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This open access book seeks to identify the ethical spirit of
European Union (EU) law, a context in which we can observe a trend
towards increasing references to the terms 'ethics' and 'morality'.
This aspect is all the more important because EU law is now
affecting more and more areas of national law, including such
sensitive ones as the patentability of human life. Especially when
unethical behaviour produces legal consequences, the frequent lack
of clearly defined concepts remains a challenge, particularly
against the background of the principle of legal certainty. This
raises the question to which extent the content of these references
is determined and whether it is possible to identify an ethical
spirit of EU law. Answering that question, in turn, entails
addressing the following questions: In references to ethics
concerning EU law, can we identify references to a particular
theory of practical philosophy at all; and, if so, to one or more
normative ethical theories (deontology, consequentialism, or virtue
ethics)? Further, should these non-legal concepts be imported in an
unaltered way ("absolute approach"), or be adapted to the legal
context ("relative approach")? This book explores the different
layers of EU law (primary law, agreements, secondary law, and
tertiary law), including the role of ethics in EU lawmaking and in
EU case law, as well as the implementation of relevant EU
directives in selected Member States. In addition to the
above-mentioned normative philosophical lens, the book also
analyzes the findings from the legal lens of EU integration, i.e.,
especially EU values, human rights and the cornerstone of human
dignity.
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