Concept
Rule according to higher law
Overview
The rule according to a higher law is a philosophical concept that no law may be enforced by the government unless it conforms with certain universal principles (written or unwritten) of fairness, morality, and justice. Thus, the rule according to a higher law may serve as a practical legal criterion to qualify the instances of political or economical decision-making, when a government, even though acting in conformity with clearly defined and properly enacted law, still produces results which many observers find unfair or unjust.
Overview adapted from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0; see the article history for authors).
Possible passages
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In practical philosophy, i.e., that which has to do only with the grounds of determination of the will, the principles which a man makes for himself are not laws by which one is inevitably bound; because reason in practical matters has to do with the subject, namely, with the faculty of desire, the special character of which may occasion variety in the rule. The practical rule is always a product of reason, because…
Immanuel Kant, The Critique of Practical Reason
The author is tied to Rule according to higher law in the knowledge graph.
Practical laws, in so far as they are subjective grounds of actions, that is, subjective principles, are termed maxims. The judgements of moral according to in its purity and ultimate results are framed according ideas; the observance of its laws, according to maxims. The whole course of our life must be subject to moral maxims; but this is impossible, unless with the moral law, which is a mere idea, reason connects…
Immanuel Kant, The Critique of Pure Reason
States what Rule according to higher law is; the author is tied to Rule according to higher law in the knowledge graph.
For although a will which is subject to laws may be attached to this law by means of an interest, yet a will which is itself a supreme lawgiver so far as it is such cannot possibly depend on any interest, since a will so dependent would itself still need another law restricting the interest of its self-love by the condition that it should be valid as universal law. Thus the principle that every human will is a will…
Michel de Montaigne, Literary and Philosophical Essays
Close in meaning to Rule according to higher law; the term itself is not named.
Related ideas
- Government
- Immanuel Kant
- Law
- Nazi Germany
- African Americans
- Rule of law
- Constitutionalism
- Constitution of the United States
- World War II
- Amartya Sen
- Constitution
- Citizenship
- American Civil War
- Axiom
Opposing perspectives
Place in the tradition
Part of American philosophy.
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