Download This Paper'Morality', 'Principle', or 'Ethos'? A Closer Look at Lon Fuller’s Internal Morality of the Law.
12 Pages Posted: 27 Apr 2020
Date Written: November 13, 2017
Abstract
The initial impression given by Lon Fuller’s text, The Morality of the Law, is of an attempt to capture the nature and extent of the moral quality of the law, in the manner of Natural Law. However, as the reader progresses through Fuller’s work, the reader becomes aware that Fuller uses the term “morality” to describe phenomena that have a tenuous link, if at all, to a moral quality. Fuller’s internal morality of the law is one of those instances. This essay argues that Fuller misuses the term “morality” in his “internal morality of the law”, that Fuller’s internal morality of the law is better understood as an extension of the principles of procedural fairness and natural justice, and that the “morality” Fuller refers to is in fact an ethos.
Keywords: Lon Fuller, Internal Morality of the Law, Principles of Procedural Fairness, H L A Hart, Natural Law
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