The Promotion of Personhood is a Principal Good of Law

Abstract

A great good promoted by a well constructed legal system is the protection and promotion of character. Many other purposes prove to be justifiable, if at all, based on their instrumentality to this good.

When guided by this thesis, jurisprudence brings the discussion of law – what law is and what law ought to be – into constant conversation with anthropology: the perennial inquiry which our species conducts into the nature of the person.