1.

Record Nr.

UNINA9910454052803321

Autore

Sheppard Steve <1963->

Titolo

I do solemnly swear : the moral obligations of legal officials / / Stephen Michael Sheppard [[electronic resource]]

Pubbl/distr/stampa

Cambridge : , : Cambridge University Press, , 2009

ISBN

1-107-19000-2

1-282-39079-1

9786612390791

0-511-64636-4

0-511-62667-3

0-511-65045-0

0-511-53277-6

0-511-53186-9

0-511-53368-3

Descrizione fisica

1 online resource (xxviii, 276 pages) : digital, PDF file(s)

Disciplina

174/.30973

Soggetti

Legal ethics - United States

Law - Moral and ethical aspects - United States

Law and ethics

Administrative responsibility - United States

Lingua di pubblicazione

Inglese

Formato

Materiale a stampa

Livello bibliografico

Monografia

Note generali

Title from publisher's bibliographic system (viewed on 05 Oct 2015).

Nota di bibliografia

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Nota di contenuto

Law and office -- The stakes : the interests of others in official actions -- Officials' obligations arise from more than the law alone -- The moral obligations of legal officials -- Patterns of relationship between legal and moral obligations -- Breaching obligations -- Tools for the trade : maxims and fallacies.

Sommario/riassunto

What should the people expect from their legal officials? This book asks whether officials can be moral and still follow the law, answering that the law requires them to do so. It revives the idea of the good official - the good lawyer, the good judge, the good president, the good legislator - that guided Cicero and Washington and that we seem to have forgotten. Based on stories and law cases from America's



founding to the present, this book examines what is good and right in law and why officials must care. This overview of official duties, from oaths to the law itself, explains how morals and law work together to create freedom and justice, and it provides useful maxims to argue for the right answer in hard cases. Important for scholars but useful for lawyers and readable by anybody, this book explains how American law ought to work.