Meyer on the Dangers of Love in Law

Linda Ross Meyer (Quinnipiac University School of Law) has posted Agape, Humility, and Chaotic Good: the Challenge and Risk of Allowing Agape a Role in the Law (in Cochran & Calo, Agape, Justice and Law: How Might Christian Love Shape Law?(Cambridge University Press, 2017)) on SSRN.  Here is the abstract: This essay argues that love has its dangers, when activated in the law. These dangers include factionalism, cronyism, arrogance, totalitarianism, and fanaticism. But if agape is understood as humility, it is an indispensable part of lurching toward justice in all-too-human legal contexts — especially that of criminal sentencing. The essay concludes: "Lawful good for finite humans must co-exist with a humble chaotic good. Otherwise, we lose sight of law's need for defeasibility, particularity, and personal interaction, and we fail to notice law's underlying commitment to see 'others' as 'like' and to abide with them…

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