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Entities for Analyzing Legal Relations

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 May 2010

Richard E. Robinson
Affiliation:
University of British Columbia

Extract

One speaks of a person having a duty to do something and also of a person having a duty to another person to do something. It seems natural to treat the first as a case of a two-termed relation and the second as a case of a three-termed relation. However, the problem is what to take as the second term of a case of the two-termed relation and the third term of a case of the three-termed relation. For a long time act, instances of which would seem natural contenders, has been a suspect concept; its deficiency being integrally connected with the lack of a specification of how to individuate acts. This paper urges a particular solution to what sort of entity could serve as that which a person has a duty to do. Although discussion will be limited to the legal relations of duty, right, and so on, the problem is similar for the basic moral relations of duty, right, and so on, and the same solution avails for that problem. Before providing the solution to what sort of thing it is that people have a duty, right, etc. to do, it is important to set out what conditions an adequate solution must satisfy.

Type
Articles
Copyright
Copyright © Canadian Philosophical Association 1983

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