be interfered with only when private
behavior ceases to be private and becomes a menace to the public or to
some part of the public. One may deduce from Harts arguments that
private consensual moral offenses should not be legally prohibited
because of the difficulties in enforcing such laws and the near
impossibility of detecting most offenses without an unconscionable
invasion of privacy.
14 | P a g e
Hart criticizes attempts to impose the morality of the majority on a

few. Justification for punishment especially when applied to conduct not
harmful to others represents a value to be pursued at the cost of human
suffering, the bare expression of moral condemnation and treats the
infliction of suffering as a uniquely appropriate mode of expression.
The idea that we may punish offenders against a moral code not to
prevent harm but simply as a means of venting or expressing moral
condemnation is uncomfortably close to human sacrifice as a form of
religious worship. To Hart, Vox populi does not necessarily translate to
Vox Dei. Hart particularly singles out laws aimed at enforcing sexual
morality as oppressive Laws designed to enforce sexual morality to
the extent that they interfere with certain forms of sexual expression
and restrict the sexual outlet that may be available, impose an acute
form of suffering upon those who are thus deprived of the only outlet
available to them. Such laws and the coercive measures that may be used
to enforce them may create misery of quite a special degree. All
restraints then must be justified by strong reasons. Quoting John
Stuart Mill in his essay On Liberty, Hart expounds The only purpose
for which power can rightfully be exercised over any member of a
civilized community against his will is to prevent harm to others. His
own good, either physical or moral is not a sufficient warrant. He
cannot be rightfully compelled to do or forbear because it will be
better for him to do so, because it will make him happier, because in
the opinion of others, to do so would be wise or right.
Arriving at an Acceptable Middle Ground
But Hart is not without his critics, among them being Robert P. George.
George acknowledges that laws per se cannot make men moral; laws can
only succeed in commanding outward conformity to moral rules but cannot
compel internal acts of reason. Such an instance would be a law
requiring all people to contribute to the charities. While fear of
sanctions would force one to make such contribution, the same does not
necessarily make him charitable. George, however, contends that laws can
be utilized to make men moral by: (1) preventing further selfcorruption, (2) preventing bad example (3) helping to preserve the moral
ecology and (4) educating people about right and wrong. Thus, to him,
moral laws punishing victimless sexual immoralities, for example,
proceed from the conviction that the acts are truly wrong and that they
damage the characters of the people who perform them, block the path to
virtue, and in specific ways offend against the common good. George
cites Aristotle who, centuries ago, had long anticipated but criticized
and firmly rejected the doctrine of mainstream contemporary liberalism,
namely the belief that the law should merely be a guarantor of mens
rights against another instead of being, as it should be, a rule of
life such as will make the members of the polis good and just.
Robert George submits, and I agree, that while morality cannot be
legislated, laws can help make men moral by creating a moral ecology
and profoundly affecting notions in society about what is morally
acceptable, forbidden and required. People shape their own lives and
often treat others very differently in the light of these notions. The
point is, a good moral ecology benefits people by encouraging and
supporting their efforts to be good, a bad moral ecology harms people by
offering them opportunities and inducements to do things that are
wicked. To illustrate, the decision of US Supreme Court in Brown vs.
15 | P a g e
Topeka Board of Education in 1954 and of the Civil Rights Act of 1964
has primarily been responsible in changing societys perception on
forced segregation or interracial marriage.
It might then be deduced that moral laws are justified when they (1)
seek to preserve the moral value upheld by society and (2) when the
morality enforced in a certain case, is true and correct. It is within
these standards that the provision against immorality in the
Administrative Code must be examined to the extent that such standards
can apply to the facts and circumstances in the instant case before the
Court. As a rule then, moral laws are justified only to the extent that
they directly or indirectly serve to protect the interests of the larger
society. It is only where their rigid application would serve to
obliterate the value which society seeks to uphold, or defeat the
purpose for which they are enacted, would a departure be justified.
The Morality of Marriage
Marriage is one area where law and morality closely intersect. The act
of respondent Escritor of cohabiting with Quilapio, a married man, can
only be called immoral in the sense that it defies and transgresses
the institution of marriage. Society having a deep interest in the
preservation of marriage, adultery is a matter of public, not merely
private, concern, that cannot readily be ignored. This deep-seated
interest is apparent in our Civil Code so replete with rules as in
defining the parties legal capacity to marry, in laying down the
essential requisites of the union, in regulating the rights and duties
of the spouses, even their property relations, and in protecting the
rights of children. Marriage has acquired a legal definition as early as
the 12th century that has since grown towards a cherished institution
with Gregorian Reform of the 11th and 12th centuries.
With the separation of the Church and State, marriage has retained its
status as a legally protected viculum because it is perceived to be
imbued with societal interest as a foundation of the family and the
basic unit of society. While Islamic states recognize polygamous
marriages and, in Western countries, divorce is acceptable, in the
Philippines, however, absolute monogamy is still the order of the day.
Societal interest in monogamous unions is grounded on the belief that
the cohesiveness of the family is better protected, and children, prized
for their role in the perpetuation of the future of the community, are
better reared when spouses remain together. These societal interests are
embodied in moral laws geared towards protecting the monogamous nature
of Philippine marriages. But I do not endeavor to examine whether
Philippine society is correct in viewing monogamy as the better means
for the protection of societal interest on the family but I do would
focus myself on, given the facts of the case, whether or not societal
interest is rightly served.
Thus, I, in conscience, would take exception to the 1975 case of De Dios
vs. Alejo. In De Dios, respondents Elias Marfil and Julieta O. Alejo,
deputy sheriff and stenographer of the then Court of First Instance of
Rizal, respectively, were administratively found guilty of immorality
for living together despite Marfils prior existing marriage with
another woman. Never mind if Marfil exerted valiant efforts to save his
marriage by enduring the recriminations, unhappiness and extreme
incompatibility he had with his wife. Never mind if notwithstanding his
efforts, his wife abandoned him and their four children to live with
16 | P a g e
another man. Never mind if Alejo took on the duties and responsibilities
of being the mother to his children, rearing them as though they were
her very own long after their natural mother had left them. Never mind
if the children had, in fact, regarded her as their very own mother.
Never mind if she was a good wife to the man she was living with,
fulfilling the wifely duties long after the legal wife had abdicated
them. Never mind if in all respects, they had become a family. Did not
the Court in adjudging them guilty of immorality and in ordering them to
put an end to their relationship, destroy a de facto family? Did not its
narrow-minded view of marriage as a contractual transaction and its
exacting application of the standards of monogamy, in effect, defeat the
very moral purpose for which the law was put into place?
Are we not sacrificing the substance of marriage that is a union of
man and woman in a genuine, loving and respectful relationship and, in
effect, the substance of a family, for a mere shell of intricate
legality? Lest I be misunderstood, I am not advocating for a departure
from the elevated concept marriage as being a legally protected union. I
merely express concern that a blanket application of moral laws
affecting marriage, without regard to the peculiarities of every case,
might defeat the very purpose for which those laws are put into place.
IV.
DIRECT
SOURCES
Introduction to Philosophy; Crisolito Pascual. UP Law Center, Quezon
City,
2003.
Christian Ethics; Karl Peschke, SVD. Logos Publications, Inc, Manila,
2004.
The
Moral
Law
of
God,
Charles
G.
Finney. www.charlesfinney.com/ml/ml1.htm
Estrada vs. Escritor, AM 0-02-1651; August 4, 2003.
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PRE-SOCRATIC PHILOSOPHIES
PRE-SOCRATIC PHILOSOPHIES (585-400 BCE)
The pre-Socratic philosophers (around 600 BCE) were the earliest
rational thinkers in the Western civilization. Their philosophies
centered on the questions, What is the world made of? How did the
world come into being and How can we explain the process of change?
The western Ionian seaport of Miletus across the Aegean Sea from Athens
was the meeting place between the East and the West, where Oriental,
Egyptian
and
Babylonian
(Eastern)
philosophies
influenced
the
development of what came to be the enduring Greek philosophy. While
Eastern philosophies probed natures depths intuitively and spiritually,
early Greek thinkers viewed nature cognitively and scientifically. PreSocratic philosophy represented a paradigm shift from the mythical
explanation of the origins of the cosmos to intellectual, scientific
attempts to understand the origins of the universe.
SEVEN SAGES
The men traditionally referred to as the Seven Sages were philosophers,
statesmen and legislators of the late seventh and sixth centuries BCE.
Exactly who were in the list was later named by Plato as: Thales,
17 | P a g e
Pittacus of Mytilene, Bias of Priene, Solon of Athens (the father of

Athenian Democracy), Cleobilus of Lindus, Myson of Chenae, and Chilon of
Sparta. Except for Thales, they were not really philosophers in the
modern sense, but practical politicians. However, in that respect their
speeches and sayings can be seen as ultimate precursors of the Classical
periods greatest
thinkers
about ethics,
politics and morality
(Socrates, Plato and Aristotle).
HISTORIANS OF CLASSICAL GREECE
1. HERODOTUS (c. 484-425 BCE)
Herodotus became the father of history. His subject was the history of
the Archaic period (c. 750-480 BCE), and his underlying theme was the
meeting of the Greek world with the cultures of Asia Minor, the Near
East and Egypt. His work shares some of the preoccupations of the
Presocratic philosophers in its fascination with the nature of different
human cultures and the underlying causes of human actions, especially
warfare, without reference to gods or divine will. His style was rather
anecdotal than analytical, and he is often very nave, but his curiosity
and questioning attitude , and his attention to all sides of an issue,
using both Greek and non-Greek sources, link him methodologically with
the Presocratic philosophers.
1. THUCYDIDES (c. 455-400 BCE)
Called the pioneer of scientific history, Thucydides unlike Herodotus,
concentrated on a wholly Greek subject, the Peloponnesian War between
Athens and Sparta (431-404 BCE). He was more analytical historian than
Herodotus was, brilliantly unraveling the complex processes of decisionmaking or failure to decide that determined the fortunes of the parties
in the war.
MONASTIC MATERIALISM
Most of the Presocratic philosophers thought that material principles
alone were principles of all things. They had varying ideas of what the
primordial
substance
was;
but
they
could
scarcely
even
have
conceptualized a single origin for the universe if they had not already
formed a concept of the universe as an ordered whole whose order should
be determined: it was neither the creation of some gods or divine force
nor a disordered mess intractable to intelligent explanation. The word
they used for this order was kosmos, a word cognate with kosmeuein, to
arrange or set in order. Heraclitus is probably the first Greek thinker
to use kosmos clearly in this sense of the ordered world. The early
Presocratics also argued that the world was governed by some regulatory
force; this idea lies behind the Anaximanders notion of cosmic justice,
which maintains balance in the universe. Heraclitus and Parmenides were
also concerned with cosmic justice.
Mathematics was an important part of Presocratic philosophy. The Greeks
traditionally regarded Egypt as the wellspring of mathematics, but it
was they who applied deductive reasoning to it. Thales introduced the
notion
of
mathematical
proof
and
made
some
basic
geometrical
discoveries. Mathematics was central to Pythagorean movement: numerous
discoveries in geometry and music, including the famous theorem about
the square of the hypotenuse, have been attributed to Pythagoreans
rather than to Pythagoras himself. Among other things, Pythagoreans
18 | P a g e
proved the existence of irrational numbers, with a drastic effect on

the rest of their theory of the universe.
Most of the Presocratic philosophers were aristocratic or propertied
citizens, active in the government of the cities or as military leaders;
but mere practical political advice hardly counts as philosophizing. The
Pythagoreans were primarily interested in the soul, and believed in
reincarnation. Their view of philosophy as a way of life also shows
where their main interest lay. On the whole, even the later Presocratic
philosophers were not explicitly interested in ethical theory, though
they did concern themselves with theories of mind, its distinction from
matter, and the nature of knowledge.
1. THALES OF MILETUS (625-545 BCE)
Thales was famous for having observed or perhaps predicted the first
accurately datable event in Greek history: a solar eclipse on 28 May 585
BCE. His interests in eclipses would well have sprung from Miletus
links with Lydia, and through Lydia with Babylonia, where eclipses had
long been studied by astronomers.
Thales is widely considered to have broken new ground when he theorized
that water was the original substance out of which everything else was
created. This was a breakthrough, because for the first time, there was
a reasoned argument to support a theory, based on Thales empirical
observation not only on the behavior of water itself (freezing,
evaporation, thawing), which caused it to change from one thing to
another and reverse the process while still demonstratively water, but
of the reliance of all life forms on water for nourishment. Thales
realization that a substance could change without losing its essential
nature was also important; and it was an idea carried forward by
Anaximenes, the youngest of the three Milesian pioneers, in his concept
of rarefaction and condensation in the universe.
Thales also held the earth floats on water, like a floating log.
However, he did not explain what the water itself rests on, or whether
it is limitless, as might have been appropriate for the primordial
substance. Thales also theorized that all things are full of gods, and
the magnet is alive for it has the power to move iron.
1. ANAXIMANDER OF MILETUS (610-540 BCE)

The second of the Milesians, Anaximander proposed that the universe not
only originated in a single primordial substance but was subject to a
single law. Unlike Thales, Anaximander posited that this substance, the
material principle of everything that exists, was not only familiar
earthly substance but something that he calledapeiron, the boundless.
Anaximander believed that everything in the world derived from four
elementsair, water, earth, and firethat existed necessarily as pair of
opposites. But he disagreed with Thales view that any of the four could
be the underlying substance on its own, because each of them needed its
opposite to maintain its existence. Beyond the four elements, he argued,
there had to be something that had no opposite: accordingly he
hypothesized the apeiron. As well as being limitless in extent,
the apeiron was eternal and ageless, ungenerated and indestructible,
and from it came the heavens and all the worlds.
19 | P a g e
Perhaps springing from the notion of constant change, Anaximander

conceived of a process of generation among animals that looks at first
sight like a distant ancestor of a theory of evolution. Viewed more
closely, his ideas about this process seem to owe more to observation of
the development of insects from larvae: that the first animals were born
in moisture, surrounded by prickly bark, from which they later emerged
on dry land, and for a short time lived in a different kind of life. He
posited the emergence of human beings out of fish or fish-like creatures
in a similar process, not emerging and taking to the land until they
were able to fend for themselves.
Anaximander was the first man to make a map of the earthwhich he
conceived of as cylindrical, set in the center of a spherical universe
around which the sun, moon, and stars circle, equidistant from the
earth, in a celestial wheel. He conceived of a series of wheels or
hoops, set at different distances from the earth, hollow and filled with
fire, and punctuated by openings or vents; light or fire showing through
these vents accounted for the appearances of the heavenly bodies. The
hoop of the sun was twenty-seven greater than the earth, that of the
moon eighteen times greater. Phases of the moon and eclipses were
explained in terms of the blocking and opening of the vents. This
picture may seem extremely fanciful, but it contains two revolutionary
features: (1) the notion that the universe was spherical, and (2) the
idea that it was the circular shape of the hoops that prevented them
from falling in towards the sun.
1. ANAXIMENES OF MILETUS (c. 545 BCE)
The third in the succession of early Milesians, Anaximenes, pupil of
Anaximander, adopted Thales idea that the primordial stuff was an
observable substance, choosing air, and proposed that the single law
that governed the generation of matter was one of rarefaction and
condensation. Here was another process of continual change and motion.
The most rarefied condition of air was fire; successive degrees of
condensation produced wind, clouds, water, earth, and finally, at the
densest, stone. Rarefaction was caused by heating, condensation by
cooling. The movement involved in rarefaction and condensation also made
matter visible or invisible.
On the shape of the universe, Anaximenes also looked back to Thales: his
earth, sun and other heavenly bodies were all fiery, shaped like flat
discs, and airborne, turning in a circle above the flat earth. The
heavenly bodies would not fall through the air because, being flat, they
offered resistance. Anaximenes model of the universe and in particular
the earth proved highly influential: Anaxagoras and Democritus are among
those who agreed with him.
1. PYTHAGORAS (Born 570 BCE)
Pythagoras believed in the transmigration of souls and established a
religious sect centered on that belief. Pythagoreans belief in
reincarnation, their communal way of life, their secrecy, and their
veneration to the founding figure make it difficult to identify
individual members of Pythagoras circle to detect what is original to
Pythagoras.
Pythagoras marks the beginning of a different tradition of thought from
that of the Milesians. He did not concern much with nature, being more
20 | P a g e
interested with the soul and its qualities. He saw both the universe and
the soul as endless and unchanging, the same things recurring eternally,
and within this scheme the soul was subject to a series of
reincarnations. Pythagorean philosophy was full of mystical and
religious thought. Much of it was expressed in short sayings or
aphorisms, called akousmata(things heard), which included the famous
advice to abstain from beans but also statements about the universe, for
example that the planets were bearers of divine vengeance, the purpose
of thunder was to frighten souls in the underworld, and earthquakes were
gathering of the dead. Other akousmata took the form of instructions or
prohibitions that seem frankly superstitious: Put your right shoe first,
dont have children by a woman who wears gold, dont look in a mirror by
lamplight, etc. These are less scientific than the Ionian pioneers, ant
hey make no use of reasoned argument at all.
Pythagoreans had speculated that everything in the world, and the
relations between things, could be explained in terms of numbers. Their
attempt to establish measurability combined the intellectual and the
mystical in a way that seems strange to us: they thought, for instance,
that marriage is five because it joins the first even (female, limited)
number with the first odd (male, unlimited) one. Even the soul had a
number. They noticed as well that musical intervals could be expressed
numerically, related to the lengths of strings on a lyre. From this they
postulated that if musical harmony depended on numerical ratios, the
harmony of the universe could also be expressed numerically.
In the fifth century BCE, Pythagoreans split into two factions:
Aphorists (akousmatikoi), and Mathematicians (mathematikoi), reflecting
the two sides of Pythagorean thought.
1. XENOPHANES (580-480 BCE)
Poet-philosopher Xenophanes was the first philosopher of religion. He
was extremely critical of the traditional portrayal of the gods in Homer
and the epic poems, where they behaved so disappointingly like humans,
forever committing theft and adultery and mutual deception. This does
not mean that Xenophanes was an atheist; on the contrary, he could be
very pious. His remarks are a critical analysis of religion as it was
practiced in the day. He believed that people imagined God in their own
image.
Xenophanes hypothesized on non-mythological theology centered on a
single or supreme godit is not entirely clear from the surviving
fragments whether he is referring to just one god or a god that is the
greatest of many. The important thing is that this divinity is not a
person but an abstract, impersonal divine principle, similar to mortals
neither in shape nor in thought, able to shape all things by the force
of its mind alone, capable of accomplishing everything while always
reposing the same state or placeand ultimately unknowable to human
minds.
His theory of the fundamental primary substance was earth and water, or
a mixture of the two. In meteorology, Xenophanes made a remarkably
prescient observation that clouds are formed by vaporization caused by
the heat of the sun, and used this concept to suggest explanations for a
number of astronomical phenomena. In short, Xenophanes combined a new
21 | P a g e
approach to belief in divine order with the lively inquiry into the
nature of the world and its contents typical to his Ionian predecessors.
1. HERACLITUS (540-475 BCE)
Nicknamed the weeping philosopher, Heraclitus was paired with
Democritus who was the laughing philosopher. Central to Heraclitus
philosophy was that the natural universe is governed by a law of
opposites held in tension, as in a bow and a lance. In general, he saw
the universe as made up of pairs of opposites similar with Anaximandrian
idea, but with the difference that Heraclitus saw justice and strife as
themselves necessary. This paradoxical unity of opposites can be shown
in many images: the sea is most pure and polluted water; for fish, it is
drinkable and preserves life; for men, it is undrinkable and it kills;
or his famous riddle: the path up and down is one and the same. Thus,
the same road can appear in two opposite ways, depending on which
direction you are looking at it. It tells us that the natures of things
are not absolute in themselves but relative to our point of view. On the
other hand, it appears as more complex metaphor referring to the process
of cyclical change by which the cosmos eternally comes into being.
Fire was the element Heraclitus choose as the primordial substanceor
rather the primordial process of the world. He maintained that the world
always existed and had been made neither by god nor man, but always was,
is and will be, an ever-living fire, kindling and being quenched in
proportion. Everything else had arisen from this eternally ongoing
process of combustion. From this process a universal harmony emerged.
In contrast to the idea of oneness and stasis put forward by his Eleatic
contemporary Parmenides, Heraclitus claimed that everything changes and
nothing remains. The process of change is the logosthe logic or
rationaleof the universe. Heraclitus rejected the accepted Greek
religion but believed in the existence of something divine, which he
identified with the eternal cosmic fire.
Heraclitus was emphatic on the imperfection of human knowledge: Me do
not understand the things they meet withnot even when they have learned
them do they know them. In particular, most divine acts escape our
knowledge. The individuals subjective knowledge is incomplete, and
wisdom lies not in learning but in the souls awakening to the logos:
wisdom is one thing, to grasp the knowledge of how all things are
steered through all. His theories have been considered precursors of
the laws of conservation and energy; is ideas about divine logos found
their way, via Plato, into Christian theology. The opening words of the
gospel of John (In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with
God, and the Word was God) may echo this logos, reaching right back to
Heraclitus.
1. PARMENIDES (Born 515 BCE)
Parmenides used logical argument to prove that being, or what is is
single, without beginning or end, continuous, and also finite and
spherical; and that, contrary to the evidence of our senses, our belief
in plurality and change in the world is erroneous and the material world
around us is an illusion. The logical theory begins with the statement
that something is, or something is not. The reason is that we can only
conceptualize and speak about things that exist; we are unable to do
this with things that dont exist. He also offered the startling theory
22 | P a g e
that the entire universe consists of one thing, which never changes, has
no parts, and can never be destroyed, calling this single thing the One.
1. ZENO (Born 490 BCE)
A friend of Parmenides, Zeno is best known for his series of logical
paradoxes, which illustrate the method of reduction ad absurdumproving
or disproving a statement by taking its consequences through strictly
logical steps to the point of absurdity. He asserted that our senses do
not give us reliable knowledge but only opinion. The most famous of the
paradoxes are four arguments proving the impossibility of motion,
apparently supporting Parmenides idea that motion was illusory. Two of
those paradoxes are:
(1)
Achilles and the tortoise. In a race, the fastest runner can
never overtake the slowest, for the pursuer must first reach the point
where the pursued set out, so that the slower one must always be in the
lead. Imagine the Greek epic hero Achilles, famed for his speed, in a
race with a humble tortoise. If the tortoise, as the slower contestant,
is given a head start, it will always remain ahead; for by the time
Achilles has reached the point from which the tortoise started out, the
tortoise has moved onby a shorter distance than Achilles has covered,
admittedly, but still it has moved on. And whenever Achilles reaches a
point that the tortoise has just left, it is still ahead. Since there is
an infinite number of points Achilles has to reach where the tortoise
has already been, he will never catch up, for even though the distance
between the racers becomes infinitesimal, it can never shrink to
nothing. Zeno argues, hence, that motion is impossible.
(2)
The paradox of dichotomy, or halving. If something is divisible,
theoretically it can be cut in two infinite number of times, until it
either becomes an infinite number of infinitesimal pieces from which the
whole could be reconstituted, or else disappears into nothing, which
would mean that the whole thing was constituted from nothingwhich is
impossible. Therefore, Zeno concludes, there cannot be a plurality of
things but just the one. Aristotle saw this paradox as a variation on
Achilles and the tortoise, but there is a further problem in it,
illustrated by the case of Achilles and the racetrack, or indeed anyone
progressing from point A to point B. There is no competitor this time,
but to get to the end of the trackfrom A to Byou have to reach the
halfway mark; before you can get there, you have to get a quarter of
the way there; before that, an eighth of the way and so on till, in the
end, with infinitesimal divisions of the distance, it will take you
forever just to start off.
In all of these arguments, Zeno was counterattacking the adversaries of
Parmenides, taking seriously their assumption of a pluralistic world
where a line or time is divisible. By pushing these assumptions to their
logical conclusions, Zeno attempted to demonstrate that the notion of a
pluralistic world lands one in insoluble absurdities and paradoxes. He
therefore reiterated Parmenides thesis that change and motion are
illusions and that there is only one being, continuous, material, and
motionless. In spite of Zenos valiant efforts, the commonsense view of
the world persisted, which prompted succeeded philosophers to take a
different approach to the problem of change and constancy.
PLURALISTS
23 | P a g e
1. EMPEDOCLES (490-430 BCE)

Empedocles was an impressive figure in Agrigentum, Sicily. Legend has it
that since he wished to be remembered as a godlike figure, he ended his
life by jumping into the crater of Mount Etna, hoping to leave no trace
of his body so that people would think that he had gone up to heaven.
He agreed with Parmenides that being is uncreated and indestructible,
that it simply is. But unlike Parmenides, Empedocles believed that
existence consisted not only of One but many which are changeless and
eternal. He philosophized that the objects that we see and experience do
come into being and are also destroyed, but such change and motion are
possible because objects are composed of many material particles. Thus,
although objects can change, the particles of which they are composed of
are changelessthe four eternal material elements: earth, water, air,
and fire. What explains the changes in objects that we see around us is
the mixture of the four elements, but not their transformation. There is
only the mingling and interchange of what has been mingled.
Empedocles account of earth, air, water, and fire constitutes only the
first account of his theory. The second part is an account of the
specific forces that animate the process of change. The Ionians assumed
that the stuff of nature simply transformed itself into various objects.
Only Anaximenes made any detailed attempt to analyze the process of
change with his theory of condensed and expanded air. By contrast,
Empedocles assumed that there are two forces, Love and Hate (Harmony and
Discord), that cause the four elements to intermingle and later
separate. Hate causes the decomposition of things. The four elements
then mix together or separate from each other depending on the amount of
Love or Hate that is present.
Four stages of the cycle, according to Empedocles, are: (1) Love is
present and Hate is completely absent. Here, the four elements are fully
commingled and are held in Harmony by the governing principle of Love.
(2) The force of Hate, lurking nearby, starts to invade things, but
there is still more Love present than Hate. (3) Hate begins to dominate,
and the particles fall into Discord and begin to separate. (4) Only Hate
is present, and all particles of the four elements separate into their
own four groups. There, the four elements are ready to begin a new cycle
as the force of Love turns to attract the elements into harmonious
combinations. The continues without end.
1. ANAXAGORAS (500-428 BCE)
Anaxagoras
major
philosophical
contribution
was
the
concept
of Nuos (mind), which he distinguished from matter. He agreed with
Empedocles theory of mixture and separation of the existing substances,
but rejected the latters ambiguous, mythical notions of Love and Hate.
Anaxagoras thought that the world and all its objects well-ordered and
intricate structures; there must then be some being with knowledge and
power that organizes the material world in this fashionthis rational
principle is his concept of the Nuos.
According to Anaxagoras, the nature of reality is best understood as
consisting of mind and matter; before mind has influenced the shape of
24 | P a g e
and behavior of matter, matter exists, as a mixture of various kinds of

material substances, all uncreated and imperishable. Even when this
original mass of matter is divided into actual objects, each part
contains portions of every other elemental thing (spermata, or seeds).
Aristotle criticized Anaxagoras philosophy in this wise: Anaxagoras
uses reason as a divine machine for making the world, and when he is at
a loss to tell from what cause something, then he drags the reason in,
ascribing events to anything rather than reason. Anaxagoras seemed to
provide an explanation only of how matter acquired its rotary motion,
leaving the rest of the order of nature to be a product of that motion.
ATOMISTS
Atom literally means uncuttable or indivisible. Atomism constituted
a
systematic,
internally
coherent
natural
philosophy
explaining
everything in the perceptible world. What is innovative about the theory
is that it never suggested that the movement of atoms is governed by any
intelligence or intentionality, divine or otherwise, either operating
upon or inherent in the primal substance. Atomism appears as the first
truly
materialist
answer
to
Heraclitus Logos,
Parmenides One,
Empedocles Love andStrife,
and
Anaxagoras Nuos.
By
positing
indivisible units of matter, the atomists were also providing an answer
to Zenos paradoxes showing that motion is impossible.
Atomism was extremely influential. It was taken up by Epicurus and
Lucretius. Less directly, it seems to have had some influence on Plato,
who presents a theory based on a different conception of indivisibles.
We cannot trace a direct line from ancient atomism to the modern atomic
theory of the twentieth century, for it was not a scientific theory
resting on experimental method. Yet lacking the advantages of
experimentation, Leocippus and Democritus theorized purely materialist
explanation of the world, using concepts that prefigure, however
distantly, the way we understand the structure of matter today.
1. DEMOCRITUS (460-370 BCE)
Democritus, the laughing philosopher, was probably the most prolific
Greek philosopher after Aristotle. He wrote on ethical subjects
(contentment, meanliness or virtue, wisdom); on natural science (a vast
range of topics ranging from a description of the whole world of
treatises on flavors and colors); on various natural phenomena such as
the heavens, the atmosphere, fire, sounds, plants and animals; on
mathematics, literature, medicine and even farming. This laughing
philosopher set great value on cheerfulness or contentment in his
ethical writings, defining the general goal of life as joy, contentment
or tranquility, and locating it in the soul. But it is above all for the
theory of atomism that both he and Leucippus are remembered.
Democritus was concerned with two other philosophical problems: the
problem of knowledge and the problem of human conduct. Being a thorough
materialist,, Democritus held that thought can be explained in the same
way that any other phenomenon can, namely, as the movement of atoms. He
distinguished between two different kinds of perception, one of the
senses and one of the understanding, both of these being physical
processes. When our eyes see something, this something is an effluence
or the shedding of atoms by the object, forming an image. These atomic
25 | P a g e
images enter the eyes, and other organs of sense, and make and impact
upon the soul, which is itself made up of atoms.
Democritus further distinguishes between two ways of knowing things:
there are two forms of knowledge, the trueborn and the illegitimate. To
the illegitimate belong all these: sight, hearing, taste, touch. The
trueborn is quite apart from these. What distinguishes these two types
of thought is that, whereas, trueborn knowledge depends only on the
object, illegitimate knowledge is affected by the
particular
conditions of the body of the person involved. In ethics, Democritus
stressed that the ost desirable goal of life is cheerfulness, and we
best achieve this through moderation in all things along with the
cultivation of culture.
1. LEOCIPPUS
Leocippus was the founder of the atomist school. He proposed that the
universe consists of two basic constituents: indivisibly small atoms, of
which an infinite number (but not infinite variety) exist, and void of
nothingness, which is also infinite, and in which the atoms move
eternally. There is a limitless quantity of shapes among them (since
there is no more reason for them to have one shape than another).
Leocippus affirmed the reality of space and thereby prepared the way for
a coherent theory of motion and change. He described space as something
like a receptacle that could be empty in some places and full in others.
As a receptacle, space, or the void, could be the place where objects
move, and Leocippus apparently saw no reason for denying this
characteristic of space. Without this concept of space, it would have
been impossible for Leocippus and Democritus to develop their view that
all things consist of atoms.
SOPHISTS
Discussion of the Sophists centers much on method as on content. Te
word sophists, apparently a word invented only in the fifth century BCE,
means someone whose calling is that of wisdom or knowledge, and it came
to be applied to peripatetic professional teachers, who travelled around
teaching the rhetorical and language skills necessary to argue a case
and other practical capabilities needed by men engaged in politics and
the law, rather than theorizing about nature for its own sake. As
itinerant teachers, they did not found schools, but as participants in
the dialogues of Plato, their posterity came to be assured. Very few of
the sophists were born in Athens.
The Sophists were highly influential in the development of the method of
adversarial debate and advocacy, and in promoting a skeptical,
questioning approach to knowledge and judgment. But they did not
entirely abandon speculation about the nature of the world. In
particular, they thought about knowledge and its relation with reality.
The social changes of the fifth century BCE meant that the philosophy
turned its attention away from questions about the nature of knowledge,
morality and justice. On the whole, Sophists did not concern themselves
with cosmological or physical speculation; they were more interested in
studying how we know and what is knowable than in increasing the store
of what we know. This concern had come to them from theorists such as
26 | P a g e
Parmenides, and it was developed by both Protagoras and Gorgias, two of

the principal Sophists.
The Sophists also claimed to teach virtuewhich they understood, for
practical purposes, broadly as the qualities necessary for a successful
public career in a city-state. This was the basis for the bad reputation
they acquired, principally from Plato, who mocked and attacked them
mercilessly in several works because they taught wisdom for money. But
Platos idealism and political conservatism were naturally antithetical
to the Sophists pragmatism and relativism. A central preoccupation of
much of his thought was to arrive at impregnable definitions of justice
and goodness. The Sophists on the other hand were more comfortable with
the shifts that were occurring in these concepts, and said that such
definitions depended on who was doing the defining. They argued that
some opinions are preferable to others for particular people and
particular purposes, but they are not necessarily more or less wise, or
even truer.
1. PROTAGORAS (485-411 BCE)
Protagoras was the first and arguably the greates of the Sophists, like
Democraticus and the first Sophist to come to Athens. He was a friend of
Pericles and suffered the fate of many friends of Pericles, being
accused of impiety and having to leave Athens in a hurry: he was
apparently drowned in a shipwreck on his way to Sicily.
We know of Protagoras ideas mainly through Plato, which is unfortunate,
since Plato usually sets these ideas up only in order to demolish them.
Protagoras has become generally known as the father of relativisma
label that shows him to have been diametrically opposed to everything
Plato stood for. His chief claim to fame is familiar, and endlessly
debated, aphorism, Man is the measure of all things. In this, he was
suggesting that there is no reality apart from what we perceive. And if
our perceptions are the guarantee of the reality of thigs, then the
center of the universe is humanity. Protagoras accepted no absolutes
existing anywhere beyond human perception and judgment, as regards the
nature of the gods, the nature of the worlds around us, or to the nature
of virtue and justice. Taken to their logical conclusions, these ideas
could legitimate the rejection of any kind of law or morality.
Protagoras was also an agnostic: while not disbelieving in the gods, he
questioned the possibility that humans can know about them. His key
insight on the limits of knowledge was that truth requires a measure
external to itself, and the best available measure was human knowledge
and experience, and that truths are not objectively true without
reference to anything else but held true within systems of thought or
collectivities, such as the city.
1. GORGIAS (483-378 BCE)
An extreme sceptic, Gorgias refuted all possible views on existence and
non-existence, claiming that nothing exists; or if it does, it is
unknowable; or if it is unknowable, we cannot articulate it to anyone
else. He seems to have been influenced y Empedocles and Zeno. Gorgias
was specifically interested in the use of speech and language on the
emotions, and mentions the way tragedy can inspire pity and fear, thus
prefiguring Aristotles views on the effect of tragic drama in
his Poetics. In a defense of Helen of Troy, who was traditionally held
responsible for theTrojan War, Gorgias even went so far as to claim that
27 | P a g e
words are by their very nature deceptive and fraudulent and that Helen
was innocent because she had been overcome by the power of persuasion.
Gorgias was a also a stylistic innovator, applying to prose the figures
of speech and rhetorical effects usually confined at the time of poetry.
Plato criticized him in the dialogue that bears his name, arguing for
the distinction between rhetoric and philosophy.
1. PRODICUS, HIPPIAS, ANTIPHON, and THRACYMACHUS
Prodicus came up with a utililarian
explanation of traditional
theology, suggesting that the sun, the moon and other heavenly bodies
were regarded as divinities because they were useful to the development
of human society. The polymathic Hippias appears in two dialogues of
Plato named after him, being ironically criticized by Socrates for
getting rich from teaching. He is interesting for having made, possibly
for the first time, the distinction between law (nomos) and nature
(physics) as the basis of morality. This view was developed further by
Antiphon, who asserted more radically the nature is truth and its
edicts compulsory, whereas human law is mere opinion arrived at by
consent, and that is preferable to break human law in order to follow
natural law than the reverse.
Tharismachus is represented in Platos Republic as putting forward the
thesis that justice can be defined as the interest of the stronger and
that governments make laws for their own advantage. This is the kind of
argument that earned the Sophists a bad name; but there is strong
philosophical point in Bertrand Russells approval of them because they
were prepared to follow an argument wherever it might lead them, even
though that plae was often one of profound skepticism.
28 | P a g e

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LEGAL PHILOSOPHY

GLOSSARY OF PHILOSOPHICAL CONCEPTS

CHINESE ROOM ARGUMENT A thought experiment offered by by Searle to

DIVINE COMMAND THEORY A single-rule, non-consequential normative

ETHICAL EGOISM A moral theory that in its most common version

POSTMODERNISM The theory in contemporary Continental philosophy which

VIRTUE A stretch of character, usually acquired through habit, that

Subjectivity. It is an idea of reason, developed in the mind of the

subject; an idea, or conception, of that state of will, or course of

founded in the nature and relations of moral beings, sustained

Practicability. The moral demand must be possible to the subject. A law

vs. Connecticut where the US Supreme Court, despite a presupposition

Hart criticizes attempts to impose the morality of the majority on a

Pittacus of Mytilene, Bias of Priene, Solon of Athens (the father of

proved the existence of irrational numbers, with a drastic effect on

1. ANAXIMANDER OF MILETUS (610-540 BCE)

Perhaps springing from the notion of constant change, Anaximander

1. EMPEDOCLES (490-430 BCE)

and behavior of matter, matter exists, as a mixture of various kinds of

Parmenides, and it was developed by both Protagoras and Gorgias, two of

PO2 DANILYN RICAFRENTE LIMBO

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