Gardner’s Pluralistic Virtue Jurisprudence

Jurisprudence, 2018

Though first proposed more than two decades ago, virtue jurisprudence-broadly, the attempt to apply the insights and perspectives of virtue ethics to law and legal theory-has been slow to gain traction in the legal academy. This is partly due, we suggest, to the dominance of conservative, neo-Aristotelian approaches to virtue jurisprudence-most notably in the work of Lawrence Solum, the most prominent theoretical architect and defender of virtue jurisprudence.

Law, Virtue and Justice, Amalia Amaya and Ho Hock Lai (eds), 2012

Routledge eBooks, 2017

The main focus of this essay is the development of a virtue-centred theory of judging. The exposition of the theory begins with exploration of defects in judicial character, such as corruption and incompetence. Next, an account of judicial virtue is introduced. This includes judicial wisdom, a form of phronesis, or sound practical judgement. A virtue-centred account of justice is defended against the argument that theories of fairness are prior to theories of justice. The centrality of virtue as a character trait can be drawn out by analysing the virtue of justice into constituent elements. These include judicial impartiality (even-handed sympathy for those affected by adjudication) and judicial integrity (respect for the law and concern for its coherence). The essay argues that a virtue-centred theory accounts for the role that virtuous practical judgement plays in the application of rules to particular fact situations. Moreover, it contends that a virtue-centred theory of judging can best account for the phenomenon of lawful judicial disagreement. Finally, a virtue-centred approach best accounts for the practice of equity, departure from the rules based on the judge's appreciation of the particular characteristics of individual fact situations.

Research Handbook of Natural Law Theory (Edward Elgar Publishing, Cheltenham), edited by Jonathan Crowe and Constance Youngwon Lee, 2019

Law, Virtue and Justice, Amalia Amaya and Ho Hock Lai (eds), 2012

The concept of virtue is central in contemporary discussions over the nature of justification.

The Oxford Handbook of British Philosophy in the Eighteenth Century, 2013

This essay examines the different answers that British moralists gave to the question ‘what does virtue consist in?’ Rather than as a royal road to present-day views in ethics, their answers are best understood when considered against the background of early modern natural law theories and their projected metaphysics of morals. The emerging ‘science of morality’ dealt with the metaphysical problem of determining what sort of thing virtue is. Considered from this vantage point, the British moralists struggled with the problem of deciding whether moral concepts signify laws of nature, rational drives in human beings, irrational drives in human beings, volitions of a legislator, or social institutions. British moral philosophies in the eighteenth century can be divided up according to whether they defended the thesis that moral qualities are artificial, the thesis that they are part of nature, or the thesis that they are the product of historical experience.

The Journal of Value Inquiry, 2021