Ethical legal practice in ancient Athens

Liesbeth Huppes-Cluysenaer

Chapter 2 in Virtues and the Rule of Law, 2026, pp 36-58 from Edward Elgar Publishing

Abstract: This chapter will focus on Kelsen's statement that the centralization of the law-applying function precedes the centralization of the law-creating function. It will address the implications of Kelsen's view for understanding the Athenian concepts of law, democracy, and virtue. The Athenian procedure for conflicts between citizens is characterized as a precursor to Roman law; that is to say, as judicial law. It is explained that Kelsen contradicts himself when he presents judicial law as the application of law rather than as the finding and creation of law. Precisely the specifically Athenian democratic-political element of the judicial procedure ensures that virtue assumes a prominent place in legal practice and philosophy. Virtues and vices only make sense when choice, responsibility, and guilt can be addressed to human agents in the enforced model of discussion offered by the court procedure.

Keywords: Enforced Model Of Discussion; Law-applying; Law-creating; Law-finding; Jurisprudentialism; Judicial Law (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2026
ISBN: 9781035398072
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.elgaronline.com/doi/10.4337/9781035398089.00009 (application/pdf)
Our link check indicates that this URL is bad, the error code is: 403 Forbidden

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:elg:eechap:25639_3

Ordering information: This item can be ordered from
http://www.e-elgar.com

Access Statistics for this chapter

More chapters in Chapters from Edward Elgar Publishing
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Jack Sweeney ().