Defining Legal Moralism

In: Thaysen , J D 2015 , ' Defining Legal Moralism ' , SATS - Northern European Journal of Philosophy , vol. 16 , no. 2 , pp. 179-201 . https://doi.org/10.1515/sats-2014-0013

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Abstract

This paper discusses how legal moralism should be defined. It is argued that legal moralism should be defined as the position that "For any X, it is always a pro tanto reason for justifiably imposing legal regulation on X that X is morally wrong (where "morally wrong" is not conceptually equivalent to "harmful")". Furthermore, a distinction between six types of legal moralism is made. The six types are grouped according to whether they are concerned with the enforcement of positive or critical morality, and whether they are concerned with criminalising, legally restricting, or refraining from legally protecting morally wrong behaviour. This is interesting because not all types of legal moralism are equally vulnerable to the different critiques of legal moralism that have been put forth. Indeed, I show that some interesting types of legal moralism have not been criticised at all.