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Law, Language and Morals
Northrop, F. S. C.
Northrop, F. S. C.
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Abstract
THERE is an essential connection between law, language and morals. It becomes evident when one notes what law and morals have in common and considers the language of specific moral and legal theories. Both law and morals are normative subjects. They deal with value terms as well as with language that refer to some nonnormatively described "is." In law, the "is" appears as "the facts of the case," whereas the normative factor exhibits itself in such words as "innocent," "guilty," "delict," "right," "liability," "obligation" and "murder." In personal morality, religion, art and literature "realism" purports merely to exhibit or describe what is, but with a tension of conscience that combines the "ought" and the "is," adding evaluative terms such as "good," "bad," "sin," "virtue," "ought," "beautiful," "ugly," "selfish," "self-sacrificingly God-committed" or "aesthetically sensitive or insensitive."