Ethics

To be fair this is not what I did on my summer holidays, but "what I did for work this summer" isn't quite as catchy.  In any event, what I did was read Tim Dare's wonderful new book, Counsel of Rogues? A Defence of the Standard Conception of the Lawyer's Role (publisher's link here) .  Dare is a professor of philosophy (who also has a law degree) at the University of Auckland in NZ. The notable features of the book are both philosophical anad practical.  Philosophically Dare engages with Rawls' conception of the defensibility of role morality and Applbaum's critique of Rawls, and provides a robust defence of the idea that role morality is possible and changes how we assess those who act within morally justified roles.  Practically Dare argues that the lawyer's ethical obligation is one of "mere-zeal" not "hyper-zeal" and that lawyers' acts can be justified or criticized depending on where they fall on that spectrum.  Dare also suggests that the morality of a lawyer's life cannot be understood solely through the single role of "lawyer" and that an ethically rich life encompasses one's acts in a variety of roles, whether as lawyer, law reformer, or otherwise.