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Table of Contents
List of Figures.................................................................................................................. v
Attestation of Authorship................................................................................................ vi
Acknowledgements........................................................................................................ vii
Dedication.....................................................................................................................viii
Abstract........................................................................................................................... ix
Introduction...................................................................................................................... 1
The best interests test as a decision making mechanism ......................................... 1
The philosophical problem ...................................................................................... 4
Re Y [1997] (England)............................................................................................. 4
Responses to the best interests test .......................................................................... 7
Critique of the best interest test in particular cases.................................................. 8
Critique of the best interest test in North America ................................................ 10
Responses to indeterminacy................................................................................... 11
Chapter 1 - The objectivist myth ................................................................................... 15
Fact / value distinction............................................................................................... 15
Value-free approaches to law and medicine .......................................................... 16
Legal positivism – the basic problem .................................................................... 17
Values and reasoning ............................................................................................. 18
Values + evidence.................................................................................................. 19
What is the fact / value distinction?....................................................................... 20
What is a value?..................................................................................................... 22
Aren’t some values fundamental?.......................................................................... 23
Where do values come from? ................................................................................ 25
Socialisation as the source of values...................................................................... 27
Values instrumentality ............................................................................................... 29
Biological instrumentality of values ...................................................................... 31
The role of cultural and societal values in decision making.................................. 32
Professional and institutional values...................................................................... 33
The complete picture.............................................................................................. 34
Values-based law and the myth of legal reasoning.................................................... 36
Law as a system of rules ........................................................................................ 37
The necessary role of values in legal process ........................................................ 39
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