BEING AND BECOMING

Jonathan Sumption in his lecture on Law's Expanding Empire questions the role of a judge to decide the questions of faith, ethics, aesthetics, taste, and politics, and asked them to restrict themselves as a prophet of law and legality. Does it mean that there is a decline of other's authorities? And the questions that may be decided by politics or social agreement are decided by a few judges. Why law is treated as transcendental-problem solver, as if, law is a solution to every problem? Take for an example, love and affection could not be generated by law, neither law could teach the people to be compassionate towards every other creature of the planet. Legalism, a concept developed by Judith N. Shklar, raised the question of gulf between law and poltics or law and morality and advocated to see law in a holistic way rather than a rationalized tool developed by positivists in the modern world. In spite of her objection, there is certain truth in conceiving the idea that there ar...

Freedom is the essence of human being, devoid of it, human species is reduced to mere chattel, governed by causality or contingency of existence. Out of heteronomy or hypothetical imperative, every animal, plant, or even human being lives their life. Every being is subjected to law of nature; each living creature is affected by hunger, thirst, lust, desire, greed, fear, hope, anxiety, expectation, and mentality to acquire more goods. What makes a human not merely a subject of contingency instead of capacity to transcend the limitation of heternomy argued German philosopher Immanuel Kant. He argued that the human being has pure practical reasoning which may be used to derive the categorical imperatives (morally-binding duties). This capacity is unique in the human being in the sense that a person is though subjected to causality of life, natural or social; one is tempted to use hypothetical moral reasoning to be a useful social animal. But being consequentialist may be useful in many se...