Full Description
Jurisprudence offers a comprehensive overview of legal theory and philosophy. Written in plain English, it examines and demystifies the discipline's major ideas, promoting a deeper understanding of the social, moral and economic dimensions of the law. It critically assesses the major schools of jurisprudential thought throughout history and to the present, from Plato and Aristotle to Enlightenment thinkers, postmodernists and economic analysts. The book challenges students to reconsider their moral intuitions in light of established theories. This edition examines recent debates and literature in legal philosophy. It features new material on scientific advances in cognition and human behaviour in relation to the law. The book expands significantly on its discussion of natural law theory, evolutionary jurisprudence and theories of justice. Special attention is paid to the revival of theological natural law, challenges to legal positivism, assessments of Scandinavian realism and critiques of law and economics from the Austrian economic perspective.
Contents
1. Introduction; Part I. Law As It Isphilosophical roots and command theories; 3. Herbert Hart's new beginning and new question; 4. Germanic legal positivism: Han Kelsen's quest for the pure theory of law; 5. Realism in legal theory; Part II. Law and Mortality: 6. Natural law tradition from antiquity to enlightenment; 7. John Finnis' restatement of classical natural law; 8. Separation of law and morality; Part III. Social Dimensions of Law: 9. Sociological jurisprudence and sociology of law; 10. Radical jurisprudence: challenges to liberal legal theory; 11. Economic analysis of law; 12. Evolutionary jurisprudence; Part IV. Rights and Justice: 13. Fundamental legal conceptions: the building blocks of legal norms; 14. Justice.
