Convincing a judge in Sweden, which has one of the world's most liberal press-freedom laws, of the virtues of America's Espionage Act may be tricky.
Thomas says that both natural law and positive law prescribe acts of virtue in general but they do not prescribe every specific virtuous act (except for those that promote the social good of justice and peace).
In these types of exemptionalism, humans are unique and somehow transcend the laws of nature, by virtue of having respectively, a soul, reason, or culture.
Some group-differentiated rights are held by individual members of minority groups, as in the case of individuals who are granted exemptions from generally applicable laws in virtue of their religious beliefs or individuals who seek language accommodations in schools or in voting.
In the writings of the early natural law theorists, Greek views of virtue sometimes came under strong criticism.
This is a reasonable enough suggestion, as FISA was not meant to constrain exclusively foreign surveillance, which only ran afoul of the law in virtue of technology that did not exist in 1978.
The court of human rights in Strasbourg makes a distinction between detention, which is covered by article 5, and restrictions on freedom of movement, which is covered by article 2 of the fourth protocol to the convention, which the United Kingdom has never ratified and is not part of our law by virtue of the Human Rights Act.
Several passages in the Laws suggest that the sort of virtue that Plato thinks the citizens of Magnesia ought to exhibit involves an impartialist sort of regard for the good of the cosmos as a whole rather than a special regard for one's own good.
Legislators pose as paragons of virtue pass laws which limit the rights of women, gays, bisexuals and transgender persons.
There will be citizens, to be sure, in whom the law fails to instill the whole of virtue, but Plato never suggests that the laws fail in the case of every non-philosopher.
