Fidelity: the animating spirit of the rule of law

Gerald J. Postema

Chapter 6 in Virtues and the Rule of Law, 2026, pp 112-124 from Edward Elgar Publishing

Abstract: The rule of law ideal holds that law must rule over those who exercise ruling power; however, law can rule only if its institutions are animated by a community-wide ethos of fidelity. Fidelity is the ethos of a people committed to participating in a society-wide network of accountability holding. When law rules, government officials are held accountable for the discharge of their duties under law and ordinary citizens structure their relationships by law and hold each other accountable to the common, public terms that law provides them. After sketching the basic outlines of the rule of law ideal, this chapter explores the complex set of virtues on which the ethos of fidelity depends – their natures, interrelations, conditions for thriving, and moral limits.

Keywords: Accountability; Conscience; Fidelity; Integrity; Ruling Power; Membership (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2026
ISBN: 9781035398072
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.elgaronline.com/doi/10.4337/9781035398089.00014 (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_7

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 ().