The law is the study of how to break contracts! Much of the law is about the creation and manipulation of contracts among legal entities People Corporations Governmental agencies The law is the study of how to break contracts!

Contracts lead naturally to one party being obliged to another party Are about behavior: restrict autonomy Contracts lead naturally to one party being obliged to another party The rights or claims a party has on another party, as opposed to the right (ethical) thing to do. The claims of one party are the duties of another: claim is a correlate of duty

Kant and Respect for Persons ‘Act so that you treat humanity, whether in your own person or that of any other, always as an end and never as a means only.’

Hohfeld’s Analysis of Rights claim rights X has a right to do p, and others have a duty to let X do p privileges (liberties) X has no duty not to do p powers X has the power to alter the legal rights of others immunities Others lack the power to alter X’s legal position Wesley Hohfeld

Property Rights You have claim rights to use your property as you see fit and to exclude others. Others have a duty to respect these rights You can give others a liberty to use your property. You have the power to alter the legal position of others - for example by selling your property. You are immune from attempts by others to alter your legal rights over your property.

Rights Protect Our Autonomy If we have any natural rights, we have a right to freedom. A right confers on the rightholder an ability to control a sphere of activity - to control the actions of herself and others. The right to freedom protects individual autonomy by enabling her to exercise control within the limits imposed by the equal rights of others. H.L.A. Hart

Do we have a right to do wrong? According to Jeremy Waldron: ‘A Right to Do Wrong’ Someone uses all of the money that he has won in a lottery to buy racehorses and champagne, refusing to donate any of it to a desperately deserving charity. An individual joins an organization he knows has racist leanings. A man refuses to give a stranger in the street the time of day... The actions are wrong, but they are actions that the agent has a moral right to do.

Kant on Promises Another finds himself forced by necessity to borrow money. He knows that he will not be able to repay it, but sees also that nothing will be lent to him unless he promises stoutly to repay it in a definite time. He desires to make this promise, but he has still so much conscience as to ask himself: "Is it not unlawful and inconsistent with duty to get out of a difficulty in this way?"

Suppose however that he resolves to do so: then the maxim of his action would be expressed thus: "When I think myself in want of money, I will borrow money and promise to repay it, although I know that I never can do so." Now this principle of self-love or of one's own advantage may perhaps be consistent with my whole future welfare; but the question now is, "Is it right?"

b] I change then the suggestion of self-love into a universal law, and state the question thus: "How would it be if my maxim were a universal law?" Then I see at once that it could never hold as a universal law of nature, but would necessarily contradict itself. For supposing it to be a universal law that everyone when he thinks himself in a difficulty should be able to promise whatever he pleases, with the purpose of not keeping his promise, the promise itself would become impossible, as well as the end that one might have in view in it, since no one would consider that anything was promised to him, but would ridicule all such statements as vain pretences.

The categorical imperative in action. Should I break a promise? Ask yourself: can I will that this maxim “it is permissible to break a promise when it is inconvenient to keep it” be universalized? Answer: no. Why? Because if everyone broke promises when it was convenient, the whole point of promises is lost. The institution of promise-keeping would collapse. P. 271. So, according to Kant, breaking promises is irrational, it is a form of self-contradiction. Another example: suicide. P. 260.