Full Description
John Finnis has been a central figure in the fundamental re-shaping of legal philosophy over the past half-century. This volume of his Collected Essays shows the full range and power of his contributions to the philosophy of law. The volume collects over twenty papers: on the foundations of law's authority; major theories and theorists of law; legal reasoning; revolutions, rights and law; and the logic of law-making.
The essays collected include Finnis' recent appreciations and root-and-branch critiques of Hart's legal and political theories, his engagements with other central figures and works in the field, including Dworkin's Law's Empire; Raz on authority and coordination; Coleman, Leiter and Gardner on legal positivism and naturalism; Aquinas as founder of legal positivism; Weber on the fact-value distinction and legitimation; Unger on indeterminacy in law; Posner on intention and economics; Kelsen and courts on revolutions; game-theory and rational-choice theory; with misinterpreters of Hohfeld on rights logic; John Paul II on voting for unjust laws; the architecture of Blackstone's Commentaries; restitution in civil wrongs; and many other aspects of law and legal theory.
Previously unpublished papers include two on critical or post-modern legal theory - one on analogical reasoning in law, and a survey of legal philosophy's history and current of development. An introduction carries forward the debate with his contemporaries, and the reflections on how legal philosophy got to where it is.
Contents
Introduction ; FOUNDATIONS OF LAW'S AUTHORITY ; 1. Describing Law Normatively ; 2. Law's Authority and Social Theory's Predicament ; 3. Law as Coordination ; 4. Positivism and 'Authority' ; GRAND THEORIES AND THEORISTS OF LAW ; 5. A Grand Tour of Legal Theory ; 6. Legal Philosophy: Roots and Recent Themes ; 7. The Truth in Legal Positivism ; 8. Blackstone's Theoretical Intentions ; 9. Weber, Objectivity, and Legal-Rational Authority ; 10. On Hart's Ways: Law as Reason and as Fact ; 11. Hart as a Political Philosopher ; 12. Reason and Authority in Law's Empire ; 13. Critical Legal Studies ; 14. Legal Liberalism or Liber et Legalis? ; 15. Individuals, Communities, and Postmodernism: Some Notes ; LEGAL REASONING ; 16. Allocating Risks and Suffering: Some Hidden Traps ; 17. Practical Reasoning in Law: Some Clarifications ; 18. Rights: Their Logic Restated ; 19. Analogical Reasoning in Law ; 20. Adjudication and Legal Change ; THE TWO SENSES OF 'LEGAL SYSTEM' ; 21. Revolutions and Continuity of Law ; 22. Just Votes for Unjust Laws ; Bibliography of the Works of John Finnis
