"The Morality of Law"

Paper Summary:

The primary concern of Fuller in "The Morality of Law" is to defend a 'procedural' natural law that can serve a variety of opposed aims with neutrality. At the same time, however, it is not neutral with regards to all possible substantive aims. Underlying Fuller's approach is the view that law is "the enterprise of subjecting human conduct to the governance of rules." The concept of law in this instance is an 'activity' and the result of a legal system is a sustained purposive effort. And so, certain moral conditions must be fulfilled in order for the making of law to be successful. Although perfection in legality is a useful target, according to Fuller, it presumably is never perfectly realized. This paper argues that although Lon Fuller places the connection between law and morality in the context of his general theory, he fails to explain it. Without proper explanation, Fuller does not show that naturalism is true.

From the Paper:

"The last sign of the need for clarification is found in Fuller's discussion of the limits of legal morality. He criticizes critics of administrative agencies of the government who wish to impose a legal morality upon these agencies that is not appropriate to their task of economic allocation. This task is contrasted with adjudication wherein the restraints set by the internal morality of law are appropriate. The problem with Fuller's argument is that it seems to carry a debatable implication, namely that law-making is itself a form of adjudication."

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