Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Abbreviations for Rawls’s texts
- Introduction
- A
- B
- C
- D
- E
- F
- G
- H
- I
- J
- K
- L
- M
- N
- O
- P
- R
- S
- 195 Sandel, Michael
- 196 Scanlon, T. M.
- 197 Self-interest
- 198 Self-respect
- 199 Sen, Amartya
- 200 Sense of justice
- 201 Sidgwick, Henry
- 202 Sin
- 203 Social choice theory
- 204 Social contract
- 205 Social minimum
- 206 Social union
- 207 Socialism
- 208 Society of peoples
- 209 Soper, Philip
- 210 Sovereignty
- 211 Stability
- 212 Statesman and duty of statesmanship
- 213 Strains of commitment
- 214 Supreme Court and judicial review
- T
- U
- W
- Bibliography
- Index
209 - Soper, Philip
from S
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 February 2015
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Abbreviations for Rawls’s texts
- Introduction
- A
- B
- C
- D
- E
- F
- G
- H
- I
- J
- K
- L
- M
- N
- O
- P
- R
- S
- 195 Sandel, Michael
- 196 Scanlon, T. M.
- 197 Self-interest
- 198 Self-respect
- 199 Sen, Amartya
- 200 Sense of justice
- 201 Sidgwick, Henry
- 202 Sin
- 203 Social choice theory
- 204 Social contract
- 205 Social minimum
- 206 Social union
- 207 Socialism
- 208 Society of peoples
- 209 Soper, Philip
- 210 Sovereignty
- 211 Stability
- 212 Statesman and duty of statesmanship
- 213 Strains of commitment
- 214 Supreme Court and judicial review
- T
- U
- W
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
Philip Soper (b. 1942) is an American legal and moral philosopher. In A Theory of Law (1984), Soper develops novel accounts of the law’s normative force and of political obligation. Rawls draws on this work in his accounts of the common good idea of justice and legal systems in decent societies (CP 545, 546; LP 66, 67, 72; PL 109).
Soper argues that the law has normative force only when public officials sincerely believe the law serves justice or the common good. When officials sincerely believe the law does this for all, citizens have reason to respect it. This is so, even when any citizen might reasonably reject the official conception of justice or the common good as suboptimal or wrong-headed. This respect for the law amounts to a duty to defer when officials enforce the law.
Rawls does not define legal systems, but follows Soper as to when and how legal systems impose bona fide duties and obligations (LP 65–66). Like Soper, he holds that officials must be willing to defend, publicly and in good faith, laws requiring or forbidding conduct (LP 67). For Rawls, this means officials must reasonably see their law as consistent with their common good conception of justice.
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- Information
- The Cambridge Rawls Lexicon , pp. 798 - 799Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2014