Michael Moore and the Re-Birth of the Documentary

This chapter entertains three proposals as to the connection between an animal’s moral status and what legal status it ought to have. The first proposal is this strong claim: that an act wrongs an animal is a justification for criminalizing it. The second proposal is this moderate claim: that an act constitutes an injustice to an animal is a justification for criminalizing it. Both of these proposals can be vindicated if an argument for legal moralism that the author constructs, drawing on the work of Michael Moore, is sound. Meanwhile, Martha Nussbaum, Alasdair Cochrane, and Robert Garner have each argued for the second proposal. The chapter demonstrates that all four of these arguments are unsound. The third proposal is this claim: it is obligatory for legislators to eliminate any aspect of the law that facilitates the wronging of animals. This proposal, the author argues, is sound. Comparatively weak though this proposal is, the chapter extracts from it radical implications for animal ownership and state funding of medical research on animal subjects.

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Michael Moore does it again

The Uncultured Wars ◽

10.5040/9781350223585.ch-005 ◽

2008 ◽

Keyword(s):

Michael Moore

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Hart's Methodological Positivism

Legal Theory ◽

10.1017/s1352325200001105 ◽

1998 ◽

Vol 4 (4) ◽

pp. 427-467 ◽

Cited By ~ 12

Author(s):

Stephen R. Perry

Keyword(s):

General Theory ◽

Natural Law ◽

Legal Theory ◽

Legal Positivism ◽

Social Phenomenon ◽

Modern Times ◽

Theory Of Law ◽

Michael Moore

To understand H.L.A. Hart's general theory of law, it is helpful to distinguish between substantive and methodological legal positivism. Substantive legal positivism is the view that there is no necessary connection between morality and the content of law. Methodological legal positivism is the view that legal theory can and should offer a normatively neutral description of a particular social phenomenon, namely law. Methodological positivism holds, we might say, not that there is no necessary connection between morality and law, but rather that there is no connection, necessary or otherwise, between morality and legal theory. The respective claims of substantive and methodological positivism are, at least on the surface, logically independent. Hobbes and Bentham employed normative methodologies to defend versions of substantive positivism, and in modern times Michael Moore has developed what can be regarded as a variant of methodological positivism to defend a theory of natural law.

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