In separating out, say, legal and moral requirements, I tend to work with paradigms rather than strict divisions - eg, paradigmatically, legal requirements are jurisdictionally bound whereas ethical requirements are aspirationally universal; ethical requirements focus especially on intentions whereas legal requirements focus primarily on conduct; ethical requirements take priority over legal requirements; and so on.

It is odd that a value/virtue that plays such a central role in dramatic literature has played such a small role in philosophical writing. There are probably a number of reasons, but I think that a predilection for a certain kind of individualism is a major one. Others might include the fashionability of consequentialism, the idea that loyalty has more to do with sentiment than reason, as well as its proneness to corruption. The revival of interest in virtue/character as distinct from rules/principles has also created space for a renewed, if hesitant, interest in loyalty.

As for the ethics, law, and politics relationship, there has always been a tension for me as I try to keep them distinct while recognizing their interactions. A valuable contribution to my thinking there and elsewhere was Ellen Meiksins Wood's Mind and Politics, which reinforced for me the ways in which seemingly disparate philosophical endeavors were/are interconnected, and although I have tended to give a certain priority to ethical considerations as part of practical reasoning, I am reminded often enough that this position makes some contentious presumptions .

I see ethical considerations as having a certain priority in our interactions - passing judgment on our political and legal processes.

My view of ethics and of its priority is connected to my view that we are fundamentally relational beings - both the product of human interactions, as well as committed as part of the expression of our own humanity to various social involvements. I see ethics as having two places in the maintenance of these relational activities - first as providing the basic coinage of our interactions qua humans and second as mediating the various roles we assume as humans.

The selection of topics for intensive research has often been a function of serendipitous opportunity. My forays into philosophy of education were largely in response to the prompting of friends and my dissatisfaction with much of what - at that time - passed for philosophy of education. I cannot honestly say that there has been either continuity or an overarching schema, though I suspect ,or at least hope, that someone who looked at my oeuvre might conclude that there was a philosophically integrated author.

Structurally I don't see a fundamental difference between what we may reasonably expect of police and doctors - though obviously the fact that doctors are generally pursuing life-saving activities and police may be engaged in life-threatening activities may lead to differences in how we construe the moral limits to their roles.