Moral Dilemmas in Legal Roles

FAIN: FP-10179-78

Robert M. Cover
Yale University (New Haven, CT 06510-1703)

To consider the dilemma of individual legal actors who perceive conflicts between the demands of their formal roles within the legal system and the demands of some extra-legal source of morality. The problem will be presented through literary works in which the theme is central. Philosophical materials will be studied for analyses of the problem both in terms of social theory and the logic of normative discourse. Historical cases will be used to embed the skeletal problem in the messy context of the psychological and social realities which characterize the actual choices of real persons.