The sort of omission that is punished by statute is neglect of a duty or obligation. Generally some obligations are thought to be deserving of enforcement. They then properly belong in a society’s legal code. Other obligations are merely moral and are outside the purview of law. Thus, only omission of a legally binding obligation is a matter for law enforcement. The question to be considered here is: Should there be an enforced legal duty of Parents to support their minor children?

Volume 2, Number 1 (1978)

We might assume from the title of Hayek’s earliest comprehensive treatment of the subject that the “rule of law” would appear as the summation of his political philosophy, as his legal ideal.

In Chapter 9 of the Poetics, Aristotle wrote that “poetry is something more philosophic and of graver import than history, since its statements are of the nature rather of universals, whereas those of history are singulars”. This is a classic tenet to whose abstract significance we often pay lip service without recognizing the dynamic role it could play in our interpretation of the literary arts.

Abstract:  The topic of this paper is the class theory of Jean-Baptiste Say (1767–1832). Charles Comte (1782–1838) and Charles Dunoyer (1786–1862). However, in order to be fully accurate, this title should be qualified in several respects. First, the thinking of these men cannot be examined in complete isolation, divorced from traditional liberal ideas, the works of their contemporaries and the intellectual currents of the day.

There exists today in Anglo-American economics a veritable “conspiracy of silence” regarding the works and achievements of the French Liberal School of Economics. This is at once a sad commentary on the state of disinterested historical scholarship in the economics profession and a resounding confirmation of Thomas Kuhn’s theory of scientific progress and its applicability to the social sciences.

Volume 2, Number 1 (1978)

I

The last several years have witnessed a remarkable outpouring of criticism of the American system of public education.

The categories of “right” and “left” have been changing so rapidly in recent years in America that it becomes difficult to recall what the labels stood for not very long ago. In the case of the left, this have become common knowledge, and we are all familiar with the contracts between “Old Left” and “New Left”, as well as with the rapid changes that the “new” Left itself has been undergoing.

In legal philosophy there is perhaps no older, nor deeper, conflict than that which exists between legal positivists and natural law advocates. I use these “catch words” not with- out a certain trepidation since they have had shifting and divergent meanings. This has resulted in a preoccupation with attempts to define “natural law” or “positivism”, rather than examining the underlying dispute. I do not feel the need, however, to launch into any extensive search for definitions here, for to the extent that I discuss either view, I shall not criticize it.

The status of children in the societal scheme proposed by John Rawls is determined by what would be the decision of persons in the original position. To see how Rawl’s concept of justice pertains to children, we will look at three things: (1) Who the decision-makers are in the original position; (2) How the principles chosen in the original position apply to abortion; and (3) Whether the principles of paternalism chosen in the original Poston are satisfactory.

Volume 2, Number 2 (1978)

The right to a fair trial is commonly considered so central to our system of justice and so much a part of our legal heritage that to deny that people in general have any such right might seem tantamount to impugning our legal traditions as a whole. The right to a fair trial might seem an unimpeachable example or “paradigm case” of what we mean by a “right” and certainly it is so widely believed that people have such a right that to claim they generally do not strikes one initially as absurd.