Does altruism justify privileges?

This article discusses whether altruism justifies ad-hoc legislation with reference to three different contexts. One is defined by the libertarian notion of liberty, a second framework corresponds to the egalitarian vision, and a third one originates from social-contract theory. It is shown that current legislation is rather ambiguous and sometimes even contradictory. By and large, the common-law view tends to favour the libertarian approach, while the civil-law visions are closer to what one might expect from social-contract theory, where the letter of the law is often questioned by the academic community and by the judiciary, and decisions eventually follow the judges' discretionary power.