The rule of law is commonly defined in contrast to the rule of men. Rule of men systems are governed by the unpredictable whims of the few, which in worst cases may be capricious and abusive. On the contrary rule of law systems are those where general rules enacted beforehand and impartially applied play a significant role.
The historical opposition between the rule of law and the rule of men is in mostly laid out with reference to certain characteristics of the rules, and even checklists of institutional requirements. This prominent focus on the rule of law has been called the anatomical approach and regards the features that the rules and procedures shall have for a system to be properly defined as a rule of law system. But one of the primary functions of the rule of law is to temper power and it involves always a human factor.
This workshop aims at exploring the subjective side of the rule of law, and will focus on the features and abilities of human agents that can strengthen the rule of law, as well as the vices that can weaken it or even boost it. In this framework, abilities, virtues and vices are understood widely as habits, skills or moral and immoral features of characters of moral agents. The focus is not only on the professional actors, but also on lay people. The inspiration could be brought from classics, from current studies, from empirical researches.

The workshop aims at addressing the following issues among others:

1) Is the subjective side of the rule of law relevant or non applicable, and why?
2) Which virtues are required for a rule system to properly work?
3) What vices, if any, may be tolerated or even prompted?
4) What classical thinkers can teach us on the subjective side of the rule of law?
5) In which sense moderation, temperance, hypocrisy, can be useful for the rule of law?
6) What other virtues can be useful and for whom? Legal practitioners (lawyers, judges, public officials)/lay people/citizens/government?
7) Can legality be severed by a more general attitude towards virtues and vices?

Lucia Corso, lucia.corso@unikore.it
Isabel Trujillo, isabel.trujillo@unipa.it