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What is the philosophy of law?

Philosophy of Law. Philosophy of law (or legal philosophy) is concerned with providing a general philosophical analysis of law and legal institutions. Issues in the field range from abstract conceptual questions about the nature of law and legal systems to normative questions about the relationship between law and morality and ...

What are the three categories of legal philosophy?

There are roughly three categories into which the topics of legal philosophy fall: analytic jurisprudence, normative jurisprudence, and critical theories of law. Analytic jurisprudence involves providing an analysis of the essence of law so as to understand what differentiates it from other systems of norms, such as ethics. ...

What is the objective of analytic jurisprudence?

The principal objective of analytic jurisprudence has traditionally been to provide an account of what distinguishes law as a system of norms from other systems of norms, such as ethical norms. As John Austin describes the project, analytic jurisprudence seeks “the essence or nature which is common to all laws that are properly so called” (Austin 1995, p. 11). Accordingly, analytic jurisprudence is concerned with providing necessary and sufficient conditions for the existence of law that distinguish law from non-law.

What is normative jurisprudence?

Normative jurisprudence involves the examination of normative, evaluative, and otherwise prescriptive issues about the law, such as restrictions on freedom, obligations to obey the law, and the grounds for punishment. Finally, critical theories of law, such as critical legal studies and feminist jurisprudence, challenge more traditional forms ...

What is Lon Fuller's view of law?

Lon Fuller (1964) rejects the idea that there are necessary moral constraints on the content of law. On Fuller’s view, law is necessarily subject to a procedural morality consisting of eight principles: P1: the rules must be expressed in general terms; P2: the rules must be publicly promulgated;

What is the overlap theory of natural law?

All forms of natural law theory subscribe to the Overlap Thesis, which is that there is a necessary relation between the concepts of law and morality. According to this view, then, the concept of law cannot be fully articulated without some reference to moral notions.

What is conceptual analysis of law?

Conceptual theories of law can be divided into two main headings: (a) those that affirm there is a conceptual relation between law and morality and (b) those that deny that there is such a relation.

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What is the philosophy of law?

Philosophy of law often aims to distinguish law from other systems of norms, such as morality ( see ethics) or other social conventions. Views about the nature of law often depend upon, and occasionally have contributed to, answers to some of the most-fundamental philosophical questions—for example, regarding the foundations of morality, justice, ...

What is the branch of philosophy that investigates the nature of law?

Philosophy of law, also called jurisprudence, branch of philosophy that investigates the nature of law, especially in its relation to human values, attitudes, practices, and political communities.

What is the abstract concept of law?

In the Greek histories and literature of the 6th and 5th centuries bce, however, one finds the first articulation of ideas about law that have had enduring influence in the West: that law is a kind of command or prohibition with regard to what its subjects ought to do and that law is often accompanied by at least the threat of punishment or coercion by the state . Herodotus (born about 484 bce ), in his History of the Greco-Persian Wars, records a Spartan king remarking to the king of Persia that the Greeks “are free, yet not wholly free; law is their master, whom they fear much more than your men fear you. They do whatever it bids.” The historian Xenophon ( c. 430– c. 350 bce) relates in his Memorabilia a likely apocryphal conversation between a young Alcibiades and his guardian, the great Athenian statesman Pericles, in which the latter declares that “whatever the sovereign power of the state, having deliberated, enacts and directs to be done is known as law” and denies that mere compulsion exerted by a tyrant is sufficient to qualify as law. The great dramatist Sophocles, in his tragedy Antigone, first made salient the important idea that the requirements of law and morality may conflict. In the play, King Creon orders the body of Antigone’s brother to remain unburied as a posthumous punishment for treason. Out of familial duty, Antigone flouts the order and buries the body, thereby herself risking punishment by death. She rejects the king’s legal authority, saying that even he “could not override the unwritten and unfailing laws given us by the gods.”

Why does Aristotle say that a law can sometimes fail to apply?

Because of its universal nature, a law can sometimes fail to apply, or apply only indeterminately, to a novel case unforeseen by the legislator. The problem here, Aristotle said, is not in the law or in the lack of foresight by the lawmaker but rather in the “nature of the case.”.

What is the common Greek view of law?

He shared the common Greek view that, as a general principle, law had a share in eternal divine wisdom. As such, it was an instrument by which to constrain the exercise of political power, particularly that of tyrants, whose policies represented only their own interests and not the good of the community.

What is Plato's last work?

Plato’s later work makes scattered reference to law but fails to articulate a robust philosophy of law in the modern sense; what is thought to be his last work, Laws, contains many specific proposals for reforming the laws of his time but curiously fails to grapple with broader philosophical questions.

When did law start?

Whereas law as a means of governance of human communities dates back to at least 3000 bce in ancient Egypt, sustained and systematic philosophical reflection on its nature for which there is surviving evidence began only in the late 5th century bce in ancient Greece and nearby areas of the Mediterranean, not long after the birth of Western philosophy itself. From that point onward, a more or less continuous history of such reflection can be traced up to the present day. As is true with the history of philosophy more generally, one can observe over the centuries changes not only in the theories set forth but also in the central questions about law that such theories were meant to answer.

Analytic Jurisprudence

  • The principal objective of analytic jurisprudence has traditionally been to provide an account of what distinguishes law as a system of norms from other systems of norms, such as ethical norms. As John Austin describes the project, analytic jurisprudence seeks “the essence or nature which is common to all laws that are properly so called” (Austin 1995, p. 11). Accordingly, analyti…
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Normative Jurisprudence

  • Normative jurisprudence involves normative, evaluative, and otherwise prescriptive questions about the law. Here we will examine three key issues: (a) when and to what extent laws can restrict the freedom of citizens, (b) the nature of one’s obligation to obey the law, and (c) the justification of punishment by law.
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Critical Theories of Law

  • a. Legal Realism
    The legal realist movement was inspired by John Chipman Gray and Oliver Wendall Holmes and reached its apex in the 1920s and 30s through the work of Karl Llewellyn, Jerome Frank, and Felix Cohen. The realists eschewed the conceptual approach of the positivists and naturalists in favo…
  • b. Critical Legal Studies
    The critical legal studies (CLS) movement attempts to expand the radical aspects of legal realism into a Marxist critique of mainstream liberal jurisprudence. CLS theorists believe the realists understate the extent of indeterminacy; whereas the realists believe that indeterminacy is local i…
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References and Further Reading

  1. Andrew Altman (1986), “Legal Realism, Critical Legal Studies, and Dworkin,” Philosophy and Public Affairs, vol. 15, no. 2, pp. 205-236.
  2. Thomas Aquinas (1988), On Law, Morality and Politics(Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Co.).
  3. John Austin (1977), Lectures on Jurisprudence and the Philosophy of Positive Law(St. Clair Shores, MI: Scholarly Press.
  1. Andrew Altman (1986), “Legal Realism, Critical Legal Studies, and Dworkin,” Philosophy and Public Affairs, vol. 15, no. 2, pp. 205-236.
  2. Thomas Aquinas (1988), On Law, Morality and Politics(Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Co.).
  3. John Austin (1977), Lectures on Jurisprudence and the Philosophy of Positive Law(St. Clair Shores, MI: Scholarly Press.
  4. John Austin (1995), The Province of Jurisprudence Determined(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press).