Law as a Means to an End

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Description
"Until either philosophers become kings," said Soc- rates, "or kings philosophers, States will never succeed in remedying their shortcomings." And if he was loath to give forth this view, because, as he admitted, it might "sink him beneath the waters of laughter and ridicule," so to-day among us it would doubtless resound in folly if we sought to apply it again in our own field of State life, and to assert that philosophers must be- come lawyers or lawyers philosophers, if our law is ever to be advanced into its perfect working.
And yet there is hope, as there is need, among us to-day, of some such transformation. Of course, history shows that there always have been cycles of legal progress, and that they have often been heralded and guided by philosophies. But particularly there is hope that our own people may be the generation now about to exem- plify this.
There are several reasons for thinking our people apt thereto. But, without delaying over the grounds for such speculations, let us recall that as shrewd and good-natured an observer as DeTocqueville saw this in us. He admits that "in most of the operations of the mind, each American appeals to the individual exer- cise of his own understanding alone; therefore in no country in the civilized world is less attention paid to philosophy than in the United States.
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Contents
Part I - The Concept of  Purpose
Chapter 1. The Law of Purpose
Chapter 2. The Concept of Purpose in Animals as Point of Departure for the Problem of Purpose in Man
Chapter 3. Egoism in the Service of Altruistic Purposes
Chapter 4. The Problem of Self Denial
Chapter 5. The Purposes of Egoistical Self - Assertion
Chapter 6. Life Through and for others, or Society
Chapter 7. Social Mechanics, or the Levers of Social Movement
Chapter 8. Social Mechanics, or the Levers of Social Movement
Appendix : Critical Surveys of von Ihering's Theories
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Author Details
Rudolf Von Jhering