Legal Philosophy

THE TELEOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVE
Greek | Roman | Aquinian | Kantian | Benthamite

Jherinian | Hegelian | Modern
JACOBE | ALMAGRO | BUENAOBRA | REVILLA | QUIZON
LABEL
From the Greek words telos (end) and logos (study
of/discourse)

From philosophical jurisprudence to teleological
jurisprudence

Fundamental POV: law is ordained for the achievement of
righteousness, justice, fairness, and equity in the legal
order

NATURAL LAW BASIS
Natural law has a great more deal in shaping the concept of
law than any other idea

There is a very present bond between positive law and
natural law

A good legal order can be deduced from the natural law,
thus making the law universally valid for all peoples
ART. 19, NEW CIVIL CODE
Every person must, in the exercise of his rights and in the
performance of his duties, act with justice, give everyone
his due, and observe honesty and good faith.
THE GREEK CONCEPT
Absolute Justice
Rational Justice
Particular Justice
TRIPARTITE SOUL
SOCRATES ABSOLUTE JUSTICE
No person is intentionally bad or evil because of his or her
understanding of justice
knowledge of justice (episteme) vs. mere opinion of
justice (doxa)

Only the temperate person knows himself or herself, and
thus, able to bring his or her emotions under control
just acts (virtuous) vs. unjust acts (vicious)
PLATOS RATIONAL JUSTICE
The reality or idea of justice exists in the mind even though
one does not see it done or performed

Rational justice is the preservation of peace and harmony
and the prevention of disturbance

Weakness: meliorism (inherent right of human beings to
move on and better the quality of their lives)
ARISTOTLES PARTICULAR JUSTICE
Critique: absolute justice too exacting by demanding moral
excellence; rational justice is still a subjective virtue

Justice is sound and sensible when, in the light of events
and circumstances, it is fair and equal

Justice is a particular virtue, not a universal ingredient in
the application of law in society
ARISTOTLES PARTICULAR JUSTICE
Proportional justice: each person receives what he or she
is entitled to on the basis of ability and achievement

Numerical justice: each person, regardless of station in life,
counts for one and only one

Particular justice is rendering to every person what he or
she is entitled to based on the rule of law
LAW AS THE PRODUCT OF REASON RELATED
TO JUSTICE AND EQUITY
Man is a rational and free-willing being. In the case of law,
its fulfilled reality is found in the realization of the
precepts of the natural law in the legal order.
THE ROMAN CONCEPT
Cicero
Gaius
THE ROMAN CONCEPT
Rudolph Stammler: The Romans simply repeated in the
Latin language the expressions of the Greek philosophers
especially the ideas of the Stoics

Greeks: nature of law remained a philosophical speculation

Romans: subjected the nature of law to technical analysis
CICERO
Element of Compulsion: law must be able to compel
obedience as an effective means of social control

Fundamental POV: law is the natural force that effectively
controls society summons people to obey it by commands
and averts wrongdoings by means of prohibition
CICERO ON JUSTICE
Justice consists in doing no injury to men.
Justice is the set and constant purpose which gives every
man his due.
The foundations of justice are that no one should suffer
wrong; then, that the public good be promoted.
Justice must be observed even to the lowest.
Justice extorts no reward, no kind of price; she is sought
for her own sake.
CICERO ON LAW
True law is right reason in agreement with nature; it is of
universal application.
The precepts of the law are these: to live honestly, to injure
no one, and to give everyone else his due.
According to the law of nature it is only fair that no one
should become richer through damages and injuries
suffered by another.
The strictest law often causes the most serious wrong.
The more laws, the less justice.
GAIUS
Jus Civile: rules established by the citizens to govern
themselves

Jus Naturale: rules common to all other persons based on
the natural law

Fundamental POV: rules in derogation of the precepts of the
natural law are not laws at all; rules must be conducive to
lawness
GAIUS
Continuous process of removing unnatural law from the
books

Laws must be re-examined the lawmaking body every once
in a while

Legal cleansing to comply with the end and purpose of the
law
THE AQUINIAN CONCEPT
Justice
Law and Sovereignty
Immutability of Law
Thomas Aquinas based the claim of the Romish church to
absolute authority by advancing the idea that some church
doctrines are defensible by formal reasoning

He expressed the view that a human being has a rational
soul and will of his own, This is ordained by God for the
universal good

Aquinas like Plato, believed in the rational capacity of
human beings. But Aquinas drew a sharp restriction on
what human reason is capable of

For Aquinas, right reason is the governing rule of human
conduct for the common good, which is preferable to ones
proper good, because the common good of the whole is God
Himself
LAW AND SOVEREIGNTY
Thomas Aquinas advanced the proposition that the public
welfare or the common happiness is the first concern of
the people since the direction of anything to this end is the
concern of those to whom the end or purpose belongs.
IMMUTABILITY OF LAW
Thomas Aquinas advanced the idea that changes do occur in
the subsequent applications of the law and these changes
may be by expansion or contraction in accordance with the
civilization of the time and place.
THE KANTIAN CONCEPT
Human Consciousness and Conduct
The Sense of Striving for Righteousness
Metalegal Basis of Law
THE UTILITY SUPPLEMENT
Stages of Modern Utilitarian Ethics
The Benthamite and Jherinian Concepts
Value of the Utility Supplement
DOCTRINE OF UTILITARIANISM
Considered that the useful is the good and that the
determining consideration of right conducts should be the
usefulness of its consequences.
Happiness of the measure of the goodness or badness of
acts and their consequences based on the hedonistic
calculus, a theory that the aim of action should be the
largest possible balance of pleasure over pain or the
greatest happiness of the greatest number.

PROPONENTS
Epicurus (324- 270 B.C)
Formation of values and judgments is the intellectual and
aesthetic happiness or pleasures that are the good.
Telos of the law are the pleasures that are conducive to
repose of both individual and societal needs.
PROPONENTS
Plato gave two considerations on the theory of the nature
of law
What pleasures ought not to be sought
What pains ought to be avoided in the legal ordering of
society
Cicero (106- 43 B.C)
Pleasure which is not an enticement to vice is the
highest good and that pain is evil leading to the
destruction of human nature and reason.

PROPONENTS
Modern Utilitarian
Based on the fact that Pain appears to be a major part
of human existence and pleasure is temporary release
from pain. Modern utilitarian came up to the idea that
legal ordering of the society must always be directed to
the overcoming of pain.
Theory of the good and Theory of value
Happiness of the people is based on the beneficial
consequences of their acts.
THE BENTHAMITE CONCEPT
Jeremy Bentham states that the greatest happiness of
the greatest number should be the ultimate goal of society
and of the individual.
Nature Basis
Forces that affect the ordering of human society
Nature has placed human beings under a regime of
pleasures and pains.
Every act or conduct is done to procure the happening
of some good (pleasure) or to prevent the occurrence of
some bad (evil).

Measure of Utility
To test his creation Bentham created a measure of
utility in terms of pleasure and pains to evaluate the
effects of acts and conduct on the greatest happiness of
the greatest number of individual in the community.
Bentham enumerated some of the pleasures and pains
which human being are susceptible.
Two ways of measuring the utility of an act and its
consequences
Number of the people affected the degree of
pleasantness or painfulness over a time, influence of
more immediate rather than pleasures or pains, and the
tendency to produce or not to produce pleasures or
pains.
Measuring the utility of a conduct as to the personal or
individual differences as to sensibility to pleasures or
pains.
The acts whether they are public or private and their
consequences are to be measured by calculus of pleasures
and pains.
That the act of the government would be the basis of the
maximization of justice (pleasure) so that the goal that
greatest happiness of the greatest number should be
achieved. Jeremy Bentham proposed a process in which
misery or injustice can be diminished and, whenever
possible happiness or justice can be increased.
The acts whether they are public or private and their
consequences are to be measured by calculus of pleasures
and pains.
That the act of the government would be the basis of the
maximization of justice (pleasure) so that the goal that
greatest happiness of the greatest number should be
achieved. Jeremy Bentham proposed a process in which
misery or injustice can be diminished and, whenever
possible happiness or justice can be increased.
THE JHERINIAN CONCEPT
Law should address the realization of the partnership of
the individual and society. Individual persons should not
ignore the interest of the society for which they are part
of the society. Interest of an individual in the society is
done not only for his own good but also for the good of the
society. All things are considered in their societal context.
LAW OF PURPOSE
Principle of Purpose
Principle of purpose that operates in the legal ordering
of the society, that every exercise of the will of a person
there is a reason behind that. The concept of proximate
cause should be reconsidered in the principle of
purpose.

LAW OF PURPOSE
Teleological idea that nature has endowed human beings
with an interest in pleasures and inclination to shun pain.
Selfish tendency of furthering individual interest will not
help for the good of the greatest number of the person
in the society.

SOCIAL MECHANICS
Egoistic Levers incentives that are addressed to the
region of self- interest.

Types of Egoistic Levers
a. coercive mechanical and psychological needs.
b. non- coercive fact or event of a reward and the
fact or reward of association.

SOCIAL MECHANICS
Altruistic Levers- the principle or practice of concern for
the welfare of others. Type of levers that is directed to the
benevolent or generous interest of the members of the
society

VALUE OF THE UTILITY SUPPLEMENT
Utilitarian supplement to the teleological perspective of
the nature of law is important to realize that both
individual interest and collective purpose should become
the end or object of the science and art of legislation.

THE HEGELIAN CONCEPT
THE HEGELIAN CONCEPT
All concepts are actualized by these dialect movement, that
is to say a concept (thesis) may evoke an opposite idea
(antithesis) and out of their reconciliation or identification
emerges a new concept (synthesis).

The usual application of the Hegelian concept is
individualism vs collectivism
THE HEGELIAN DIALECTIC
Both are reconciled by means of the principle of identity,
the resulting synthesis becomes the identification or
reconciliation of the opposing views or ideas into a
concrete concept
THE HEGELIAN DIALECTIC
FACTS: Ichong vs. Hernandez
Republic Act No. 1180 entitled An Act to Regulate the Retail
Business, prohibiting aliens in general to engaged in retail
trade in our country.
The petitioner is a Chinese national engaged in the retail
business in the Philippines. Petitioner, for and in behalf of
other alien residents, corporations and partnerships
adversely affected by the provisions of RA No. 1180, brought
this action to obtain a judicial declaration that said Act is
unconstitutional.
ISSUE: Ichong vs. Hernandez
Whether or not Congress in enacting RA No. 1180 violated
the UN Charter, the UN declaration of Human Rights and the
Philippine-Chinese Treaty of Amity
HELD: Ichong vs. Hernandez
The UN Charter imposes no strict or legal obligations
regarding the rights and freedom of their subjects, and the
Declaration of Human Rights contains nothing more than a
mere recommendation, or a common standard of
achievement for all peoples and all nations.
HELD: Ichong vs. Hernandez
The treaty of Amity between the Republic of the Philippines
and the Republic of China guarantees equality of treatment
to the Chinese nationals upon the same terms as the
nationals of any other countries, except those of the United
States, who are granted special rights by the Constitution,
are all prohibited from engaging in the retail trade.
CASE ANALYSIS: THESIS
In the case at bar, the thesis is that retail trade practice,
as averred by the complainant Ichong, must be allowed to
all persons whether residents or aliens. For the
complainant the government must have less restrictions or
barriers on retail trade and let competition takes it place to
achieve its economic level.
CASE ANALYSIS: ANTITHESIS
However, the antithesis is the State indeed has valued the
importance of retail trade in the economy and thus finds
reason to support it. During those times the players in the
retail trade industry were mostly and almost to the brink of
total domination of foreign nationals. Foreign nationals who
are owners of retail trade would most likely serve only
their personal interest and not of the country as a whole.
Therefore the government then sees to protect the vital
part of retail trade in the economy
CASE ANALYSIS: SYNTHESIS
The synthesis is that RA NO. 1180 is a valid exercise of police
power to achieve not only its economic purpose but of the
national interest as well.
MODERN TELEOLOGICAL ANALYSIS
Juristic Approach
Ethical Relativity
Interest of the State

Legal Philosophy

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THE TELEOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVE

Greek | Roman | Aquinian | Kantian | Benthamite

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