Law and morality

a modest assessment

Massimo La Torre

pp. 113-129

in: Herlinde Pauer Studer (ed), Norms, values, and society, Berlin, Springer, 1994

Abstract

There are few problems to which legal philosophers have devoted more attention than the relationship between morality and law, or, said in different terms, between the "good" and the "obligatory". One might think that all that should and could be said about it has already been uttered or written. Nevertheless philosophy — and legal philosophy is no exception — is just this: rethinking old problems which are in fact always new,¹ and for which no definitive solution is given — nor is possible, I would add — and which need a permanent effort of reassessment. There is no reason for disappointment or despair in this endless work. It is neither pointless nor irrelevant.