Guest Speaker Dr. David Barton

Dr. David Barton, retired attorney and former philosophy professor (Philosophy Ph.D. and Juris Doctorate from University of California, Berkeley) will present a talk entitled, “Aristotle on the Indeterminacy of Legal Rules”.

Abstract: Aristotle claims that good legal and moral decision-making cannot be entirely a matter of the mechanical application of generally applicable rules. Inquiry into what one ought to do in a particular situation must for Aristotle involve the exercise of phronesis, the ability to discern the relevant features of the situation and to reason about them well in deciding what action to take. Even if an individual acts on the most subtly crafted rules for action, Aristotle seems to say, he will blunder if he applies them without adequate regard to the facts of the situation in which he acts. I develop and defend this Aristotelian theme about the limits of rules of conduct, and I argue that it provides a promising starting point for the philosophy of law. For the problem Aristotle wrestles with is the same problem that a judge faces in every case: How do I apply a generally applicable rule of law to the particular factual situation presented by the case, a factual situation the rule-makers may or may not have anticipated? Reflection on law from this Aristotelean standpoint illuminates the distinctive role that reasoning about facts plays in the law, a role that is not fully captured by contemporary theories in the philosophy of law.

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