Jurisprudence is the
theoryThe term theory has two broad sets of meanings, one used in the empirical sciences and the other used in philosophy, mathematics, logic, and across other fields in the humanities. There is considerable difference and even dispute across academic disciplines as to the proper usages of the term...
and
philosophyPhilosophy is the study of general and fundamental problems concerning matters such as existence, knowledge, values, reason, mind, and language. Philosophy is distinguished from other ways of addressing these questions by its critical, generally systematic approach and its reliance on reasoned...
of law. Scholars of jurisprudence, or legal philosophers, hope to obtain a deeper understanding of the nature of law, of legal reasoning, legal systems and of legal institutions. Modern jurisprudence began in the 18th century and was focused on the first principles of the law of nature, civil law, and the law of nations. General Jurisprudence can be broken into categories both by the types of questions scholars seek to address and by the theories of jurisprudence or schools of thought regarding how those questions are best to be answered. Contemporary philosophy of law, which deals with general jurisprudence, addresses problems in two rough groups:
- 1.) Problems internal to law and legal systems as such
- 2.) Problems of law as a particular social institution as it relates to the larger political and social situation in which it exists.
Answers to these questions come from four primary schools of thought in general jurisprudence:
- Natural law
Natural law or the law of nature is a theory that posits the existence of a law whose content is set by nature and that therefore has validity everywhere. The phrase natural law is opposed to the positive law of a given political community, society, or nation-state, and thus can function as a...
is the idea that there are rational objective limits to the power of legislative rulers. The foundations of law are accessible through human reason and it is from these laws of nature that human created laws gain whatever force they have.
- Legal Positivism
Legal positivism is a school of thought in philosophy of law and jurisprudence. The principal claims of modern legal positivism are that:* There is no inherent or necessary connection between the validity conditions of law and ethics or morality....
, by contrast to natural law, holds that there is no necessary connection between law and morality and that the force of law comes from some basic social facts although positivists differ on what those facts are.
- Legal Realism
Legal realism is a family of theories about the nature of law developed in the first half of the 20th century in the United States and Scandinavia...
is a third theory of jurisprudence which argues that the real world practice of law is what determines what law is; ie the law has the force that it does because of what legislators, judges, and executives do with it.
- Critical Legal Studies
Critical legal studies refers to a movement in legal thought that applied methods similar to those of critical theory to law...
is a younger theory of jurisprudence that has developed since the 1970s which is primarily a negative thesis that the law is largely contradictory and can be best analyzed as an expression of the policy goals of the dominant social group.
Also of note is the work of the contemporary Philosopher of Law
Ronald DworkinRonald Dworkin, QC, FBA is an American philosopher of law. He is Jeremy Bentham Professor of Law and Philosophy at University College London, Frank Henry Sommer Professor of Law at New York University, and has taught previously at Yale Law School and the University of Oxford...
who has advocated a constructivist theory of jurisprudence that can be characterized as a middle path between natural law theories and positivist theories of general jurisprudence.
The English term is based on the Latin word
jurisprudentia:
juris is the genitive form of
jus meaning "law", and
prudentia means "knowledge". The word is first attested in English in 1628, at a time when the word
prudence had the now obsolete meaning of "knowledge of or skill in a matter". The word may have come via the French
jurisprudence, which is attested earlier.
History of jurisprudence
Jurisprudence already had this meaning in
Ancient RomeAncient Rome was a civilization that grew out of a small agricultural community founded on the Italian Peninsula as early as the 10th century BC. Located along the Mediterranean Sea, it became one of the largest empires in the ancient world....
, even if at its origins the discipline was a (
periti) in the
jusJus may refer to:* Au jus, a cuisine term referring to sauce served with meat* Jump Ultimate Stars, a video game* Juridisk Selskab, a Danish student organization* Yus, a letter in the Cyrillic alphabet...
of
mos maiorumMos Maiorum, literally translated as the “custom of the fathers/ancestors,” is the core concept of Roman traditionalism. The mos maiorum , was an unwritten code from which the Romans derived their societal norms. These customs were distinct from the laws that would be recorded in writing...
(traditional law), a body of
oral lawAn oral law is a code of conduct in use in a given culture, religion or community application, by which a body of rules of human behaviour is transmitted by oral tradition and effectively respected, or the single rule that is orally transmitted....
s and customs verbally transmitted "by father to son"). Praetors established a workable body of laws by judging whether or not singular cases were capable of being prosecuted either by the edicta, the annual pronunciation of prosecutable offense, or in extraordinary situations, additions made to the edicta. A iudex then would judge a remedy according to the facts of the case.
Their sentences were supposed to be simple interpretations of the traditional customs, but effectively it was an activity that, apart from formally reconsidering for each case what precisely was traditionally in the legal habits, soon turned also to a more equitable interpretation, coherently adapting the law to the newer social instances. The law was then implemented with new evolutive
Institutiones (legal concepts), while remaining in the traditional scheme. Praetors were replaced in 3rd century BC by a laical body of
prudentes. Admission to this body was conditional upon proof of competence or experience.
Under the
Roman RepublicThe Roman Republic was the phase of the ancient Roman civilization characterized by a republican form of government. It began with the overthrow of the Roman monarchy, c...
, schools of law were created, and the activity constantly became more academic. In the age from the early
Roman EmpireThe Roman Empire was the post-Republican phase of the ancient Roman civilization, characterised by an autocratic form of government and large territorial holdings in Europe and around the Mediterranean. The term is used to describe the Roman state during and after the time of the first emperor,...
to the 3rd century, a relevant literature was produced by some notable groups including the Proculians and Sabinians. The degree of scientific depth of the studies was unprecedented in ancient times and reached still unrivaled peaks of skill.
After the 3rd century,
Juris prudentia became a more bureaucratic activity, with few notable authors. It was during the
Byzantine EmpireThe Byzantine Empire or Eastern Roman Empire, was the continuation of the Roman Empire during the Middle Ages, centered on the capital of Constantinople, and ruled by Emperors in direct and de jure succession to the ancient Roman Emperors...
(5th century) that legal studies were once again undertaken in depth, and it is from this cultural movement that
JustinianFlavius Petrus Sabbatius Iustinianus ; AD 483 – 13 or 14 November 565, known in English as Justinian I or Justinian the Great, was the second member of the Justinian Dynasty and Eastern Roman Emperor from 527 until his death...
's
Corpus Juris CivilisThe Corpus Juris Civilis is the modern name for a collection of fundamental works in jurisprudence, issued from 529 to 534 by order of Justinian I, Eastern Roman Emperor....
was born.
Natural law
Natural law theory asserts that there are laws that are immanent in nature, to which enacted laws should correspond as closely as possible. This view is frequently summarised by the maxim
an unjust law is not a true law ,
lex iniusta non est lex, in which 'unjust' is defined as contrary to natural law. Natural law is closely associated with morality and, in historically influential versions, with the intentions of God. To oversimplify its concepts somewhat, natural law theory attempts to identify a moral compass to guide the lawmaking power of the state and to promote 'the good'. Notions of an objective moral order, external to human legal systems, underlie natural law. What is right or wrong can vary according to the interests one is focused upon. Natural law is sometimes identified with the maxim that "an unjust law is no law at all", but as
John FinnisJohn Finnis , is an Australian philosopher, specializing in the philosophy of law. He is Professor of Law at University College, Oxford and at the University of Notre Dame, teaching jurisprudence, political theory, and constitutional law....
, the most important of modern natural lawyers has argued, this maxim is a poor guide to the classical
ThomistThomism is the philosophical school that arose as a legacy of the work and thought of Thomas Aquinas. The word comes from the name of its originator, whose Summa Theologica is arguably second only to the Bible in importance to the Roman Catholic Church...
position.
Aristotle
Aristotle is often said to be the father of natural law. Like his philosophical forefathers,
Socrates Socrates was a Classical Greek philosopher. Credited as one of the founders of Western philosophy, he is an enigmatic figure known only through the classical accounts of his students...
and
PlatoPlato , was a Classical Greek philosopher, mathematician, writer of philosophical dialogues, and founder of the Academy in Athens, the first institution of higher learning in the Western world...
,
AristotleAristotle was a Greek philosopher, a student of Plato and teacher of Alexander the Great. He wrote on many subjects, including physics, metaphysics, poetry, theater, music, logic, rhetoric, politics, government, ethics, biology, and zoology.Together with Plato and Socrates , Aristotle is one of...
posited the existence of
natural justiceNatural justice or procedural fairness is a legal philosophy used in some jurisdictions in the determination of just, or fair, processes in legal proceedings...
or natural right (
dikaion physikon,
δικαιον φυσικον,
LatinLatin is an Italic language originally spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. Through the Roman conquest, Latin spread throughout the Mediterranean and a large part of Europe...
ius naturale). His association with natural law is due largely to the interpretation given to him by
Thomas AquinasSaint Thomas Aquinas, O.P. was a priest of the Roman Catholic Church in the Dominican Order from Italy, and an immensely influential philosopher and theologian in the tradition of scholasticism, known as Doctor Angelicus and Doctor Communis...
. This was based on Aquinas' conflation of natural law and natural right, the latter of which Aristotle posits in Book V of the
Nicomachean EthicsNicomachean Ethics is the name normally given to the most well-known work by Aristotle on ethics...
(= Book IV of the
Eudemian EthicsThe Eudemian Ethics is a work of philosophy by Aristotle. Its primary focus is on Ethics. It is named for Eudemus of Rhodes, a pupil of Aristotle who may also have had a hand in editing the final work...
). Aquinas's influence was such as to affect a number of early translations of these passages, though more recent translations render them more literally.
Aristotle's theory of justice is bound up in his idea of the
golden meanGolden mean may refer to:*Doctrine of the Golden Mean Golden mean may refer to:*Doctrine of the Golden Mean Golden mean may refer to:*Doctrine of the Golden Mean ((Chinese: 中庸; pinyin: Zhōng Yóng), a chapter in Li Ji, one of the Four Books of Confucianism*Golden mean (philosophy), the felicitous...
. Indeed his treatment of what he calls "political justice" derives from his discussion of “the just” as a moral virtue derived as the mean between opposing vices, just like every other virtue he describes. His longest discussion of his theory of justice occurs in
Nicomachean Ethics and begins by asking what sort of mean a just act is. He argues that the term “justice” actually refers to two different but related ideas: general justice and particular justice. When a person's actions are completely virtuous in all matters in relation to others, Aristotle calls her "just" in the sense of “general justice;” as such this idea of justice is more or less coextensive with virtue. "Particular" or "Partial justice", by contrast, is the part of "general justice" or the individual virtue that is concerned with treating others equitably. Aristotle moves from this unqualified discussion of justice to a qualified view of political justice, by which he means something close to the subject of modern jurisprudence. Of political justice, Aristotle argues that it is partly derived from nature and partly a matter of convention. This can be taken as a statement that is similar to the views of modern natural law theorists. But it must also be remembered that Aristotle is describing a view of morality, not a system of law, and therefore his remarks as to nature here are about the grounding of the morality enacted as law not the laws themselves. The passage here is silent as to that question.
The best evidence of Aristotle's having thought there was a natural law comes from the
RhetoricAristotle's Rhetoric is an ancient Greek treatise on the art of persuasion, dating from the fourth century BC. In Greek, it is titled ΤΕΧΝΗΣ ΡΗΤΟΡΙΚΗΣ, in Latin Ars Rhetorica. In English, its title varies: typically it is titled the Rhetoric, the Art of Rhetoric, or a Treatise on Rhetoric.Aristotle...
, where Aristotle notes that, aside from the "particular" laws that each people has set up for itself, there is a "common" law that is according to nature. The context of this remark, however, suggests only that Aristotle advised that it could be rhetorically advantageous to appeal to such a law, especially when the "particular" law of ones' own city was adverse to the case being made, not that there actually was such a law; Aristotle, moreover, considered two of the three candidates for a universally valid, natural law suggested in this passage to be wrong. Aristotle's theoretical paternity of the natural law tradition is consequently disputed.
Sharia and Fiqh in Islam
Sharia (
) refers to the body of Islamic
lawLaw is a system of rules, usually enforced through a set of institutions. It shapes politics, economics and society in numerous ways and serves as a primary social mediator of relations between people. Contract law regulates everything from buying a bus ticket to trading on derivatives markets...
. The term means "way" or "path"; it is the legal framework within which public and most private aspects of life are regulated for those living in a legal system based on Islamic principles of jurisprudence. Fiqh is the term for Islamic jurisprudence, made up of the rulings of Islamic jurists. A component of Islamic studies, Fiqh expounds the methodology by which Islamic law is derived from primary and secondary sources.
Mainstream Islam distinguish
fiqh, which means understanding details and inferences drawn by scholars, from
sharia that refers to principles that lie behind the fiqh. Scholars hope that
fiqh and
sharia are in harmony in any given case, but this cannot be assured.
Early forms of
logic in Islamic philosophyLogic played an important role in Islamic philosophy. Islamic law and jurisprudence placed importance on formulating standards of argument, which gave rise to a novel approach to logic in Kalam, as seen in the method of qiyas...
were introduced in Islamic jurisprudence from the 7th century with the process of
QiyasIn Sunni Islamic jurisprudence,the qiyas is the process of analogical reasoning in which the teachings of the Quran are compared and contrasted with those of the Hadith, i.e., in order to make an analogy with a known injunction to a new injunction...
. During the
Islamic Golden AgeThe Islamic Golden Age or the Islamic Renaissance, is traditionally dated from the 9th to 13th centuries for 400 years C.E., but has been extended to the 15th century by recent scholarship...
, there was a logical debate among
Islamic philosophersEarly Islamic philosophy or classical Islamic philosophy is a period of intense philosophical development beginning in the 2nd century AH of the Islamic calendar and lasting until the 6th century AH...
and
juristsUlema refers to the educated class of Muslim legal scholars engaged in the several fields of Islamic studies. They are best known as the arbiters of shari‘a law...
whether the term
Qiyas refers to analogical reasoning,
inductive reasoningInduction, also known as inductive reasoning or inductive logic, is a type of reasoning which involves moving from a set of specific facts to a general conclusion. It can also be seen as a form of theory-building, in which specific facts are used to create a theory that explains relationships...
or categorical
syllogismA syllogism or logical appeal is a kind of logical argument in which one proposition is inferred from two others of a certain form....
. Some Islamic scholars argued that
Qiyas refers to reasoning, which
Ibn HazmIbn Hazm – sometimes with al-Andalusī aẓ-Ẓāhirī as well; 7 November 994–15 August 1064 456 AH) was an Andalusian-Arab philosopher, litterateur, psychologist, historian, jurist and theologian born in Córdoba, present-day Spain...
(994-1064) disagreed with, arguing that
Qiyas does not refer to inductive reasoning, but refers to categorical syllogism in a
realReality, in everyday usage, means "the state of things as they actually exist." Literally, the term denotes what is real; in its widest sense, this includes everything that is, whether or not it is observable or comprehensible. Reality in this sense includes being and sometimes is considered to...
sense and analogical reasoning in a
metaphorA metaphor is a figure of speech concisely comparing two things, saying that one is the other. The English metaphor derives from the 16th c...
ical sense. On the other hand,
al-GhazaliAbū Ḥāmid Muḥammad ibn Muḥammad al-Ghazālī , often Algazel in English, was born and died in Tus, in the Khorasan province of Persia. He was an Islamic theologian, jurist, philosopher, cosmologist, psychologist and mystic of Persian origin, and remains one of the most celebrated scholars in the...
(1058-1111) (and in modern times,
Abu Muhammad Asem al-MaqdisiAbu Muhammad al-Maqdisi or more fully Abu Muhammad Asem al-Maqdisi is the assumed name of Isam Mohammad Tahir al-BarqawiAbu Muhammad al-Maqdisi or more fully Abu Muhammad Asem al-Maqdisi (أبو محمد عصام المقدسي) is the assumed name of Isam Mohammad Tahir al-BarqawiAbu Muhammad al-Maqdisi or...
) argued that
Qiyas refers to analogical reasoning in a real sense and categorical syllogism in a metaphorical sense. Other Islamic scholars at the time, however, argued that the term
Qiyas refers to both analogical reasoning and categorical syllogism in a real sense.
Thomas Aquinas
Saint Thomas Aquinas [Thomas of Aquin, or Aquino] (c. 1225 – 7 March 1274) was a philosopher and
theologianThe term "theology" literally means the study of God, deriving from the Greek word theos, meaning 'God', and the suffix -ology from the Greek word logos meaning "discourse", "theory", or "reasoning"...
in the
scholasticScholasticism is derived from the Latin word scholasticus , which means "that [which] belongs to the school," and was a method of learning taught by the academics of medieval universities circa 1100–1500...
tradition, known as "Doctor Angelicus, Doctor Universalis". He is the foremost classical proponent of
natural theologyNatural theology is a branch of theology based on reason and ordinary experience. Thus it is distinguished from revealed theology which is based on scripture and religious experiences of various kinds; and also from transcendental theology, theology from a priori reasoning.Marcus Terentius Varro ...
, and the father of the
ThomisticThomism is the philosophical school that arose as a legacy of the work and thought of Thomas Aquinas. The word comes from the name of its originator, whose Summa Theologica is arguably second only to the Bible in importance to the Roman Catholic Church...
school of philosophy, for a long time the primary philosophical approach of the
Roman Catholic ChurchThe Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the world's largest Christian church. With more than a billion members, over half of all Christians and more than one-sixth of the world's population, the Catholic Church is a communion of the Western, or Latin Rite Church, and...
. The work for which he is best-known is the
Summa TheologicaThe Summa Theologica is the most famous work of Thomas Aquinas , although it was never finished. It was intended as a manual for beginners as a compilation of all of the main theological teachings of the time...
. One of the thirty-three
Doctors of the ChurchDoctor of the Church is a title given by a variety of Christian churches to individuals whom they recognize as having been of particular importance, particularly regarding their additions to theological or doctrinal matters.-Catholicism:In Catholicism, this title is given to a saint from whose...
, he is considered by many Catholics to be the Church's greatest theologian. Consequently, many
institutions of learningInstitutions of learning named after Thomas Aquinas include the following:...
have been named after him.
Aquinas distinguished four kinds of law. These are the eternal, natural, human, and divine law. Eternal law is the decree of God which governs all creation.
Natural lawNatural law or the law of nature is a theory that posits the existence of a law whose content is set by nature and that therefore has validity everywhere. The phrase natural law is opposed to the positive law of a given political community, society, or nation-state, and thus can function as a...
is the human "participation" in the eternal law and is discovered by reason. Natural law, of course, is based on "first principles":
- . . . this is the first precept of the law, that good is to be done and promoted, and evil is to be avoided. All other precepts of the natural law are based on this . . .
The desire to live and to procreate are counted by Aquinas among those basic (natural) human values on which all human values are based. Human law is
positive lawPositive law is a legal term that is sometimes understood to have more than one meaning. In the strictest sense, it is law made by human beings, that is, "Law actually and specifically enacted or adopted by proper authority for the government of an organized jural society." This term is also...
: the natural law applied by governments to societies. Divine law is the law as specially revealed in the scriptures and teachings of the apostles.
Thomas Hobbes
In his treatise
Leviathan, (1651)Leviathan, The Matter, Forme and Power of a Common Wealth Ecclesiasticall and Civil, commonly called Leviathan, is a book written by Thomas Hobbes which was published in 1651. It is titled after the biblical Leviathan...
, Hobbes expresses a view of natural law as a
preceptA Precept is a commandment, instruction, or order intended as an authoritative rule of action.-Christianity:The term is encountered frequently in the Jewish and Christian Scriptures; e.g.:...
, or general rule, found out by
reasonReason is the mental faculty that is able to generate conclusions from assumptions or premisses.Reason in this sense is often contrasted with authority, intuition, emotion, mysticism, superstition, and faith, and is thought by rationalists to be more reliable than these in discovering what is true...
, by which a man is forbidden to do that which is destructive of his life, or takes away the means of preserving the same; and to omit that by which he thinks it may best be preserved. Hobbes was a
social contractSocial contract describes a broad class of theories that try to explain the ways in which people form states and/or maintain social order. The notion of the social contract implies that the people give up some rights to a government or other authority in order to receive or maintain social order...
arian and believed that the law gained peoples' tacit consent. He believed that society was formed from a
state of natureState of nature is a term in political philosophy used in social contract theories to describe the hypothetical condition of humanity before the state's foundation. In a broader sense, the state of nature is the condition before the rule of positive law comes into being, thus being a synonym of...
to protect people from the state of war between mankind that exists otherwise. Life is, without an ordered society, "solitary, poore, nasty, brutish and short". It is commonly commented that Hobbes' views about the core of human nature were influenced by his times. The
English Civil WarThe English Civil War was a series of armed conflicts and political machinations between Parliamentarians and Royalists. The first and second civil wars pitted the supporters of King Charles I against the supporters of the Long Parliament, while the third war saw fighting between supporters of...
and the Cromwellian dictatorship had taken place, and he felt absolute authority vested in a monarch, whose subjects obeyed the law, was the basis of a civilized society.
Lon Fuller
Writing after
World War IIWorld War II, or the Second World War , was a global military conflict which involved a majority of the world's nations, including all great powers, organized into two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
, Lon L. Fuller notably emphasised that the law must meet certain formal requirements (such as being impartial and publicly knowable). To the extent that an institutional system of social control falls short of these requirements, Fuller argues, we are less inclined to recognise it as a system of law, or to give it our respect. Thus, law has an internal morality that goes beyond the social rules by which valid laws are made. Fuller and scholar H.L.A. Hart were colleagues at Oxford University. One of the disagreements between Fuller, a natural lawyer, and Hart, a positivist, was whether Nazi law was so bad that it could no longer be considered law.
John Finnis
Sophisticated positivist and natural law theories sometimes resemble each other more than the above descriptions might suggest, and they may concede certain points to the other "side". Identifying a particular theorist as a positivist or a natural law theorist sometimes involves matters of emphasis and degree, and the particular influences on the theorist's work. In particular, the older natural lawyers, such as Aquinas and John Locke made no distinction between analytic and normative jurisprudence. But modern natural lawyers, such as John Finnis claim to be positivists, while still arguing that law is a basically moral creature...
Analytic jurisprudence
Analytic, or 'clarificatory' jurisprudence is using a neutral point of view and descriptive language when referring to the aspects of legal systems. This was a philosophical development that rejected natural law's fusing of what law is and what it ought to be.
David HumeDavid Hume was a Scottish philosopher, economist, historian and a key figure in the history of Western philosophy and the Scottish Enlightenment...
famously argued in
A Treatise of Human NatureA Treatise of Human Nature is a book by Scottish philosopher David Hume, first published in 1739–1740.The full title of the Treatise is 'A Treatise of Human Nature: Being an Attempt to introduce the experimental Method of Reasoning into Moral Subjects'...
that people invariably slip between describing that the world
is a certain way to saying therefore we
ought to conclude on a particular course of action. But as a matter of pure logic, one cannot conclude that we
ought to do something merely because something
is the case. So analysing and clarifying the way the world
is must be treated as a strictly separate question to normative and evaluative
ought questions.
The most important questions of analytic jurisprudence are: "What are laws?"; "What is
the law?"; "What is the relationship between law and power/sociology?"; and, "What is the relationship between law and morality?" Legal positivism is the dominant theory, although there are a growing number of critics, who offer their own interpretations.
Legal positivists
Positivism simply means that the law is something that is "posited": laws are validly made in accordance with socially accepted rules. The positivist view on law can be seen to cover two broad principles: Firstly, that laws may seek to enforce justice, morality, or any other normative end, but their success or failure in doing so does not determine their validity. Provided a law is properly formed, in accordance with the rules recognized in the society concerned, it is a valid law, regardless of whether it is
just by some other standard. Secondly, that law is nothing more than a set of rules to provide order and governance of society. No legal positivist, however, argues that it follows that the law is therefore to be obeyed, no matter what. This is seen as a separate question entirely.
- What the law is - is determined by social facts (or "sources')
- What obedience the law is owed - is determined by moral considerations.
Bentham and Austin
One of the earliest legal positivists was Jeremy Bentham. Bentham was an early and staunch supporter of the utilitarian concept (along with
HumeDavid Hume was a Scottish philosopher, economist, historian and a key figure in the history of Western philosophy and the Scottish Enlightenment...
), an avid prison reformer, advocate for
democracyDemocracy is a system of government in which either the actual governing is carried out by the people governed , or the power to do so is granted by them...
, and strongly atheist. Bentham's views about law and jurisprudence were popularized by his student,
John AustinJohn Austin was a noted British jurist and published extensively concerning the philosophy of law and jurisprudence.Austin served with the British Army in Sicily and Malta, but sold his officer's commission to study law. He became a member of the Bar during 1818...
. Austin was the first chair of law at the new
University of LondonBased primarily in London, England, United Kingdom, the University of London is a federal mega university made up of 31 affiliates: 19 separate university institutions, and 12 research institutes...
from 1829. Austin's
utilitarianUtilitarianism is the idea that the moral worth of an action is determined solely by its contribution to overall utility: that is, its contribution to happiness or pleasure as summed among all people...
answer to "what is law?" was that law is "commands, backed by threat of sanctions, from a sovereign, to whom people have a habit of obedience". Contemporary legal positivists have long abandoned this view, and have criticised its oversimplification, H.L.A. Hart particularly.
Hans Kelsen
Hans Kelsen is considered one of the preeminent jurists of the 20th century. He is most influential in Europe, where his notion of a Grundnorm or a "presupposed" ultimate and basic legal norm, still retains some influence. It is a hypothetical norm on which all subsequent levels of a legal system such as
constitutional lawConstitutional law is a body of law dealing with the distribution and exercise of government power.Not all nation states have codified constitutions, though all such states have a jus commune, or law of the land, that may consist of a variety of imperative and consensual rules...
and "simple" law are based. Kelsen's
pure theory of law described the law as being a set of social facts, which are normatively binding too. Law's normativity, meaning that we must obey it, derives from a basic rule which sits outside the law we can alter. It is a rule proscribing the validity of all others.
Kelsen was a Professor at several universities in Europe, notably the
University of ViennaThe University of Vienna is a public university located in Vienna, Austria. It was founded by Duke Rudolph IV in 1365 and is, therefore, the oldest university in the German-speaking world and one of the largest in Central Europe.-History:...
and the
University of CologneThe University of Cologne is one of the oldest universities in Europe and, with over 44,000 students, one of the largest universities in Germany. The university is part of the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft, an association of Germany's leading research universities...
. In 1940, he moved to the
United StatesThe United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
, giving the Oliver Wendell Holmes Lectures at
Harvard Law SchoolHarvard Law School is one of the professional graduate schools of Harvard University. Located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, it is the oldest continually-operating law school in the United States and is home to the largest academic law library in the world. HLS typically ranks among the top law...
in 1942 and becoming a full professor at the department of
political sciencePolitical science is a social science concerned with the theory and practice of politics and the description and analysis of political systems and political behavior. It is often described as the pragmatic application of the art and science of politics defined as "who gets what, when and how",...
at the
University of California, BerkeleyThe University of California, Berkeley is a public research university located in Berkeley, California, United States. The oldest of the ten major campuses affiliated with the University of California, Berkeley offers some 300 undergraduate and graduate degree programs in a wide range of disciplines...
in 1945. During those years, he increasingly dealt with issues of
international lawPublic international law concerns the structure and conduct of sovereign states, analogous entities, such as the Holy See, and intergovernmental organizations. To a lesser degree, international law also may affect multinational corporations and individuals, an impact increasingly evolving beyond...
and international institutions such as the
United NationsThe United Nations is an international organization whose stated aims are facilitating cooperation in international law, international security, economic development, social progress, human rights, and the achieving of world peace...
.
H. L. A. Hart
In the Anglophone world, the pivotal writer was
H. L. A. HartHerbert Lionel Adolphus Hart was an influential legal philosopher of the 20th century. He was Professor of Jurisprudence at Oxford University. He authored The Concept of Law and made major contributions to political philosophy....
, who argued that the law should be understood as a system of social rules. Hart rejected Kelsen's views that sanctions were essential to law and that a normative social phenomenon, like law, can not be grounded in non-normative social facts. Hart revived analytical jurisprudence as an important theoretical debate in the twentieth century through his book
The Concept of LawThe Concept of Law is the most famous work of the legal philosopher H. L. A. Hart. It was first published in 1961 and develops Hart's theory of legal positivism within the framework of analytic philosophy...
. As the chair of jurisprudence at Oxford University, Hart argued law is a 'system of rules'.
Rules, said Hart, are divided into primary rules (rules of conduct) and secondary rules (rules addressed to officials to administer primary rules). Secondary rules are divided into rules of adjudication (to resolve legal disputes), rules of change (allowing laws to be varied) and the rule of recognition (allowing laws to be identified as valid). The "rule of recognition", a customary practice of the officials (especially judges) that identifies certain acts and decisions as sources of law. A pivotal book on Hart was written by Neil MacCormick in 1981 (second edition due in 2007), which further refined and offered some important criticisms that led MacCormick to develop his own theory (the best example of which is his recently published
Institutions of Law, 2007). Other important critiques have included that of
Ronald DworkinRonald Dworkin, QC, FBA is an American philosopher of law. He is Jeremy Bentham Professor of Law and Philosophy at University College London, Frank Henry Sommer Professor of Law at New York University, and has taught previously at Yale Law School and the University of Oxford...
,
John FinnisJohn Finnis , is an Australian philosopher, specializing in the philosophy of law. He is Professor of Law at University College, Oxford and at the University of Notre Dame, teaching jurisprudence, political theory, and constitutional law....
, and
Joseph RazJoseph Raz is an influential legal, moral and political philosopher. He is one of the most prominent living advocates of legal positivism....
.
In recent years, debates about the nature of law have become increasingly fine-grained. One important debate is within legal positivism. One school is sometimes called
exclusive legal positivism, and it is associated with the view that the legal validity of a norm can never depend on its moral correctness. A second school is labeled
inclusive legal positivism, a major proponent of which is Wil Waluchow, and it is associated with the view that moral considerations
may determine the legal validity of a norm, but that it is not necessary that this is the case.
Joseph Raz
Some philosophers used to contend that positivism was the theory that there is "no necessary connection" between law and morality; but influential contemporary positivists, including Joseph Raz, John Gardner, and Leslie Green, reject that view. As Raz points out, it is a necessary truth that there are vices that a legal system cannot possibly have (for example, it cannot commit rape or murder).
Joseph Raz defends the positivist outlook, but criticised Hart's "soft social thesis" approach in
The Authority of Law. Raz argues that law is authority, identifiable purely through social sources, without reference to moral reasoning. Any categorisation of rules beyond their role as authoritative is best left to sociology, rather than jurisprudence.
Ronald Dworkin
Ronald Dworkin is a leading philosopher. In his book
Law's Empire Dworkin attacked Hart and the positivists for their refusal to treat law as a moral issue. Dworkin argues that law is an 'interpretive' concept, that requires judges to find the best fitting and most just solution to a legal dispute, given their constitutional traditions. According to him, law is not entirely based on social facts, but includes the morally best justification for the institutional facts and practices that we intuitively regard as legal. It follows on Dworkin's view that one cannot know whether a society has a legal system in force, or what any of its laws are, until one knows some moral truths about the justifications for the practices in that society. It is consistent with Dworkin's view—in contrast with the views of legal positivists or legal realists—that *no one* in a society may know what its laws are (because no one may know the best justification for its practices.)
Interpretation, according to Dworkin's law as integrity theory, has two dimensions. To count as an interpretation, the reading of a text must meet the criterion of
fit. But of those interpretations that fit, Dworkin maintains that the correct interpretation is the one that puts the political practices of the community in their best light, or makes of them
the best that they can be. But many writers have doubted whether there
is a single best justification for the complex practices of any given community, and others have doubted whether, even if there are, they should be counted as part of the law of that community.
Legal realism
Legal realism was a view popular with some Scandinavian and American writers. Skeptical in tone, it held that the law should be understood and determined by the actual practices of courts, law offices, and police stations, rather than as the rules and doctrines set forth in statutes or learned treatises. It had some affinities with the sociology of law. The essential tenet of legal realism is that all law is made by human beings and, thus, is subject to human foibles, frailties and imperfections.
It has become quite common today to identify Justice
Oliver Wendell HolmesOliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. was an American jurist who served as an associate justice on the Supreme Court of the United States from 1902 to 1932...
, Jr., as the main precursor of American Legal Realism (other influences include
Roscoe PoundNathan Roscoe Pound was a distinguished American legal scholar and educator.-Early life:Pound was born in Lincoln, Nebraska, USA to Stephen Bosworth Pound and Laura Pound....
,
Karl LlewellynKarl Nickerson Llewellyn was a prominent American jurisprudential scholar associated with the school of legal realism.-Biography:He was born in Seattle but grew up in Brooklyn. He attended Yale College and Yale Law School, where he served as editor-in-chief of the Yale Law Journal.Llewellyn was...
and Justice
Benjamin CardozoBenjamin Nathan Cardozo was a well-known American lawyer and associate Supreme Court Justice. Cardozo is remembered for his significant influence on the development of American common law in the 20th century, in addition to his modesty, philosophy, and vivid prose style...
). Karl Llewellyn, another founder of the U.S. legal realism movement, similarly believed that the law is little more than putty in the hands of a judge who is able to shape the outcome of a case based on personal biases.
The chief inspiration for Scandinavian legal realism many consider to be the works of
Axel HägerströmAxel Anders Theodor Hägerström was a Swedish philosopher and jurist.Born in Vireda, Jönköping County Sweden, he was the son of a Church of Sweden pastor. As student at Uppsala University, he gave up theology for a career in philosophy...
. Despite its decline in facial popularity, realists continue to influence a wide spectrum of jurisprudential schools today, including
critical legal studiesCritical legal studies refers to a movement in legal thought that applied methods similar to those of critical theory to law...
(scholars such as
Duncan KennedyDuncan Kennedy is the Carter Professor of General Jurisprudence at Harvard Law School and a founder of critical legal studies as movement and school of thought.-Education and early career:...
and Roberto Unger),
feminist legal theoryFeminist legal theory is based on the belief that the law has been instrumental in women's historical subordination. The project of feminist legal theory is twofold. First, feminist jurisprudence seeks to explain ways in which the law played a role in women's former subordinate status...
,
critical race theoryCritical Race Theory began as a response to critical legal studies. The earliest writings on Critical Race Theory can be traced to the works of Derrick Bell in the 1960s. CRT is concerned with racism, racial subordination and discrimination...
,
law and economicsLaw and Economics, or economic analysis of law, is an approach to legal theory that applies methods of economics to law. It includes the use of economic concepts to explain the effects of laws, to assess which legal rules are economically efficient, and to predict which legal rules will be...
and law and society.
The Historical School
Historical jurisprudence came to prominence during the German debate over the proposed codification of German law. In his book
On the Vocation of Our Age for Legislation and Jurisprudence,
Friedrich Carl von SavignyFriedrich Carl von Savigny was one of the most respected and influential 19th-century jurists.-Early life and education:...
argued that Germany did not have a legal language that would support codification because the traditions, customs and beliefs of the German people did not include a belief in a code. The Historicists believe that the law originates with society.
Normative jurisprudence
In addition to the question, "What is law?", legal philosophy is also concerned with normative, or "evaluative" theories of law. What is the goal or purpose of law? What moral or political theories provide a foundation for the law? What is the proper function of law? What sorts of acts should be subject to
punishmentSanctions are penalties or other means of enforcement used to provide incentives for obedience with the law, or with rules and regulations. Criminal sanctions can take the form of serious punishment, such as capital punishment, prison time, or severe fines...
, and what sorts of punishment should be permitted? What is justice? What rights do we have? Is there a duty to obey the law? What value has the rule of law? Some of the different schools and leading thinkers are as follows.
Virtue jurisprudence
Aretaic moral theories such as contemporary
virtue ethicsVirtue theory is an approach to ethics which emphasizes the character of the moral agent, rather than rules or consequences, as the key element of ethical thinking...
emphasize the role of character in morality. Virtue jurisprudence is the view that the laws should promote the development of virtuous characters by citizens. Historically, this approach is associated mainly with
AristotleAristotle was a Greek philosopher, a student of Plato and teacher of Alexander the Great. He wrote on many subjects, including physics, metaphysics, poetry, theater, music, logic, rhetoric, politics, government, ethics, biology, and zoology.Together with Plato and Socrates , Aristotle is one of...
or
Thomas AquinasSaint Thomas Aquinas, O.P. was a priest of the Roman Catholic Church in the Dominican Order from Italy, and an immensely influential philosopher and theologian in the tradition of scholasticism, known as Doctor Angelicus and Doctor Communis...
later. Contemporary virtue jurisprudence is inspired by philosophical work on virtue ethics.
Deontology
Deontology is "the theory of duty or moral obligation." The philosopher
Immanuel KantImmanuel Kant was an 18th-century German philosopher from the Prussian city of Königsberg...
formulated one influential deontological theory of law. He argued that any rule we follow must be universalisable: we must be willing to will everyone to follow that rule. A contemporary deontological approach can be found in the work of the legal philosopher
Ronald DworkinRonald Dworkin, QC, FBA is an American philosopher of law. He is Jeremy Bentham Professor of Law and Philosophy at University College London, Frank Henry Sommer Professor of Law at New York University, and has taught previously at Yale Law School and the University of Oxford...
.
Utilitarianism
Utilitarianism is the view that the laws should be crafted so as to produce the best consequences. Historically, utilitarian thinking about law is associated with the great philosopher,
Jeremy BenthamJeremy Bentham was an English jurist, philosopher, and legal and social reformer. He was the brother of Samuel Bentham. He was a political radical, and a leading theorist in Anglo-American philosophy of law...
.
John Stuart MillJohn Stuart Mill , English philosopher, political theorist, political economist, civil servant and Member of Parliament, was an influential liberal thinker of the 19th century whose works on liberty justified freedom of the individual in opposition to unlimited state control...
was a pupil of Bentham's and was the torch bearer for
utilitarianJohn Stuart Mill's book Utilitarianism is a philosophical defense of utilitarianism in ethics. The essay first appeared as a series of three articles published in Fraser's Magazine in 1861; the articles were collected and reprinted as a single book in 1863...
philosophy through the late nineteenth century. In contemporary legal theory, the utilitarian approach is frequently championed by scholars who work in the
law and economicsLaw and Economics, or economic analysis of law, is an approach to legal theory that applies methods of economics to law. It includes the use of economic concepts to explain the effects of laws, to assess which legal rules are economically efficient, and to predict which legal rules will be...
tradition.
John Rawls
John Rawls was an
AmericanThe United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
philosopher, a
professorThe meaning of the word professor varies. In some English-speaking countries, it refers to a senior academic who holds a departmental chair, especially as head of the department, or a personal chair awarded specifically to that individual...
of
political philosophyPolitical philosophy is the study of city, government, politics, liberty, justice, property, rights, law, and the enforcement of a legal code by authority: what they are, why they are needed, what makes a government legitimate, what rights and freedoms it should protect and why, what form it...
at
Harvard UniversityHarvard University is a private university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts and a member of the Ivy League. Founded in 1636 by the colonial Massachusetts legislature, Harvard is the oldest institution of higher learning in the United States and currently comprises ten separate academic units...
and author of
A Theory of JusticeA Theory of Justice is a widely-read book of political philosophy and ethics by John Rawls. It was originally published in 1971 and revised in both 1975 and 1999. In A Theory of Justice, Rawls attempts to solve the problem of distributive justice by utilising a variant of the familiar device of...
(1971),
Political LiberalismPolitical Liberalism is an update to John Rawls' Theory of Justice in which he attempts to show that his theory of justice is not a "comprehensive conception of the good", but is instead compatible with a liberal conception of the role of justice: namely, that government should be neutral between...
,
Justice as Fairness: A RestatementJustice as Fairness: A Restatement is a book of political philosophy by John Rawls, a revision of his classic A Theory of Justice. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Belknap Press, 2001. This shorter summary of the main arguments of Rawls' political philosophy was edited by Erin Kelly...
, and
The Law of PeoplesThe Law of Peoples is American Philosopher John Rawls's work on international relations. First published in 1993 as a short article , in 1999 it was expanded and joined with another essay "The Idea of Public Reason Revisited" to form a full length book...
. He is widely considered one of the most important English-language political philosophers of the 20th century. His theory of justice uses a device called the original position to ask us which principles of justice we would choose to regulate the basic institutions of our society if we were behind a `veil of ignorance.' Imagine we do not know who we are - our race, sex, wealth status, class, or any distinguishing feature - so that we would not be biased in our own favour. Rawls argues from this 'original position' that we would choose exactly the same political liberties for everyone, like freedom of speech, the right to vote and so on. Also, we would choose a system where there is only inequality because that produces incentives enough for the economic well-being of all society, especially the poorest. This is Rawls' famous 'difference principle'. Justice is fairness, in the sense that the fairness of the original position of choice guarantees the fairness of the principles chosen in that position.
There are many other normative approaches to the philosophy of law, including
critical legal studiesCritical legal studies refers to a movement in legal thought that applied methods similar to those of critical theory to law...
and
libertarian theories of lawLibertarian theories of law build upon classical liberal and individualist anarchist doctrines.The defining characteristics of libertarian legal theory are its insistence that the amount of government intervention should be kept to a minimum and the primary functions of law should be enforcement of...
.
General
- Analytical jurisprudence
Analytical jurisprudence is a legal theory that draws on the resources of modern analytical philosophy to try to understand the nature of law. Since the boundaries of analytical philosophy are somewhat vague, it is difficult to say how far it extends. H. L. A...
- Artificial intelligence and law
Artificial intelligence and Law is a subfield of artificial intelligence mainly concerned with applications of AI to legal informatics problems and original research on those problems...
- Brocard
A Brocard is a legal principle expressed in Latin , which is traditionally used to express concisely a wider legal concept or rule...
- Cautelary jurisprudence
Cautelary jurisprudence is law made in a precautionary way prior to or outside of the normal legislative enactment. It meant empirical, practical legal efforts aimed at solving individual cases, as distinguished from regular jurisprudence which sought to establish abstract rules under which...
- Critical legal studies
Critical legal studies refers to a movement in legal thought that applied methods similar to those of critical theory to law...
- Defeasible reasoning
Defeasible reasoning is a kind of reasoning that is based on reasons that are defeasible, as opposed to the indefeasible reasons of deductive logic. Defeasible reasoning is a kind of non-demonstrative reasoning, where the reasoning does not produce a full, complete, or final demonstration of a...
- Fiqh
Fiqh is Islamic jurisprudence. Fiqh is an expansion of the Sharia Islamic law—based directly on the Quran and Sunnah—that complements Shariah with evolving rulings/interpretations of Islamic jurists....
- Judicial activism
Judicial activism is a critical term used to describe judicial rulings that impose a personal biased interpretation by a given court of what a law means as opposed to what a neutral, unbiased observer would naturally interpret a law to mean....
- Justice
Justice is the concept of moral rightness based on ethics, rationality, law, natural law, fairness, or equity.-Concept of justice:Justice... concerns the proper ordering of things and persons within a society. As a concept it has been subject to philosophical, legal, and theological reflection and...
- Law and economics
Law and Economics, or economic analysis of law, is an approach to legal theory that applies methods of economics to law. It includes the use of economic concepts to explain the effects of laws, to assess which legal rules are economically efficient, and to predict which legal rules will be...
- Legal formalism
Legal formalism is a legal positivist view in philosophy of law and jurisprudence. While Jeremy Bentham's can be seen as appertaining to the legislature, legal formalism appertains to the Judge; that is, formalism does not suggest that the substantive justice of a law is irrelevant, but rather,...
- Legal positivism
Legal positivism is a school of thought in philosophy of law and jurisprudence. The principal claims of modern legal positivism are that:* There is no inherent or necessary connection between the validity conditions of law and ethics or morality....
- Legal realism
Legal realism is a family of theories about the nature of law developed in the first half of the 20th century in the United States and Scandinavia...
- Libertarian theories of law
Libertarian theories of law build upon classical liberal and individualist anarchist doctrines.The defining characteristics of libertarian legal theory are its insistence that the amount of government intervention should be kept to a minimum and the primary functions of law should be enforcement of...
- Living Constitution
The Living Constitution is a concept in American constitutional interpretation which claims that the Constitution has a dynamic meaning. The idea is associated with views that contemporaneous society should be taken into account when interpreting key constitutional phrases.While the arguments for...
- Originalism
In the context of United States constitutional interpretation, originalism is a family of theories central to all of which is the proposition that the Constitution has a fixed and knowable meaning, which was established at the time of its drafting. A neologism, "originalism" is a formalist theory...
- Natural law
Natural law or the law of nature is a theory that posits the existence of a law whose content is set by nature and that therefore has validity everywhere. The phrase natural law is opposed to the positive law of a given political community, society, or nation-state, and thus can function as a...
- Political jurisprudence
Political jurisprudence is a legal theory that some judicial decisions are motivated more by politics than by unbiased judgment. According to Martin Shapiro, who first noted the theory in 1964: "The core of political jurisprudence is a vision of courts as political agencies and judges as political...
- Publius Iuventius Celsus
Publius Iuventius Celsus Titus Aufidius Hoenius Severianus – the son of a little-known jurist of the same name, hence also Celsus filius – was, together with Julian, the most influential ancient Roman jurist of the High Classical era....
- Strict interpretation
- Virtue jurisprudence
In the philosophy of law, virtue jurisprudence is the name given to theories of law related to virtue ethics. By making the aretaic turn in legal theory, virtue jurisprudence focuses on the importance of character and human excellence or virtue to questions about the nature of law, the content of...
Philosopher A-Z
- Robert Alexy
Robert Alexy is a jurist and a legal philosopher. He studied law and philosophy in Göttingen. He received his PhD in 1976 with the dissertation A Theory of Legal Argumentation, and he achieved his Habilitation in 1984 with a Theory of Constitutional Rights).Alexy's definition of law looks like a...
- Thomas Aquinas
Saint Thomas Aquinas, O.P. was a priest of the Roman Catholic Church in the Dominican Order from Italy, and an immensely influential philosopher and theologian in the tradition of scholasticism, known as Doctor Angelicus and Doctor Communis...
- John Austin (legal philosophy)
- Jeremy Bentham
Jeremy Bentham was an English jurist, philosopher, and legal and social reformer. He was the brother of Samuel Bentham. He was a political radical, and a leading theorist in Anglo-American philosophy of law...
- Emilio Betti
Emilio Betti was an Italian jurist, Roman Law scholar, philosopher and theologian. He is best known for his contributions to hermeneutics, part of a broad interest in interpretation...
- Norberto Bobbio
Norberto Bobbio was an Italian philosopher of law and political sciences and a historian of political thought. He also wrote regularly for the Turin-based daily La Stampa....
- António Castanheira Neves
António Castanheira Neves is a Portuguese legal philosopher and a professor emeritus at the law faculty of the University of Coimbra....
- Giorgio Del Vecchio
Giorgio Del Vecchio was a prominent Italian legal philosopher of the early 20th century. Among others he influenced the theories of Norberto Bobbio. He is famous for his book Justice....
- Ronald Dworkin
Ronald Dworkin, QC, FBA is an American philosopher of law. He is Jeremy Bentham Professor of Law and Philosophy at University College London, Frank Henry Sommer Professor of Law at New York University, and has taught previously at Yale Law School and the University of Oxford...
- Joel Feinberg
Joel Feinberg was an American political and social philosopher. He is known for his work in the fields of individual rights and the authority of the state. Feinberg helped in shaping the American legal landscape...
- John Finnis
John Finnis , is an Australian philosopher, specializing in the philosophy of law. He is Professor of Law at University College, Oxford and at the University of Notre Dame, teaching jurisprudence, political theory, and constitutional law....
- Lon L. Fuller
Lon Luvois Fuller was a noted legal philosopher, who wrote The Morality of Law in 1964, discussing the connection between law and morality. Fuller was professor of Law at Harvard University for many years, and is noted in American law for his contributions to the law of contracts. His debate with...
- Leslie Green (philosopher)
Leslie Green is a leading scholar in the analytic philosophy of law, or jurisprudence as it is often called by academic lawyers.Born in Bridge of Weir, Renfrewshire, Scotland, and educated at Queen's University, Canada, and at Nuffield College, Oxford, he completed his dissertation—which...
- Robert P. George
Robert P. George is McCormick Professor of Jurisprudence at Princeton University, where he lectures on constitutional interpretation, civil liberties and philosophy of law...
- Germain Grisez
Germain Gabriel Grisez is a prominent and influential Catholic moral theologian. Grisez's lengthy masterpiece is his three-volume Way of the Lord Jesus...
- H.L.A. Hart
- Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel was a German philosopher, one of the creators of German Idealism, and along with Immanuel Kant, one of the most influential philosophers of the Age of Enlightenment....
- Wesley Hohfeld
- Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.
Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. was an American jurist who served as an associate justice on the Supreme Court of the United States from 1902 to 1932...
- Immanuel Kant
Immanuel Kant was an 18th-century German philosopher from the Prussian city of Königsberg...
- Hans Kelsen
Hans Kelsen was a Jewish Austrian-American jurist.- Biography :Kelsen was born in Prague to Jewish parents. He moved to Vienna with his family when he was two years old. There he attended some classes of Mr. Thomas Mertens...
- Hans Köchler
Hans Köchler is a Professor of Philosophy at the University of Innsbruck, Austria, and president of the International Progress Organization, a non-governmental organization in consultative status with the United Nations...
- David Lyons
David Lyons plays Number Eight for the Australian national rugby union team.From his debut in 2000 Lyons played 83 consecutive games for NSW, a record for Australian players. His run ended when a knee injury forced him to miss the start of the 2007 season...
- Neil MacCormick
Sir Neil MacCormick, QC, FBA, FRSE , or just Neil MacCormick, was a renowned legal philosopher and Scottish politician. He was Regius Professor of Public Law and the Law of Nature and Nations at the University of Edinburgh from 1972 until 2008...
- Karl Marx
Karl Heinrich Marx was a Germanphilosopher, political economist, historian, political theorist, sociologist, communist and revolutionary, whose ideas are credited as the foundation of modern communism...
- Karl Olivecrona
Karl Olivecrona was a Swedish lawyer and legal philosopher: He studied law at Uppsala from 1915 to 1920 and was a pupil of Axel Hägerström, the spiritual father of Scandinavian legal realism. One of the internationally best-known Swedish legal theorists, Olivecrona was a professor of procedural...
- Richard Posner
Richard Allen Posner is currently a judge on the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit in Chicago and a Senior Lecturer at the University of Chicago Law School...
- Gustav Radbruch
Gustav Radbruch was a German law professor and political figure.-Life:Born at Lübeck, Radbruch studied law in Munich, Leipzig and Berlin...
- John Rawls
John Bordley Rawls was an American philosopher and a leading figure in moral and political philosophy. He held the James Bryant Conant University Professorship at Harvard...
- Joseph Raz
Joseph Raz is an influential legal, moral and political philosopher. He is one of the most prominent living advocates of legal positivism....
- Adolf Reinach
Adolf Bernhard Philipp Reinach , German philosopher, phenomenologist and law theorist.-Life and Works:...
- Karl Renner
Karl Renner was an Austrian politician. He was born in Untertannowitz and died in Vienna...
- Friedrich Karl von Savigny
- Quintus Mucius Scaevola Pontifex
Quintus Mucius Scaevola Pontifex , the son of Publius Mucius Scaevola was a politician of the Roman Republic and an important early authority on Roman law. He is credited with founding the study of law as a systematic discipline....
- Roberto Unger
- Jeremy Waldron
Jeremy Waldron is a professor of law and philosophy at the New York University School of Law. Waldron is currently Fowler-Hamilton Visiting Fellow at Christ Church, Oxford.-Career:...
- Ludwig Wittgenstein
Ludwig Josef Johann Wittgenstein was an Austrian-British philosopher who worked primarily in logic, the philosophy of mathematics, the philosophy of mind, and the philosophy of language....
Further reading
- Freeman, M.D.A. (2001). Lloyd’s Introduction to Jurisprudence. 7th ed. London: Sweet and Maxwell.
- Hartzler, H. Richard (1976). Justice, Legal Systems, and Social Structure. Port Washington, NY: Kennikat Press.
- Hutchinson, Allan C., ed. (1989). Critical Legal Studies
Critical legal studies refers to a movement in legal thought that applied methods similar to those of critical theory to law...
. Totowa, NJ: Roman & Littlefield.
- Kempin, Jr., Frederick G. (1963). Legal History: Law and Social Change. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall.
- Llewellyn, Karl N. (1986). Karl N. Llewellyn on Legal Realism. Birmingham, AL: Legal Classics Library. (Contains penetrating classic "The Bramble Bush" on nature of law).
- Murphy, Cornelius F. (1977). Introduction to Law, Legal Process, and Procedure. St. Paul, MN: West Publishing.
- Rawls, John (1999). A Theory of Justice, revised ed. Cambridge: Harvard University Press
Harvard University Press is a publishing house, a division of Harvard University, that is highly respected in academic publishing. It was established on January 13, 1913. In 2005, it published 220 new titles. It is a member of the Association of American University Presses . The current director...
. (Philosophical treatment of justice).
- Zinn, Howard (1990). Declarations of Independence: Cross-Examining American Ideology. New York: Harper Collins Publishers.
External links
- Redeemer University College Navigate to page for Encyclopedia of the Science of Law (Mellen, 2002).
- John Witte, Jr: A Brief Biography of Dooyeweerd, based on Hendrik van Eikema Hommes, Inleiding tot de Wijsbegeerte van Herman Dooyeweerd (The Hague
The Hague is the third largest city in the Netherlands after Amsterdam and Rotterdam, with a population of 485,818 and an area of approximately 100 km²...
, 1982; pp 1–4,132). Redeemer University College
- LII Law about... Jurisprudence.
- The Case of the Speluncean Explorers: Nine New Opinions, by Peter Suber (Routledge, 1998.) Lon Fuller's classic of jurisprudence brought up to date 50 years later.
- The Roman Law Library, incl. Responsa prudentium by Professor Yves Lassard and Alexandr Koptev.
- Evgeny Pashukanis - General Theory of Law and Marxism.
- Internet Encyclopedia: Philosophy of Law.
- The Opticon: Online Repository of Materials covering Spectrum of U.S. Jurisprudence.
- For more information about Neil MacCormick and the Edinburgh Legal Theory Research Group visit www.law.ed.ac.uk
- Jurisprudence Revision Notes for Students: - LawTeacher.net - Jurisprudence
- Foundation for Law, Justice and Society
- Bibliography on the Philosophy of Law. Peace Palace Library