Defining Core Concepts in Law, Ethics, and Philosophy

Fundamental Principles of Self-Governance and Authority

Autonomy

The ability to set one's own standards without influence from external or internal pressures.

Heteronomy

Being under the authority or mandate of another person.

Emancipation

Relates to any action that allows a person or group of people access to a state of autonomy by ceasing subjection to any authority.

Characteristics of Legal and Social Norms

The following terms describe the nature and enforcement mechanisms of rules and mandates:

• Coercibility

The threat to use violence of any kind, with the aim of constraining the behavior of individuals.

• Irrepressibility

A characteristic meaning the rule cannot be enforced by means of force; it must be obeyed spontaneously.

• Bilaterality

The characteristic where, facing an obligation, there is a person entitled to require the fulfillment of the mandate.

• Unilateralism

The absence of any authorization for a subject to require the obligation to fulfill the mandate.

• Interiority

Consists of compliance with the rule made with the full conviction of the subject, regardless of the interests of others.

• Externality

What matters is fulfilling the mandate independently of individual conscience.

Legal Concepts: Acts and Consequences

Legal Event

The manifestation of the will intended to produce legal consequences.

Legal Fact

When a legal effect occurs without the manifestation of the will.

Social, Ethical, and Cultural Foundations

Law

The regulatory and institutional system governing human conduct in society, based on principles of justice, which structure basic social relations.

Ethics

A study aimed at moral and human action. It determines what is good and, from this point of view, how one should act. It is the theory of human behavior and helps to distinguish right from wrong.

Morality

The set of rules that govern the conduct of a human being in relationship with society and oneself, often having a positive effect on others.

Philosophy

The study of a variety of fundamental questions about issues such as existence, knowledge, truth, and morality. Philosophy differs from other ways of addressing these problems due to its generally critical and systematic method, emphasizing arguments.

Culture

The set of all forms, models, or patterns, explicit or implicit, through which a society governs the behavior of the people who form it. As such, it includes customs, practices, norms, and standards.

Education

The process by which knowledge, values, customs, and ways of acting are transmitted. Education not only occurs through the word but is present in all our actions and attitudes.

Religion

An element of human activity generally made up of beliefs and practices concerning existential, moral, and supernatural issues.