Second of three lectures by in the 2011 Annual Uehiro Lecture Series "Making Good: The Challenge of Robustly Demanding Values". Delivered by Philip Pettit, Laurance S. Rockefeller University Professor of Politics and Human Values at Princeton University.
The common subjection to law means in any community that we give each other certain legal rights robustly, not just actually or probably. The freedom, respect and dignity that you thereby enjoy come about as a result of how we others are legally constrained; they do not materialize just as a result of what we do, or even, unlike virtue-based goods, as a result of what we are disposed to do. And so law is a distinct way of making good, not just an aid or prompt to doing good; it too creates value in its own right.
