Relation to others· Morals
Legalism
Axis: Letter or spirit of the rule — Should rules be applied to the letter or according to their spirit?
A just rule holds for everyone and admits no exceptions: that is precisely what makes it reliable and fair. Allowing case-by-case accommodations opens the door to arbitrariness and to the indulgences we each grant ourselves.
Philosophers 3
Kantexplicit
Duty imposes itself as a strict law that reason gives to itself, and Kant draws from it a famous rigorism: the prohibition of lying admits no exception, even to save a life. The slightest yielding to circumstances would ruin the unconditionality of the moral law, placing Kant firmly on the legalist side.
On a Supposed Right to Lie from Philanthropy · Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals, section II
Show inferred positions (2)
Benthaminferable
Bentham wants a fully codified law, clear and systematic, in which every offence and every penalty is defined in advance, so as to take justice out of the judge's discretion and out of the nonsense of the common law. This trust in explicit, pre-established rules rather than in case-by-case prudential judgement places him on the side of legalism, even though the rule itself remains justified by utility.
Of Laws in General and Constitutional Code (the codification project) · A Fragment on Government (against the arbitrariness of the common law)
Millinferable
Mill denies that utility must be recomputed at each act: humanity has accumulated, through experience, secondary rules (do not lie, do not kill) that condense the lessons of what serves happiness. These rules guide ordinary conduct, yet remain subordinate to the principle of utility and may yield in cases of conflict: a tempered legalism, open to .
Utilitarianism, ch. 2 (the corollaries of the principle and conflicts of rules)