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The Ethical Spirit of EU Law

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Über dieses Buch

This open access book seeks to identify the ethical spirit of European Union (EU) law, a context in which we can observe a trend towards increasing references to the terms ‘ethics’ and ‘morality’. This aspect is all the more important because EU law is now affecting more and more areas of national law, including such sensitive ones as the patentability of human life. Especially when unethical behaviour produces legal consequences, the frequent lack of clearly defined concepts remains a challenge, particularly against the background of the principle of legal certainty. This raises the question to which extent the content of these references is determined and whether it is possible to identify an ethical spirit of EU law. Answering that question, in turn, entails addressing the following questions: In references to ethics concerning EU law, can we identify references to a particular theory of practical philosophy at all; and, if so, to one or more normative ethical theories (deontology, consequentialism, or virtue ethics)? Further, should these non-legal concepts be imported in an unaltered way (“absolute approach”), or be adapted to the legal context (“relative approach”)? This book explores the different layers of EU law (primary law, agreements, secondary law, and tertiary law), including the role of ethics in EU lawmaking and in EU case law, as well as the implementation of relevant EU directives in selected Member States. In addition to the above-mentioned normative philosophical lens, the book also analyzes the findings from the legal lens of EU integration, i.e., especially EU values, human rights and the cornerstone of human dignity.

Inhaltsverzeichnis

Frontmatter

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Chapter 1. Setting the Agenda
Abstract
In European Union (EU) law, we can find more and more references in different legal documents to non-legal concepts such as ethics and morality.
Markus Frischhut

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Chapter 2. Normative Theories of Practical Philosophy
Abstract
While the outcome sometimes might be the same, it is the way of reasoning which distinguishes these three theories.
Markus Frischhut

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Chapter 3. Status Quo of Ethics and Morality in EU Law
Abstract
After this introduction into the relevant basics of normative ethics, let us turn to the status quo of EU law referring to ethics and morality. Following the hierarchy of EU law, let us first have a look at primary EU law.
Markus Frischhut

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Chapter 4. Philosophical Lens (The Normative Theories, etc. Continued)
Abstract
While objectives 1–3 have been dealt with in the chapters so far, this chapter is dedicated to objective 4. That is to say, whether we can identify a certain common horizontal (or rather a specific) pattern in referring to these terms of ethics and morality, and whether we can thus identify an ethical spirit based on an analysis of these legal texts; or whether we have to ascertain a gap, which has to be filled by other means?
Markus Frischhut

Open Access

Chapter 5. Legal Lens
Abstract
The question whether references to ethics should be understood as an unconditional reference (to one or more philosophical theories), or only as pointing towards a certain idea (question No. 3), has already been answered in the previous chapter (in terms of the second option).
Markus Frischhut

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Chapter 6. Conclusion and Suggestions for Improvement
Abstract
While so far, this book was clearly about the legal situation as it stands, I now want to conclude with some own suggestions for improvement. Much has already been written about the multiple crisis of the EU. However, even if these crises did not exist, it would be high time to further develop a new Union, which is ‘inspired by an ethical spirit’.
Markus Frischhut
Backmatter
Metadaten
Titel
The Ethical Spirit of EU Law
verfasst von
Dr. Markus Frischhut
Copyright-Jahr
2019
Electronic ISBN
978-3-030-10582-2
Print ISBN
978-3-030-10581-5
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-10582-2